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For early Christians, the prologue to the Gospel of John inspired and demanded elaboration.

Evoking Genesis, the prolog states, quote, in the beginning was the word,

and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things

came into being through him, and without him, not one thing came into being, end quote. The gospel

continues a few verses later with, and the word became flesh and lived among us.

This is the core of incarnation, or literally infleshment, and it conveys a pairing of creation and redemption

that plays an important role in various expressions of Christology and soteriology.

John's references to the word or logos as with God in the beginning and as an agent of

creation, who later became flesh, exploded expectations of a purely or simply human Messiah,

one anointed by God for set purposes of reconciliation or rule, understood in a strictly historical scope. The Synoptic Gospels share in John's

presentation of a thoroughly unexpected Messiah in the very range of activities and characteristics

ascribed to Jesus of Nazareth in the canonical Gospels confound in numerous ways.

The Gospels do not simply present Jesus as divine. They also elaborate upon his humanity,

even in its weakness and suffering. The Gospels present

Jesus' anger, sadness, fear, and of course his death on the cross. For early Christians,

the Gospels presented as many challenges as opportunities. How can one coherently affirm the eternal creator was born in time,

lived, grew, and died a gruesome death?

How can one coherently affirm the swaddled babe

was before all ages governing the universe?

This challenge was met with the affirmation

...