A friend texted me a screen shot of a review of my Christosis book in a recent journal, and I realized that I hadn’t seen others come through like with it’s first printing. So, a quick journal search turned up several reviews in the last few months of the Eerdmans version:

  • Gorman in Interpretation
  • Jervis in Catholic Biblical Quarterly
  • Smith in Chriswell Theological Review
  • Kennard in Affirmation & Critique (this is long)
  • Bucey in Westminster Theological Journal
  • Stephan in Theological Studies
  • in addition to several for the Mohr Siebeck version.

I confess that with the first printing (with Mohr Siebeck) when a review came in, I would have to let it sit for a day before I steeled myself. I think I have a little thicker skin now, but there’s not much new feedback that will come out with a revised edition. There are definitely areas to sharpen, and the reviews all helpfully point to those. I still agree with myself, but if I had to do it over again, I’d shoot to be at least 10% shorter. My favorite thing about the new edition is the much improved taxonomy of ancient views of (ontological) deification.

Among all the reviews, this had to be my favorite quote in Gorman’s review:

In a recent straw poll of scholars, a prominent publisher asked about the three most significant books on Paul published in the last five years. After widespread agreement on tomes by John Barclay (Paul and the Gift [Eerdmans, 2015]) and N. T. Wright (Paul and the Faithfulness of God [Fortress, 2013]), the field was divided on the third position. Among those mentioned more than once was Blackwell’s Christosis. “Let those who have ears . . . .”

This work, of course, pales in comparison to my two mentors, but it’s surely the best book on theosis and Paul, written in Durham, by comparing patristic views, in the last five years. I at least win the prize for publishing the first monograph length treatment of Paul and deification!

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