Jesus according to the New Testament

by James D. G. Dunn

Publisher:

Eerdmans

, 2019

Overview

New Testament scholar James D. G. Dunn has written numerous commentaries, books, and essays sharing his thought with the world. In this small, straightforward book designed for a lay audience, Dunn focuses his fifty-plus years of scholarship on the central question posed by the New Testament—who is Jesus?

Dunn surveys the New Testament books from Matthew to Revelation, exploring and unpacking what they actually say about Jesus. Dunn’s Jesus according to the New Testament points to the wonder of those first witnesses and enriches our understanding of who Jesus is to us today.

Key Features

• Provides a scholarly and enriching account of Jesus from the New Testament text
• Brings together decades of thought and research about the New Testament and the person of Jesus
• Includes a forward written by Rowan Williams

Contents

• Jesus according to Jesus
• Jesus according to Mark, Matthew, and Luke
• Jesus according to John
• Jesus according to Acts
• Jesus according to Paul: Part 1
• Jesus according to Paul: Part 2
• Jesus according to Hebrews
• Jesus according to James, Peter, John, and Jude
• Jesus according to Revelation
• Appendix 1: The Probable Date and Place of Origin for Documents of the New Testament
• Appendix 2: The Life and Mission of Paul

Top Highlights

“With James in the New Testament, however, Christians can never forget that they belong to an ancient tradition of Jewish wisdom, and that love of neighbor is as fundamental to the Christian life as any theologizing about Jesus and the creation of humankind.” (Page 162)

“Not least amazing is the fact that we can discern Jesus’s own understanding of his role, and can do so quite clearly behind what the first Christians subsequently thought of him. Of course, the Gospels portray Jesus as he was seen in the light of all that happened in the climax of his ministry and thereafter. But we have already seen how much of what the first believers said regarding Jesus’s mission can be realistically explained only in terms of the impact Jesus made on his disciples during his mission. And so it is when we ask what we can know with confidence about Jesus’s own self-awareness. The evidence can be listed quite concisely.” (Page 18)

“Jesus was remembered as a storyteller in a way that is not true of any other figure in the New Testament and that is rare among his Jewish contemporaries.” (Page x)

“What must have been going on in the life, and indeed in the mind, of Jesus for any of the New Testament texts to have been possible?” (Page ix)

“the teaching of Jesus has been absorbed and become in effect an integral part of the Christian paraenesis” (Page 162)

Product Details

• Title: Jesus according to the New Testament
• Author: James D. G. Dunn
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Publication Date: 2019
• Pages: 232
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Topic: Jesus Studies

About James D. G. Dunn

James D. G. Dunn (1939–) is emeritus Lightfoot Professor of Divinity at the University of Durham and is a leading British New Testament scholar. Dunn is a significant proponent of the New Perspective on Paul, and coined the term in a 1982 lecture. He received a PhD and DD from the University of Cambridge, and a MA and BD from the University of Glasgow. In 2002 he became only the third British scholar to be made the president of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas.

His recent works include Did the First Christians Worship Jesus? The New Testament Evidence, A New Perspective on Jesus: What the Quest for the Historical Jesus Missed, the volumes Romans 1–8 and Romans 9–16 of the Word Biblical Commentary, and The Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon in The New International Greek Testament Commentary (12 vols.).