Antiquitopia

I wanted to continue to think about some of the stranger aspects of ancient Christian Christology, especially as it pertains to the Son's preincarnate existence in Ancient Israel.  The story begins really with Justin Martyr who in his 1st Apology and especially in the Dialogue with Trypho seeks to establish that every time anyone ever claimed to see God in Israel's scriptures, they saw the Son, the Logos.  While on the one hand, this helps to relieve some of the more embarrassing anthropomorphisms of the Bible by attributing them to God's manifest aspect - the Son (the image of the invisible God in Colossians 1) - on the other hand, Justin's blanket identification of the Son with all theophanies has further consequences since not all of the theophanies of the Bible are anthropomorphic.  In his First Apology 62-63, Justin uses Moses as the prototypical prophet, often called the “first prophet” throughout, both chronologically and in importance.   He argues ...

For my current project, which focuses on how early Christians understood Moses' visions, I have been delving much into Second and Third Century Christian sources.  During the past week, I have been playing a lot with Theophilus of Antioch with his treatise/letter/apology to Autolycus.  Theophilus, let's say, has a fairly unique Christology in many ways.  Much of this was explicitly rejected by his rough contemporary Irenaeus and has been discussed at length by modern scholars.  But there is one aspect of his Christology that has been largely ignored and is, well, quirky.   ὁ μὲν θεὸς καὶ πατὴρ τῶν ὅλων ἀχώρητὸς ἐστιν καὶ ἐν τόπῳ οὐχ εὑρίσκεται· οὐ γὰρ ἐστιν τόπος καταπαύσεως αὐτοῦ. ὁ δὲ Λόγος αὐτοῦ, δι᾽οὗ τὰ πάντα πεποίκηκεν, δύναμισ ὤν καὶ σοφία αὐτοῦ, ἀναλαμβάνων τὀ πρόσωπον τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ κυρίου τῶν ὅλων, οὗτος παρεγίνετο εἰς τὸν παράδεισον ἐν προσώπῳ τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ ὁμίλει τῷ Ἀδάμ. Καὶ γὰρ αὐτὴ ἡ θεία γραφὴ διδάσκει ἡμᾶς τὸν Ἀδὰμ λέγοντα τῆς φωνῆς...

I thought after last night's post that I would go ahead and post the abstract from my own paper at the Midwest SBL, which generated more discussion than I expected - always good.  So, here it is: Jesus as Creator, Sustainer, and Destroyer in Hebrews Creation imagery extends throughout Hebrews more than any other New Testament text, yet has received less attention than John 1, Colossians 1, or 1 Cor. 8:6.  Those who have discussed creation in Hebrews have focused on how it relates to the work's cosmology.  This paper, however, will analyze its relationship to Christology, arguing that Hebrews maintains a consistent division between what and how God and the Son create.  God creates and is the source of all things, including the heavenly tent and city, while Jesus is the creative agent of the "ages," who inherits, sustains, and destroys heaven and earth. A copy of the paper is available upon request - just send me an email to my Illinois College email account.

Larry Hurtado is discussing the role of revelatory experiences (and "charismatic exegesis") for the religious innovation of including Jesus as a figure of worship in emergent Christianity.  The information can be found scattered throughout his books (starting with One God, One Lord ), but is the basis of some recent lectures he gave in the Houston area.  Give it a look--this aspect of his thesis has always most fascinated me throughout his various writings.

Larry Hurtado gives a brief history of the "Early High Christology Club," and what it really means.  I should note that I have had the privilege of joining the club on a couple occasions on the coattails of my late adviser, Alan Segal, and that one of the coveted Early High Christology Club mugs currently sits on my office desk.  To Scottish Irrigation!

As it seems with most bibliobloggers, I haven't had time to post in quite a while between the SBL conference, teaching, research, and other academic duties.  Nonetheless, I just noticed Larry Hurtado is talking about his hobby horse of early high Christology on his blog .  He lengthily and substantively engages with an article by Andrew Chester on the topic, and it is well worth the read to see a rather comprehensive survey of the issue.

This post completes my discussion of chapter 4 of Bauckham's Jesus and the God of Israel on worship. In it, B relates the discussion of worship of Jesus in terms of obeisance, doxologies, and hymns to ongoing fidelity to monotheism among Christians and christological developments through Chalcedon, as compared to the Alexandrian Christianity of Origen. B argues that the worship of Jesus is not a departure from, but an adherence to, monotheism. He contrasts the exclusive worship of YHWH of Jews to the interreligious tolerance of the Roman world. Even monotheistic-leaning philosophers never denied the legitimacy of existing forms of “popular religion.” “The difference between Jewish and pagan monotheism did not turn on the existence of supernatural beings inferior to the supreme God, but on whether they might be worshipped” (140). Jewish and Christian refusal of other cults made them oddities, especially when Christians worshipped a crucified criminal! Nonetheless, Christians b...

I would like to draw attention to a post by Mike Koke on many of April DeConick's recent discussions of early Christology as well as referring to my own reviews of Bauckham. In the comment section, there is an extended discussion between myself and Nick Norelli , who has also reviewed Bauckham, on some of the more emotional (annoyed) aspects of my review as well as a nice summation statement by Mike Koke on the whole issue in the comments.

I have finally reached the final segment in my review of Bauckham's first chapter of Jesus and the God of Israel . Only seven chapters to go....this is going to take forever to finish. You can catch my riveting earlier segments here: Introduction Chapter 1A (Monotheism) Chapter 1B (Monotheistic Christology) Chapter 1C (God Crucified) Bauckham ends this chapter charting some consistencies and novelties from second temple Judaism to NT Christology as well as “evaluating” later theological traditions in light of his discoveries. Bauckham finds considerable consistency in the characterization of God in terms of God being creator and sovereign, characteristics that distinguish God from all other reality (in my opinion, the true key to Bauckham’s “monotheism”). Bauckham recognizes that this is a minimal portrayal; other characteristics flesh out the character of God in God’s relationship to all creation and his relationship to Israel—such as God’s more particular interactions with ...

This is the third part of my reading of Bauckham's first chapter of Jesus and the God of Israel. I have one more part on Bauckham's assessment of continuities and novelties between the NT and Second Temple literature. You can see my earlier posts as following: Introduction Chapter 1A (monotheism) Chapter 1B (christological monotheism) For this week, however, we will discuss the theme of “God Crucified and Divine Identity Revealed in Jesus" I must say at the outset that this has been the most interesting part of Bauckham's analysis thus far--perhaps because this is where he finally gets into the textual nitty gritty and generally avoids the over-generalizing that is so prevalent throughout the rest of the chapter. The next move in Bauckham’s argument is the shift from thinking of a preexistent Christ to the earthly Jesus and the repercussions of a suffering Jesus who shares in the unique divine identity. In this section he asserts that all NT Christology is high C...

I am still in chapter 1 of Bauckham's Jesus and the God of Israel. See my previous remarks on the Introduction and C hapter 1A (monotheism). The second third of chapter 1 is about Christological Monotheism in the NT or Monotheistic Christology. In this section, Bauckham reiterates his (problematic) position that worship (monolatry) is the recognition of unique divine identity, and that there is no blurring of the boundaries with exalted angels or patriarchs, who do not participate in terms of creation or sovereignty—except for the exceptions which prove the rule (Enoch, and all the figures I listed last time like Melchizedek, Adam, Moses (although Bauckham directly denies this) and the anonymous self-enthroned figure from 4Q491c). There is no blurring with wisdom and word because they are already intrinsic in God’s own identity. From here, he moves into the Christology of the New Testament. He forewarns that it is not an exhaustive investigation of NT texts regarding Christol...

I have been asked by a certain journal to review Richard Bauckham's, Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other Studies on the New Testament's Christology of Divine Identity (Eerdmans 2008). I am finding my notes to be disproportionately longer than they should be, and so I thought I would work out my initial impressions on this blog, while reserving my secondary reflections for the far more succinct official review to come. This book consists of a collection of essays on Jewish monotheism and its importance for what Bauckham has called a “divine identity” Christology, which eschews “ontic” and “functional” christologies as anachronistic. My regular readers will realize that I think all language of "monotheism" is anachronistic in an ancient context (see here , here , and here ). Nonetheless, we'll see how he conceptualizes this divine identity (and see if the issue of "monotheism" is a matter of semantics or substance). He also, in the proces...