Jesus: A Theography by Leonard Sweet & Frank Viola

Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola’s book Jesus: A Theography presents the biblical narrative as the story of Jesus Christ. The authors describe the presence of Jesus in all of Scripture through various thematic and verbal allusions. Sweet and Viola begin their “theography” before the Garden of Eden in pre-existent time. This is necessary in order to achieve a true understanding of Christ’s relationship to the Father as eternal. This backdrop allows for the proper theological understanding of Christ in regards to the Scriptures that Sweet and Viola intend to tease out in this book. The authors take seriously the task of searching for Jesus in every portion of Scripture in order to exemplify how Christ is central to the message of the Bible. Though the overall flow and structure of the book were helpful to implement this book into personal ministry, it did not create a succinct enough response. Sweet and Voila tried too often to create Christological parallels without using good hermeneutical techniques. The authors wrote their book with a lay audience and an academic audience in mind. Though their aspirations are admirable, the outcome was a easy accessible book that did not represent scholarly resources. I could not see myself recommending this book to either academics or lay people because the material is too bland.