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 doesthis mean to our Christian lives who speak to God's love daily?"
Lastly, "How do we project our ideas of what God's justiceis a individuals and societally? Are these ideas truly just orunlovingly 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."
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Paul's Divine Christologyby Chris Tilling (Author), Douglas A. Campbell (Foreword)May 1, 2015Did 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.
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Books by Chris Tilling -
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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.
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Chris Tilling - St. Paul's Divine Christology
Jul 17, 2020
SAT SeminaryIn this webinar, Dr. Chris Tilling dives into the Apostle Paul'sdoctrine of Jesus's divinity.For more information about SATS, visit https://www.sats.edu.za.
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CHRIST AMONG THE DISCIPLINES
CONFERENCE NOTES
https://www.christamongthedisciplines.com/
by R.E. SlaterNovember 19, 2020Please 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. - resPlease 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.
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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.
