JESUS AMONG THE GODS: EARLY CHRISTOLOGY IN THE GRECO‐ROMAN WORLD. By Michael F.Bird. Waco: Baylor University Press, 2022. Pp. xi + 480.

In this new book, Bird attempts to take a fresh approach to an old discussion of early Christology. Looking to re-examine the question of Jesus' divinity, Bird utilizes two metrics of divinity from antiquity (absolute and euergetic) in order to demonstrate a clear and constructive role for intermediary figures while showing what is distinctive about Jesus' divinity in early Christian discourse. Bird's analysis takes him across the swath of material—Greco-Roman literature and religion, Second Temple Judaism, New Testament exegesis, Christian origins, patristic studies, and early Christian thought, which, in his view, “allows for a robust diachronic and synchronic analysis that recovers some neglected factors and offers some fresh insights into early Christology.” He does so, first, by considering Jesus in terms of ancient divinity (Part One), where Bird deals with categories of “divine” in Judaism and in Greco-Roman contexts (Chapter One). He establishes that divinity operated within one of two metrics—absolute and euergetic—and contends that many early Christian writers conceived of Jesus in the former category (Chapter Two). In the second part of his book, Bird addresses Jesus in relation to intermediary figures. After surveying scholarly perspectives on the issue (Chapter Three), Bird examines similarities and differences between early Christian literary representations of Jesus (Christologies) and four main categories of intermediary figures (Chapter Four). These include (1) demiurge, logos, and wisdom, (2) angels, (3) exalted patriarchs and (4) ancient ruler cults. The inferences, Bird contends (Chapter Five), are that Jesus' distinctives belong not to fourth-century Christological debates but to a first-century context of “Judaism and Greco-Religions,” and so avoids antiquated models of a Judaism absent of any Hellenistic influence. In doing so, Bird aims to show that the early Christologies of the New Testament are best located at the very origins of Christianity itself. This is a compelling study that will require scholars to reframe categories more firmly within those of antiquity.