Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Bob Gundry on Unity and Diversity in NT Christology

‘New Testament interpretations of Jesus’ person and work exhibit diversity, then, a diversity prompted by varying circumstances – political, social, economic, ethnic, education, religious. To be sure, NT Christologies were not wholly determined by such circumstances, as though the figure of Jesus were made of Silly Putty which the NT authors molded into whatever shape they thought was required by their varying circumstances. Certain brute facts and accepted traditions about him provided both a skeleton with which to work and parameters within which to work …Different parts of the NT give us different Christologies – not completely different from one another but clearly different, sometimes disconcertingly different, and certainly far more different from one another than has usually been though in the church of world at large.’

Robert H. Gundry, “Hermeneutic Liberty, Theological Diversity, and Historical Occasionalism in the Biblical Canon,” in The Old is Better: New Testament Essays in Support of Tradition Interpretations (WUNT 178; Tübingen: Mohr [Siebeck], 2005), 13.

2 comments:

Angie Van De Merwe said...

I don't believe that we can discount the political situadedness of the development of Christological reflection. After all, the Church is a political institution.

The text does not affirm, as you say, one way of understanding. The "logos", which was a common Greek way of speaking, became flesh. So, was Christ's coming in the flesh as way of affirming "humanity", or was it a way of affirming "divinity"...or was it both? The Church has supported the view that Jesus was both "God and Man", as his work was the work of "god's concern for social justice". The Church was called alongside thsoe who were disempowered politically speaking". So, those who theologized about "god's concern" were the scribes who wrote the texts to encourage those so dis-empowered....
It is not so much about the person of Christ, as what he did while here on earth. All else is theologizing his life....
One could just as well look at Christ's life not in imitation of specificity, but in principle of character. How did he act toward those who were not in the position of power? The moral majority would not uphold Christ in this way, as the principled approach is that "all men are created equal" and that is the way he treated them..irregardless of their "purity" standards....

Angie Van De Merwe said...

I think if you attempt to identify everyone under the name of Christ, you will encounter political and social resistance, because Christ has not been identified with empowering, but with oppressing, and suppressing....therefore, the Church needs an image and moral change of focus. The focus should be "self",and other, in a just framework...meaning, that not only is education (mind), freedom (government), opportunity(heart), equality(law) is important in affirming all aspects of man made in God's image...This is mandantory to educate the Christian, as to understanding the different deminsions of impacting the world and changing the Church's image....