Wisdom Christology in the Gospel of John
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Wisdom Christology in the Gospel of John

Dustin R. Smith

Wisdom Christology in the Gospel of John

Copyright © 2024 Dustin R. Smith. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

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paperback isbn: 979-8-3852-1139-5

hardcover isbn: 979-8-3852-1140-1

ebook isbn: 979-8-3852-1141-8

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America; and the New American Standard Bible, copyright © 1995 the Lockman Foundation. Used with permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Abbreviations

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: Wisdom’s Pilgrimage

Chapter 3: Wisdom in the Prologue

Chapter 4: Wisdom and God in the Narrative of John

Chapter 5: Wisdom and the Mission of Jesus

Chapter 6: Wisdom and Christology

Chapter 7: Wisdom and Her Opponents

Chapter 8: Wisdom and Her Disciples

Chapter 9: Reflections and Conclusions

Bibliography

To Bethany, Jacob, Nathan, and Talon.

Wisdom is vindicated by all her children.”

Somewhat surprisingly, the thought of Jesus as the Word of God incarnate is not taken up or followed through in the rest of John’s Gospel—suggesting to some that the prologue (John 1:118) was a later addition to the Gospel, perhaps in the second or third draft of the Gospel as composed by John or by the group around him. However, in Jewish thought there was a more familiar way of speaking of God’s interaction with his creation and his people. This was the figure of divine Wisdom, familiar at the time of Jesus particularly in the wisdom literature of Israel’s Scriptures.

—James D. G. Dunn

Abbreviations

Journals and Reference Works

AB Anchor Bible

ABD Anchor Bible Dictionary, edited by David Noel Freedman, 6 vols. (New York: Doubleday, 1992)

ABRAustralian Biblical Review

ABRL Anchor Bible Reference Library

ANTC Abingdon New Testament Commentary

AOTC Abingdon Old Testament Commentary

ATJAshland Theological Journal

ATRAnglican Theological Review

BBRBulletin for Biblical Research

BDAG Walter Bauer, Frederick W. Danker, W. F. Arndt, and F. W. Gingrich. Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000)

BECNT Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament

BET Beiträge zur biblischen Exegese und Theologie

BETSBulletin of the Evangelical Theological Society

BHGNT Baylor Handbook on the Greek New Testament

BIS Biblical Interpretation Series

BJS Brown Judaic Studies

BLS Bible and Literature Series

BNTC Black’s New Testament Commentary

BZAW Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche ...

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WCGJ

About Wisdom Christology in the Gospel of John

This volume contends that the Gospel of John presents the most thorough and robust Wisdom Christology of all the New Testament books. Wisdom Christology—the christological concept that applies the roles, characteristics, and functions of God’s personified wisdom to the man Jesus Christ—is displayed to be skillfully interwoven throughout all twenty-one chapters of the Fourth Gospel, starting with the famous prologue. In response to the prevailing tendency among interpreters to project postbiblical understandings of Jesus from the fourth- and fifth-century church councils back into the Gospel of John, this volume shows that a more fitting context emerges from Jewish Wisdom literature. By situating the Johannine Jesus in his first-century Jewish context, readers can appreciate John’s commitment to monotheism and Jesus’ role as the Father’s highly empowered human agent, fully embodying Lady Wisdom.

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Table of Contents