"Jesus and Transformation"

In: P. von Gemünden, D. G. Horrell and M. Küchler (eds), Jesus. Schattenreise des Galiläers in Wissenschaft, Kirche und Gesellschaft. FS Gerd Theissen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013, 553-580.

Pastoral Psychology, 2004

This discussion explores both ancient and modern thoughts about the consciousness of Christ and provides links to modern psychology

I. Czachesz & R. Uro, eds, Mind, Morality and Magic: Cognitive Science Approaches in Biblical Studies, 2013

Theological Studies, 2018

Traditional Christologies have focused attention on the question of Jesus’ beatific knowing. On the other hand, recent explorations into Spirit Christology raise different questions about his affectivity. Both issues highlight a concern with Jesus’ psychological experience. The present article proposes that both these issues can be fruitfully examined through the lens of the psychological analogy for the Trinity. In particular, Bernard Lonergan’s developments of the analogy drawing as they do on the experience of grace, shed a new and helpful light on the question of Jesus’ knowing and loving. This approach alleviates some of the more problematic aspects of the traditional approach to Jesus’ beatific vision, while also providing a more solid trinitarian basis for Catholic devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies, 2007

This article reviews a number of psychologically informed studies of Jesus in view of the criteria pertaining to psychobiography. It argues that the studies have produced divergent interpretations of Jesus because of a lack of data and the nature of the sources. This is especially true of these studies as they used psychological approaches based on childhood experiences. The framework for psychobiography also allows for the use of other methods that are more concerned with religious adults in coping situations. These may be applied to explore theories about the psychological development of the adult Jesus. The article shows also that the use of the New Testament sources also implies assumptions with regard to the nature of these sources and the people who had produced those sources.

Among the four epistemological origins of John's christological tensions (the evangelist as a dialectical thinker, John's Mosaic-Agency schema, John's dialectical situation, the rhetorical design of John's narrative), its cognitive origins are among the most significant in accounting for John's distinctive presentation of Jesus as the Christ. First published in Horizons in Biblical Theology; An International Dialogue 17 (1995): 1-24, this essay was also published in Psychology and the Bible; A New Way to Read the Scriptures, edited by J. Harold Ellens (4 Volumes, Westport/London: Praeger Publishers, 2004), Vol. 3, pp. 127-49.

2009