Jesus and the God of Israel

I just finished Bauckham’s newest last night. Coming from my tradition, this is a hard book to swallow. However, I must give his central thesis a good look. It uses the appropriate hermanuetical method – basing the method of “How to define who god is” on Second Temple Judaism. In the face of paganism and idolatry, the writers of the time period used certain literary techniques, and exegetical motifs to show the world that YHWH was, is, and will be the one true God. Bauckham’s thesis when applied to the writings of the New Testament shows that Jesus is “brought into the identity of God”.

There is much in the book that I don’t find entirely convincing, and there is a serious point of contention between being a part of the ‘identity of God’ intrinsically and/or extrinsically (I tend to think he starts to flip flop without any argumentation concerning Jesus). But, again, his main point, in my view stands up. And this is a serious argument that I need to take into consideration. So serious that I’m writing a paper on this book (along with Hurtado’s “How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God?”) for the Dallas conference. I’m sure it will be hard for them to swallow.

I hope that the paper will not put people off, but rather allow dialogue to take place. It is a serious argument that cannot be hand-waved away.