The Symbolic Jesus

It is widely accepted that Jesus was a Jew. However, both Christian and New Testament scholarship have a strong anti-Jewish history. 'The Symbolic Jesus' presents the controversies surrounding the Jewishness of Jesus. It examines the insistence among historical Jesus scholars that Jesus was a Jew and the ways this frames the figure of Jesus in ancient Christian literature. The book examines the anti-Jewish legacy of the past and more recent approaches to biblical scholarship. Contemporary identity issues - scholarly, political, religious and cultural - are shown to lie at the heart of the debate.

Symbols of Jesus is a systematic theology focusing on what makes Jesus important in Christianity.

Already hailed as a landmark in contemporary Catholic theology, Jesus Symbol of God surveys scriptural data, the key moments in the development of doctrine, and the distinctive horizons of our contemporary world to develop a comprehensive and systematic christology for our time. The task of christology is to explain what it means to say that Jesus is the bearer and revealer of God in the Christian community, the decisive mediation of God's salvation -- or, in other words, the symbol of God.

The early Christian Gnosis did not spring up in isolation, but drew upon earlier sources. In this book, many of these sources are revealed for the first time. Special emphasis is placed on the Hellenistic doctrine of the "Solar Logos" and the early Christian symbolism which depicted Christ as the Spiritual Sun, the illumination source of order, harmony, and spiritual insight. Based on 15 years of research, this is a unique book which throws a penetrating light on the secret traditions of early Christianity. It clearly demonstrates that number is at the heart of being. Jesus Christ, Sun of God, illustrates how the Christian symbolism of the Spiritual Sun is derived from numerical symbolism of the "ancient divinities."

The book examines six long narratives of the Fourth Gospel, arguing that they are best understood as 'symbolic narrative'. They display a unique cohesion of symbol and narrative: the narrative unfolds the symbol and the symbol draws out the narrative. This process occurs as the character struggles to understand the symbolic meaning. The structure develops in five Stages: the establishing of a 'sign', image or feast (Stage 1); misunderstood in materialistic terms (Stage 2); the struggle to understand the symbolic meaning (Stage 3); the acceptance or rejection of that meaning (Stage 4); a confession of faith or statement of rejection (Stage 5). The symbolic narratives reveal how material reality becomes symbolic of the divine. Just as the flesh of Jesus is the symbol of divine glory, so material reality now has the potential for symbolizing God. Flesh has no independent existence; its value lies in its symbolic role. This parallels the cohesion between form and meaning. Just as the flesh is given value in symbolizing the divine, so narrative form is of value in disclosing theological meaning. The implied reader is drawn into the drama of the symbolic narratives to make the authentic response of faith.

What kind of book is the Bible? Is it a rulebook or a guidebook for moral living? Is it a history book or a book filled with fascinating (and sometimes fantastic) stories? Did humans write the Bible or did God somehow speak a perfect message that the authors transcribed? Many people have asked these questions about the nature of this beautiful, odd, comforting, disturbing book the church calls its “Holy Scripture.” Charlotte Vaughan Coyle shares her own journey to make sense of the Bible in this read-through-the-Bible-in-a-year project. She discovered that the crucial work of asking hard questions and even arguing with the Bible revealed the Scriptures to be a symphony of polyphonic voices, a work of art that paints an alternative vision of reality, a complex novel-like story unavoidably embedded in its own culture and time, and yet able to give witness to the God beyond history who has acted (and continues to act) within history. With the heart of a pastor and the passion of a preacher, Rev. Coyle invites seekers and students (both churched and un-churched) to strap on their scuba gear and join her for a deeper dive beneath the surface of this immense, colorful, mysterious world of the Bible.

First published in 1994, and revised in 2005, this classic edition includes updated suggestions for further reading at the end of the book.

Already hailed as a landmark in contemporary Catholic theology, Jesus Symbol of God surveys scriptural data, the key moments in the development of doctrine, and the distinctive horizons of our contemporary world to develop a comprehensive and systematic christology for our time. The task of christology is to explain what it means to say that Jesus is the bearer and revealer of God in the Christian community, the decisive mediation of God's salvation -- or, in other words, the symbol of God.