Title: Who Do You Say that I Am? Essays on Christology

Editors: David Bauer and Mark Allan Powell

Bibliographic info: XXIII + 273 + 17 pgs of indices

Cover: Soft

Publisher: Westminster John Knox (1999)

ISBN-10: 0664257526

ISBN-13: 9780664257521

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With thanks to Westminster John Knox for the free review copy!

This book is a collection of 17 essays on Christology in honor of Jack Dean Kingsbury, who has authored many well known works on the synoptic gospels.

The first essay, The Christology of Jesus, begins where Christology itself must begin, that is, with Jesus’ own understanding of Himself. This essay is written by Ben Witherington III. In it he discusses what we can learn from the gospels about what Jesus thought about Himself. He approaches this task by looking at Jesus’ social relationships and what that would have meant  in that historical context, as well as what the titles that Jesus used to describe Himself indicate about how He saw Himself. Here is an interesting thought from Witherington:

If Jesus’ parentage was open to question, it is very hard to see how he could have appeared to anyone in this culture to be a potential messianic figure unless something was dramatically impressive about his words, deeds, and relationships. (pg. 5)

The next essay by Birger Gerhardsson is titled The Christology of Matthew. Birger states that, “The Gospel of Matthew is from beginning to end a christological book.” (pg. 15). This essay looks at Matthean Christology from the different titles of Jesus in Matthew as well as certain other aspects, like the teachings of Jesus, the authority of Jesus, and confessions of faith made about Jesus. I quite liked the following statement:

It is a great mistake to imagine that there ever existed a Christian congregation that gave Jesus only one title, that somewhere in early Christianity existed an exclusive, clear-cut son of David Christology, Messiah Christology, Kyrios Christology, Son of God Christology, or the like. We have no evidence of that. Here the analyses of modern New Testament scholars have created hypothetical entities that now live their own life in the learned debate, without ever having existed in antiquity. (pg. 17-18)

The Christology of Mark’s Gospel: Narrative Christology and the Markan Jesus by Elizabeth Struthers Malbon is the next essay. She asserts that the Markan Jesus is portrayed as wanting to divert any attention away from Himself, to the real source of Jesus’ power and authority, God. And furthermore, that the Markan Jesus is primarily concerned with the breaking in of God’s kingdom.

Luke Timothy Johnson is the author of the next essay, The Christology of Luke-Acts. This essay takes the gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles as a two-volume work, and furthermore, that the Christology present in Luke and Acts presents Jesus primarily as the prophet of God who is sent first to the Jews and then to the Gentiles.

The Christology of the Johannine Writings is next and is by R. Alan Culpepper. This essay does not discuss the Revelation and from what I can remember neither does it discuss the Christology of the Johannine epistles. Culpepper gives a very interesting look at the alleged formation of the gospel from its original “signs source” to the final form through the lens of Christological development. Despite the common belief of the Logos Christology being a late addition to the gospel, Culpepper sees it as being the cornerstone of how the gospel presents Jesus. This essay was quite fascinating I thought.

Christology of the Pauline Epistles by Marion L. Soards is next. This essay takes on the monumental challenge of condensing Pauline Christology into a 20-page essay. This is done so by listing over 50 details about Jesus that Paul gives, and then arranging those details into a historical narrative. Soards then uses this narrative to show what Paul thought and taught about who Jesus was.

C.K. Barrett is next with The Christology of Hebrews. This essay shows the Christology in Hebrews by giving a chapter by chapter account of how Hebrews presents Jesus. Although only the first ten chapters of Hebrews is covered as Barrett feels that the remaining chapters offer little more in regards to Christology.

The Christology of James is written by John Reumann. I think he did a very good job in presenting the unique Christology present in this epistle, which is done by looking at possible references to Jesus therein, as well as the wisdom tradition present in the epistle.

Paul Achtemeier has contributed the essay The Christology of 1 Peter: Some Reflections. This essay places a focus on 1 Peter’s Christology being derived from the Servant passages in Isaiah.

Christ in Jude and 2 Peter is the next essay, and is written by Pheme Perkins. She shows that even though the author of 2Peter used Jude’s epistle while writing his own, that there is still a different emphasis on how Christ is presented. She concludes:

Christology does not play a central role in either Jude or 2 Peter. Both presume a traditional way of speaking about Jesus as Lord and Savior, who is responsible for the benefits of salvation to be enjoyed by loyal believers. Both assume that such loyalty is expressed in a life of godliness, of moral reform. But neither epistle incorporates the figure of Christ into Christian exhortation. For Jude, Christ is assimilated to God as the Judge from whom faithful Christians will receive mercy and eternal life in God’s presence. Though 2 Peter responds to an explicit challenge to Christian belief in the Parousia, the epistle uses very different language to describe the believers’ destiny. Believers are not being preserved in light of an impending judgment but are practicing for a share in the divine nature and an eternal kingdom whenever it appears. (pg. 161)

This is followed by The Christology of the Apocalypse by Charles H. Talbert. He shows how Apocalypse reveals Jesus through the use of titles and functions attributed to Jesus in the Apocalypse. In order to show how the people of the Mediterranean of that time would have interpreted the Apocalypse, Talbert provides a discussion on other apocalyptic literature. In summary, he says,

If the thesis proposed in this chapter is tenable, then it casts light on other issues. … rather than angelomorphic Christology being a second-century innovation, it becomes a first-century phenomenon that carries into the second-century and later. The Christology of Revelation becomes a part of a trajectory whose outlines can be traced over several centuries. (pg. 178-179)

After these essays dealing with specific writings and authors of the New Testament, six more essays are provided which probe the question of Christology in a different way from the previous essays. The first two deal with Old and New Testament Christology in general:

• Christology of the New Testament: What, Then, Is New Testament Christology? by Leander Keck.
• Christology and the Old Testament by Terence Fretheim.

Four more essays follow, in which the author of each deals with the implications of Christology for systematic theologies; ethics; pastoral ministry; and preaching.

• The Significance of New Testament Christology for Systematic Theology by Carl Braaten
• Jesus, Christ, and Ethics by Lisa Sowle Cahill
• The Significance of New Testament Christology for Pastoral Ministry by David Bartlett
• The Significance of New Testament Christology for Preaching by Elizabeth Achtemeier.

This is not a book which provides a comprehensive look at the Christology found in each author of the NT. Instead, the author of each essay gives their own distinctive approach to interpreting the Christology present by the NT authors, an approach that is sometimes refreshing and offering new insights.