Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth

Do you think you are going to feel the same way about this book as you did the Wallace and Bock book since this ground seems to have been widely covered by Hurtado and Fee (and others you’ve read I’m sure)?

Blessings,
Bryan L

No sir. I’ve already read most of PJIHP and I absolutely love it. It’s not that the authors add a lot of information to the debate, they don’t. But the manner in which they arrange the information makes it a pedagogical masterpiece. The HANDS acronym is very functional and I can see that any layperson armed with it will be in a great position to defend the deity of Christ when their JW, Unitarian, or Muslim friends attack it.

Having read James D. G. Dunn’s book review of Simon Gathercole’s The Pre-existent Son: Recovering the Christologies of Matthew, Mark, and Luke (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), I hope Dunn will review PJIHP as well, especially since the authors seem to be gunning for Dunn.

Here’s Dunn’s view of The Pre-existent Son:
http://www.bookreviews.org/pdf/5607_6160.pdf

Personally, with Dunn, I tend to doubt just how much of the language connecting Jesus with God was Jesus’s own and how much was the evangelists’.

As for the way the N.T. authors dipped into the O.T. for mere segments of verses, declaring them “prophecies” that were “fulfilled” via Jesus’s first coming, one can only wonder at what they might “not” have been willing to declare a “prophecy about Christ” and a “fulfillment.”

One also has to wonder about the way religious kooks and quacks flourished in the first century and were able to garner followers. The Egyptian whom Josephus mentions had tens of thousands. Was Jesus the exception to the rule, and are we to take everything in the Gospels as if it were Gospel truth?

What was it Albert Schweitzer once cautioned against? Oh yes, “the crooked and fragile thinking of Christian apologetics.”

Dunn’s review of Gathercole’s The Preexistent Son was one of the contributing factors to me purchasing the book. Have you read the book itself? And I’m sure you’re aware that Dunn was Gathercole’s doktorvater. I wouldn’t mind seeing a scholar such as Dunn reviewing PJIHP, it would be interesting to read his thoughts. But I can’t say that the authors seem to be ‘gunning’ for him. It seems that anyone who writes on the topic of Christ’s preexistence has to interact with Dunn’s work at some point or another. They obviously disagree with him, but no more so than a dozen other NT scholars.

Anyway, if you haven’t, I hope you’ll check out Gathercole’s book. And I’m wondering since you seem to have read PJIHP if you are planning on reviewing it yourself. If you are please point me to it when it’s done. BTW, where do I know you from? Your name sounds very familiar but I can’t seem to place you.

Thanks for writing…

have you read gathercole’s book? i’ve been meaning to start it…but haven’t had the time.

Gathercole’s book is excellent. It’s extremely well-written and easy to read, and I think he makes his case persuasively. As soon as you get some time, read it!