Chaos And The Son Of Man

Andrew Angel briefly reviews the work of Old Testament scholars on the mythological motif of God's battle with the dragon and the chaos waters. He also reviews works that touch on the existence of the motif in the period 515 BCE to 200 CE, noting the need for thorough survey of the motif in Hebrew literature of this period. There follows a study of forty-two Jewish and Christian texts (in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek and Latin), which establishes the fact that this mythological motif was well known in this period. Angel makes suggestions as to how this might offer fresh insights into the meaning of apocalyptic visions and texts that appear to refer to a 'son of man' figure in this period.

In Pre-Nicene Christology in Paschal Contexts Dragoş A. Giulea re-examines the earliest texts related to the festival of Easter in light of Second Temple traditions. Commonly portrayed as sacrificial lamb, the key actor of the paschal narrative is here designated as heavenly Kabod, Divine Image, King of the Powers, celestial Anthropos, Demiurge, Son of Man, each of these divine names implying a corresponding soteriological function. Dragoş A. Giulea indicates as well that the Greek philosophical vocabulary and certain idioms of the mystery religions inspired new categories which reshaped the traditional way of describing the nature of celestial entities and the epistemological capacities able to access these realities. Thus, the King of the Powers, or the Son of Man, is several times described as a noetic Anthropos, while initiation and noetic perception become the appropriate methods of accessing the divine.

Geoffrey W. Bromiley has abridged this monumental theological dictionary into a convenient, one-volume edition that is accessible to all readers.

The New Testament and the Future of the Cosmos is an exploration into the cosmic eschatology of the New Testament. It invites the reader to grapple with two interrelated questions along with the author: (1) What did the writers of the New Testament teach about the fate of the cosmos, and (2) can we synthesize their teachings into a coherent New Testament theology? By offering a close reading of key texts that inform the topic (most notably Matt 24:29–31; Mark 13:24–27; Luke 21:25–28; Rom 8:19–22; Heb 12:25–29; 2 Pet 3:4–13; and Rev 21:1–5), it is argued that one can, with certain qualifications, ascertain a clear and coherent New Testament message pertaining to the future of the cosmos. Along the way, new exegetical ground is broken in several passages by identifying a previously unnoticed theme that runs throughout the New Testament concerning the future of the cosmos: God’s judgment of the heavenly powers of evil as a key component to the cosmic transition. At present, these hostile powers hold the cosmos captive to death, but on the Day of the Lord they will be overthrown, setting the stage for a materially transformed world to emerge from the hand of God.

In Christian Origins and Hellenistic Judaism, Stanley E. Porter and Andrew W. Pitts assemble an international team of scholars whose work has focused on reconstructing the social matrix for earliest Christianity through reference to Hellenistic Judaism and its literary forms. Each essay moves forward the current understanding of how primitive Christianity situated itself in relation to evolving Greco-Roman Jewish culture. Some essays focus on configuring the social context for the origins of the Jesus movement and beyond, while others assess the literary relation between early Christian and Hellenistic Jewish texts.

What was Luke's attitude to the Jerusalem temple? Steve Smith examines the key texts which concern the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in Luke-Acts. Smith proposes that Acts 7 is a fuller discussion of the material contained in the Gospel sayings on this subject, which themselves make frequent allusion to the Old Testament and the interpretation of which thus requires an understanding of Luke's use of the Old Testament. Accordingly, in this work, Steve Smith makes a thorough review of Luke's use of the Old Testament, and proposes that relevance theory is a capable hermeneutical tool to permit the reconstruction of how Luke's readers would have understood references to the Old Testament. Using this approach, the key texts from Luke-Acts are examined sequentially, and Luke's apparent criticism of the temple is examined in a new light.

The problem with too much Christianity today is that we replace the person of Jesus with a doctrine of grace. Living in denial of Jesus’ teaching on judgment and holiness, too many Christians take refuge from the sayings of Jesus in doctrines of forgiveness that they hope will bolster up their sense of self-worth before God. Andy Angel tackles this dysfunctional spirituality head-on, opening up the journey of learning and love into which the living Lord Jesus invites us all. Unpacking the Gospel of Matthew, he encourages us to rediscover the teaching ministry of Jesus in our own lives, and in doing so, to recover the riches and freshness of the gospel message and to rediscover the depths of love Jesus has for each one of us.