Wisdom Christology in the Gospel of John

This volume contends that the Gospel of John presents the most thorough and robust Wisdom Christology of all the New Testament books. Wisdom Christology--the christological concept that applies the roles, characteristics, and functions of God's personified wisdom to the man Jesus Christ--is displayed to be skillfully interwoven throughout all twenty-one chapters of the Fourth Gospel, starting with the famous prologue. In response to the prevailing tendency among interpreters to project postbiblical understandings of Jesus from the fourth- and fifth-century church councils back into the Gospel of John, this volume shows that a more fitting context emerges from Jewish Wisdom literature. By situating the Johannine Jesus in his first-century Jewish context, readers can appreciate John's commitment to monotheism and Jesus' role as the Father's highly empowered human agent, fully embodying Lady Wisdom.


About the Author
Dustin R. Smith is a New Testament scholar at Spartanburg Methodist College (Spartanburg, South Carolina). He is the coauthor of The Son of God: Three Views of the Identity of Jesus (2015), co-editor of the AI Critical New Testament (2023), and the host of The Biblical Unitarian Podcast.