The Holy Spirit Before Christianity
Summary
The feel-good place to buy books
The Holy Spirit Before Christianity by John R Levison
With his latest book, The Holy Spirit before Christianity, John R. Levison again changes the face and foundation of Christian belief in the Holy Spirit. The categories Christians have used, the boundaries they have created, the proprietary claims they have made - all of these evaporate, now that Levison has looked afresh at Scripture. In a study that is both poignant and provocative, Levison takes readers back five hundred years before Jesus, where he discovers history's first grasp of the Holy Spirit as a personal agent. The prophet Haggai and the author of Isaiah 56-66, in their search for ways to grapple with the tragic events of exile and to articulate hope for the future, took up old exodus traditions of divine agents - pillars of fire, an angel, God's own presence - and fused them with belief in God's Spirit. Since it was the Spirit of God who led Israel up from Egypt and formed them into a holy nation, now, the prophets assured their hearers, the Spirit of God would lead and renew those returning from exile. Taking this point of origin as our guide, Christian pneumatology - belief in the Holy Spirit - is less about an exclusively Christian experience or doctrine and more about the presence of God in the grand scheme of Israel's history, in which Christianity is ancient Israel's heir. This explosive observation traces the essence of Christian pneumatology deep into the heart of the Hebrew Scriptures. The implications are fierce: the priority of Israelite tradition at the headwaters of pneumatology means that Christians can no longer hold stubbornly to the Holy Spirit as an exclusively Christian belief. But the implications are hopeful as well, offering Christians a richer history, a renewed vocabulary, a shared path with Judaism, and the promise of a more expansive and authentic experience of the Holy Spirit.
John R. Levison is W. J. A. Power Professor of Old Testament Interpretation and Biblical Hebrew at Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781481310031 |
| ISBN 10 | 1481310038 |
| Title | The Holy Spirit Before Christianity |
| Author | John R Levison |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Baylor University Press |
| Year published | 2019-09-30 |
| Number of pages | 272 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |