Jesus and the Spirit

by James D.G. Dunn

In this fascinating book James D. G. Dunn explores the nature of the religious experiences that were at the forefront of emerging Christianity. Dunn first looks at the religious experience of Jesus, focusing especially on his experience of God in terms of his sense of sonship and his consciousness of the Spirit. He also considers the question of whether Jesus was a charismatic.

Next Dunn examines the religious experiences of the earliest Christian communities, especially the resurrection appearances, Pentecost, and the signs and wonders recounted by Luke. Finally Dunn explores the religious experiences that make Paul so influential and that subsequently shaped Pauline Christianity and the religious life of his churches.

The result is a thorough and stimulating study that not only recovers the religious experiences of Jesus and the early church but also has important implications for our experiences of the Spirit today.

First published in 1975 to much critical acclaim, this important book is now once again available to readers in the United States.

Genres: Biblical Studies, Theology, New Testament, History, Christianity

512 pages, Paperback

First published June 11, 1997

About the author

James D. G. ("Jimmy") Dunn (born 1939) was for many years the Lightfoot Professor of Divinity in the Department of Theology at the University of Durham. Since his retirement he has been made Emeritus Lightfoot Professor. He is a leading British New Testament scholar, broadly in the Protestant tradition. Dunn is especially associated with the New Perspective on Paul, along with N. T. (Tom) Wright and E. P. Sanders. He is credited with coining this phrase during his 1982 Manson Memorial Lecture.

Dunn has an MA and BD from the University of Glasgow and a PhD and DD from the University of Cambridge. For 2002, Dunn was the President of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas, the leading international body for New Testament study. Only three other British scholars had been made President in the preceding 25 years.

In 2005 a festschrift was published dedicated to Dunn, comprising articles by 27 New Testament scholars, examining early Christian communities and their beliefs about the Holy Spirit. (edited by Graham N. Stanton, Bruce W. Longenecker & Stephen Barton (2004). The Holy Spirit and Christian origins: essays in honor of James D. G. Dunn. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. ISBN 0-8028-2822-1.)

Dunn has taken up E. P. Sanders' project of redefining Palestinian Judaism in order to correct the Christian view of Judaism as a religion of works-righteousness. One of the most important differences to Sanders is that Dunn perceives a fundamental coherence and consistency to Paul's thought. He furthermore criticizes Sanders' understanding of the term "justification", arguing that Sanders' understanding suffers from an "individualizing exegesis".

Reviews

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

AN INTERPRETATION OF THE RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE OF JESUS AND THE EARLY CHURCH

James D. G. Dunn (born 1939) is a British New Testament scholar who was Professor of Theology at the University of Durham prior to his retirement; he is also a minister of the Church of Scotland. He has written many other books, such as 'Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, Volume 1,' 'The Evidence for Jesus,' 'New Perspective on Jesus: What the Quest for the Historical Jesus Missed,' etc.

He wrote in the Preface to this 1975 book, "[this book] is written out of the conviction that religious experience is a vitally important dimension of man's experience of reality... that only when he recognizes this dimension and orients his living in appropriate relation to it can he begin to achieve personal wholeness and fulfillment is his relationships." (Pg. ix)

He states, "If Jeremias is right [The Prayers of Jesus] then we have to conclude that Jesus' abba-prayer expressed an unusual and unprecedented sense of intimacy with God. This conclusion, however, does have to be qualified at two points. First, it is not in fact true that we have no examples of a Jew saying 'my Father' to God. I am thinking here particularly of Ecclus... We cannot therefore maintain that Jesus' use of abba was UNPRECEDENTED... All we can say then is that ... Jesus' regular approach to God as 'Abba' appears to be UNUSUAL for his day. Second, H. Conzelmann points out that abba 'need not have had a connotation of familiarity.' This is quite true. Jeremias does note that abba was used in the pre-Christian period as a respectful address to old men." (Pg. 23)

He suggests, "Jesus' baptism by John was probably the occasion for an experience of God which had epochal significance for Jesus, even though that significance may only have been fully grasped after some reflection by Jesus... it is quite likely that Jesus was convinced that at his baptism he heard God's voice addressing him as son and setting him apart for a special task (as he had the Baptist)." (Pg. 65)

He admits, "What is rather striking is that no instances of healing purely physical injuries or mending broken limbs are attributed to Jesus in the earliest stratum of tradition---that is to say, there is no instance of a healing miracle which falls clearly outside the general category of psycho-somatic illnesses." (Pg. 71) He says, "It is this charismatic nature of Jesus' authority, the immediacy of his sense of authority together with the conscious self reference of so much of his teaching, which seems to set Jesus apart from other men of comparable significance in the history of religions." (Pg. 79)

He says, "It is clear then that Paul himself made a firm distinction between his conversion experience and his subsequent spiritual experiences. His Damascus road experience was not simply the first of several or many experiences of the same kind; for Paul it was the last of a number of experiences of a unique kind." (Pg. 103) He adds, "we can hardly doubt that glossolalia was recognized as a manifestation of the Spirit in the earliest days of the church; but that the early believers gave it the significance which modern Pentecostals attach to it is not a conclusion we can justly draw from Luke's account; far less can we conclude that God intended it to have such significance." (Pg. 193)

He concludes, "For Jesus religious experience was distinctively experience of God as Father and experience of eschatological power and inspiration... After Jesus' death the earliest Christian community ... [arose from] epochal experiences of two distinct sorts---experiences in which Jesus appeared to individuals and groups to be recognized as one who had already experienced the eschatological resurrection from the dead, and experiences of religious ecstasy ... recognized as manifestation of the eschatological Spirit... With the Pastorals the creativity of religious experience in the present has been almost wholly swallowed up by the desire to preserve the heritage of the past." (Pg. 357-358)

This is a creative and fascinating study of an aspect of Jesus and the early church that is often underplayed. It is of great value to anyone studying the historical Jesus and the early Church.

[Garrett Sanders · Rating 5 out of 5]

A unique scholarly work by a New Testament heavy-weight, James Dunn, which analyzes the extend to which Jesus refers to "The Spirit" in his own life and ministry. Dunn does more than simply examine the well known traditional Christian interpretations of The Spirit, but also examines the wide range of possible influence, including charismatic religious practice and ecstatic spiritual practices in mainstream Judaism, minority Jewish sects, and the broader surrounding Greco-Hellenistic pagan landscape as well. A connection is certainly made between high dependence on "The Spirit" and charismatic behavior. He also examines the extent to which the early Christian communities were charismatic in their practice, which was FAR more extensive than most mainstream Christians realize. They; spoke in tongues, prophesied impromptu during worship, had visions, went into ecstatic trances in which onlookers described them as drunk or insane (1 Cor. and Acts), and performed faith healings and exorcisms. This really helped me and advanced my own personal theory that Jesus and the early Christians were highly ecstatic in their spiritual lives and that the visions of a risen Jesus after his crucifixion can be explained wholly within naturalistic means, by appealing to an understanding of typical ecstatic and charismatic religion. The book asks the question: was Jesus a charismatic? The answer is unquestionably YES! He; cast out demons as a renowned exorcist, performed faith healings, claimed that faith was an integral part of his miracle process, and led a movement wholly based upon his person identity which he claimed to be divine. If more modern Christians interacted with the serious considerations and comparisons between Jesus and your average charismatic preacher or cult leader, I think that they'd find some very challenging and yet HIGHLY rewarding questions to answer. That said, if that sounds interesting to you and you are a Christian, then I all the more recommend this book because James Dunn is very much a Christian too! You couldn't ask for a more respectful and sincere author, nor an ingenious and dedicated scholar, of this topic.

[Phillip R Neal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book on Holy Spirit

Dr. Dunn has done a great service in his work on the Spirit. Calling the early church a charismatic community was not something I expected from him. It shows he is describing the text as it really is. It is my hope that evangelical s will begin to embrace that a healthy church is one guided by the Spirit and empowered by Him alone. May the church become charismatic once again!