Adoptionism: Dismantling a Dubious Christological Category

The Nazareth to Nicaea vodcast discusses the historical Jesus, the Christ of Faith, and everything in between. We look at the many texts and traditions, the stories and artifacts, the heroes and heretics of the christological controversies. We cover the debates, the doubts, and the dissenters about all things related to Jesus and the early church.

In this episode, Dr. Mike Bird talks to Dr. Jeremiah Coogan and Dr. Michael Kok about "adoptionism" as a (mistaken) category for understanding the early christologies of the early church. Discussion cover:

Introduction (1:15)
Problems with "adoptionism" as a category (4:00)
The Theodotians (6:18)
Ebionites and Cerinthus (8:30)
Will scholars stop talking about adoptionism? (12:10)
Things to change in the study of early christology (14:17)
Who were the first adoptionists? (19:10)
Diversity in early christology (20:30)
Is there adoptionism in the New Testament? (23:40)
Recommended readings (26:21)

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Further Reading:

Jeremiah Coogan, "Rethinking adoptionism: An argument for
dismantling a dubious category," Scottish Journal of Theology 76 (2023): 1-13.

Michael Kok, "The utility of adoptionism as a heuristic category: The baptism narrative in the Gospel of the Ebionites as a Test Case," Scottish Journal of Theology 76 (2023): 153-63.

Peter Ben-Smith, "The end of early Christian adoptionism? A note on the invention of adoptionism, its sources, and its current demise," International Journal of Philosophy and Theology 76 (2015): 177-99.

Michael F. Bird, Jesus the Eternal Son: Answering Adoptionist Christology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2017).

Michael Peppard, The Son of God in the Roman world: divine sonship in its social and political context (Oxford: OUP, 2012).

#Christology #Jesus #JesusChrist