Chris Tilling – Talking New Testament Christology

Episode: Matt & Matt finally co-host an episode! In this one we discuss the thriving field of New Testament Christology. Guest Chris Tilling joins us to help map the field of play, offering insights on Paul’s early divine Christology, Jesus’ divinity in the Gospels, and Richard Bauckham’s “Christology of Divine Identity” model. He also tells us what ideas (or scholars?) in NT studies need to die.

Guest: Dr Chris Tilling is Tutor and Senior Lecturer in New Testament Studies at St Mellitus College. He is also a visiting Lecturer in Theology at King’s College, London. Chris recently co-authored How God Became Jesus (Zondervan, 2014). He is also the editor of Beyond Old and New Perspectives on Paul (Cascade, 2014) and author of the critically acclaimed Paul’s Divine Christology. Chris has also published numerous articles on topics relating to the Apostle Paul, “Christology”, “justification”, the “historical Jesus” and the theology of Hans Küng. He is the New Testament editor for the exciting journal Syndicate, and he has appeared as a DVD media figure for Biologos, GCI and HTB’s School of Theology. He maintains his own personal blogging fiefdom, Chrisendom, which is popular and always worth a visit. He is married to Anja with one child, and he enjoys playing golf and chess.

Book: This episode ranges farther afield than one book, but nonetheless, we frequently found ourselves steering back in the direction of Chris Tilling’s book, Paul’s Divine Christology. (We couldn’t help ourselves–to be honest, it’s a great read). Originally published by Mohr Siebeck in 2012, Paul’s Divine Christology has recently been republished by Eerdmans (2015) with a foreword by Douglas Campbell. The book offers a new way of conceptualizing Paul’s divine Christology, one that takes seriously Paul’s own relational categories and ways of understanding the identity of Jesus.