The Case for Jesus

The Case for Jesus by Brant Pitre

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Scholar Brant Pitre has a way of bringing a new perspective to old issues. In this case, Pitre tackles the claims of those who question Jesus's self-understanding of Himself as divine. It has become a bit of conventional wisdom that outside of the Gospel of John, none of the other Gospels reflect Jesus as as declaring Himself as God. Pitre re-orients the reader to the first century worldview and demonstrates that the self-understanding is revealed throughout the Gospels.

Pitre initially tackles the claim that the Gospels were “anonymous.” This is a disingenuous claim on the part of scholars like Bart Ehrman who are going for shock value by misrepresenting the meaning of “anonymous.” In fact, the two of the Gospels - Luke and John - identify their authors, and all of the Gospels were circulated as explicitly linked to the names of specific Gospel writers. Pitre points to the difficulties of the anonymous thesis in explaining that everyone everywhere ascribed the same gospels to the same authors without variance. In addition, the authors of the actual gospels were ascribed to minor figures, unlike the the subsequent “fake” gospels that used the names of major figures to give the fakes more credibility.

Pitre also effectively argues for an early dating of the synoptic gospels on the grounds that none of them mention the destruction of the Temple except as a future prophecy. There is also the anomaly that Luke doesn't end with the death of Peter or Paul, suggesting that the text was written before these events. Finally, Pitre reveals something that was news to me, namely, that there is not a scholarly consensus about whether Q existed or how Q solves the synoptic problem. Based on this, it might be a good idea to move the “two source theory” back into the theoretical area.

With the brush cleared away, Pitre tackles the central issue. Pitre points out the Son of Man and Kingdom of God sayings of Jesus which ties directly into the Book of Daniel and are based on the messianic, divine figure of the Son of Man. Significantly, the Book of Daniel's prophecies indicated that the Messiah would come in the first century, which put the Jewish population at a fever pitch of anticipation.

Pitre also points out the parallelism between Jesus' miracles and the descriptions of God's actions in the Psalms, such as Jesus's stilling the waters and Psalm 107.

Another example is the Transfiguration, which Pitre nuances in a way that is startling and obvious:

“Notice that both theophanies occur on the same mountain, Mount Sinai, the mountain of divine revelation. Notice also that neither Moses nor Elijah could look at God. They can hear him and see manifestations of his power, but they cannot see his face. What does all of this have to do with the Transfiguration? The answer is simple but profound. On the mountain of the Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah are finally allowed to see what they could not see during their earthly lives: the unveiled face of God. How is this possible? Because the God who appeared to them on Mount Sinai has now become man. In Jesus of Nazareth, the one God now has a human face. In other words, whereas the face of Moses shone with light after coming down the mountain because he reflected the light of the LORD (Exodus 34:29-35), Jesus, in the words of Pope Benedict XVI, now “shines from within; he does not simply receive light, but he himself is light from light.”34 And just as God descends upon Mount Sinai in a “thick cloud” and speaks to Moses and the people (Exodus 19:16), so now “a cloud” overshadows Jesus on the mountain of the Transfiguration and a voice speaks: “This is my beloved Son; listen to him” (Mark 9:7). By means of these words, Jesus's true identity is being revealed.”

Pitre goes on with a discussion of why Jesus' was charged with blasphemy, why he forgave sins, and a litany of other examples that make sense only if Jesus was basing His ministry on His divinity.

At the end of the discussion, the reader can't help but feel that the divinity of Jesus is everywhere in the synoptic gospels.

I cannot leave this review without sharing this surprising insight into Jesus's “sign of Jonah” prophecy:

“True confession: for years, when I read this passage, I went away somewhat underwhelmed. With all due respect to Jesus, I always felt like the comparison between Jonah being in the belly of the whale for three days and the Son of Man being in the “heart of the earth” for three days was, well, somewhat forced. Don't get me wrong—I got the parallel: three days and three nights. But this didn't seem to me to be the most impressive prophecy of the resurrection you could come up with. Moreover, lots of readers find the story in the book of Jonah to be so unbelievable. How could anyone actually stay alive for “three days and three nights” in the belly of a whale, or a fish, or whatever it was? And then one day I went back and actually read the book of Jonah, carefully, and in its original Hebrew. And do you know what I found? I found that the problem wasn't with Jesus; it was with me. (I'm learning that this is usually the case.) For if you read the book of Jonah carefully, you will discover something interesting: the author of the book never claims that Jonah remained alive for three days and three nights in the fish. Sure, that's what all the children's Bibles and movies and sermons say, but not the text itself. In fact, it pretty explicitly says that Jonah died and went to the realm of the dead. Don't take my word for it; go back and look for yourself, without skipping Jonah's prayer (like I used to do)....”

It is not uncommon for me when reading Pitre to have these moments when it is revealed that the truth was hiding in plain sight.

This is a wonderfully interesting book and wonderfully useful for apologetics.