This wide-ranging study of the doctrine of the incarnation results from the author's own intellectual quest. He offers a genuine Christology, as distinct from the non-Christologies of some recent writers. His starting-point, like theirs, is that Jesus was a real human personality--a man, in fact: an assumption with which few will quarrel, though it is not easily reconciled with the teaching of the Council of Chalcedon. Anthony Hanson sees the man Jesus as the revelation of the divinity in the humanity through human obedience and suffering. He finds that the New Testament writers, with the probable exception of John, while believing in Jesus' personal pre-existence saw him as a fully human personality. They recognized God in Christ, as we do today, not by direct apprehension, but because he is indeed full of the hesed and 'emeth (grace and truth) which the Old Testament reveals as God's essential character. Professor Hanson's discussion is marked, as one would expect, by disciplined exegesis and familiarity with the other solutions that have been propounded. In his final chapter he reviews the traditional Chalcedonian doctrine and its modern defenders, and assesses the views of modern theologians--Barth, Rahner, Pannenberg, Pittenger, Baillie, Robinson among them--who have written on the subject. He claims for his account of the incarnation that it is at least as firmly rooted in Scripture as that of Chalcedon, and has a much stronger foundation in the Old Testament.
Anthony Tyrrell Hanson was Professor of Theology at the University of Hull, and former senior editor of the Journal for the Study of the New Testament.
Anthony Tyrrell Hanson was Professor of Theology at the University of Hull, and former senior editor of the Journal for the Study of the New Testament.
Anthony Hanson here opens up fresh lines of interpretation for the Pauline epistles, and uses these as the approach to a fresh consideration of Paul as exegete and theologian. Focusing on passages, mainly in Romans and Galatians, where the argument is superficially strange, he explores biblical and rabbinic parallels and frequently uncovers an unexpected significance. Drawing out the implications of his detailed studies, Professor Hanson argues that the apostle's method of biblical interpretation can be justified in terms of modern theology and can put us on the road to a right understanding of the relation of the Old Testament to the New.
The theme of Jesus the Servant is a key to much Christian thought nowadays. We have had enough of antiquated myth and conventional jargon; this theme is clear. We have had enough of the Church being identified with snobbery in the West and colonialism in the East; Jesus the Servant is utterly humble. We have had enough of Christians patronizing the world; Jesus the Servant comes with a towel and a cross." --Publisher's Note
A study of the Book of Revelation suggested to Dr. Hanson the idea of tracing the conception of the wrath of God through the Bible, from its primitive and personalized form in the earliest strands of the Old Testament to its final development in the New. Under the impression that "the wrath of God" in the New Testament must be interpreted as if it had the same meaning as in the Old, some theologians have been driven to formulate a distorted doctrine of the atonement and others to repudiate the idea of the wrath altogether. Dr. Hanson shows that this is a false dilemma, and that there is a true New Testament doctrine of the wrath, profoundly influenced by the revelation of the love of God in Jesus Christ and at certain points essentially related to the Cross. This doctrine he finds most fully expressed in the Book of Revelation.
Why is the account of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel so very different from the one we find in the Synoptic Gospels? Professor Hanson believes that at least part of the answer can be found in the considerable dependence of John's narrative on the Old Testament. The first thirteen chapters of this book are devoted to careful examination of the language of the Gospel in this light. Again and again this shows that passages are heavily influenced by the Old Testament, mostly from the Septuagint but also sometimes by the targumic tradition. This leads to the conclusion that John was writing what might be called a 'prophetic gospel' rather than an historical account of Jesus' life. He saw many passages in what he regarded as scripture as containing prophecies which must have been fulfilled in the life and teaching of Jesus, despite having no historical basis. Although this is not to say that John freely invented speeches and episodes as he chose, John thus felt justified in departing widely from the early tradition about Jesus. Professor Hanson contends that Johannine scholarship has suffered too much from the conviction that scholars must defend the substantially historical nature of the Fourth Gospel. The study ends with a consideration of John's christology and of how the Church today should regard the Fourth Gospel.
The New Testament Interpretation of Scripture is an important and challenging contribution to New Testament scholarship. As a contrast to form criticism, it presents a fresh, in-depth study of Scripture interpretation within the tradition of Judaism. Professor Hanson's analytical study of Paul's use of the Scriptures on the question of his meaning in 1 Corinthians 2:6-16 concludes that these verses constitute the strongest possible assurance that the advent of Christ had been predestined by God and that his death and resurrection were the means of self-revelation and redemption for those who chose to enter the fellowship of the Christian church. His examination of these verses further leads to the conclusion that assumptions of gnosticism as their inspiration are erroneous. And in the logion in John 1:51, he perceives that it is the church that is indicated as the place where God is to be encountered and worshiped. He surveys and elaborates on current studies on the scriptural sources for the doctrine of the "descent into Hades" to reveal that the doctrine was partly based on a messianic interpretation of the 16th, 68th, 88th, and 89th Psalms, as well as on a typological interpretation of the book of Jonah. The New Testament Interpretation of Scripture is a thoughtful, erudite work, persuasively and lucidly argued by one of Britain's most respected New Testament scholars.
This book has its starting point in the paradoxical descriptions Paul often gives of his own ministry. Why does he seem impelled to use paradox? And why do these depictions of his ministry seem so close to his language about the atoning work of Christ? In answering these questions Professor Hanson argues that Paul has largely transferred to the apostolic ministers the character of the citizens of the kingdom which he knew from his acquaintance with the teaching of Jesus. In an important extension to the main argument, Professor Hanson examines how the theme of the paradox of the cross fared at the hands of Paul's immediate successors up to the time of Ignatius of Antioch, and asks how far Paul's depiction of the apostolic ministry can throw light on questions of ministry today.
This book has been prompted by the dishonesty of much contemporary treatment of the Bible. It is not a 'debunking' of the Bible, but an attempt to show what qualities and what preliminary assumptions are needed for the Bible to be genuinely understood and interpreted. Honest scholarship and honest interpretations must acknowledge that a revolution has taken place in the understanding of the Bible during the last two hundred years and that to try to deny or play down or disguise the results of this revolution is to be faithful neither to God nor to ourselves. With that conviction, and with their customary panache, the authors then go on to look at the facts about the Bible; the New Testament interpretation of scripture; the interpretation of the Bible in the early church; historical criticism; fundamentalism; and prophecy. 'They analyse the books of the Bible, examine the canon and the Bible as norm and as the church's book, consider the role of faith and conclude with a chapter 'In Praise of the Bible'. Here, in the last book together, the Professors Hanson are indeed on top of their form.
A study of the Book of Revelation suggested to Dr. Hanson the idea of tracing the conception of the wrath of God through the Bible, from its primitive and personalized form in the earliest strands of the Old Testament to its final development in the New. Under the impression that "the wrath of God" in the New Testament must be interpreted as if it had the same meaning as in the Old, some theologians have been driven to formulate a distorted doctrine of the atonement and others to repudiate the idea of the wrath altogether. Dr. Hanson shows that this is a false dilemma, and that there is a true New Testament doctrine of the wrath, profoundly influenced by the revelation of the love of God in Jesus Christ and at certain points essentially related to the Cross. This doctrine he finds most fully expressed in the Book of Revelation.
The New Testament Interpretation of Scripture is an important and challenging contribution to New Testament scholarship. As a contrast to form criticism, it presents a fresh, in-depth study of Scripture interpretation within the tradition of Judaism. Professor Hanson's analytical study of Paul's use of the Scriptures on the question of his meaning in 1 Corinthians 2:6-16 concludes that these verses constitute the strongest possible assurance that the advent of Christ had been predestined by God and that his death and resurrection were the means of self-revelation and redemption for those who chose to enter the fellowship of the Christian church. His examination of these verses further leads to the conclusion that assumptions of gnosticism as their inspiration are erroneous. And in the logion in John 1:51, he perceives that it is the church that is indicated as the place where God is to be encountered and worshiped. He surveys and elaborates on current studies on the scriptural sources for the doctrine of the "descent into Hades" to reveal that the doctrine was partly based on a messianic interpretation of the 16th, 68th, 88th, and 89th Psalms, as well as on a typological interpretation of the book of Jonah. The New Testament Interpretation of Scripture is a thoughtful, erudite work, persuasively and lucidly argued by one of Britain's most respected New Testament scholars.
Anthony Tyrrell Hanson was Professor of Theology at the University of Hull, and former senior editor of the Journal for the Study of the New Testament.
Anthony Hanson here opens up fresh lines of interpretation for the Pauline epistles, and uses these as the approach to a fresh consideration of Paul as exegete and theologian. Focusing on passages, mainly in Romans and Galatians, where the argument is superficially strange, he explores biblical and rabbinic parallels and frequently uncovers an unexpected significance. Drawing out the implications of his detailed studies, Professor Hanson argues that the apostle's method of biblical interpretation can be justified in terms of modern theology and can put us on the road to a right understanding of the relation of the Old Testament to the New.
The subject of baptism continues to be of considerable interest--though it frequently appears within broader studies of sacraments, liturgy, worship, and ecumenical studies, and within confessional bounds: credobaptist or paedobaptist--yet it is rarely discussed by Evangelicals. This book, however, is neither an apologetic for credobaptism nor paedobaptism; rather Cross believes that, as practiced today, both forms are a departure from New Testament baptism, which, he maintains, was an integral part of becoming a Christian and part of the proclaimed gospel. He argues that the "one baptism" of Ephesians 4:5 is conversion-baptism and that the baptism referred to in the various New Testament strata refers to this "one baptism" (of Spirit and water). The study sets out the case for this interpretation and contends that in key passages "baptism" is an example of synecdoche. The case is then made for a sacramental interpretation of baptism from a thoroughgoing Evangelical perspective. Cross concludes with reflections on the necessity of baptismal reform and the relevance of a return to conversion-baptism for the contemporary church in a post-Christian, post-Christendom, mission setting.
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