The Son of God: Three Views of the Identity of Jesus - eBook

This is a multi-view book in which representatives of differing viewpoints make a positive statement of their case, followed by responses from the others, and concluding with a rebuttal by the original author. The topic at hand in this book is the identity of Jesus (also known as Christology). What is the meaning of Jesus's identity as "the Son of God"? Charles Lee Irons argues that the title "Son of God" denotes his ontological deity from a Trinitarian perspective. Danny Andre Dixon and Dustin R. Smith challenge this view from two different non-Trinitarian viewpoints. Smith argues that Jesus is the authentically human Son of God, the Davidic Messiah, who did not possess a literal preexistence prior to his virgin birth. Dixon argues that Jesus is God's preexistent Son in the sense that God gave him life or existence at some undefined point prior to creation. The authors engage the topic from the perspective that reverences the authority and inspiration of Scripture as the final arbiter of this debate. The literature of early Judaism is also engaged in order to try to understand the extent to which the New Testament's Christology may have been influenced by or operated within the context of Jewish conceptions of divine secondary beings as agents of God.