‘Binatarian’ is a theological term akin to ‘Trinitarian’; it is used when a theologian wants to speak of ‘two’ as opposed to ‘three’ in matters to do with God; its purpose is to place Jesus and the Father on an equal footing in some respect; and the goal is to make the development of Trinitarianism reasonable and plausible in the history of the church. If you can prove an equality between two, you are a step nearer to establishing an equality among three. The word ‘binatarian’ is used a lot in L. W. Hurtado’s book, One God, One Lord.
Hurtado’s thesis is that there was a ‘binatarian shape’ to early Christian devotion, as evidenced in the NT. The argument is that this was a ‘mutation’ in Jewish monotheistic devotion such that Jesus was included within that devotion. Because Jesus and the Father were worshipped together, Christian views about Christ were at the same time monotheistic and binatarian.
The innovation was in modifying more characteristic Jewish cultic practice by accommodating Jesus into their devotional pattern, joining him with God as a recipient of their cultic devotion (p. xii)
…already in the earliest decades we have a genuinely ‘binatarian’ pattern of worship that included Jesus as recipient along with God. (p. xiii)
At the heart of Hurtado’s analysis is a view of monotheism:
I suggest that in the interests of historical accuracy and clear communication the term ‘monotheism’ should be used only to describe devotion to one god and the rejection of the pantheon of deities such as were reverenced throughout the Greco-Roman world. p. 129, n. 1
This defines monotheism in devotional terms rather than metaphysical terms (what there is – one God) or epistemological terms (what Christians believed). This definition allows Hurtado to argue that Jesus be included within what we now define as monotheism. It is a self-serving assumption.
Instead, we should follow G. F. Moore and affirm,
The exclusive worship of one God, whether by the choice of individuals or by the law of national religion, is not monotheism at all in the proper and usual meaning of the word, namely, the theory, doctrine, or belief that there is but one God.[1]
Monotheism is about what there is – one God – from which flows devotional practice. Accordingly, early Christian devotion was not ‘monotheistic’ (or polytheistic; or henotheistic) precisely because they included Jesus in their devotions, but rather, Christian beliefs about gods were monotheistic because they believed, like the Jews, that there was only one God, the Father.
Hurtado’s book therefore fails in its attempt to get Trinitarianism started through a devotional route (a popular tactic with NT scholars). It is an important book in recent theology, cited often, and a short version of his magnum opus, The Lord Jesus Christ (Eerdmans, 2003). Is it worth buying? If you are researching modern arguments supporting church views about Christ, yes, but if you are interested in researching Biblical Monotheism, then, no; it is not of any particular value. However, it will supply a list of first century and later Jewish texts expressing Jewish monotheism, but these should be taken without Hurtado’s accompanying analysis.
[1] G. F. Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era (2 vols; Reprinted—Peabody: Hendrickson, 1997), 1:222-223. Moore is writing in 1927 what would become a standard handbook about Judaism, and so he could go on and say then of ‘monotheism’ that, “This is the only sense in which the term has hitherto been used of Judaism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism”. Hurtado, writing in 1998, is introducing ‘religious practices’ (worship) as the defining context for ‘monotheism’ so that he can retain the kudos of this term for orthodox Trinitarian Christianity.
Review of “The Early Earth” by John Whitcomb (1972)