The Embodied God: Seeing the Divine in Luke-Acts and the Early Church
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The Embodied God: Seeing the Divine in Luke-Acts and the Early Church  -     By: Brittany E. Wilson

The Embodied God: Seeing the Divine in Luke-Acts and the Early Church

Oxford University Press / 2021 / Hardcover

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Stock No: WW080822

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Product Information

Title: The Embodied God: Seeing the Divine in Luke-Acts and the Early Church
By: Brittany E. Wilson
Format: Hardcover
Number of Pages: 352
Vendor: Oxford University Press
Publication Date: 2021
Dimensions: 9.30 X 6.40 X 1.20 (inches)
Weight: 1 pound 7 ounces
ISBN: 0190080825
ISBN-13: 9780190080822
Stock No: WW080822

Publisher's Description

As inheritors of Platonic traditions, many Jews and Christians today do not believe that God has a body. God is instead invisible and incorporeal, and even though Christians believe that God can be seen in Jesus, God otherwise remains veiled from human sight. In this ground-breaking work, Brittany E. Wilson challenges this prevalent view by arguing that early Jews and Christians often envisioned God as having a visible form.

Within the New Testament, Luke-Acts in particular emerges as an important example of a text that portrays God in visually tangible ways. According to Luke, God is a perceptible, concrete being who can take on a variety of different forms, as well as a being who is intimately intertwined with human fleshliness in the form of Jesus. In this way, the God of Israel does not adhere to the incorporeal deity of Platonic philosophy, especially as read through post-Enlightenment eyes. Given the corporeal connections between God and Jesus, Luke's depiction of Jesus's body also points ahead to future controversies concerning his divinity and humanity in the early church. Indeed, questions concerning God's body are inextricably linked with Christology and shed light on how we are to understand Jesus's own visible embodiment in relation to God.

In The Embodied God, Wilson reframes approaches to early Christology within New Testament scholarship and calls for a new way of thinking about divine-and human-bodies and embodied experience.

Author Bio

Brittany E. Wilson is Associate Professor of New Testament at Duke University Divinity School. Her previous book is Unmanly Men: Refigurations of Masculinity in Luke-Acts, which received the Manfred Lautenschläger Award for Theological Promise.

Editorial Reviews

"Brittany Wilson takes a fresh dive into biblical representations and perceptions of God and Jesus, both individually and interconnectedly, with particular focus on the two-volume New Testament narrative, Luke-Acts...Wilson mounts an impressive case for dynamic "fluidity" in representing the embodied character of God and Jesus perceived on multiple sense levels by human beings." -- F. Scott Spencer, Review of Biblical Literature

"... Wilson's work raises a number of fascinating theological questions ..." -- Cameron B. Crickenberger, University of St Andrews, International Journal of Systematic Theology

"Wilson's conclusion makes clear that this book is not intended to deliver the final word on this topic, but to open fresh avenues of research, and in this she has undoubtedly been successful. The questions she raises are compelling and productive. Thanks to Wilson, no one should now be able to write on God in the New Testament and early Christianity without pondering questions of embodiment." -- Matthew Sharp, Biblical and Early Christian Studies

"This insightful examination of visions and theophanies in Scripture demonstrates the breadth and depth of Wilson's command of biblical, Jewish, and Greco-Roman sources...The Embodied God provides a keen discussion of God's nature." -- W. J. Pankey, CHOICE Connect, Vol. 59 No. 8

"Does God have a body? Can one see God? Probing the narratives of Luke and Acts as a test case, Brittany Wilson's engaging new book The Embodied God challenges us to rethink conventional historical and theological assumptions about divine embodiment and offers fresh insight into the interrelatedness of early Christian and (other) Jewish ways of representing the divine. In lucid and inviting prose, Wilson makes an important, and provocative, contribution to the field. This is a must read for students of Luke and Acts, and it will be of interest also to those who wish to explore the emergence of ideas about God and about Jesus within early Christianity." -- John T. Carroll, Union Presbyterian Seminary

"With The Embodied God, Britany Wilson has joined the emerging conversation among biblical (mostly Hebrew Bible) scholars regarding the presentation of the corporeality of God in the Jewish Scriptures. In helping us "see" these representations of God and Jesus, Wilson challenges the age-old assumptions that the Divine in the early church was disembodied and imperceptible. 'Blessed are the eyes that see. . . .'" -- Mikeal C. Parsons, Baylor University

"If you think that God does not have a body, think again. Brittany Wilson shows that indeed the early Christians who wrote and read the Gospel of Luke and Acts thought that God is a being who is both corporeal and visible, especially when it comes to the body of Jesus. Her brilliant analyses shows that divine embodiment is an old tradition entangled in the Jewish scriptures and Greco-Roman sources, only to be veneered with Greek philosophical arguments about divine transcendence by later Christian writers." -- April D. DeConick, Rice University

"This book will interest scholars of Luke-Acts, but it will also interest theologians seeking new Scriptural warrants for understanding God's appearances in the world." -- Aaron Klink, Duke University, Religious Studies Review

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