Book Review: “New Testament Christological Hymns” by Matthew E. Gordley

Christianity has a history of confessions and liturgy that goes back all the way to the New Testament. In New Testament Christological Hymns, Matthew E. Gordley, the hymnody of the New Testament is brought into the limelight.

New Testament hymnody? Are there actually hymns in the New Testament, and, if so, how might we identify them? Gordley begins with a chapter answering exactly these questions, dealing with some of the best scholarship and critical questions about the texts themselves. Having established the existence of New Testament hymns included within the text, Gordley turns to showing how these hymns might have been used in NT worship and how the hymns reflect some of the cultural struggles and theological issues the early church was dealing with.

The next several chapters deal with individual hymns included in the New Testament text. In each case, Gordlye provides a substantive analysis of the hymn, analyzes it theologically, discusses any textual critical issues that exist with the text, and draws out its implications for Christians to this day. These analyses are invaluable for anyone who is interested in the theology of the New Testament, Christology, or the beliefs of the early Christian church.

Gordley’s tone and method throughout are highly scholarly, as he engages the forefront of NT scholarship. Footnotes throughout the text direct readers both to sources and further reading, making the book valuable as a research tool as well.

The things I found most valuable in the text were Gordley’s look at the cultural context of the New Testament hymns, showing how they often paralleled and subverted things like Latin hymns for emperors or gods, and the deep concern for discerning the Christological implications of these hymns in the New Testament and their usage in the early church.

New Testament Christological Hymns is a fascinating, scholarly look at the Christology of the New Testament church. Anyone interested in seeing what the earliest Christians believed and how they worshiped should pick this book up and read it carefully.

Disclaimer: I was provided with a copy of the book for review by the publisher. I was not required to give any specific kind of feedback whatsoever.

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SDG.

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