Jesus and Divine Christology is a new book by Brant Pitre.
This is a hefty book that is worth a look if you are wondering how Jesus viewed Himself. It was so solid that I cite it in my upcoming book The Untold Story of the New Testament Church: Revised and Expanded (due out spring 2025).
Here’s an accurate description.
Did Jesus consider himself divine, or was that a label his followers pinned on him after his death?
According to Pitre, Jesus’ riddles, questions, and scriptural allusions revealed the apocalyptic secret of his divinity. The deeds Jesus performed, how he referred to himself, and his life-changing impact on others suggest that he was worshiped early on.
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.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In