The Divine Sonship Of Christians In The Johannine Writings

Taking as the determinative concept Jesus' favourite name for God, Father, John interprets the ideal relationship of men to God as that of spiritual children, having the Life - eternal - from the Father. According to Jn this life of sonship to God, having a definite beginning other than the physical birth, and being manifested in very definite moral and spiritual qualities, defines the very being of a Christian. It is in the measure that one understands clearly, experiences personally and expounds persuasively this truth of Christian Sonship, that one lays hold upon the very heart of Christian faith and life. Hence this investigation of ours to find the formulas, the content and the meaning of the Johannine doctrine of the divine sonship of Christians. When we start investigating the Johannine doctrine of the divine sonship of Christians, we are confonted with certain questions regarding its nature and origin: Is the Johannine concept of sonship something purely juridical or moral, or does it suppose an ontological reality? If it supposes such a reality, in what does is consist? How do men obtain this reality so as to become children of God?

Johannine Writings and Apocalyptic provides a wide-ranging and thorough annotated bibliography for John's Gospel, the Johannine letters, Revelation, and apocalyptic writings pertinent to these books. More inclusive than many other bibliographies, this volume provides reference to over 1300 individual entries, often including references to multiple works with a given description. Annotations are designed to provide guidance to a wide range of readers, from students wishing to gain entry to the subject to graduate students engaging in research to professors needing ready access to useful materials. The volume is topically organized and indexed for easy access.

Examines the social and political meaning of divine sonship in the Roman Empire and offers new interpretations of the Christian theological metaphors of "begotten" and "adoptive" sonship.

In antiquity, “son of god”—meaning a ruler designated by the gods to carry out their will—was a title used by the Roman emperor Augustus and his successors as a way to reinforce their divinely appointed status. But this title was also used by early Christians to speak about Jesus, borrowing the idiom from Israelite and early Jewish discourses on monarchy. This interdisciplinary volume explores what it means to be God’s son(s) in ancient Jewish and early Christian literature. Through close readings of relevant texts from multiple ancient corpora, including the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Greco-Roman texts and inscriptions, early Christian and Islamic texts, and apocalyptic literature, the chapters in this volume engage a range of issues including messianism, deification, eschatological figures, Jesus, interreligious polemics, and the Roman and Jewish backgrounds of early Christianity and the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The essays in this collection demonstrate that divine sonship is an ideal prism through which to better understand the deep interrelationship of ancient religions and their politics of kingship and divinity. In addition to the editors, the contributors to this volume include Richard Bauckham, Max Botner, George J. Brooke, Jan Joosten, Menahem Kister, Reinhard Kratz, Mateusz Kusio, Michael A. Lyons, Matthew V. Novenson, Michael Peppard, Sarah Whittle, and N. T. Wright.

Professor Pollard attempts to show how the early Church interpreted the Gospel of John and its witness to the person of Christ. The two paradoxes implicit in John's theology - the distinction between the Father and the Son in the unity of the Godhead, and the divinity and humanity of Jesus Christ - were developed in varying ways and the resultant heresies arose from attempts to deny one element or the other in each paradox. In their refutation of the heresies, on the other hand, the Fathers struggled to keep both elements of the paradoxes in equipoise. The different traditions came into conflict in the controversy which raged around the figure of Arius and his supporters in the fourth century, of which the climax came in the debate about the views of Marcellus of Ancyra.

The highly popular Sheffield New Testament Guides are being reissued in a new format, grouped together and prefaced by one of the best known of contemporary Johannine scholars. This new format is designed to ensure that these authoritative introductions remain up to date and accessible to seminary and university students of the New Testament while offering a broader theological and literary context for their study. Alan Culpepper introduces the Johannine Writings as a whole, illuminating their distinctive historical and theological features and their importance within the New Testament canon.

Winner of the 2013 Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise Michael Peppard examines the social and political meaning of divine sonship in the Roman Empire. He begins by analyzing the conceptual framework within which the term ''son of God'' has traditionally been considered in biblical scholarship. Then, through engagement with recent scholarship in Roman history - including studies of family relationships, imperial ideology, and emperor worship - he offers new ways of interpreting the Christian theological metaphors of ''begotten''and ''adoptive'' sonship. Peppard focuses on social practices and political ideology, revealing that scholarship on divine sonship has been especially hampered by mistaken assumptions about adopted sons. He invites fresh readings of several early Christian texts, from the first Gospel to writings of the fourth century. By re-interpreting several ancient phenomena - particularly divine status, adoption, and baptism - he offers an imaginative refiguring of the Son of God in the Roman world.

The St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology and Dr. Scott Hahn present the ninth annual edition of Letter & Spirit with the theme "Christ and the unity of Scripture". The seven highly-readable articles explore, from the Gospels of Matthew and John, to the letters of St. Paul, how the seemingly disparate themes and images are unified - and therefore properly understood - in Christ. The articles, while academic in nature, are easily accessible to the average reader and can be read with great profit, both spiritually and in coming to learn the truths of the Catholic faith more deeply.