The Oxford Handbook of Christology.Edited by Francesca Aran Murphy. Assistant editor Troy A. Stefano.

Abstract

D ivided into seven sections, the Handbook opens with the scriptural witness to Jesus Christ, including that of the Hebrew Bible. The second section (Patristic Christology) explores the development of teaching on the person and saving work of Christ from the First Council of Nicaea in 325 until the eve of the Second Council of Nicaea in 787. Section 3 examines medieval theology, including not only chapters on Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, and atonement theologies but also an important chapter on ‘the Islamic Christ’ (by Gabriel Said Reynolds). A section on ‘Reformation and Christology’ takes the story from Luther to Bultmann. The fifth section tackles the new developments in thinking about Christ that have emerged in the modern and postmodern periods. A sixth section explains how belief in Jesus has affected music, poetry, and the arts. The seventh and final section reflects on ‘the grammar’, criteria, and enduring importance of Christology in such contributions as those by Simon Gathercole (‘The Christ of the Canonical Gospels and the Christs of the Apocryphal Gospels’) and Kenneth Oakes (‘Normative Protestant Christology’). The Handbook closes with a perceptive afterword by Francesca Murphy that draws together and evaluates the previous 39 chapters.