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while he was working on that he had some spare time, so he has done some \u201clight writing\u201d on Jesus in the Gospels. A couple of month\u2019s ago, Mike came out with a book from IVP entitled\u00a0Jesus is the Christ: The Messianic Testimony of the Gospels.<\/em> In this short book, Mike makes the astounding argument that the four canonical Gospels present Jesus as \u201cthe Messiah.\u201d\nIt is ridiculous to me that such an argument needs to be made, but Mike is absolutely right that the history of Jesus studies and Gospels scholarship has put this into question. Mike recounts an influential (but misguided) line of thought in this subject<\/p>\n
A common script in scholarship, with variations of lines, has been something like this: Jesus never claimed to be the Messiah; in fact, he repudiated the title. Jesus only claimed to be a prophet of God\u2019s kingdom. The crucifixion of Jesus on trumped-up charges of being a messianic pretender was undertaken by the Judean leadership in order to have the troublesome Galilean permanently silenced. (p. 3)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
That means that the identification of Jesus as messiah by crowds and disciples was merely an\u00a0<\/em>\u201cad hoc addition to the tradition\u201d (p. 3). In contradistinction to this scholarly theory, Mike sets out to argue that \u201cThe messiahship of Jesus comprises the primary framework in which the sum of all christological affirmations in the Gospels are to be understood, that is, all Christology is a subset of Messianology\u201d (p. 4). The historical implications of this are clearly identified: \u201cJesus deliberately acted out of a messianic role, and it was this motif to his ministry that explained why the church began and why it took the shape that it did\u201d (p. 10).
\n<\/em>
\nMike does not see the identity of Jesus change drastically before and after Easter. He takes up the mission of the Messiah before, he is recognized as Messiah afterward by his disciples and followers: \u201cThe resurrection\u2026sanctioned and so re-activated beliefs previously held about him. that is, post-Easter convictions confirmed pre-Easter expectations. The vindication of Jesus in the resurrection meant the vindication of hopes his followers had before the resurrection\u201d (22).
\nBottom line \u2013 while we recognize that the Evangelists were creative, they were not\u00a0that\u00a0<\/em>creative, so conspiratorial that they set out to make a poor prophet into the risen Son of God (Kazantzakis style!). After this very well-reasoned introduction, Mike spends four chapters walking through the narrative of each Gospel, showing the centrality of Jesus\u2019 messianic identity, though each Evangelist has a unique theme or perspective (Mark = \u201cThe Crucified Messiah; Matthew = \u201cThe Davidic Messiah\u201d; Luke = \u201cThe Prophetic Messiah\u201d; John = \u201cThe Elusive Messiah\u201d). These fourfold chapters do precisely what Mike intends \u2013 they demonstrate that the Gospels\u2019 messianism is not \u201ca blanket thrown over the Jesus tradition\u201d (143).
\nNow, if you are like me, you might be thinking \u2013\u00a0does anyone doubt anymore that the Gospels focus on Jesus as the Messiah?<\/em>\u00a0Isn\u2019t that an outdated problem that nobody struggles with anymore?\u00a0<\/em>WRONG! Mike offers a choice word-byte from respected scholar Christophet Tuckett who writes: \u201cLuke\u2019s Jesus seems to be at most a Christ figure in name only\u201d (see Mike\u2019s pg. 95).
\nI think this a well written \u201csemi-popular-level work,\u201d with good dialogue partners and makes a very cogent case for a Messianic Christology (what a weird phrase, but strangely relevant to this discussion) at the core of all of the canonical Gospels. If I had one wish, it would be that he combined this book with his previous title\u00a0Are You The One Who Is To Come?: The Historical Jesus and the Messianic Question\u00a0<\/em>(Baker, 2009). While this newer book is more literary-theological and the previous one more historical, it is tough to keep them separate because the historical issues and literary issues intertwine in the debates. I was really impressed with the previous book, and I think putting them together makes his case in the second book much stronger and thorough \u00a0\u2013 too bad they are with different pubs \u2013 I would want them sold as a two-volume set!
\nWell, I am glad to have this in my library, and that folks like Mike are fighting for what I think is a common sense reading of the Gospels. I think his next book should be \u2013\u00a099 Arguments That the Pope is Catholic.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At SBL in the fall, Michael F. Bird will release his opus\u00a0Evangelical Theology (Zondervan) which will be a brick to carry home from the conference at 800 pages even! Well, apparently while he was working on that he had some spare time, so he has done some \u201clight writing\u201d on Jesus in the Gospels. A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4302,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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