Sunday, July 04, 2010

Hengel on the Word of Christ

I'm reading a lot of Martin Hengel now as I prepare to write an article interacting with Hengel on Gal. 2.11-14 and I found this charming quote from him:

"Christ's teaching could not be detached from his person. The word of God and the word of the Lord or Christ fundamentally became one and could be understood as both subjective and objective genitives."

Martin Hengel, Paul Between Damascus and Antioch, p. 203.

1 comment:

Michael Pahl said...

Well, it would be charming if the early Christians ever used "word of the Lord" or "word of Christ" to refer to Jesus' teaching - that use is so rare it's hardly on the radar screen of early Christian usage (see my JSNT article from a few years ago, and my LNTS book from last year). This is one of those strange myths of (especially) 20th century German critical scholarship, where Herrn Wort becomes a technical term for Jesus' teaching or Jesus tradition...