Hello, everyone, and welcome to Onscript. This is Matt Lynch. I'm a co-host of the podcast,

along with Matt Bates, Drew Johnson, Aaronheim, Chris Tilling, and Amy Brown Hughes. And I want to say

welcome. And also a special word of appreciation for all of you who said hello to us at the

annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature.

It's always great to connect with people that we've known for a while, but also people who have

listened to and benefited from the podcast and just stop by to say hello. So we appreciate

you reaching out to us at SBL, the SBL meeting. This episode is a little bit different today.

We're releasing an older episode that Matt Bates did in 2016 with Professor Larry Hurtado,

who some of you will know he just passed away this last week.

And we thought it would be appropriate to release this interview that Matt did with him about

his book, Destroyer of the Gods. It's a fascinating book and one that I've gone back to several

times since reading it. Hurtado was a legend in the field of New Testament studies. He published

widely. Probably his most significant book is Lord Jesus Christ, devotion to Jesus in early Christianity.

And in addition to publishing widely, he published in the lives of many students and was very devoted to his students and had a big impact in that realm too. He started his career at Regent

College in Vancouver and went to the University of Manitoba and then spent the rest of his

career at the University of Edinburgh where he eventually became a professor emeritus where he

was still very active until he passed away.

So he will be missed greatly by many of us who have benefited from his work and I'm sure

from people who knew him more personally. So we hope you enjoy this episode as a way of

remembering Larry Hurtado in his work.

And may you, if you haven't discovered him before, have a look at some of his other books as well.

His work is just really fantastic.

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