444 Michael F. Bird As Stated in the Preface, Jesustheeternalson Grew out of Michael Bird's Prepa

444 Book Reviews

Michael F. Bird, Jesus the Eternal Son: Answering Adoptionist Christology (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2017). xvi + 155 pp. $18.00 paperback.

As stated in the preface, Jesus the Eternal Son grew out of Michael Bird’s prepa- ration for a public dialogue on the divinity of Jesus hosted by the Greer-Heard Point-Counter-Point forum at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in 2016. Part of the dialogue included a debate between Bird and Bart Ehrman, which can still be viewed online. Viewers of that debate will quickly notice how Bird has taken the basic argument of his presentation at the Greer-Heard forum and expanded it to include more detailed exegetical treatment of the New Testament texts and deeper engagement with the secondary literature, particularly in the footnotes. The opening chapter situates Bird’s book within the current debates about early Christology and outlines the aim of his argument as a whole. Bird states that the goal of the book is to call into question what he perceives to be a quasi- consensus, represented by the works of Knox, Dunn, Peppard, and Ehrman particularly, that the earliest retrievable Christology is adoptionist in charac- ter. In order to achieve that goal, Bird sets out to demonstrate two central claims: [1] “The first Christologies were hastily devised venerations of Jesus as a divine figure, which then crystallized over the next twenty years into a series of presentations of Jesus that were variations of the theme of incarnationalism, even if the details were still to be fully worked out;” and [2] “adoptionism originated as a particular second-century phenomenon driven largely by internal debates about preferred texts and socio-reli- gious influences on reading them” (9). The remaining chapters in the book seek to evidence those claims in two steps. First, Bird presents fresh exegetical treatments of texts that are often understood to imply an early adoptionist Christology and argues that they are bet- ter understood as maintaining a high, incarnational Christology. The earliest among these texts are Paul’s words in Romans 1:3–4 and the apostolic procla- mations recorded in Acts (ch. 2). A large portion of the book is then dedicated to the Christology of Mark’s gospel, often maintained by scholars to have the ‘low- est’ Christology of the four canonical gospels. Bird concludes that the Markan Jesus is neither portrayed as a deified human (ch. 3) nor is he understood to be adopted as God’s son during his baptism (ch. 4). Second, Bird revisits the origins of adoptionist Christology by examining authors and groups from the second century who are often viewed as endorsing adoptionist interpretations of Christ’s divinity, including the Shepherd of Hermas, the Ebionites, and the

Theodotians (ch. 5). Bird concludes that the first instance of a fully-fledged adoptionist Christology occurs with the Theodotians. The most charming feature of Bird’s book is its ability to challenge prevail- ing interpretations of the early Christian sources. One can see how tempting it might be to read early creedal formulas like Romans 1:3–4, apostolic procla- mations such as Acts 2:36, or Mark’s gospel in adoptionist ways. And indeed, such interpretations fit nicely within popular developmental accounts of early Christology, wherein one can trace how Jesus slowly evolved from Galilean prophet to the second person of the Trinity. Bird’s work, which joins the work of many other recent scholars, demonstrates that such interpretations of early Christology, while perhaps neat on paper, do not fit the sources when they are read more carefully. I noted above that the purpose of Bird’s book is to critique adoptionist read- ings of specific New Testament texts by demonstrating two claims, [1] and [2] above. Of course, [1] is not actually required in order to accomplish the goal of the book; [2] would be sufficient. In the end, Bird succeeds in challenging adoptionist interpretations of early Christology, thereby demonstrating the truth of [2], and his arguments deserve careful consideration from those who have been persuaded by the works of Dunn, Ehrman, Peppard, and others. However, showing that the earliest Christology was not adoptionist is not the same as establishing that the earliest Christology was a high one. Of course, Bird does offer some exegetical arguments in favor of [1], and his two chapters on Mark’s gospel in particular are noteworthy for making a nice contribution to recent debates, but even those arguments fail to confirm the truth of [1]. At best, they would merely demonstrate that [1] is true with respect to Mark’s Gospel, but most of us would want to differentiate between Mark’s Christology and the Christology of the earliest Christians. I suspect Bird would agree that argu- ing for the truth of [1] requires a much more substantial treatment that goes beyond the scope of the present work, which, as I said, does manage to accomplish its basic goal. Bird would likely be one of the first to admit that his book will not settle longstanding debates on early Christology. Being the prolific author that he is, I would not be at all surprised if this book turned out to be a preamble to some larger more comprehensive project on Christology. However, this does raise an important question regarding the audience for the book. The book is too brief, and the argument is too narrowly focused on the subject of adoptionism for it to function as an undergraduate or graduate text on early Christology. For that, one has plenty of options on the market. Nevertheless, for educated pastors or lay people who are encountering adoptionist interpretations of these New Testament texts, Bird’s book makes for a wonderful bag of apologetic tools in

PNEUMA 40 (2018) 389–452