Staff profiles

Prof Larry Hurtado BA MA PhD FRSE

Emeritus Professor of New Testament Language, Literature & Theology Larry Hurtado

Tel: +44 (0)131 650 8920

Practically anything about earliest Christianity interests me.

My own abilities and competence certainly have limits, but my interests and appreciation extend much farther.

The New Testament is a collection of early Christian writings with a fascinating and complex history to them, an invaluable body of evidence from early Christian circles. But these writings are also Holy Scripture for Christians, and the single most important collection of writings for anyone who seeks to understand the Christian tradition and come to some appreciation of the key beliefs and convictions that have shaped it.

In my inaugural lecture, "New Testament Studies at the Turn of the Millennium: Questions for the Discipline," Scottish Journal of Theology 52(1999), pp. 158-78, I have tried to indicate my own approach to the field and I have sketched some major issues facing the field in this new millennium and century.

Although I retired in 2011, I continue to be research-active and involved in supervising PhD students. So, I welcome inquiries from potential applicants in topics where my expertise is appropriate.

Research

My own research has always been driven by questions: how the New Testament came to us, how the Gospels were transmitted in the early centuries, what this or that passage means, how the early Christians adapted traditions from their religious background and how they innovated, how their worship began and how it was shaped, how they accommodated Christ along with God in their devotional life, how Christian belief and practice was shaped by opposition and historical developments of the first two centuries . . .

And my questions continue.

Specialised/research areas

Gospels (esp. Gospel of Mark)
Apostle Paul
Early Christology
Jewish Background of the New Testament
New Testament Textual Criticism
Early Christian Manuscripts

Additional academic interests

The Bible and English Literature
Modern Theology
Jewish/ Christian Dialogue

Selected publications

"Summing Up and Concluding Observations." In Who is this Son of Man? Latest Scholarship on a Puzzling Expression of the Historical Jesus, eds. Larry W. Hurtado & Paul L. Owen. London: T&T Clark, 2011. Pp. 159-77.

God in New Testament Theology. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2010.

"The Women, the Tomb, and the Climax of Mark". In A Wandering Galilean: Essays in Honour of Sean Freyne. Journal for the Study of Judaism Supplements, 132. Leiden: Brill, 2009. Pp. 427-51.

"New Testament Studies in the Twentieth Century". Religion 39 (2009): 43-57.

"The Greek Fragments of the Gospel of Thomas as Artefacts: Papyrological Observations on Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1, Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 654 and Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 655." Das Thomasevangelium: Entstehung - Rezeption - Theologie, eds. Jorg Frey, Enno Edzard Popkes, Jens Schroter. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2008. Pp. 19-32.

The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts and Christian Origins. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, October 2006. 256 pp. ISBN 0-8028-2895-7.

Additonal publications

A list of additional publications is available in PDF format.

Prof Larry Hurtado -The Earliest Christian Artifacts

This article was published on Feb 20, 2012