Judaism/Hellenism in Early Christology: Prepositional Metaphysics and Middle Platonic Intermediary Doctrine

Abstract

The last 30 years of NT studies has witnessed a rebirth of interest in the questions surrounding the complex relationship between early Christianity and ancient Greek philosophy. Over roughly the same period, we have also seen a major resurgence of interest in the historical and theological questions surrounding the origins and contours of NT Christology. Little explicit dialogue, however, has occurred between these two movements. As such, not only have too many NT scholars treated ancient Jewish monotheism and early Christology as though they were discrete and impermeable entities, they have simply failed to appreciate the significance of the use of ‘prepositional metaphysics’ in four of the most important christological texts in all of the NT (Jn 1.3, 10; 1 Cor. 8.6; Col. 1.15-20; and Heb. 1.2). As several philosophical studies have shown (esp. Sterling and Cox), this tradition ultimately derives from the technical metaphysical speculation of the Greek philosophical tradition, and, in particular, these four NT christological traditions reflect the christological appropriation of Middle Platonic intermediary doctrine. This fact, inter alia, militates against any over-simplistic historical narrative in which early Jewish Christology was much later polluted (and obfuscated) by the importation of Greek metaphysical categories.