In Accordance with the Scriptures: The Shape of Christian Theology (Didsbury Lectures)

This book explores the shape of Christian theology when seen by beginning from the proclamation of the gospel "in accordance with the Scriptures," that is, with the Scriptures (the "Old Testament") unveiled in the light of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, rather than presuming the later framework of "The Bible," with its distinct two testaments. Drawing upon writings, iconography, and the liturgical life of the church in the early centuries, John Behr shows how the mystery of Christ includes not only the head, the Lord Jesus Christ, but also the whole body of Christ, the church, born in the womb of the Virgin Mother. He also reveals how the scriptural arc from Adam to Christ is recapitulated in our own growth, as human, from passively coming-into-being in mortality to our birth into life through death and deification. The shape that Christian theology takes as it develops in this way presents to us, as Irenaeus puts it, the truth about God and the human being, and how these are united in the one Christ, both head and body.