Jesus Christ: Savior and Lord (Christian Foundations) [Hardcover]

Donald G. Bloesch (Author)

Book Description

Series: Christian Foundations | Publication Date: November 1997

and lt;font color="#FF0000">Voted one of Christianity Today's 1998 Books of the Year! and lt;/font>With his customary encyclopedic reach and epigrammatic style, Donald Bloesch turns his attention to the hotly disputed, yet absolutely crucial, subject of the person and work of Jesus Christ. In and lt;EM>Jesus Christ and lt;/EM> he draws on more than forty years of devoted study to bring much-needed clarity to the ongoing discussion among scholars and the church at large.Well apprised of the most recent developments, yet grounded in his own deep Reformed faith, Bloesch goes beneath current reconstructions of the Jesus of history (Jewish cynic, itinerant sage, charismatic prophet and so on) to probe underlying issues of theological method, humanity's plight, the doctrine of sin, models of salvation, the Incarnation, the virgin birth, the plausibility of miracles, the relation between law and gospel, the language of faith, and the lordship and finality of Christ.As Bloesch declares, Christology constitutes the heart of theology, since it focuses on God's work of salvation in the historical figure Jesus of Nazareth, and the bearing that this has on the history of humankind. To know the nature of God we must see his face in Jesus Christ. This important book is a vital exercise in seeing Jesus Christ faithfully and truthfully.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 216 pages
• Publisher: InterVarsity Press (November 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0830814140
• ISBN-13: 978-0830814145
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #736,598 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not the best book on Christology..., November 30, 2006

By 

Derrick A. Peterson (Oregon) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jesus Christ: Savior and Lord (Christian Foundations) (Hardcover)

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.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars OK, October 29, 2001

By 

Steve Jackson "stevejackson100atyahoocom" (New England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jesus Christ: Savior and Lord (Christian Foundations) (Hardcover)

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.

6 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars OK, July 18, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Jesus Christ: Savior and Lord (Christian Foundations) (Hardcover)

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.