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The Many Faces of the Christ: The Christologies of the New Testament and Beyond. By Ben Witherington, III. Pp. vii + 264. New York: Crossroad Herder, 1998, 10.99. 0 8245 1705 9.
An earlier book by Witherington was Jesus the Sage: The Pilgrimage of Wisdom (1994). The present work lets us see the scope and implications of his work on Wisdom and how it affects other aspects of the New Testament.
In the first chapter on early Jewish Messianism we are shown how the sapiential theme is dealt with from Proverbs to the Wisdom of Solomon. Next comes the christology of Jesus. First the indirect evidence of his relationships with others is presented and then the direct witness coming from his use of messianic titles. This is remarkable for his discussion of how Jesus presented himself as the Wisdom of God.
Soon after his death Jesus was worshipped as Lord. This is the immediate origin of high christology. Our author...