Larry Hurtado announced on his blog that his review of James D. G. Dunn’s latest book has been published. He also shared a link to something he wrote about Martin Hengel’s impact on English-speaking scholarship.
Nick Norelli shared recordings of lectures by Simon Gathercole on Jesus’ pre-existence. I still find Simon’s view unpersuasive. No amount of discussion of alleged parallels the the “I have come” language placed on the lips of humans and angels in other literature will be decisive, since when one considers the matter linguistically, it is obvious that “I have come” is something that human beings say all the time, in every language. And so the difference between the meaning when placed on the lips of humans and angels is the context: angels are assumed to come from heaven to earth, humans are not. And so unless there is some explicit indication in a piece of literature that Jesus is viewed as a figure who previously existed in heaven, then “I have come” should not have connotations of “coming from heaven” read into it. And in the Synoptic Gospels, the idea of Jesus as the incarnation of a pre-existent figure is completely absent – unless one wishes to view the descent of the Spirit upon Jesus at his baptism in those terms.
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