“It has always been a vital question in Christology to discover how far the impact made by the earthly life of Jesus and his own understanding of his person can sustain the weight of the Christological construction put upon them by the early church. We cannot, therefore, in this study ignore the questions of what Jesus said and did, and how far historical study can show the relation between the actual character of his ministry and the theological explanation of it by the early church.” (I. Howard Marshall, The origins of NT Christology [Leicester, IVP, 1977], p.13).
That is indeed the question!
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2 comments:
"how far historical study can show ..." I.H. Marshall
"Historical" is a loaded word which raises complex issues of epistemology. If we accept the modern secular model for doing "history", what could "history" tell us which would have any impact upon orthodox Christology?
My exposure to I.H. Marshall makes me wonder if he has solved this problem. He appears to use the secular model while trying to avoid the inevitable theological results of working within that framework.
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