Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

-----

Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write off the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Thursday, November 19, 2020

Paul's Divine Christology, by Chris Tilling


Chris Tilling, Paul’s Divine Christology


About

Dr Chris Tilling is Graduate Tutor and Senior Lecturer in New Testament Studies at St Mellitus College. Chris co-authored How God Became Jesus (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2014) with Michael Bird (ed.), Craig Evans, Simon Gathercole, and Charles Hill. He is also the editor of Beyond Old and New Perspectives on Paul (Eugene, Or: Cascade, 2014). Chris’s first book, the critically acclaimedPaul’s Divine Christology (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), is now republished with multiple endorsements and a new Foreword, by Eerdmans (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2015). He is presently co-editing theT&T Clark Companion to Christology (forthcoming, 2021), and writing the NICNT commentary on the Second Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, forthcoming). Chris has published numerous articles on topics relating to the Apostle Paul, Christology, justification, the historical Jesus, Paul S. Fiddes, Karl Barth, the theology of Hans Küng, and more besides. He has appeared as a media figure for Biologos, GCI, Eerdmans, Wipf & Stock, and HTB’s School of Theology and he co-hosts the popular Podcast, OnScript. He has functioned as external reader for various publishing houses, including the Library of New Testament Studies at T&T Clark, IVP, Lexington/Fortress Academic, and Eerdmans, and is on the Advisory Board for the TF Torrance Theological Fellowship. He supervises PhD students via King’s College London, and is an experienced external examiner of PhDs. He has organised public theology lectures as well as theology conferences, and he enjoys playing golf and chess, now working as editor for a couple of chess publishing houses. He is married to Anja and has two children.

Publications

Books

  • (Contracted) The Second Epistle to the Corinthians. NICNT. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, forthcoming.
  • (Contracted) Reading Romans (Cascade Companions). Eugene: Cascade, forthcoming.
  • Co-editor (with Darren Sumner) of the T&T Clark Companion to Christology (London: Bloomsbury, 2021 forthcoming)
  • New edition of Paul’s Divine Christology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015, with a foreword by Prof Douglas Campbell, Duke University.
  • How God Became Jesus, co-authored with Michael F. Bird, Craig A. Evans, Simon J. Gathercole, and Charles E. Hill. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2014.
  • Editor of Beyond Old and New Perspectives on Paul. Eugene, Or: Cascade, 2014.
  • Paul’s Divine Christology. WUNT II.323 Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012

Journal Articles and review essays 

  • “Ziegler’s Militant Grace: A Review Essay”JRT (2019, forthcoming)
  • “From Adams’s critique of Wright’s historiography to Barth’s critique of religion: A review essay of Sam Adams’sThe Reality of God and Historical Method”, TT, 73.2 (2016, forthcoming)
  • “Review Article of Simon Gathercole, Defending Substitution: An Essay on Atonement in Paul.” JTS 67, no. 1 (2016): 251–54.
  • “Paul, the Trinity and Contemporary Trinitarian Debates (in honour of Paul Fiddes)”,PJBR, 11 no. 1 (2016).
  • Paul and the Faithfulness of God. A Review Essay (Part 1)” Anvil 31, no. 1 (March 2015): 45–56.
  • Paul and the Faithfulness of God. A Review Essay (Part 2)” Anvil 31, no. 1 (March 2015): 57–69.
  • “The Deliverance of God, and of Paul?”JSPL 1, no. 1 (2011): 85–101.
  • “A Summary of ‘Formulating the Inspiration of Scripture in Light of Paul’s Theological Reasoning in 1 Corinthians 8:1-11:1’.” Evangelikale Theologie 14, no. 1 (May 2008): 19-20.
  • “Engaging Science in the Mode of Trust: Hans Küng’s ‘The Beginning of All Things’.”Zygon 43, no. 1 (March 2008): 195-210. 

Chapters in edited volumes

  • “Paul, Divine Christology, and the Trinity,” in Tilling, Chris, and Darren Sumner, eds.T&T Clark Companion to Christology. London: Bloomsbury T&TClark, 2020 forthcoming.
  • “Abraham in New Testament Letters,” in A. Adams, Sean and Domoney-Lyttle, Zanne (Eds.)Abraham in Jewish and Early Christian Literature. Library of Second Temple Studies (London: T&T Clark, 2019), pp. 127-148
  • “Freedom in Paul and Modernity,” in Begbie, Jeremy, Rathey, Markus and Chua, Daniel (Eds.)Theology, Music, and Modernity: Struggles for Freedom (Oxford: OUP, forthcoming)
  • “Paul, Christ, and Narrative Time,” in Torrance, Andrew B and McCall, Thomas H. (Eds.)Christ and the Created Order: Perspectives from Theology, Philosophy, and Science (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2018)
  • “Paul the Trinitarian,” in Lincoln Harvey ed.,Essays on the Trinity (Eugene, Or.: Cascade, 2018)
  • “Knowledge Puffs Up, But Love Builds Up: The Apostle Paul and the Task of Dogmatics,” in Oliver D. Crisp and Fred Sanders (Eds.),The Task of Dogmatics. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2017)
  • “Paul, Evil and Justification Debates,” in Keith, C. and Stuckenbruck, L. T. (Eds). inEvil in Second Temple Judaism and Early Christianity (Tübingen: Mohr, 2016).
  • “Ephesians and Christology” inChrist, Spirit and the Church: Essays in Honour of Max Turner, edited by Volker Rabens, I. Howard Marshall and Cornelis Bennema (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2012: 177-197).
  • “Pneumatology and the New Testament.” InThe Holy Spirit in the World Today, edited by Jane Williams, 151–66. London: Alpha International, 2011.

Entries in reference volumes 

  • “Tribes of Israel.” In Encyclopedia of the Historical Jesus, edited by Craig A. Evans, 662-64. London: Routledge, 2008.

Book reviews and editorials

  • “Review of Encountering the Living God in Scripture by W. Wright IV and F. Martin”,SJT (forthcoming)
  • “Review of Paul’s Eschatological Anthropology: The Dynamics of Human Transformation by Sarah Harding”,CBQ (2018) 80, no. 3: 528–29
  • Editorial and review essay, “Paul and the Gift, by John Barclay”, Syndicate (2018) https://syndicate.network/symposia/theology/paul-and-the-gift/
  • Editorial and review essay, “Christ is King, by Joshua Jipp”, Syndicate (2017) https://syndicate.network/symposia/biblical-studies/christ-is-king/
  • “Review of Nelson, Sarisky, and Stratis, eds., Theological Theology: Essays in Honour of John B. Webster”,Regent’s Reviews 8, no. 1 (October 2016): 16–18.
  • Editorial and review, “Jesus Against the Scribal Elite by Chris Keith”,Syndicate 2, no. 5 (September/October 2015): 154–57.
  • Editorial, “Evangelical Faith and the Challenge of Historical Criticism”,Syndicate 2, no. 3 (May/June 2015): 110–12.
  • “Review of Hurtado’s How on Earth Did Jesus Become God?”Theology CXI, no. 860 (March/April 2008): 121-22.
  • “Review of Hafemann’s Paul, Moses, and the History of Israel.”EJT 16, no. 2 (2007): 148-50.

Popular articles

  • “Paul’s Theology of the Cross,” inPreach, 17, 2018: 18-22, now Christian Today (https://bit.ly/2lWaF3k)
  • “Romans 1–8.” Guidelines 26.2 (May-Aug 2010): 7–21
  • “Romans 9–16.” Guidelines 26.3 (Sept.-Dec 2010): 111–26


A Conversation on Paul with Chris Tilling and Douglas Campbell
 ~ Advocation to be Scholar Activists ~
Jan 18, 2016


Chris Tilling and Douglas Campbell converse on apocalyptic readings of Paul, prison ministry, and their books on topics such as:
"Is God loving or is God punitive?"
"Jesus' divinity is central to Paul's theology, then what does
this mean to our Christian lives who speak to God's love daily?"
Lastly, "How do we project our ideas of what God's justice
is a individuals and societally? Are these ideas truly just or
unlovingly unjust?"
Chris Tilling is Lecturer in New Testament Studies at St Mellitus College and Visiting Lecturer in Theology at King's College, London. He is the author of Paul's Divine Christology (2012), the editor of Beyond Old and New Perspectives on Paul (2014) and author, together with Michael Bird, Craig Evans, Simon Gathercole and Charles Hill, of How God Became Jesus (2014). He also runs the biblical studies blog, "Christendom."


* * * * * * * *




Paul's Divine Christology
by Chris Tilling (Author), Douglas A. Campbell (Foreword)
May 1, 2015

Did Paul teach that Jesus was divine and should be worshiped as such? How should this be viewed in relation to Jewish and Jewish-Christian monotheism? The debate over these and related questions has been raging in academic circles -- but it also has profound implications for church practice.

In this book Chris Tilling offers a fresh contribution to the long-running debate on whether or not Paul’s Christology is divine. Refocusing the debate on the exegetical data and reengaging more broadly with the sweep of themes in Paul’s letters, Tilling’s innovative contribution is one that cannot be ignored.


* * * * * * * *


Books by Chris Tilling -

 


* * * * * * * *


Chris Tilling’s Paul’s Divine Christology
by Ben Witherington
September 22, 2020

There are not many doctoral dissertations that move the needle dramatically in a new positive direction in the huge field of Pauline studies. But Chris Tilling’s Paul’s Divine Christology (which originally appeared in print in the WUNT series of J.C.B. Mohr in 2012) is the exception to all such evaluations of the work of budding NT scholars. While it is true that one of the main criteria for evaluating a doctoral thesis is ‘does it make a contribution to the discussion of X’, sometimes with the addition of the word ‘fresh’ before contribution, it is very hard to accomplish something like that in the well-trod roads of Pauline studies, where one is more apt to hear the Qoheleth dictum: ‘there is nothing new under the sun here’. But again, Tilling’s work does set the discussion of whether or not Paul had a ‘divine’ Christology on new footing.

This study accomplishes this impressive feat by:

1) placing the discussion on a broader footing, namely taking into account all the evidence from the capital Paulines about the Christ relationship of Paul and his converts, not just the evidence of cultic worship of Christ or the discussion of Christ’s pre-existence. The study involves detailed contextual exegesis, especially of 1 Cor. 8-10, not just cherry picking of titles or ideas; and,

2) making clear that Paul talks about Christian relationship to Christ in the same way that Israel’s relationship to YHWH had always been envisioned and discussed, and,

3) getting beyond the rehash of discussing the titles of Christ, once more with feeling.

The net effect of this is that yes indeed there can be found plentiful evidence of an early high Christology in the earliest documents in the NT, Paul’s letters, evidence, as R. Bauckham would put it, that Christ was viewed by Paul as part of the divine identity, and he did not see this as a violation of Jewish monotheism. Indeed, he could include Jesus as Lord within an expanded version of the Shema in 1 Cor. 8, without blinking or fearing huge pushback from fellow apostles such as Peter and others. This comports well with the fact that after Paul’s meetings with the pillar apostles in Jerusalem they had agreed on the essence of the Gospels for both Jews and Gentiles, while they may not have fully agreed about what that meant in regard to the ongoing relationship between Jewish Jesus followers and the keeping of the Mosaic covenant (see Gal. 1-2).

If that were not enough, Tilling takes ample time to show that the supposed early Jewish precedents for including lesser figures within the Godhead (angels, Adam, Enoch, etc.) on closer review really aren’t precedents. For example, it is the way the relationship with the Lord of the Spirits is discussed in the Enoch literature that is analogous to the way Paul talks about the Christ relationship, not the way the relationship of the Son of Man with God is discussed in that literature, and in any case it is not clear that the relevant Enoch literature was known by Paul, not least because the crucial parts of that literature may well post-date Paul’s letters.

Methodologically, there is more to be said because Tilling is rightly wary of the whole history of ideas approach to discussing Pauline Christology, especially when it is accompanied by upward evolutionary spiral thinking (low Christology must be early, high Christology developed later). As Doug Campbell points out in his Forward, this sort of abstracting of ideas from the complex ways Paul talks about the Christ relationship had by believers is the product of post-Enlightenment ways of approach the data, something Paul himself was ignorant and innocent of. In any case, as Martin Hengel showed long ago, and before him Lightfoot, if we are actually evaluating trends in early Christian thinking it would be more plausible to think of the high Christology being early and continuing on later, for instance in the Johannine literature.

Another important methodological point is Tilling’s resistance to the strict dictum that ontology is one thing and function is another. The person of Christ should not be abstracted from his work, for in the Christ relationship he was known through his transformative work not just on the cross, but through the personal transformation of the mind and life of believers through the Holy Spirit. ‘No one can authentically confess Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit’ says Paul. One cannot eliminate the experiential side of things from the evaluation of whether or not Paul had a divine Christology. And besides, few scholars doubt that the Johannine Gospel reflects a divine Christology, and yet that Gospel also stresses the subordination of the Son to the Father, just as Paul does. The subordination discussion does not cancel out Paul’s divine Christology.

I take it for granted that Chris Tilling has demonstrated the essence of his thesis that in the capital Paulines Paul and his converts related to Christ in the same way Israel related to YHWH, and that the implicates of this are that Paul and various converts saw Christ as part of the divine identity, to use Bauckham’s language. Were Larry Hurtado, of blessed memory, still around, he would be sending Chris the coffee mug he sent me and various others as members of ‘the early high Christology club’. But Chris’s crucial insight does not fully take into account that in Paul’s letters Christ relates to God’s people in the same way the OT describes YHWH relating to Israel. To give but one example, in 1 Cor. 10, Paul makes the remarkable statement that when Israel was wandering in the wilderness their source of water turned out to be Christ (‘the rock was Christ’). A simply reading of the Pentateuch in its original language and context does not suggest such a surprising idea, rather it makes clear it was YHWH who provided sustenance and water for Israel. In short, we need the exploration of both sides of the relationship and the way Paul conceives them to support the case for Paul having a divine Christology. The actions of Christ, and the resulting Christ relationship on the part of believers provide a fuller proof that Paul indeed had a divine Christology.


* * * * * * * *


Chris Tilling - St. Paul's Divine Christology
Jul 17, 2020

SAT Seminary
In this webinar, Dr. Chris Tilling dives into the Apostle Paul's
doctrine of Jesus's divinity.

For more information about SATS, visit https://www.sats.edu.za.


* * * * * * * *


CHRIST AMONG THE DISCIPLINES
CONFERENCE NOTES

 https://www.christamongthedisciplines.com/

by R.E. Slater
November 19, 2020


Please note: I write these notes to myself. They are not intended to be exact transcriptions from the speakers themselves. What I have written are not their words but my own thoughts. - res

Please note: All panelists provided textual statements for comments to attendees. These are not allowed to be publically published as they are intended to form to the moment-in-time not replicable beyond the panel discussions themselves as very specific conversations to one another in the AAR setting


Panelist Bios

Ben Witherington III: He is the Amos Professor of New Testament for Doctoral Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary and on the doctoral faculty at St. Andrews University in Scotland. A graduate of UNC, Chapel Hill, he went on to receive the M.Div. degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from the University of Durham in England. He is now considered one of the top evangelical scholars in the world, and is an elected member of the prestigious SNTS, a society dedicated to New Testament studies. Witherington has also taught at Ashland Theological Seminary, Vanderbilt University, Duke Divinity School and Gordon-Conwell. A popular lecturer, Witherington has presented seminars for churches, colleges and biblical meetings not only in the United States but also in England, Estonia, Russia, Europe, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Australia. He has also led tours to Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. Witherington has written over fifty books, including The Jesus Quest and The Paul Quest, both of which were selected as top biblical studies works by Christianity Today. He also writes for many church and scholarly publications, and is a frequent contributor to the Patheos website. Along with many interviews on radio networks across the country, Witherington has been seen on the History Channel, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, The Discovery Channel, A&E, and the PAX Network.

Chris Kugler: Chris Kugler received a B.A. in pastoral ministries at Lee University, an MLitt in Biblical Languages at the University of St Andrews, a ThM in New Testament at Duke University, and a PhD in New Testament at the University of St Andrews. His research interests include philosophical epistemology and hermeneutics, Christology, Jewish monotheism, and Paul and his letters. His first book, Paul and the Image of God, came out this year, and he has also published in Currents in Biblical Research and Review of Biblical Literature. In the past, Dr. Kugler was a lecturer at Westminster Theological Centre and a Tutor at the University of St Andrews, and he is now an associate professor of theology at Houston Baptist University. 

Joseph Gordon: Joseph K. Gordon is Associate Professor of theology at Johnson University in Knoxville, Tennessee. Joe’s primary areas of focus in the discipline of systematic theology are the nature, histories, and purposes of Christian Scripture, philosophical and theological hermeneutics and method, theological anthropology, and theological understandings of creation and the relationships between theological reflection and the biological and ecological sciences. He is the author of Divine Scripture in Human Understanding: A Systematic Theology of the Christian Bible, recently published by the University of Notre Dame Press in 2019. His articles and essays have appeared in Theological Studies, Nova et Vetera, Method: A Journal of Lonergan Studies, The Lonergan Review, The Stone-Campbell Journal, and volumes published by the University of Notre Dame Press, Marquette University Press, and Pickwick. A past post-doctoral fellow in the Lonergan Institute at Boston College, he is the director of the Critical-Realistic Hermeneutics team of the International Institute for Method in Theology. He is currently writing the Cascade Companion to Bernard Lonergan and editing a book on Critical realism and Christian Scripture for Marquette University Press. A certified Master Herpetologist, he is currently doing research for a monograph on snakes and theology. 

Katherine Sonderegger: The Rev. Katherine Sonderegger, Ph.D., is the William Meade Chair of Systematic Theology. She joined the Virginia Theological Seminary faculty in 2002. Her areas of expertise include systematic theology, Barth, medieval studies, feminist studies, and reformed theology. Before coming to VTS, she taught at Middlebury College and Bangor Theological Seminary. Dr. Sonderegger completed her Ph.D. at Brown University in 1990. She previously earned a D.Min. and STM from Yale and an A.B. in medieval studies from Smith College. She is the author of That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew: Karl Barth's "Doctrine of Israel" (University Park: Penn State Press, 1992) and Systematic Theology, Vol 1 (Fortress Press, 2015). Dr. Sonderegger is a member of the American Academy of Religion, Kampen-Princeton Barth Consultation, Karl Barth Society of North America; American Theological Society, and Society for the Study of Theology.

Author: Dr Chris Tilling is Graduate Tutor and Senior Lecturer in New Testament Studies at St Mellitus College. Chris co-authored How God Became Jesus (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2014) with Michael Bird (ed.), Craig Evans, Simon Gathercole, and Charles Hill. He is also the editor of Beyond Old and New Perspectives on Paul (Eugene, Or: Cascade, 2014). Chris’s first book, the critically acclaimed Paul’s Divine Christology (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), is now republished with multiple endorsements and a new Foreword, by Eerdmans (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2015). He is presently co-editing theT&T Clark Companion to Christology (forthcoming, 2021), and writing the NICNT commentary on the Second Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, forthcoming). Chris has published numerous articles on topics relating to the Apostle Paul, Christology, justification, the historical Jesus, Paul S. Fiddes, Karl Barth, the theology of Hans Küng, and more besides. He has appeared as a media figure for Biologos, GCI, Eerdmans, Wipf & Stock, and HTB’s School of Theology and he co-hosts the popular Podcast, OnScript. He has functioned as external reader for various publishing houses, including the Library of New Testament Studies at T&T Clark, IVP, Lexington/Fortress Academic, and Eerdmans, and is on the Advisory Board for the TF Torrance Theological Fellowship. He supervises PhD students via King’s College London, and is an experienced external examiner of PhDs. He has organised public theology lectures as well as theology conferences, and he enjoys playing golf and chess, now working as editor for a couple of chess publishing houses. He is married to Anja and has two children.


* * * * * * * *


Observation by Ben Witherington
The early high Christology club (I. Howard Marshall, myself, etc). Did early Christians relate to Jesus as the early Jews did to YHWH? Yes, indeed! Prayers,  hymns, worship, liturgy, attendance to His teachings, life, death, resurrection, Jesus' appearances, miracles, etc. Chris Tilling has done an expansive job in presenting this. The earliest Christology in many ways was probably the highest Christology. This is the impression of the earliest Christians. May of the earliest Christians were Jews, and well-schooled Jews at that. This was no low Christology. No. It is historically false. Jesus wasn't "robed" later in the history of Jesus. Jesus' worship AFFIRMED the Shema and the Jewish worship. Jesus was who God was to them. This Chris has spoken well to. Jesus is not an angel, a crucified Jew who was later deified by the Church. Thank you Chris very much for all your effort and teaching in this area of a strong Christology!

Observation by Chris Kugler 
I think of Chris as a philosophical, theological thinker. As a Pauline Scholar with a sustained exegesis on the historical figure and living Messiah of Christ Jesus. By the time we get to Paul's letters Christians are clearly understanding who Jesus is as YHWH come in the flesh to love and die for man's sins and regain a revived/reviving fellowship to the Creator God of the universe.

Observation by Joe Gordon
see his statement online

Observation by Katherine Sonderegger 
see her statement online

Response by Chris Tilling 
see his statement online

I view Ben W. as the senior bible scholar among us. Katerine S. was very helpful here in her observations, as have the comments been from Chris and Joe.


Richard Bauckham - Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other Studies on the New Testament's Christology of Divine Identity



RICHARD BAUCKHAM – BIBLICAL SCHOLAR AND THEOLOGIAN

I am a biblical scholar and theologian. My academic work and publications have ranged over many areas of these subjects, including the theology of Jürgen Moltmann, Christology (both New Testament and systematic), eschatology, the New Testament books of Revelation, James, 2 Peter and Jude, Jewish and Christian apocalyptic literature, the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, the New Testament Apocrypha, the relatives of Jesus, the early Jerusalem church, the Bible and contemporary issues, and biblical and theological approaches to environmental issues. In recent years much of my work has focused on Jesus and the Gospels. Probably my best known books are Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (2006), God Crucified: Monotheism and Christology in the New Testament (1998), The Theology of the Book of Revelation (1993) and Bible and Ecology (2010). As well as technical scholarship and writing aimed at students and those with some theological background, I have also written accessible books for a wider readership, of which the best known is At the Cross: Meditations on People Who Were There (1999), which I wrote with Trevor Hart. A recent book is Jesus: A Very Short Introduction (2011), published in Oxford University Press’s Very Short Introduction series, and providing a historical account of Jesus for the general reader. Various of my books have appeared in translation in Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Korean, Spanish, Portuguese, French and Farsi.

Until 2007 I was Professor of New Testament Studies at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. I retired early in order to concentrate on research and writing, and moved to Cambridge. For more information about me, see my Short CV. On this site, you will find complete lists of my publications. You can find out about my forthcoming books. You can read unpublished papers, lectures and sermons. You can find out about the More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha project (directed by myself and James Davila).

You can also read some of my poetry, and two story books written for children (adults also enjoy them) about the MacBears of Bearloch.


Written Works by Bauckham -



* * * * * * * *



Richard John[1] Bauckham FRSE FBA (born 22 September 1946) is an English Anglican scholar in theology, historical theology and New Testament studies, specialising in New Testament Christology and the Gospel of John. He is a senior scholar at Ridley Hall, Cambridge.

In 2006, Bauckham published Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, described by many scholars (e.g. Ben Witherington III,[2] Samuel Byrskog,[3] Judith CS Redman,[4] etc.) as a paradigm shift in Gospels study. In this book, Bauckham argues that the Synoptic Gospels are based "quite closely" on the testimony of eyewitnesses, while the Gospel of John is written by an eyewitness, against the current scholarly consensus that the Synoptic Gospels are closer to the eyewitnesses and John further removed.[5] Bauckham updated and expanded the book to respond to critics in a second edition, published in 2017. Also, his classic work, The Theology of the Book of Revelation, is considered one of the best introductions to Revelation available.[6]

Life and career

Bauckham was born in London and studied at the University of Cambridge, where he read history at Clare College (1966–72) and was a fellow of St John's College (1972–75). He taught theology for one year at the University of Leeds and for fifteen years at the University of Manchester (1977–1992), where he was the Lecturer in the History of Christian Thought before moving to St Andrews in 1992. He is a fellow of the British Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Bauckham was, until 2007, the Professor of New Testament Studies and Bishop Wardlaw Professor in the University of St Andrews. He has since retired in order to concentrate on research and writing, and is a senior scholar at Ridley Hall in Cambridge, and a visiting professor at St Mellitus College in London.

Research and teaching areas

Bauckham has been published in a variety of fields in New Testament studies and early Christianity. He has also published on the theology of the German theologian Jürgen Moltmann. His current research interests include Jesus and the Gospels, New Testament Christology, and the relevance of the Bible to ecological issues.

He gave the Sarum Lectures for 2006 on "Beyond Stewardship: The Bible and the Community of Creation". He also gave a series of the Scottish Journal of Theology Lectures in Aberdeen on "The Gospels as History: Comparisons with Ancient and Modern Historiography".


* * * * * * * *



Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other Studies
on the New Testament's Christology of Divine Identity 

by Richard Bauckham
November 29, 2008
This book is a greatly revised and expanded edition of Richard Bauckham's acclaimed God Crucified: Monotheism and Christology in the New Testament (1999), which helped redirect scholarly discussion of early Christology.


* * * * * * * *



God Crucified : Monotheism and Christology in the New Testament

by Richard Bauckham
April 1, 1999

Recent discussion of the interpretation of New Testament Christology has been closely linked with debate about the nature of Jewish monotheism in the period. This book argues that once Judaism's perception of the uniqueness of God is correctly understood, it becomes clear that the first Christians simply included Jesus in the unique identity of the God of Israel.

 


A List of Books written by Richard Bauckham -  



* * * * * * * *


Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses
The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony
Aug 13, 2009



The Authenticity of the Apostolic Eyewitness in the New Testament
with Professor Richard Bauckham
August 7, 2014



Interview - Dr. Richard Bauckham, Top NT Scholar, Author -
"Jesus and the Eyewitnesses"





Compilation of Reviews by Scott McKnight of the Jesus Creed





* * * * * * * *


CHRIST AMONG THE DISCIPLINES
CONFERENCE NOTES
 https://www.christamongthedisciplines.com/
by R.E. Slater
November 19, 2020

Please note: I write these notes to myself. They are not intended to be exact transcriptions from the speakers themselves. What I have written are not their words but my own thoughts. - res

Please note: All panelists provided textual statements for comments to attendees. These are not allowed to be publically published as they are intended to form to the moment-in-time not replicable beyond the panel discussions themselves as very specific conversations to one another in the AAR setting

Observation by Crispin Fletcher-Louis

Crispin Fletcher-Louis studied Theology at Oxford, where he wrote a doctorate on Christology and Soteriology in Luke-Acts. Since then, Christology has continued to be a principal focus of his research. He is currently writing a four-volume book on the historical origins and theological shape of the belief in Jesus’ deity: Jesus Monotheism (2015-, www.Jesusmonotheism.com). Crispin is currently Senior Research Fellow, University of Gloucestershire, UK.

Discussion - Has high praise of Bauckham's works and its significance to initiating discussion in the field of Christology whether Christ is man or God.

Gospels and Acts state Jesus is Divine and reconfigured the Christian faith accordingly vs. Bauckham's commentary on Psalm 110.1 - Of David. A psalm. 1 The Lord says to my lord:[a]“Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.”

Divinity is a word that was fluid in the ancient NE. Transferrable. Shareable. 

Observation by Channing Crisler

Channing Crisler: A native of Lubbock, TX, Channing Crisler holds a BS in History from Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, TX. He received his Master of Divinity in Biblical Languages from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth, TX, and his Ph.D. in New Testament Studies from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY. Dr. Crisler is married to Kelley, and they have five children—Silas, Taylee, Titus, Annalee, and Cross. Kelley is an interpreter for the deaf in Anderson District 5. Dr. Crisler is the author of Reading Romans as Lament: Paul’s Use of Old Testament Lament in His Most Famous Letter (Pickwick, 2016). He is currently writing a book on Lukan Christology (Sheffield Phoenix Press) and an intertextual commentary on Romans (Pickwick). He has also written various articles, essays, and book reviews. His primary research interests include Pauline epistles and theology, Lukan Christology, suffering in Early Christianity, and Martin Luther’s impact on biblical interpretation.

Discussion - Israel's Christology was the highest possible divinity and central to the early church. His humanity broke with Jewish Monotheism. Felt the model was fundamentally flawed. This created a paradigm shift from early Christianity.

Jesus as Who v. What; the Early Jesus v. the Later Jesus; the Resurrected Jesus v. the Dying Jesus

Observations by Matt Jones
Was the view of Jesus the highest of its time as Bauckham asserts?
Did Jesus Himself perceive Himself as God in the Gospel of Mark? Or was this status later ascribed to Jesus by the early church? But by the Jews. Argument follows by Matt.

Response by Richard Bauckham
My book was not intended to be a comprehensive treatment of Jesus's divinity and humanity. But as occasional essays of unfinished explorations of the whole field. So I have provided conceptual keys to the whole field. I will not discuss my books today but some important results of the books over the years.