The Historical Jesus and Christian Theology

I suggest in short, that the Temple and YHWH’s return to Zion are the keys to gospel Christology. Forget the titles, at least for a moment; forget the pseudo-orthodox attempts to make Jesus of Nazareth conscious of being the second person of the Trinity; forget the arid reductionism that is the mirror-image of that unthinking would-be orthodoxy. Focus instead, if you will, on a young Jewish prophet telling a story about YHWH returning to Zion as judge and redeemer, and then embodying it by riding into the city in tears, by symbolizing the Temple’s destruction, and by celebrating the final Exodus. I propose, as a matter of history, that Jesus of Nazareth was conscious of vocation, a vocation given him by the one he knew as “Father,” to enact in himself what, in Israel’s scriptures, Israel’s God had promised to accomplish. He would be the pillar of cloud for the people of the new Exodus. He would embody in himself the returning and redeeming action of the covenant God.

via The Historical Jesus and Christian Theology by N.T. Wright.

N.T. Wright gives an example of how we can look at Jesus from Nazareth. Another article by N.T. Wright, Jesus and the Identity of God, addresses Christology or the notion of Jesus as God.

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