Now admittedly for traditional Christians the way to deal with this is different from Mormons due to the whole notion of continuing revelation vs. closed canon. But even a lot of people who concede a closed cannon might think that the creeds, especially the early ones, are quasi-inspired as representing theology.

Put simply it just doesn’t seem true that acknowledging the history concedes the history. Once you throw in a strong skepticism of the texts (i.e. reject inerrancy in the Bible) then of course all bets are off. This may lead to more skepticism of traditional theology or simply think the development means the early beliefs don’t matter as much.

To me the most interesting thing in traditional Christianity, as I noted, is how many people exposed to the textual, historical and theological conundrums end up abandoning traditional Christianity. To my eyes (perhaps incorrectly) it seems the move is often a de-mythologizing move where Christ as symbol is held as important but Christ as historically divine is thrown out. (And often most activities of an interventionist God) I’m constantly surprised by just how common those views are among the educated in Christianity.

It was Hurtado’s recent work that established how quickly Jesus came to be regarded as divine in the early Christian communities. That is why the author’s statement of the problem is not merely theological but relates to religious worship and practice: early Christian communities were worshipping Jesus as divine before they resolved or even posed most of the Christological questions that exercised theologians for the following several centuries. The idea that practice precedes doctrinal development, rather than the other way around, should not be a shock to Latter-day Saints. For example, we’ve been practicing the Word of Wisdom for 150 years but still can’t explain it coherently. “Don’t drink tea” is easy to state and practice but tough to explain in detail. “We worship Jesus as divine” is easy to state and practice but much, much tougher to explain in detail.

As for the history versus theology distinction — it’s not like a better biography of Jesus would solve the theological issues raised by Christian claims about his nature or divinity. Historical Jesus scholarship is of great interest to scholars and believers alike, but faith issues, whether these generic Christian issues or specifically LDS issues, simply do not turn on historical facts. I think this is the sense in which the distinction between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith is so relevant to modern Christological discussions. But, as noted in the post, that distinction does not really enter into Mormon discussions.

Put an other way, my sense is that if anything people who might acknowledge the history as being much more complex than traditional theology paints are also those least likely to accept a more anthropomorphic conception of God and instead move much closer to a vague theist or even deist model. More conservative groups like the Calvinistic dominated Evangelicals are perhaps less likely to adopt a lot of these revisionist views.

This is quite unlike traditional Christianity where honestly to me it seems like the demands of how they take God are fully at odds with mortality.

To me it’s the mortality of Christ that is the great stumbling block for traditional Christianity. Unsurprisingly it’s that rather than the “god of the philosophers” that gets dropped first. (For a good example of this consider this old discussion by Bill Vallicella – I get Bill to see the conflict he raises poses problems for a divine Jesus. His reaction is to drop Jesus.)