Perspektiven zur Präexistenz im Frühjudentum und frühen Christentum

The notion of the preexistence of Christ has often been considered as a problematic mythological idea and marginalized in Biblical scholarship. The contributions of the present volume aim at a new perception of the variety of linguistic forms, semantic horizons, and textual intentions of the relevant texts. The phenomenon is deliberately considered in a wide horizon beyond the New Testament canon. The range of texts includes early Jewish texts on Wisdom and the Messiah; Paul, Hebrews, and Jude, the Gospel of John and Revelation; but also Greek mythological texts, Christian Gnostic traditions, and the Logos theology of the early church. Systematic-theological considerations on temporality and cosmology conclude the volume.