The Fire and the Cloud

In prose as pointed as it is poetic, Green argues against the twin forms of Christian arrogance, biblicism and supersessionism, that render a flat, sentimentalized figure of Jesus and set the church in arrogant opposition to Judaism. Seeking to repair this original distortion of Christology, he maps an exegetically rich journey, guided by Scripture’s witness to the God of outsiders, from Cain to Moses and Elijah to Naomi and Ruth, and finally to the Jesus of Matthew’s Gospel. Reading with some of the best interpreters from ancient times to the present, Green brings an imaginative freshness to familiar texts, revealing subtleties and interconnections that surprise and delight.

~Ellen F. Davis, Amos Ragan Kearns Distinguished Professor of Bible and Practical Theology, Duke Divinity School

A Christology developed from the Old Testament is desperately needed--indeed, such is a  sine qua non of Christian faith. In  The Fire and the Cloud, Green offers a highly creative biblical Christology through select 'travel narratives' of the Hebrew Bible which highlights the complexity of the historical course of God with his people in Israel and as Jesus, and the course of his peoples, Jewish and Christian, with one another. It is, to my knowledge, the first sustained modern demonstration of the conviction that ' all the Scriptures testify to Christ' (Luke 24:27) applies to these narratives too.

~Steven Edward Harris, Adjunct Professor of Theology, Horizon College and Seminary

This is a brilliant and beautiful exposition of biblical Christology. Taking nine narratives from Israel’s Scripture, with their movement of exile and return, and the turning point at the crux of the narrative, Chris Green offers a deep reading of the text, insights from the history of interpretation, and a meditation, both penitential and doxological, on how these speak about the Christ. As the introduction explores, sensitively and profoundly, the Christian reading of Israel’s Scriptures need not be supersessionist, but can follow a different path, from a shared inheritance towards a shared future.

~John Behr, Regius Chair in Humanity, Head of Department of Divinity, Kings College, University of Aberdeen