In anticipation of the publication of Old Testament Conceptual Metaphors and the Christology of Luke’s Gospel, one of the latest upcoming volumes in the Library of New Testament Studies, Professor Gregory R. Lanier explains the backstory of this volume.
How would you describe your book in one sentence?
This book contributes to the fields of early NT Christology as well as OT-in-the-NT by examining the transformation of messianic and divine metaphors in Luke’s Gospel.
What drew to you writing about this subject?
Early Christology has interested me for a while, and it continues to be an active area of research. I have been influenced both by the “high Christology” cadre (Bauckham, Hengel, Hurtado, Hays, Gathercole, and others) as well as the “low(er) Christology” cadre (Dunn and a host of others). Examining how the NT authors arrived at their conclusions about the person and work of Jesus, especially in their interaction with Israel’s Scriptures, is fascinating and fruitful both for the academy and the religious community. In particular, the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) present unique challenges in terms of the tug-of-war over early Christology.
How long have you been researching it? How did you come to study it?
The core of the project took three years, though some of the research (particularly on the “stone” passages and the Parable of the Tenants) goes back further. The book is a lightly edited version of my Cambridge Ph.D. thesis.
What does your book focus on that hasn’t been explored elsewhere?
The book takes a particular approach to Luke (and early Christology) that involves the study of “conceptual metaphors,” that is, root or foundational ways of thinking about abstract things using concrete experiences. For instance, “God is a strong tower” is not merely a poetic turn-of-phrase, but a foundational way in which an Israelite (or a Jew or Christian today) actually conceptualizes and interacts with God (e.g., as someone who protects you from harm, etc.). Scripture—and everyday life—is full of such metaphors. Within the field of Hebrew Bible, there has been a lot of activity involving conceptual metaphor theory in the past decade or so, but it is only beginning to make headway in NT studies. This book contributes to that endeavor by developing a clear method of examining a collection of conceptual metaphors used for (a) an eschatological deliverer (e.g., the “star” of Num 24:17) and (b) God himself, and then demonstrating how, in this case, they are being appropriated/transformed/re-mapped in Luke’s gospel in conceptualizing Jesus. In particular, I study four such OT/Jewish metaphors (Luke 1:68–69; 1:78–79; 13:34; 20:17–18), offering a different way to examine these texts which have often proved difficult to pin down.
In short, I ask the question: “If the conceptual metaphors behind these texts are firmly rooted in Jewish soil (and, in fact, reflect broader ways of conceptualizing the deity in the ancient world), what does it imply about Luke’s Christology if they are being transformed and applied to Jesus?"
What do you hope readers and scholars will gain from reading this book?
My hope is that the book will benefit readers and scholars in three ways:
(a) providing new insights into these particular texts in Luke;
(b) contributing to the toolkit of biblical intertextuality (or OT-in-the-NT), particularly where normal criteria for tracing allusions/echoes/citations start to break down (that is to say, what sort of methodological controls are there for studying a NT passage that is clearly drawing on the OT but not a specific passage?);
(c) developing a more robust way to navigate the “low” vs. “high” Christology dichotomy by showing how, at least for Luke, “both” perspectives sit side-by-side
Old Testament Conceptual Metaphors and the Christology of Luke’s Gospel is available for pre-order now, and is due for release on 26th July 2018.
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