Ruben A. Bühner - Böcker

The depiction of Christ as divine is often assumed to be the categorical difference between early Jewish messianism and New Testament Christology. Despite the prolific accomplishments of recent scholarship on Second Temple messianism and on the origin and development of "high" Christology, research has largely treated these as two separate lines of inquiry. As an unintended result, earliest Christianity appears not as an organic outgrowth of ancient Judaism, but as something of an anomaly. Ruben A. Bühner calls this line of thinking into question in Messianic High Christology.Through a curated set of exegetical comparisons, each between a christological text and one or two messianic texts, Bühner reveals to what extent Second Temple messianism is indeed the primary context for the high Christologies of the New Testament: most New Testament concepts of Christ's divinity are to be understood precisely as part of contemporary discourse within early Jewish messianism. While early understandings of Christ are not simply identical with some other Jewish messianic expectations, they should be understood as deliberate developments in acceptance of and in dialogue with the wider Jewish discourse produced by some Jewish subgroups. As Bühner argues, it was not until the second and subsequent centuries that Jews as well as non-Jewish followers of Christ began to consider the divinity of the messiah as the decisive criterion by which to distinguish between what later would develop into two separate religions.With Messianic High Christology, Bühner brings the New Testament Christologies closer to their first-century Jewish context. In doing so, he augments our understanding of the correlation between early devotion to Christ and early Jewish thought and practice more broadly, and challenges current historical reconstructions.

The assertion that Paul remained a Jew throughout his life requires little further justification. However, questions remain, including, How can his relationship with Judaism be positively articulated? and How was that relationship influenced by Paul's belief in Jesus as the Messiah? A particular difficulty arises here: reconciling the sometimes contradictory statements in Paul's epistles concerning his connection to the Jewish people and their beliefs and behavior. A lively discussion surrounding the Jewishness of Paul in the last fifteen years has yielded the "radical new perspective on Paul," or "Paul Within Judaism" perspective. Dismissing older conceptions that contrast the Christ-believing Paul with a monolithic and negatively characterized ancient Judaism, new approaches focus on the extent to which we should depict Paul as "within Judaism" or still torah observant.With Negotiating Jewishness, Ruben Bühner addresses these issues and offers a different, more balanced approach by considering three key aspects: ancient ethnicity, neglected sources, and scholarly debates. Drawing from studies in cultural science and ethnology, Bühner shows that ancient Jewish identity can be characterized as "mesomorphic" as it integrated diverse—even divergent—parameters in ethnic construction. With a focus on passages from the Pauline Epistles crucial for understanding Paul's Jewishness, alongside a thorough excavation of the realities of Jewish life in the Greco-Roman diaspora, the book aims to bridge the gap between English-speaking and continental European scholarship, with a particular emphasis on underrepresented German perspectives.Paul navigated his Jewish identity within the myriad cultural landscapes of the first-century Mediterranean world and in constant dialogue with his missional calling and interactions with other Jews. Traces of this process emerge from his writings amidst their diverse historical, social, and rhetorical contexts. Negotiating Jewishness probes these scattered glimpses into Paul's self-understanding to demonstrate that Paul's relationship to Judaism can be best understood as a reflection of ancient Jewish ethnic negotiation. Bühner contributes to the scholarly conversation with a new definition of what it means to read Paul (or any New Testament text) "within Judaism."

Entgegen verbreiteter Vorurteile können messianische Erwartungen zu frühjüdischer Zeit auf sehr unterschiedliche Weise auch übermenschliche Aspekte integrieren. Ruben A. Bühner unterzieht erstmals alle relevanten messianischen Texte der Hebräischen Bibel, der Septuaginta, aus Qumran und den alttestamentlichen Pseudepigraphen einer historisch-philologischen Analyse und diskutiert sie mit Fokus auf traditions- und rezeptionsgeschichtliche Perspektiven. Dabei entsteht ein eindrückliches Tableau an messianischen Gestalten, die Züge aufweisen, welche über das Bild eines bloßen Menschen hinausgehen und z.B. himmlische Zugehörigkeit, vor- oder überzeitliches Sein oder engelhafte Charakteristika umfassen.Damit erweitert der Autor unser Bild von der Pluriformität des Frühjudentums und bietet zugleich die Grundlage für wesentliche Neuzugänge in der Erforschung von Ursprung und Entwicklung neutestamentlicher Christologien.Diese Arbeit wurde mit dem Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise 2021 ausgezeichnet.

Dieser Band vereint 30 Studien von Jörg Frey zum Johannesevangelium aus den Jahren 2009-2021, die mit einer neuen Einleitung versehen sind. Die Arbeiten widmen sich programmatischen Themen wie der Logik der johanneischen Theologie und dem Charakter des Evangeliums als einer narrativen Erinnerung an Jesus. Im Fokus sind weiter Themen der Christologie wie die vielfältigen Resonanzen des Logosbegriffs, die Inkarnation und das Problem des Doketismus. Exemplarische Interpretationen zu Semeia-Erzählungen und zur Passions- und Ostererzählung, theologische Themen wie die Rede von Gott, Glauben und Lieben, sowie Dualismus und Weltverständnis. Studien zum Kontext des Johannesevangeliums, zur Entwicklung des frühen Christentums in Ephesus, zur ‚Trennung der Wege' zwischen Juden und Christen und zur Frage des jüdischen Charakters und eines johanneischen Antijudaismus schließen den Band ab.

Die Beiträge in diesem Konferenzband repräsentieren den neuesten Stand der Forschung zu den kontroversen Debatten um das Verhältnis des Paulus zum Judentum. Zu den Schlüsselfragen, die hier diskutiert werden, gehören unterschiedliche Perspektiven auf die jüdische Identität, jüdische Halacha, die Beziehung zwischen jüdischen und nicht-jüdischen Jesusanhängern sowie die Auseinandersetzungen um judenchristliche Identität in der Antike.