This is a German translation of “In the form of a God: The Pre-existence of the Exalted Christ in Paul: what the book is about and why.” With many thanks to Helge Seekamp.
This goes over much of the ground covered in the previous post introducing some of the core ideas in my book In the Form of a God: The Pre-existence of the Exalted Christ in Paul, only this time with audio and moving pictures. Maybe some people will find the visualisation helpful. I’ve embedded it here, but it’s a bit small, and you’d be better off watching it on YouTube.
My book In the Form of a God: The Pre-existence of the Exalted Christ in Paul has been available for a little while now, from the publisher and other major sources, both in print and as an ebook (Nook, Kindle).
I am coming to think that the current mainstream view regarding “image of God” in Genesis 1:26-27 is mistaken. The consensus is that behind the expression is the idea that God is king, that he rules the cosmos, and that he has delegated some part of that benign and constructive rule to men and women, created in his image and after his likeness. This has been put to good use for eco-theological purposes: humans should responsibly “steward” the created order on behalf of the divine sovereign.
Looking around for discussion of a theology of climate crisis, I came across a brief summary of the work of Gijsbert van den Brink, University Research Chair for Theology and Science at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
“It is a conviction of the church,” Matthew Malcolm writes in From Hermeneutics to Exegesis, “that it shares the same redemptive-historical location as the first recipients of the New Testament documents” (61). That is an important observation, but I think that the conviction is misguided, on three counts: 1) what the New Testament is about centrally is not redemption but “kingdom”; 2) the kingdom argument determines not a location primarily but a moment in time; and 3) we do not share that moment in time.
I argued in the previous post that the injunction to subdue the earth and rule over all living creatures in Genesis 1:26-28 cannot be construed in helpful modern terms as environmental stewardship or creation care. The language consistently evokes contexts of enslavement, violent suppression of opposition, and judgment; it foreshadows a state of conflict between weak and vulnerable humanity and dangerous and powerful nature. Humanity was to be fruitful, multiply, fill and subdue the earth, and have dominion over living creatures in the same way that the Israelites would subdue the land of Canaan (Num. 32:29; Josh. 18:1), overcome their enemies, be fruitful, multiply, and fill the land.
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