There are two different and disconnected streams in NT scholarship when it comes to matters of Christology. On the one hand, the quests for the historical Jesus have typically read the synoptic portrayals of Jesus as devoid of any indication that Jesus was self-conscious of his divinity. On the other hand, various scholars (Bauckham, Hengel) of the earliest Christian reception of Jesus have concluded that the early church held to a high and, even, divine Christology. Pitre, Distinguished Research Professor of Scripture at the Augustine Institute Graduate School of Theology and author of Jesus the Bridegroom (New York: Image, 2014), enters into these two discussions with this book.

His thesis is that “the best explanation for why the earliest Jewish followers of Jesus believed he was divine shortly after his death is because Jesus himself spoke and acted as if he were divine during his lifetime” (p. 12). In the first chapter, Pitre states that there are four “historical warrants” in support of this thesis emerging from scholarship on Second Temple Judaism, the historical Jesus, and earliest Christianity: (1) “early Jesus evidence for divine messiahs”; (2) the growing consensus among scholars that “Jesus spoke and acted as if he was the Jewish messiah” (p. 15); (3) an increased awareness that Jesus made divine claims not only in the gospel of John but in the synoptic gospels; and (4) claims of divine status made by others (e.g., Antiochus IV Epiphanes) in the Second Temple period.

Regarding methodology, Pitre draws from E. P. Sanders’s elucidation of a “triple-context approach” (p. 27) in his Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985): first, “contextual plausibility within first-century Judaism”; second, “coherence with other evidence about Jesus”; and third, impact on and formation of the beliefs of the early church. While he recognizes that, at best, this methodology can establish claims at the level of plausibility, given the lack of certain or comprehensive knowledge attending these three areas, he argues that the strength of each is found in the fact that the reversal of the “triple-context approach” can be used to make the case “against the historicity of words and actions attributed to Jesus” (p. 33).

The body of the book (chs. 2–5) follows the same basic structure for each case: exposition, arguments against historical plausibility, application of the “triple-context approach,” and a conclusion weighing the case for and against historical plausibility. Chapter 2 discusses the epiphany miracles of Jesus, i.e., those miracles whose “main function is to” display “the invisible mystery” of Jesus’s divine identity (p. 44; e.g., Jesus stilling the storm in Mark 4:35–41). Chapter 3 explores Jesus’s use of “riddle-like parables,” which, Pitre argues, were employed “to reveal and conceal the mystery of his divinity” (p. 112). Chapter 4 builds on the widespread recognition that Jesus’s ministry is best understood in the “context of Jewish apocalypticism” (p. 172). Here, Pitre focuses on “the heavenly dimension of Jesus’s apocalyptic worldview,” with Jesus revealing that “he is both a human and heavenly figure” (p. 172). The fifth chapter analyzes Jesus’s crucifixion for blasphemy, i.e., Jesus’s claim to divinity. The final chapters discuss the implications of Pitre’s findings.

Some sampling of Pitre’s discussion is in order. First, regarding Jesus stilling the storm in Matthew 8:23–27 (and parallels), despite the fact that most scholarship sees this miracle as unhistorical and, at best, a literary fiction, Pitre argues that it is contextually plausible for “a sudden windstorm” (p. 59) to occur on the sea of Galilee and Jesus’s rebuke of the storm would fit with Jewish belief that “invisible angelic powers” (p. 59) brought about such phenomena. In addition, this scene coheres with other evidence that Jesus rebuked his disciples for their lack of faith (cf. Mark 4:40; 6:30) and acted and spoke as if he had power over “invisible spiritual forces” (p. 62) and that Jesus and his disciples traveled by boat. Moreover, Jesus’s power over forces of nature is reflected in such passages as Colossians 1:15–16 and Hebrews 1:2–3. Thus, the reason for scholarly rejection of this scene’s historicity is a philosophical bias against such an occurrence happening.

Turning to the discussion of Matthew 19:16–22 (and parallels), specifically, “Why do you ask me what is good? There is only one who is good” (Matt 19:17a), Pitre argues that either Jesus is denying that he is God and therefore good or he is alluding to the Decalogue and the Shema to imply his equality with God. He marshals evidence for the second view. By adding to the Decalogue (Matt 19:21) and alluding to the Shema (“only one”; cf. Deut 6:4; 1 Cor 8:5–6), he is implicitly leading the rich man to “a realization of his divinity” (p. 140). Lastly, Pitre makes the compelling case that Jesus’s allusion to his divinity—seen in such passages as Matthew 9:2–8, John 8:58–59, and Mark 14:61–64—is the dominant reason for his crucifixion rather than alternative proposals (e.g., “Anti-temple,” “Anti-Torah,” [p. 247]).

This is simply a stunning work, as Pitre, with thoroughness and rigor, argues for the historicity of each case and their bearing on Jesus’s own claims of divine status. By employing his three criteria in trenchant conversation with secondary literature, he demonstrates that the historical Jesus is not removed from early Christology, the Gospel of John is not less historical than the synoptics, and that the four Gospels attest to Jesus’s divinity in distinct yet complementary ways. This is required reading for those working in the fields of the historical Jesus and the early reception of the same.