Here’s something I’ve noticed after reviewing over 500 books. Very few books make it to a second edition and those that do are usually worth reading. The second edition of Finnish theologian Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen’s Christology is no exception.

Written as a text-book, Kärkkäinen’s Christology covers four main areas:

1. Biblical Christology: What does the Biblical text say about Jesus?
2. Historic Christology: How have theologians understood Jesus throughout history?
3. Contemporary Christology: What are the current global trends in the study of Jesus?
4. World Religions and Christology: How do Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism understand Jesus?

This second edition, published thirteen years after the first, greatly expands on modern theological trends including post-colonial and queer Christologies. The fourth section on world religions is completely new.

Christology is the central doctrine of the Christian faith. As such, entire libraries have been written on the topic. Inevitably, a 240 page book will have strengths and weaknesses due to amount space available.

This lack of space is most evident in Kärkkäinen’s treatment of Biblical Christology. He devotes a mere 24 pages to the topic, focusing exclusively on the Gospels and Pauline interpretations. Given the amount of emphasis the early church fathers placed on the Christology of Hebrews, its absence (along with the high Christology of Revelation) is notable.

On the positive side, Kärkkäinen describes the history of Christological debates and ecumenical counsels with remarkable clarity. This time period is sometimes treated over-simplistically as a list of heresies which the orthodox leaders beat into submission. Kärkkäinen’s narrative weaves the political and theological together with an eye to overarching themes and trends.

Perhaps the greatest strength of this book is its global perspective. Kärkkäinen treats the Christologies of the Global South with as much rigor as the Global North. His survey of Abrahamic (Jewish, Islamic) and Asian (Hindu, Buddhist) traditions will provide Christian students with much needed perspective in an increasingly pluralistic world. Kärkkäinen notes the importance of this task:

Many and varied have been the challenges facing Christian theology in its painful yet exciting task of accounting for the person and work of the founder and center of the faith, Jesus of Nazareth. None, however, can compete with the urgency and seriousness of the question of the theology of religions, namely, the relation of Christianity to other religions. (227)

This second edition of Kärkkäinen’s Christology is an excellent resource for theology students. Where space limits the discussion, ample footnotes point to more detailed treatments.

I can only wonder what the state of Christological reflection will be when it’s time for a third edition.

Kärkkäinen, Veli-Matti. Christology: A Global Introduction. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003, 2016.