New Book: Jesus and Divine Christology (Pitre)

"Did Jesus see himself as divine?"

Jesus and Divine Christology, Brant Pitre

Did Jesus see himself as divine? That’s the key question that Dr. Brant Pitre interacts with in this new academic study on NT Christology. Against the grain of much of modern critical scholarship, Pitre argues that the Synoptics and Gospel of John show clear and compelling evidence that Jesus indicated his own divine status, and this reliably can be traced back to the historical Jesus. Scholars who have tried to make this kind of case before are treated as “apologists” who are not highly respected in the guild. Pitre is a Catholic scholar who has a very esteemed reputation, and it is noteworthy that in the endorsements Pitre receives high praise from the leading Jesus scholar of our day, Dale Allison.

The book came out August 15, 2024, below I have listed the table of contents and official description. It will take me some time to work through the beefy 400+ pages of Pitre’s work, but when I do I hope to post a review.

Since the beginning of the quest for the historical Jesus, scholars have dismissed the idea that Jesus could have identified himself as God. Such high Christology is frequently depicted as an invention of the councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon, centuries later. Yet recent research has shown that the earliest Jewish followers of Jesus already regarded him as divine. 
 
Brant Pitre tackles this paradox in his bold new monograph. Pitre challenges this widespread assumption and makes a robust case that Jesus did consider himself divine. Carefully explicating the Gospels in the context of Second Temple Judaism, Pitre shows how Jesus used riddles, questions, and scriptural allusions to reveal the apocalyptic secret of his divinity. Moreover, Pitre explains how Jesus acts as if he is divine in both the Synoptics and the Gospel of John. Carefully weighing the historical evidence, Pitre argues that the origins of early high Christology can be traced to the historical Jesus’s words and actions. 
 
Jesus and Divine Christology sheds light on long-neglected yet key evidence that the historical Jesus saw himself as divine. Scholars and students of the New Testament—and anyone curious about the Jewish context of early Christianity—will find Pitre’s argument a necessary and provocative corrective to a critically underexamined topic.

---

Table of Contents

1. The Problem 
          The Quest and Jesus’s Divinity 
          Early High Christology 
          Four Historical Warrants 
          Method of Proceeding 
2. The Epiphany Miracles 
          The Miracles of Jesus 
          Stilling the Storm 
          Walking on the Sea 
          The Transfiguration 
3. The Riddles of Jesus’s Divinity 
          The Teacher of Parables 
          Greater than Father or Mother 
          No One is Good but God 
          The Riddle of David’s Lord  
4. The Apocalyptic Secret 
          The Apocalyptic Jesus 
          The Heavenly Son of Man 
          The Question of John the Baptist 
          The Apocalyptic “Thunderbolt” 
5. Crucified for Blasphemy 
          The Criterion of Execution 
          They Picked Up Stones 
          You Make Yourself God 
          The Charge of Blasphemy 
6. Implications 
          Ex Nihilo Nihil Fit 
          Early Divine Christology 
          The Parting of the Ways 
          The Long Road to Nicaea