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In Christianity, Christology[a] is a branch of theology that concerns Jesus. Different denominations have different opinions on questions such as whether Jesus was human, divine, or both, and as a messiah what his role would be in the freeing of the Jewish people from foreign rulers or in the prophesied Kingdom of God, and in the salvation from what would otherwise be the consequences of sin.[1][2][3][4][5]
The earliest Christian writings gave several titles to Jesus, such as Son of Man, Son of God, Messiah, and Kyrios, which were all derived from Hebrew scripture. These terms centered around two opposing themes, namely "Jesus as a preexistent figure who becomes human and then returns to God", versus adoptionism – that Jesus was human who was "adopted" by God at his baptism, crucifixion, or resurrection.[web 1]
While there was a consensus as of 2007 that the divinity of Christ was a later development,[6] there are scholars now who argue that the historical Jesus claimed to be God.[7][8] Most scholars now argue that a high Christology existed prior to Paul.[9] Brant Pitre's argument that Jesus claimed to be divine has been particularly well received, obtaining the endorsement of noted scholars Dale C. Allison Jr., Chris Tilling, Tucker Ferda, and Christine Jacobi. [10]
From the second to the fifth centuries, the relation of the human and divine nature of Christ was a major focus of debates in the early church and at the first seven ecumenical councils. The Council of Chalcedon in 451 issued a formulation of the hypostatic union of the two natures of Christ, one human and one divine, "united with neither confusion nor division".[11] Most of the major branches of Western Christianity and Eastern Orthodoxy subscribe to this formulation,[11][12] while many branches of Oriental Orthodox Churches reject it,[13][14][15] subscribing to miaphysitism.
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- ^ Ehrman 2014, p. 171.
- ^ O'Collins 2009, pp. 1–3.
- ^ Ramm 1993, p. 15.
- ^ Bird, Evans & Gathercole 2014, p. 134, n. 5.
- ^ Ehrman 2014, p. ch. 6–9.
- ^ Gerd Lüdemann, "An Embarrassing Misrepresentation" Archived 24 March 2019 at the Wayback Machine, Free Inquiry, October / November 2007: "the broad consensus of modern New Testament scholars that the proclamation of Jesus's exalted nature was in large measure the creation of the earliest Christian communities."
- ^ Andrew Ter Ern Loke, The Origin of Divine Christology (Cambridge University Press, 2017), pp. 100–135
- ^ Loke, Andrew (18 February 2019). "Is Jesus God? A Historical Evaluation Concerning the Deity of Christ". Ethos Institute. Archived from the original on 8 September 2022. Retrieved 8 September 2022.
- ^ Ehrman 2014, p. 125.
- ^ Pitre, Brant (2024). Jesus and Divine Christology. Eerdmans. ISBN 9780802875129.
- ^ a b Davis 1990, p. 342.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
Olson1999was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Armentrout & Boak Slocum 2005, p. 81.
- ^ Espín & Nickoloff 2007, p. 217.
- ^ Beversluis 2000, pp. 21–22.
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