Michael Welker, God the Revealed: The "Best" Book on Christology? [Review part 1]

So when one of the key note speakers at BNTS, Roland Deines, tells the audience that the best book on Christology is by Michael Welker, and you are (trying) to write a PhD on NT Christology, you better believe I am going to get hold of that book and read it for myself. Here it is folks, freshly arrived from the library interloan.



The book is God the Revealed: Christology (2013), and is a translation of Gottes Offenbarung (2012), which is itself an expansion of his 2004 Gunning Lectures in Edinburgh.

I already like this book, because it is written in short chapters.  I must confess I find the average biblical studies or book chapter too long, and getting through one in one sitting a grind. So my plan is to read a chapter and blog it most working days. That will make a for a long review series but will (hopefully) give you a really good overview of the book.

Welker's (hereafter MW) introduction introduces us to the question of what it means to proclaim "God revealed himself in Jesus Christ!" This central Christian idea, found "from personal testimonies to ecumenical world councils" is yet somewhat "ambiguous" (p11) and raises 5 key problems.

1. The problem of the historical Jesus. MW seeks to set the agenda for a fourth quest for the historical Jesus that will "open up experiential, conceptual, and research spaces that permit us to approach more closely to his life and personality in the search for truth" (p12-13).

2. The problem of the nature of the Resurrection. MW argues both fundamentalists and aggressive critics have misunderstood the Resurrection as "physical revivification" instead "Christology must find new paths for mediating how the reality of the Resurrection is to be comprehended" (p13-14).

3. The problem of reconciling God's suffering (at the cross) with God's glory and victory (p14).

4. The insufficiency of dualist thought to describe the "polyphonic" reality of the Spirit, reign of God, and the risen and exalted Christ (p15).

5. The eschatological problem of the now and not yet, and the ways in which we understand eternal life to be "already anticipated here on earth" (p15).

So, it is a pretty ambitious project, MW certainly has his work cut out for him. But I'm hopeful that this will be a really compelling work of integrative theology. I do wonder, with the focus on the "historical Jesus", whether there will be enough focus on Jesus revealed in scripture. But we'll find out soon enough. I like the way he's posed the problems in a chronological sequence to get us from historical manifestation (God revealed) to present day experience and practice. And as I said, I like the short chapters. Most of them seem to be under 10 pages. Normally you expect about 40 + pages for a chapter so I am just happy as Larry. It almost doesn't matter whether I agree with anything he writes or not. I'm just going to lap up the luscious succinctness. . .

Let me know what you think. :-)