Cambridge Companion to Jesus, The

Trinity Journal, Fall 2004 by Sweeney, James P

Markus Bockmuehl, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Jesus. Edinburgh/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001, 2002. 330 pp. $23.00 paper.

This volume is part of an ongoing series entitled Cambridge Companions to Religion, which covers a vast field, including Christian doctrine, biblical interpretation, ethics, theological movements, important religious thinkers, and the like, with the present volume being devoted to Jesus. Following a brief eight-page introduction by the editor, the book is divided into two slightly unequal parts. Part 1 focuses on "The Jesus of History" (pp. 11-118), while part two covers topics related to "The History of Jesus" (pp. 120-280). The volume also includes a bibliography (pp. 28198), a general index (pp. 299-303), and a Scripture index (pp. 304-11).

Part 1 ("The Jesus of History") spans seven chapters. In ch. 1 Craig A. Evans examines three aspects of Jesus' background: "context, family, and formation." Evans maintains that Jesus received extensive exposure to a Torah-observant Jewish way of life, was raised in a Jewish Galilee that resisted non-Jewish influences, and belonged to an artisan family of modest but adequate means. His understanding of Scripture was shaped by the synagogue, including the use of the Aramaic paraphrases, and the movement of John the Baptist. In the next chapter, "Jesus and his Judaism," Peter J. Tomson presents Jesus as a devout Jew who felt intimately attached to the Temple in Jerusalem and lived according to the law in a way closely related to the Pharisees, while rejecting some of their novel purity rules. In ch. 3, "Jesus and his God," Marianne Meye Thompson examines the gospels' portrait of the faith of Jesus and considers how Jesus believed and experienced God. She maintains that the faith of Jesus provides a context for understanding the organic continuity between Jesus and the early church's faith in Jesus. Graham Stanton examines the "Message and Miracles" of Jesus (ch. 4). Stanton maintains that for both Jesus and his opponents, his message concerning the kingdom of God (God's kingly rule) and his miracles (including healings, revivification, exorcisms, and "nature miracles") were interrelated. In ch. 5 ("Friends and Enemies") Bruce Chilton surveys Jesus' social relations, ranging from his relationship to John the Baptist, his Galilean relations (enemies, friends, and family), his relationship to his disciples, and lastly his encounters with Caiaphas and Pilate in Jerusalem. Following this, Joel B. Green examines Jesus' "Crucifixion" (ch. 6), setting it within three possible "plots" that together make up a tightly woven strand: within the story of Imperial Rome; within the story of Israel; and within the story of the life and ministry of Jesus. Markus Bockmuehl, the editor of this volume, rounds out part 1 with an essay on "Resurrection" (ch. 7). He notes that Easter is an integral part of the story of Jesus. Without an event that occurred after his death, namely, resurrection, we -would almost certainly have no information of any kind about Jesus of Nazareth.

The second part ("The History of Jesus") spans ten chapters. The first two, chs. 8-9, are devoted respectively to issues of "Sources and Methods" (Christopher Tuckett) and the history of critical Jesus study, "Quests for the Historical Jesus" (James Carleton Paget). In a follow-up essay entitled, "The Quest for the Real Jesus" (ch. 10), Francis Watson characterizes the relationship between Christian faith and historical research in terms of an ongoing critical dialogue about Jesus and his significance. In the next chapter, "Many Gospels, One Jesus?" (ch. 11), Stephen C. Barton contends that the plurality of the four gospels offers a complex repetition and multiple elaboration that intensifies and complicates the study of Jesus and compels readers to return continually to all four gospels for a full portrait of Jesus. R. W. L. Moberly's essay, "The Christ of the Old and New Testaments" (ch. 12), examines the gospels' presentation of Jesus as the Messiah against the backdrop of the OT Scriptures.

Alan Torrance surveys "Jesus in Christian Doctrine" (ch. 13), noting that in assessing the place of Jesus in the history of Christian doctrine, individuals are confronted with an "either-or." "Either God is uniquely and concretely present in Jesus and thus the identity of God is irreducibly bound up with this particular person -or he is not God" (p. 218). In ch. 14, "A History of Faith in Jesus," Rowan Williams offers a broad historical survey of Jesus as a figure in Christian devotion. He queries in the light of this history whether it is possible to find a contemporary idiom for expressing relation to Jesus that will revive the primitive Christian seriousness about judgment and change.

Three further essays, all more global in orientation, close out the volume. In ch. 15, " The Global Jesus," Teresa Okure maintains that Jesus' global significance as God-Word incarnate must be understood against the backdrop of the biblical story of creation and redemption, and is to be appropriated by faith within humanity's own socio-cultural and historical contexts. David B. Burrell's essay, "Jerusalem After Jesus" (ch. 16), offers a general history of the city of Jerusalem after Jesus. He proposes that Jerusalem is "iconic" for three faiths Qewish, Christian, Muslim), and further maintains that interfaith dialogue in Jerusalem needs to be posed in triadic fashion. Moreover, while Jesus is present in the Christian communities, he further suggests that the Spirit of Jesus will be found active in the ways the three communities engage one another, to bring the city to the point where it displays the power of animating peace. In the final essay, "The Future of Jesus Christ" (ch. 17), Richard Bauckham maintains that Jesus of Nazareth, crucified and risen, is definitive for our knowledge of who God is. If Jesus and his story are decisive for the Christian meta-narrative, two aspects should be recalled: the cross and his still future coming. Bauckham suggests that Christian hope for the future of Jesus Christ promotes "the same kind of compassionate and undaunted engagement with reality for the sake of its future in God that Jesus himself practiced and pioneered as far as death, trusting that his- way is the way of the kingdom of God" (p. 280).