“Jesus in the Image of God“ – The Form of Early Christian Monotheism Illustrated on the Image of the Shepherd in the Gospel of John

Abstract

As Christians, we are perhaps used to speaking about the Trinitarian God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and thinking of it as a unity. But through faith, the first disciples had to overcome a high hurdle of stringent Jewish monotheism to be able to confess God´s sonhood in Jesus of Nazareth and, as a result, his divinity. How this process occurred is, above all, of interest to the history of dogma. The answer to this question can and must be given by the exegesis. The exegesis uses different methods in its scientific effort to better understand biblical texts. Unfortunately, no single methodical access to Holy Scripture reveals all of its content, aspects, and information, which one could obtain through it. In the following article, using as example the parable “The Good Shepherd”, it will be demonstrated, how one can methodically obtain, step by step, the answer to the question about the form of early Christian monotheism from the New Testament texts. For this purpose, the procedure of interpretation of R. Zimmerman’s metaphor will be presented, and from its results, theologically concluded.