This volume is the outcome of a colloquium held at the University of Edinburgh in April 2019. The colloquium was hosted by the School of Divinity and the Centre for the Study of Christian Origins at the University of Edinburgh, with kind support from Head of School Helen Bond. It was funded by a generous grant from—and, indeed, part of the impetus for the event came from—Mark Lanier and the Lanier Theological Library Foundation, whose longstanding interest in research on monotheism and Christology is warmly appreciated by those of us who work on these topics.
Another impetus for the colloquium and for this volume was the tremendously generative work of Larry W. Hurtado, longtime Professor of New Testament Language, Literature, and Theology at the University of Edinburgh. The thirtieth anniversary of his One God, One Lord (Fortress, 1988) and the fifteenth anniversary of his Lord Jesus Christ (Eerdmans, 2003) put several of us in mind to organize a new colloquium on the issues raised in these books. We reconvened many of the contributors to another Hurtado-related project, The Jewish Roots of Christological Monotheism (Brill, 1999), as well as several other colleagues doing research in this area. In the year between the call for papers and the colloquium itself, Hurtado was unexpectedly diagnosed with a severe cancer, underwent several harrowing rounds of treatment, and then, happily, went into remission and was in good health for the event. Soon after, however, the cancer returned, and Hurtado died suddenly in November 2019. I can say, on behalf of all the contributors, how immensely grateful we are to have had him with us, at full strength, for those three wonderful days of spirited debate. This book is a record of those days and, I hope, a worthy contribution to the research project initiated by our friend Larry Hurtado.
In addition to the authors of the chapters below, Ruben Bühner, Sara Parvis, and Marianne Meye Thompson were all participants with us at the colloquium, but due to their publication obligations elsewhere their essays were not able to appear here. Carey Newman did an enormous amount of logistical heavy lifting to make the colloquium happen, and Paula Fredriksen rendered invaluable last-minute help during that week. A crack team of Edinburgh graduate students helped to ensure that everything ran smoothly, and a number of them have helped me with copyediting the present volume, namely: Sofanit Abebe, Charles Cisco, Ryan Collman, Alex Muir, Manse Rim, Matt Sharp, and Sydney Tooth. My warmest thanks to all these good people, most of all to Larry and Shannon Hurtado.
Matthew V. Novenson