This book is worth having on the shelf because it brings together in one convenient volume the “worship” texts that an orthodox Christian is likely to use when arguing for the deity of Christ. Dunn himself says in the conclusion to the “Introduction”,
What I hope will become apparent is that the first Christians did not see worship of Jesus as an alternative to worship of God. Rather, it was a way of worshipping God. That is to say, worship of Jesus is only possible or acceptable within what is now understood to be a Trinitarian framework. Worship of Jesus that is not worship of God through Jesus, or, more completely, worship of God through Jesus and in the Spirit, is not Christian worship.[1]
This conclusion is astonishing for its dogmatism, especially since Dunn is a careful NT scholar. It condemns all Christadelphian worship of Jesus as non-Christian, but more significantly, it arbitrarily drops in the Trinitarian framework as the only acceptable framework for such worship. Even if the book were to prove that the first Christians worshipped Jesus as God, this would not be enough to establish a Trinitarian metaphysics. Dunn is unable to think outside his western Christian background and ask the question: is Christianity astray in its thinking about Christ. Scholars take for granted what they have received in their church traditions and “build” on this basis.
The problem that Dunn faces is illustrated in the conclusions for his first chapter, which is an examination of “worship” vocabulary in the NT. He says,
‘Worship’ as such is a term rarely used in reference to Christ… Cultic worship or service (latreuein, latreia) as such is never offered to Christ, and other worship terms are used only in relation to God. In the case of the most common words for praise and thanksgiving (eucharistein), they too are never offered to Christ.[2]
Dunn is not misrepresenting his discussion but he is creating a black hole of credibility in his argument because he has said in his “Introduction” that Christians “must” worship Jesus in a Trinitarian framework. The simple question is: given the paucity of evidence, why is there this “must”? To establish a “must” like this, you really need something systematic and structural in doctrine and practise in the NT letters. And of course this is what you do not have in the historical data.
Dunn goes on,
All the same, the fact that such worship language is used in reference to Jesus, even if only occasionally, is very striking. This would have been entirely unusual and without precedent in the Judaism of the time.
Again the problem for Dunn is the “very occasionally” as this is not enough to generate the “must” of Trinitarian worship that he is seeking in order to validate his own faith. Still, there is a point here: devotion to Jesus and the “lordship” of Jesus are distinctive in the Judaism of the day. Christadelphians explain this in terms of the exaltation of Jesus by God the Father. Such exaltation is incompatible with the notion of Jesus as the incarnation of God the Son.
The reader is suitable warned by Dunn’s careful hedging, “only occasionally”; s/he is warned to look carefully at the examples of worship language applied to Jesus; some or all may not be what Dunn claims. For example, Dunn regards Stephen’s calling upon the name of Jesus as an example of the language of calling upon a deity (Acts 7:59, NASB). He admits that such language could be an illustration of calling upon a heavenly being, but prefers to link the language to the practise of calling upon the God of Israel in order to secure a comparison of deity for Jesus.[3] What is lacking in Dunn’s analysis is the careful intertextual work that explains the visionary context for Stephen’s address.
The argument, “Jesus was worshipped and only God should be worshipped, therefore Jesus is God”, is popular. Dunn’s book brings the texts together that are used in this argument. His cautiousness undermines his Trinitarian goal; nevertheless, his book has value as a source book of texts for constructing a correct understanding of such worship.
[1] J. D. G. Dunn, Did the first Christians worship Jesus (London: SPCK, 2010), 6.
[2] Dunn, Did the first Christians worship Jesus, 27.
[3] Dunn, Did the first Christians worship Jesus, 16.
Review of “The Early Earth” by John Whitcomb (1972)