An Introduction to New Testament Christology

Commonweal, June 2, 1995 by Lawrence S. Cunningham

By Raymond E. Brown, Paulist, $9.95., 226 pp.

This present work, I suspect, is to help the nonspecialist understand the current debates about the person and meaning of Jesus Christ as the New Testament presents him. It is also clear that he wishes to show, in a nonpolemical fashion, that certain highly touted contemporary books about Jesus are based on little evidence, much guesswork, and not a little media hype. At the same time, he is explicitly aware that a certain naive fundamentalism is unhealthy. What Brown intends, in short, is to show that one can be at home with the historic-doctrinal tradition of Christology without attempting to read retrospectively into the New Testament insights and dogmatic formulations which took the Christian community centuries of thought and reflection at which to arrive. To put it plainly: to understand how one marries contemporary biblical studies with the ongoing tradition of theology one must develop a sense of history to avoid (I think the phrase is Michael Novak's) "ahistorical orthodoxy."

Brown begins with an introductory section on the range of Christological interpretations available today, that is, from nonscholarly conservatism through both scholarly and nonscholarly liberalism to moderate scholarly conservativism. He follows that with a series of chapters which show, among other things, that one must sort out various Christologies (there is no such thing as one New Testament Christology) and what these facets of understanding indeed teach us. Within that discussion, he assesses a series of perennially asked questions: Does the New Testament call Jesus "God" What consciousness did Jesus have of his divinity? What is the significance of "preministry" Christologies (that is, the infancy of Jesus; his youth)? What connections are there or could there be between "high Christologies" like that found in John's Prologue with Christologies found in the synoptics?

In passing, Brown then makes judgments about the work of both exegetes and systematic theologians. More detailed questions are laid out in a series of appendices. The very brief annotated bibliography is a thermometer of Brown's own predilections: he would identify himself with biblical scholars like James Dunn, Joseph Fitzmyer, John Meier, and Reginald Fuller as well as theologians like Walter Kasper. His disdain for the "Jesus Seminar" circle is patent.

Brown's book would be of interest to anyone who seeks to see a lucid argument for the fruits of biblical scholarship put to the service of the Christian theological tradition. In that sense its value is exemplary not only for Christology but for its power to correlate New Testament research to theological reflection. I can easily see it as a text for serious, nontechnical classes in the New Testament.