Jesus in the History: An Inquiry into Two Early Christological Traditions

Christology in the western tradition is as old as Christianity itself. Jesus Christ is one of the most mysterious characters in the history of Christianity. This vagueness is not due to various conflicting interpretations in regard to the person of Christ which came about much later than the time of Christ’s emergence as a historical personality. On the contrary، the source of these conflicting views is within the New Testament. On the one hand، some scholars who could be viewed as followers of the Hebraic-Judaic tradition، have attempted to portray a historical image of Jesus rather than insisting on divine nature of Christ who has come to redeem humanity from the ‘First Sin’. The first interpretation is termed as Judeo-Christian vector and the second approach is conceptualized as the Paul-Johnian interpretation of Christianity. In other words، the dominant view is the Paul-Johnian interpretation which has been able to marginalize the other view in the course of history of the Christian religion.