Product Description

Donald Bloesch turns to the hotly disputed theological subject of the person and work of Jesus Christ. This volume includes discussion of humanity's plight, the Incarnation, the virgin birth, and the lordship and finality of Christ.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #911995 in Books
• Published on: 2006-01-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Customer Reviews

Not the best book on Christology...
Donald Bloesch is a fairly well respected theologian, and for good reasons. He is well read on a wide variety of theological literature, from Augustine, to Luther and Calvin, to Kierkegaard, Pannenberg, and Moltmann. Yet this book represents very little of his theological acumen. For the most part, unfortunately, where Bloesch gives historical overviews of Christology (e.g. "Two-Natures" doctrine; Atonement; Virgin Birth; Sin etc...) they are reduced to paragraph and sentence snippets that really only gives you a brief glimpse into the vast reality laying behind the text. Nor is brevity here really an asset so much as a frustration regarding the limited amount of information conveyed. Bloesch often cites such a wide variety of thinkers that he samples, at most, one to two sentence long soundbytes, and then simply moves on. In many instances, then, this boils down to giving a survey of a broad range of opinions on the topic at hand, rather than any type of analyses. As for Bloesch's analyses themselves, after he gets done with the historical and developemental sections, they are even more inexcusably brief, and, in somewhat mind-boggling fashion (given the surface level analyses that occurs elsewhere) seem like almost an afterthought that was appendixed onto the chapter. Wherever they are longer or more engaged, Bloesch seems simply to be repeating, with very little of his own nuance, standard opionions that have been floating around the Reformed camp for years (especially since Barth). Now, I am not necessarily critiquing the Reformed position, of which I am not a member, though I hold certain respect for their ideas. But, in my humble opinion, it boils down to this with books such as this one or that written by Wayne Grudem: If your not really going to add anything to the discussion, why waste your time writting a book at all? At least with Grudem's Systematic THeology, it is massive and nearly comprehensive in scope, so it is at least a handy reference guide, if it isn't really all that novel. Here, unfortunately, there is neither comprehensiveness nor novelty.

What is more grievous than this (for certainly, Bloesch was intending this book as an introduction, so at the very least we should cut him a little slack when academic analysis appears thin) is how in the world Bloesch wrote a book on Christology WITHOUT a chapter, or even an extensive analysis, on the Resurrection. This simply blows my mind. How a central tenet of Christian doctrine could escape an overview book of this nature, ESPECIALLY on Christology of all topics (!) escapes me completely. This is bad enough, but, when one also realizes that Bloesch spends 45+ pages on the Virgin Birth and the Mariological speculation of the Catholic Church, you may, as I certainly did, begin to question Bloesch's theological priorities.

Other problems I had were small, such as what seemed to be the occasional misinterpretation of sources. For example, Bloesch accuses Pannenberg of being an adoptionist in his early years, but doesn't cite a source. Now, admittely, being somewhat of a Pannenberg fanboy I was a little incensed that he was accused of something that clearly (at least to me) Pannenberg never held. This is especially true if Bloesch is referring to Pannenberg's early work on Christology in his JESUS:God and Man (which I highly recommend, by the way) in which Pannenberg explicitly and repeatedly denies adoptionism. In the end notes, Bloesch also states that Pannenberg beleives that death is not a part of the fall, but, like Karl Barth, thought it merely a natural consequence of our finitude. But in doing so, Bloesch has attributed to Pannenberg the exact opposite of what he holds. True, Pannenberg doesn't see death as part of the fall (as Pannenberg sees the fall as a myth, which I don't agree with...) but he certainly doesn't thereby attributed death merely to our finitude. In fact, in the second volume of his systematic theology, Pannenberg declares that if Barth is right, then how do we explain Resurrection life without abrogating its finitude?

Anyway, these last things are small details that most, Im sure, don't care about. Nonetheless I can't really recommend this book to someone looking for an overview of Christology. Some much better books include the aforementioned JESUS: God and Man by Pannenberg; both the Crucified God and The Way of Jesus Christ by Jurgan Moltmann; Yesterday and Today: Continuities in Christology by Colin Gunton; Between Cross and Resurrection by Allan Lewis, which isn't on Christology per say, but is a valuable read on the related topic of Holy Saturday, which Lewis points out has major ramifications for Christology (I highly recommend this book). As far as introductions and overviews to Christology, I would recommend Christology, by Veli-Matti Karkainnen, which is fairly brief, being about as long as Bloesch's book (around 250-300 pages) but is a far more valuable read, along with the book by Hans Schwarz, also titled Christology.

OK
This is the 4th of a projected 7 volume systematic theology. My main criticism is that Bloesch tries to do too much. The book is only 250 pages (without end notes) and he discusses both the person and work of Christ. Some of the discussion is too short. He really doesn't have the space to discuss many relevant Biblical citations. The book's chapter on the finality of Christ is excellent though. The reader might want to supplement this with Oden's The Word of Life or O'Collins' Christology.

OK
This is the 4th of a projected 7 volume systematic theology. My main criticism is that Bloesch tries to do too much. The books is only 250 pages (without end notes) and he discusses both the person and work of Christ. Some of the discussion is too short. He really doesn't have the space to discuss many relevant Biblical citations. The book's chapter on the finality of Christ is excellent though. The reader might want to supplement this with Oden's The Word of Life or O'Collins' Christology.