Book Reviews

Kärkkäinen, Veli-Matti. Christology: a global introduction. Baker Academic, 2003. 300p indexes ISBN 0-8010-2621-0 pbk, $21.99.

Choice: “Recommended.” Theological Studies: “A useful tour d’horizon of contemporary Christology. K.’s narrative leaves the impression that the development of patristic and conciliar Christology was somewhat ad hoc. An adequate explanatory framework would help bring order and meaning to the debates. The absence of the debates characteristic of historical Jesus research for the past two decades is probably due to the limits of space. Overall, the book is ambitious, clear and sympathetic to a wide variety of positions.” Anglican Theological Review: “Part 1 is too short; Part 2 is equally compressed. This is explicitly and unabashedly a textbook. Inevitably K. has written pages of précis in which sentences, perfectly accurate in themselves, are strung together without the connective logic they would have in their original settings.” Expository Times: “As an historical survey, the book is very inadequate. But the book’s subtitle suggests that the first two sections, even the third, are intended as merely a sketch of the background to contemporary Christologies. This fourth section is a genuinely interesting survey.” International Bulletin of Missionary Research: “This book is an excellent introduction to Christology. It is clearly written and liberates this discipline from its Euro-American captivity.”