Christological Mystery in Early Christianity

The Christological claim and confession by John the Baptist (John 1:15, 30) presents an interesting enigma and challenge in exegesis. The confession in the primitive Christianity is composed of three simple and distinctive prepositional phrases in an intriguing manner, presenting the mystery and supremacy of Jesus Christ who was preexisting even before the creation. By borrowing from "computational studies," this paper explores and presents a new paradigm in exegesis and interpretive framework to understand and analyze various frameworks of "circular rhetoric," Christological mystery, and biblical interpretation in early Christianity. The two proof-methods of the divine “I am” saying in John 8:12–20 are investigated to establish a new exegetical ground and justification of the framework. The allusion of John 8:12–20 to Exodus 3:14–15 is further explored to enhance the exegetical basis of this study. Further we investigate a few landmark-examples including the lordship of Christ over David in Matthew 22:41–46, Melchizedek and Christ in Hebrews 7, and the two-stage coming of the Kingdom of God in Luke 17:20–30 (in the rhetorical framework of “already” and “not yet” in tension). The current study, by using computational literary criticism, provides a promising new paradigm with many groundbreaking results affecting the study of Christological mystery in "circular rhetoric" and Christological paradoxes within early Christian literature.