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Christology in the Making: A New Testament Inquiry Into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation
This text is designed for students and academics studying the doctrine of the incarnation. James Dunn clarifies in detail the beginnings of the belief in Christ as the Son of God and discusses the historical context of such beliefs. Exploring key titles and passages within the New Testament, he argues that the incarnation cannot simply be understood in terms of the "myth of heavenly or divine being come to earth", but should be grounded in the New Testament context of meaning.
489 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1980
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About the author
James D.G. Dunn
130 books90 followersJames D. G. ("Jimmy") Dunn (born 1939) was for many years the Lightfoot Professor of Divinity in the Department of Theology at the University of Durham. Since his retirement he has been made Emeritus Lightfoot Professor. He is a leading British New Testament scholar, broadly in the Protestant tradition. Dunn is especially associated with the New Perspective on Paul, along with N. T. (Tom) Wright and E. P. Sanders. He is credited with coining this phrase during his 1982 Manson Memorial Lecture.
Dunn has an MA and BD from the University of Glasgow and a PhD and DD from the University of Cambridge. For 2002, Dunn was the President of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas, the leading international body for New Testament study. Only three other British scholars had been made President in the preceding 25 years.
In 2005 a festschrift was published dedicated to Dunn, comprising articles by 27 New Testament scholars, examining early Christian communities and their beliefs about the Holy Spirit. (edited by Graham N. Stanton, Bruce W. Longenecker & Stephen Barton (2004). The Holy Spirit and Christian origins: essays in honor of James D. G. Dunn. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. ISBN 0-8028-2822-1.)
Dunn has taken up E. P. Sanders' project of redefining Palestinian Judaism in order to correct the Christian view of Judaism as a religion of works-righteousness. One of the most important differences to Sanders is that Dunn perceives a fundamental coherence and consistency to Paul's thought. He furthermore criticizes Sanders' understanding of the term "justification", arguing that Sanders' understanding suffers from an "individualizing exegesis".
Dunn has an MA and BD from the University of Glasgow and a PhD and DD from the University of Cambridge. For 2002, Dunn was the President of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas, the leading international body for New Testament study. Only three other British scholars had been made President in the preceding 25 years.
In 2005 a festschrift was published dedicated to Dunn, comprising articles by 27 New Testament scholars, examining early Christian communities and their beliefs about the Holy Spirit. (edited by Graham N. Stanton, Bruce W. Longenecker & Stephen Barton (2004). The Holy Spirit and Christian origins: essays in honor of James D. G. Dunn. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. ISBN 0-8028-2822-1.)
Dunn has taken up E. P. Sanders' project of redefining Palestinian Judaism in order to correct the Christian view of Judaism as a religion of works-righteousness. One of the most important differences to Sanders is that Dunn perceives a fundamental coherence and consistency to Paul's thought. He furthermore criticizes Sanders' understanding of the term "justification", arguing that Sanders' understanding suffers from an "individualizing exegesis".
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
September 8, 2011
Dunn presents an in-depth study of how the doctrine of the incarnation developed. He goes through several key christological themes found in the new testament writings, including Son of God, Son of Man, the Last Adam Spirit of God, wisdom and the logos. These themes are explored from non Christian sources such as Philo or relevant apocryphal works (i.e. Enoch) and then through the distinct new testament sources to develop a timeline for how some concept as applied to Jesus evolved with time.
Ultimately Dunn declares that only with John's prologue is there clearly the doctrine of the incarnation present (the word became flesh). All that came before, including the writings of Paul, Matthew etc cannot be with any confidence thought to suggest a pre-existent Jesus, though they include essential developments. Paul, Dunn argues, is best understood via Adam christology, while keeping other key themes in mind, the high Christology of Matthew in terms of the action of wisdom, and so forth. with John there is a convergence of thought, Son of God equated to Logos of God and interaction with the Spirit of God, which not only led to the first genuine statement of incarnation but ultimately, Dunn argues, led to the development of the trinity and a genuine hypostases of concepts which before could be understood as analogies of God's action in the world.
Ultimately Dunn declares that only with John's prologue is there clearly the doctrine of the incarnation present (the word became flesh). All that came before, including the writings of Paul, Matthew etc cannot be with any confidence thought to suggest a pre-existent Jesus, though they include essential developments. Paul, Dunn argues, is best understood via Adam christology, while keeping other key themes in mind, the high Christology of Matthew in terms of the action of wisdom, and so forth. with John there is a convergence of thought, Son of God equated to Logos of God and interaction with the Spirit of God, which not only led to the first genuine statement of incarnation but ultimately, Dunn argues, led to the development of the trinity and a genuine hypostases of concepts which before could be understood as analogies of God's action in the world.
July 3, 2021
Quarantine-Book #20:
I just finished "Christology In The Making: A New Testament Inquiry Into The Origins Of The Doctrine Of The Incarnation," by James D.G. Dunn.
Thank you for the recommendation, Allan R. Bevere.
I just finished the intro. First thoughts in light of it--and in light of Dunns recent passing--he is very accessible and appears to be a mind we will miss. He makes no bones: "if you came here to support your Christology or attack another I probably dont give you that ammo."
His chapters progress per Christological titles until he lands at the books conclusion--mind you a full one third of the books pages are the endnotes.
Son of God:
This is good material. Beginning by analyzing canonical and non canonical, Pauline and pre Pauline, synoptic and adding the works of John, Dunn gives us the usage before and during the first century for "son of God," and by extension, a higher Christology. His conclusion was that this took shape during the first century coming to have preexistance associated with it by the time of John.
"[P]rimative Christian preaching seems to have regarded Jesus' resurrection as the day of his appointment to divine sonship, as the event by which he became Gods son," p 36.
Son of man:
Pre Christian, Jewish understanding of the title:
Analysis of this begins in Dan. 7 where Dunn says that the son of man as per Dan. 7 is one from Isreal, i.e. not preexistant. The expectation of preexistance of the Messiah comes from 4 Ezra and the Similitudes of Enoch.
Christian understanding of the title:
After working through much material Dunn states that this title can not indicate and incarnational Christology (preexistance) prior to the writings of John circa 70 - 100ad. This Christology must have had a catalyst and it is this which he explores next.
The Last Adam:
This section is very good. Christ is Adam again but successful. Though in this analysis Christ, like Adam, is not preexistant, Christ becomes the last Adam at the resurrection. It is this concept that Dunn reads Ph. 2:6-11 and 2 Cor. 8:9: the rich to poor motif means Adams/Christs earthly being and relationship with God, to Adam's fall via sin/Christs taking sin in death to defeat it; Sinless life to sinful death (sinful in the case of Christ is vicarious).
Spirit or Angel?:
"[T]he first Christians also (including Paul?) Understood the relation between the earthly Jesus and the Spirit in terms of inspiration and Empowering," p 139.
"[F]or Paul, as much as for the earlier Jewish writers the Spirit is the dynamic power of of God himself reaching out to and having its effect on men," p 144.
The suggested spirit Christology is two stage: anointing at Christs baptism and later believers coming to know the risen Christ through the power of the Spirit of Christ. This requires post existence but not preexistance.
Wisdom of God:
This (Sophia) seems to be the stage of development--the hinge or bridge--for placing preexistance on the map. Since wisdom plays a semi-personified role in the OT the few places the Jesus/Wisdom connection are made are often easily assumed to infer preexistance. Dunn suggests that none really do, though they speak about that eternal aspect of God--Wisdom--which he says was one with the person of Christ [my words].
"[T]o understand the wisdom passages as ontological affirmations about 'Christ's eternal being' is most probably to misunderstand them," p 195.
"Jesus is the exhaustive embodiment of divine wisdom; all the divine full essence dwelt in him," p 195.
Word of God:
Dunn claims that by viewing OT and wisdom literature we can see wisdom, word and spirit as one and the same action of God not separate hypostasis. It is when we get to Philo that Logos becomes personified as roughly "a thought coming into expression in speech," "the idea of ideas," in both God and man.
"[T]he Logos of God is God in His self revelation," p 230.
Conclusion:
Dunn states that the preexistance discovery lay with the writings of John but more importantly--similar to the atonement--that all of these Christologies speak to us of differing and wonderful aspects of ChDawes.
Excellent book.
#JamesDGDunn #Christology #Incarnation #ChristologyInTheMaking #SonOfGod #SonOfMan #LastAdam #AdamChristology #SpiritChristology #WisdomChristology #LogosChristology
I just finished "Christology In The Making: A New Testament Inquiry Into The Origins Of The Doctrine Of The Incarnation," by James D.G. Dunn.
Thank you for the recommendation, Allan R. Bevere.
I just finished the intro. First thoughts in light of it--and in light of Dunns recent passing--he is very accessible and appears to be a mind we will miss. He makes no bones: "if you came here to support your Christology or attack another I probably dont give you that ammo."
His chapters progress per Christological titles until he lands at the books conclusion--mind you a full one third of the books pages are the endnotes.
Son of God:
This is good material. Beginning by analyzing canonical and non canonical, Pauline and pre Pauline, synoptic and adding the works of John, Dunn gives us the usage before and during the first century for "son of God," and by extension, a higher Christology. His conclusion was that this took shape during the first century coming to have preexistance associated with it by the time of John.
"[P]rimative Christian preaching seems to have regarded Jesus' resurrection as the day of his appointment to divine sonship, as the event by which he became Gods son," p 36.
Son of man:
Pre Christian, Jewish understanding of the title:
Analysis of this begins in Dan. 7 where Dunn says that the son of man as per Dan. 7 is one from Isreal, i.e. not preexistant. The expectation of preexistance of the Messiah comes from 4 Ezra and the Similitudes of Enoch.
Christian understanding of the title:
After working through much material Dunn states that this title can not indicate and incarnational Christology (preexistance) prior to the writings of John circa 70 - 100ad. This Christology must have had a catalyst and it is this which he explores next.
The Last Adam:
This section is very good. Christ is Adam again but successful. Though in this analysis Christ, like Adam, is not preexistant, Christ becomes the last Adam at the resurrection. It is this concept that Dunn reads Ph. 2:6-11 and 2 Cor. 8:9: the rich to poor motif means Adams/Christs earthly being and relationship with God, to Adam's fall via sin/Christs taking sin in death to defeat it; Sinless life to sinful death (sinful in the case of Christ is vicarious).
Spirit or Angel?:
"[T]he first Christians also (including Paul?) Understood the relation between the earthly Jesus and the Spirit in terms of inspiration and Empowering," p 139.
"[F]or Paul, as much as for the earlier Jewish writers the Spirit is the dynamic power of of God himself reaching out to and having its effect on men," p 144.
The suggested spirit Christology is two stage: anointing at Christs baptism and later believers coming to know the risen Christ through the power of the Spirit of Christ. This requires post existence but not preexistance.
Wisdom of God:
This (Sophia) seems to be the stage of development--the hinge or bridge--for placing preexistance on the map. Since wisdom plays a semi-personified role in the OT the few places the Jesus/Wisdom connection are made are often easily assumed to infer preexistance. Dunn suggests that none really do, though they speak about that eternal aspect of God--Wisdom--which he says was one with the person of Christ [my words].
"[T]o understand the wisdom passages as ontological affirmations about 'Christ's eternal being' is most probably to misunderstand them," p 195.
"Jesus is the exhaustive embodiment of divine wisdom; all the divine full essence dwelt in him," p 195.
Word of God:
Dunn claims that by viewing OT and wisdom literature we can see wisdom, word and spirit as one and the same action of God not separate hypostasis. It is when we get to Philo that Logos becomes personified as roughly "a thought coming into expression in speech," "the idea of ideas," in both God and man.
"[T]he Logos of God is God in His self revelation," p 230.
Conclusion:
Dunn states that the preexistance discovery lay with the writings of John but more importantly--similar to the atonement--that all of these Christologies speak to us of differing and wonderful aspects of ChDawes.
Excellent book.
#JamesDGDunn #Christology #Incarnation #ChristologyInTheMaking #SonOfGod #SonOfMan #LastAdam #AdamChristology #SpiritChristology #WisdomChristology #LogosChristology
December 3, 2023
N.T. Wright has said on more than one occasion that Jesus of Nazareth didn't go around thinking that he was the second person in the Trinity. This ought to be fairly obvious but of course for anyone growing up in a Christian family and learning about Jesus through Sunday school, such a statement raises troubling questions. Who did Jesus think he was? And if he didn't think that he was the second person of the Trinity then has the church made a major categorical error? In other words, were the Arians actually right?
In 1980 James Dunn wrote a book that raised this troubling question among academics and made him something of a persona non grata among evangelicals. In short, Dunn's thesis was that in the entire of the New Testament there is almost nothing that suggests that the author viewed Christ as pre-existing one-with-God. Nothing, of course, other than John 1, and even here it is fundamentally John 1:14 "And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling amongst us" that is the game changer.
Dunn goes through the other options methodically. Son of God, Son of Man, Divine Wisdom, Angelic Messenger and finally the Word. He is clear that in the earliest writings, namely the Pauline corpus, it is the resurrection that exalts Jesus to divine power. This does require a reinterpretation of Philippians 2, one that has not been taken up by subsequent commentators. In the synoptic gospels the Son of God and Son of Man language points towards someone clearly appointed by God but cannot be stretched to suggest pre-existence. It is Matthew who builds particularly on the divine wisdom motif, characteristic of the Old Testament. It is Matthew also who appears to alter the Q tradition to make Jesus the embodiment of Wisdom, not simply the messenger. It is here that we see the first stirrings of an incarnation tradition that reaches its apogee in John 1 and the later patristics.
The argument is well-made and most of it is illuminating rather than controversial. It is, however, hard to see Philippians 2 and Colossians 2 as not pointing to the pre-existing Son of God. Philippians 2 creates a stumbling block to anyone who doesn't want to argue for a full-fat Christology at an early stage of Christian thought. Dunn suggests that Paul in the adopted early Christian hymn is using the Adam christology that he employs in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15 but whereas you can see something of a pattern in the descent/ascent motif of the first and second Adam, it doesn't map on to the hymn perfectly. Also, Paul is very explicit in Romans and 1 Corinthians that he is using Adam as the imperfect model for Christ. There is no such reference in Philippians, and nothing else in the letter suggests that he has this in mind.
Dunn's argument rests on John's gospel being read backwards into the earlier writings about Christ, but if the Philippian hymn does speak of Christ as being co-existing with God then it would seem that this idea was in currency some 40 or so years before John.
The pre-existence of Christ, like the Trinity, is something that emerged out of the worshipping experience of the early Christians. It makes theological sense even if the Biblical evidence is relatively slim. Dunn seems to me to push this too far, though. The fact that the first generation of Christians were able to reach this conclusion does not seem to me to be wildly unlikely.
In 1980 James Dunn wrote a book that raised this troubling question among academics and made him something of a persona non grata among evangelicals. In short, Dunn's thesis was that in the entire of the New Testament there is almost nothing that suggests that the author viewed Christ as pre-existing one-with-God. Nothing, of course, other than John 1, and even here it is fundamentally John 1:14 "And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling amongst us" that is the game changer.
Dunn goes through the other options methodically. Son of God, Son of Man, Divine Wisdom, Angelic Messenger and finally the Word. He is clear that in the earliest writings, namely the Pauline corpus, it is the resurrection that exalts Jesus to divine power. This does require a reinterpretation of Philippians 2, one that has not been taken up by subsequent commentators. In the synoptic gospels the Son of God and Son of Man language points towards someone clearly appointed by God but cannot be stretched to suggest pre-existence. It is Matthew who builds particularly on the divine wisdom motif, characteristic of the Old Testament. It is Matthew also who appears to alter the Q tradition to make Jesus the embodiment of Wisdom, not simply the messenger. It is here that we see the first stirrings of an incarnation tradition that reaches its apogee in John 1 and the later patristics.
The argument is well-made and most of it is illuminating rather than controversial. It is, however, hard to see Philippians 2 and Colossians 2 as not pointing to the pre-existing Son of God. Philippians 2 creates a stumbling block to anyone who doesn't want to argue for a full-fat Christology at an early stage of Christian thought. Dunn suggests that Paul in the adopted early Christian hymn is using the Adam christology that he employs in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15 but whereas you can see something of a pattern in the descent/ascent motif of the first and second Adam, it doesn't map on to the hymn perfectly. Also, Paul is very explicit in Romans and 1 Corinthians that he is using Adam as the imperfect model for Christ. There is no such reference in Philippians, and nothing else in the letter suggests that he has this in mind.
Dunn's argument rests on John's gospel being read backwards into the earlier writings about Christ, but if the Philippian hymn does speak of Christ as being co-existing with God then it would seem that this idea was in currency some 40 or so years before John.
The pre-existence of Christ, like the Trinity, is something that emerged out of the worshipping experience of the early Christians. It makes theological sense even if the Biblical evidence is relatively slim. Dunn seems to me to push this too far, though. The fact that the first generation of Christians were able to reach this conclusion does not seem to me to be wildly unlikely.
November 15, 2008
Very good read, great source for early Christianity and development of theolgy. I also think this is a great book for Christians today to understand their history in monotheism and how a monotheistic faith can hold such a high regard for Jesus. This book will also help Christians and Muslims both, to dialogue at a deeper level, and come to an understanding that although we may believe differently about Jesus, we can both affirm our commitment to monotheism as well as to Jesus' title, The Word of God.
June 22, 2009
One of the most amazing books that I've read this year! I now understand how my faith is monotheistic and how the doctrine of the Trinity came to be. This book was extremely helpful in understanding this process and how it can be too easy to read later theologizing back into our Holy Scriptures. A must read for anyone who wants to understand early Christianity.
January 15, 2008
A significant contribution to the current Christological debate.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews