cover image Who Do You Say That I Am?: Christology and the Church

Who Do You Say That I Am?: Christology and the Church

. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, $20 (159pp) ISBN 978-0-8028-3865-0

This collection of essays attempts to offer a corrective to what the authors contend are ""devastating, despairing, and inaccurate pictures"" of Jesus painted by the Jesus Seminar and other contemporary New Testament critics. Armstrong, rector of Grace Episcopal Church in Colorado Spring, Colo., and other contributors argue that much contemporary writing about the historical Jesus ""re-visions Jesus"" in humankind's images rather than seeing humankind in the likeness and image of Jesus. As contributor N.T. Wright (Jesus and the Victory of God) puts it, the Bible's ""stern and tender God... has been replaced by a celestial bellhop, a mirror, mirror on the wall telling us that we are the fairest of all."" In his essay on the Christological problem, Christopher Hancock, vicar of Holy Trinity in Cambridge, argues that the proper theme of Christology is not our interpretation of Jesus but ""what God has to say to us in Jesus."" Former Virginia Theological Seminary New Testament professor Hancock asserts in his essay on ""the necessity of a biblical Christology"" that ""Christology which is not rooted in the Bible will always be inadequate, or worse, just plain wrong."" And, in what is the centerpiece of the collection, N.T. Wright argues in ""The Biblical Formation of the Doctrine of Christ"" that discovering more and more about Jesus as his identity is revealed in the Bible is the urgent Christological mission of the church. Although the language of the essays is sometimes academic, each contributor has tried to make his remarks as accessible as possible to a wide audience, for these writers believe that recovering the New Testament Jesus is the contemporary church's most important task. (June)