New Testament
CHRISTOLOGICAL HYMNS
Exploring Texts, Contexts, and Significance
MATTHEW E. GORDLEY
An imprint of InterVarsity Press
Downers Grove, Illinois
InterVarsity Press
P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515‑1426
©2018 by Matthew E. Gordley
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from InterVarsity Press.
InterVarsity Press® is the book-publishing division of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA®, a movement of students and faculty active on campus at hundreds of universities, colleges, and schools of nursing in the United States of America, and a member movement of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. For information about local and regional activities, visit intervarsity.org.
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are the author’s translation.
Cover design: David Fassett
Images: gold surface: © FrankvandenBergh / E+ / Getty Images
yellowed paper background: © ke77kz / iStock / Getty Images Plus
Christ in heaven: Illustration of Christ in Heaven in “Address in verse to Robert of Anjou” / British Library, London, UK / © British Library Board. All Rights Reserved / Bridgeman Images
ISBN 978‑0‑8308‑8002‑7 (digital)
ISBN 978‑0‑8308‑5209‑3 (print)
For Jack, Aidan, and Noah
CONTENTS
THE PLACE OF HYMNS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT AND IN SCHOLARSHIP
THE CULTURAL MATRICES OF EARLY CHRISTIAN WORSHIP
THE PROLOGUE OF THE GOSPEL OF JOHN
My fascination with understanding early Christian praise of Jesus in light of its broader cultural context began in Ross Wagner’s 2001 doctoral seminar, Earliest Christianity in Its Greco-Roman Setting, at Princeton Theological Seminary. It was in this class that I first read ancient hymns written in honor of the Egyptian goddess Isis and was struck by the surprising familiarity of the language. Though there was no borrowing of specific phrases or exact expressions, the Isis aretalogies showed a way of praising a divine savior that seemed to breathe a similar air to the praise passages in the New Testament oriented around Jesus as Savior. What was the nature of the relationship between these very different kinds of texts from antiquity? I explored these ideas further in my doctoral studies at the University of Notre Dame and, under the guidance of David Aune, wrote my dissertation on Colossians 1:15–20 in its Jewish and Greco-Roman hymnic and epistolary contexts. That volume was subsequently published in 2007 as The Colossian Hymn in Context: An Exegesis in Light of Ancient Jewish and Greco-Roman Hymnic and Epistolary Conventions. From there it was a natural step to expand my explorations of the use and functions of hymnody in antiquity, the results of which are reflected in my 2011 Teaching Through Song in Antiquity: ...
|
About New Testament Christological Hymns: Exploring Texts, Contexts, and SignificanceWe know that the earliest Christians sang hymns. Paul encourages believers to sing “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.” And at the dawn of the second century the Roman official Pliny names a feature of Christian worship as “singing alternately a hymn to Christ as to God.” But are some of these early Christian hymns preserved for us in the New Testament? Are they right before our eyes? New Testament scholars have long debated whether early Christian hymns appear in the New Testament. And where some see preformed hymns and liturgical elements embossed on the page, others see patches of rhetorically elevated prose from the author’s hand. Matthew Gordley now reopens this fascinating question. He begins with a new look at hymns in the Greco-Roman and Jewish world of the early church. Might the didactic hymns of those cultural currents set a new starting point for talking about hymnic texts in the New Testament? If so, how should we detect these hymns? How might they function in the New Testament? And what might they tell us about early Christian worship? An outstanding feature of texts such as Philippians 2:6–11, Colossians 1:15–20, and John 1:1–17 is their christological character. And if these are indeed hymns, we encounter the reality that within the crucible of worship the deepest and most searching texts of the New Testament arose. New Testament Christological Hymns reopens an important line of investigation that will serve a new generation of students of the New Testament. |
| Support Info | nwtstmntchhymns |