Wisdom Christology In The Gospel Of John

This volume contends that the Gospel of John presents the most thorough and robust Wisdom Christology of all the New Testament books. Wisdom Christology—the christological concept that applies the roles, characteristics, and functions of God’s personified wisdom to the man Jesus Christ—is displayed to be skillfully interwoven throughout all twenty-one chapters of the Fourth Gospel, starting with the famous prologue. In response to the prevailing tendency among interpreters to project postbiblical understandings of Jesus from the fourth- and fifth-century church councils back into the Gospel of John, this volume shows that a more fitting context emerges from Jewish Wisdom literature. By situating the Johannine Jesus in his first-century Jewish context, readers can appreciate John’s commitment to monotheism and Jesus’ role as the Father’s highly empowered human agent, fully embodying Lady Wisdom.

"What is true wisdom? While contemporary culture locates it in self-absorption, the first-century apostles revealed how wisdom, a central Old Testament theme, is located in Jesus Christ and in no other. Daniel Ebert explains how Old Testament wisdom motifs are not only fully appropriated in New Testament christology but also far surpassed in God's Son. The Explorations in Biblical Theology series addresses the need for quality literature that attracts believing readers to good theology and builds them up in their faith. Each title in the series combines solid content with accessibility and readability - a valuable addition to the library of any college student, thoughtful lay reader, seminarian, or pastor" -- Publisher description.

This volume contends that the Gospel of John presents the most thorough and robust Wisdom Christology of all the New Testament books. Wisdom Christology—the christological concept that applies the roles, characteristics, and functions of God’s personified wisdom to the man Jesus Christ—is displayed to be skillfully interwoven throughout all twenty-one chapters of the Fourth Gospel, starting with the famous prologue. In response to the prevailing tendency among interpreters to project postbiblical understandings of Jesus from the fourth- and fifth-century church councils back into the Gospel of John, this volume shows that a more fitting context emerges from Jewish Wisdom literature. By situating the Johannine Jesus in his first-century Jewish context, readers can appreciate John’s commitment to monotheism and Jesus’ role as the Father’s highly empowered human agent, fully embodying Lady Wisdom.

Jesus as depicted in the Fourth Gospel is remarkably dissimilar to the Jesus found in the synoptic gospels. In this book, Witherington places the Gospel of John within its proper literary, historical, social and theological contexts. What emerges is a compelling argument that the Gospel of John has an agenda for mission, in addition to concerns for discipleship and community life.

The path of wisdom from Solomon to Jesus and from Jesus to the churchIn the early Jesus movement, wisdom in the person of Jesus was believed to have returned to heaven, exalted to the right hand of God, and to reign from there. But Jesus as wisdom had left both his legacy and his influence behind. The sayings of Jesus recorded in the Gospels reflect not only the influence of the Israelite wisdom traditions, but also the tradition of the personification of wisdom.In this provocative volume newly available in paperback, Ben Witherington provides both an introduction to Israel's wisdom traditions and insight into how Jesus and his sayings fit in that tradition. Beyond this, he demonstrates the on-going significance and influence of these traditions on other New Testament writings. He concludes that Jesus may be viewed primarily as a prophetic sage emphasizing instruction, insight, and humor in a vein counter to the dominant culture.

Entering into the renewed and sometimes confusing attempts to comprehend the work of Jesus of Nazareth and his person, Ben Witherington guides the reader through a vast complex of ancient documents and contemporary questions. He shows that Jesus' contemporaries viewed Jesus as a Jewish prophetic sage whose teaching and style were a reflection of the convergence of Hebrew wisdom and prophetic forms and ideas. Witherington traces the path of wisdom from its earliest manifestations in the Hebrew Bible to its importance in the work of Jesus and then to its apparent influence on the Christology of Paul and other New Testament writers. The result is a masterful contribution to scholarship, written with verve and clarity.

This is a multi-view book in which representatives of differing viewpoints make a positive statement of their case, followed by responses from the others, and concluding with a rebuttal by the original author. The topic at hand in this book is the identity of Jesus (also known as Christology). What is the meaning of Jesus's identity as "the Son of God"? Charles Lee Irons argues that the title "Son of God" denotes his ontological deity from a Trinitarian perspective. Danny Andre Dixon and Dustin R. Smith challenge this view from two different non-Trinitarian viewpoints. Smith argues that Jesus is the authentically human Son of God, the Davidic Messiah, who did not possess a literal preexistence prior to his virgin birth. Dixon argues that Jesus is God's preexistent Son in the sense that God gave him life or existence at some undefined point prior to creation. The authors engage the topic from the perspective that reverences the authority and inspiration of Scripture as the final arbiter of this debate. The literature of early Judaism is also engaged in order to try to understand the extent to which the New Testament's Christology may have been influenced by or operated within the context of Jewish conceptions of divine secondary beings as agents of God.

The essays in Reading the Gospel of John’s Christology as Jewish Messianism: Royal, Prophetic, and Divine Messiahs seek to interpret John’s Jesus as part of Second Temple Jewish messianic expectations. The Fourth Gospel is rarely considered part of the world of early Judaism. While many have noted John’s Jewishness, most have not understood John’s Messiah as a Jewish messiah. The Johannine Jesus, who descends from heaven, is declared the Word made flesh, and claims oneness with the Father, is no less Jewish than other messiahs depicted in early Judaism. John’s Jesus is at home on the spectrum of early Judaism’s royal, prophetic, and divine messiahs

Eighteen leading scripture scholars and theologians engage with key issues and texts to do with scripture and theology. They look at how the Bible and theology have come together in the past - in Judaism, the early Church, the Middle Ages, early modernity, and the 20th century. How is current biblical scholarship to be related to past insights and modern methods? Contributors debate how wisdom is to be related to faith and to reason.