Called by the Name of the Lord: Early Uses of the Names and Titles of Jesus in Identifying His Followers

Recent scholarship on early Christianity has witnessed a great deal of interest in the identity of that movement, particularly with respect to the diverse forms of Christianity and their relationships to Judaism. One conclusion many scholars involved in studying these questions have reached is that there was an early period in the history of the Jesus movement in which it would be anachronistic to call it Christianity, which then leads to the problem of what to call this movement that would become Christianity. However, little attention has been given to the question of what vocabulary was used in identifying those who would later be called Christianoi.

This dissertation attempts to fill part of that gap with a discussion of a particular subset within the early vocabulary of identification for the Jesus movement, namely the use of Jesus's names and titles in identifying his followers. The method is historical critical and includes a general discussion of the ancient use of individuals names in identifying various sorts of groups that were appurtenant to those individuals, followed by several chapters treating specific examples of this phenomenon in designations of the early Jesus movement, including periphrastic expressions, the label Christians, and the labels Nazarenes and Galileans. Finally, inquiry is made into what might have been the vocabulary of identification for this movement in its earliest period, prior to the writing of any of its extant literature. This is done by consideration of the uses of Jesus's names and titles in baptism and persecution.