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A review by jesssalexander
From Jesus to Christ: The Origins of the New Testament Images of Christ by Paula Fredriksen
3.0
This reads like a textbook, which is sometimes fun for me because it reminds me of grad school and I guess I miss suffering through really boring textual analyses. As one would expect, it is very dry and uses big words. Parousia! That's a fun new one! It just means 2nd Coming. In this text you'll find phrases like "Paul's denationalized, apolitical, pneumatic messianic eschatology." That's just going out of her way to sound pedantic.
On to the content. Fredriksen writes from an academic, not a Christian, perspective. This was a pretty new experience for me as a reader. She writes from the supposition that the gospels and Paul's writings are NOT inspired or holy, but the writings of individuals trying to validate their beliefs and make sense of their historical context. I dismiss a lot of her arguments on the basis of my personal beliefs. But it was still really useful to read an analysis of the scriptures from that perspective and to understand more of the historical context and especially the Jewish condition of Jesus's era. She centered her argument on what she defined as the main problem with new Christianity in the first century: How did this new religion reconcile the idea that Jesus-- a Jewish teacher speaking mostly to Jews who claimed he was fulfilling Jewish prophecy-- was soundly rejected by his Jewish audience and believed instead by Gentiles? She looks at the culture of Jesus's day, the political climate between Jews and Romans, and compares the different scriptures pertaining to Jesus's ministry.
This book definetly gave me a deeper understanding of the context of the gospels. Mark was the first gospel written (though written after Paul's writings) and he, like Paul, believed Jesus would return promptly-- as in within his lifetime-- and the temple had just been destroyed which for him was a clear sign of the impending apocalypse. Paul had not encountered Jesus in the flesh, but the resurrected Jesus. It follows, therefore, that his writings were largely concerned with the resurrected Jesus and life in the Spirit rather than the corporeal. Matthew, Luke, and John were written further removed from Jesus's death, to 2nd and 3rd generation Christians. For those audiences, the 2nd coming hadn't come yet and was therefore not so impending. Matthew's writings suggest that Jewish rejection of Christ is just a continuation of a pattern. Jews historically rejected the prophets of the past, so it logically follows that they would reject the Messiah.
I loved her point about the historical resilience of the Jewish people. Historically, Jews suffered a lot of defeats. One would think it would have caused Jews to lose faith or to think God had abandoned them. But the prophets always redirected the Jews by claiming that exiles and defeats were actually signs of God's relentless pursuit of his people. This belief carried into Christianity. Persecution is actually a sign of faith.
Politically, the Passover was a charged time during Roman occupation, because Jews were awaiting their Messiah. Romans actually posted extra military support around the temple each Passover because they expected uprisings and revolts. The pharisees served as go-betweens with the Jewish people and Roman authority, so they would have found the figure of Jesus threatening, not just because of his insults and disdain for the Pharisees, but because he was stirring up the masses and drawing negative Roman attention.
Finally, the book introduced some interesting parallels I hadn't considered before: the prophet Samuel announcing King Saul and David with John the Baptist heralding the new Davidic king, also, Satan tempting Jesus uses the same taunt that later onlookers at the cross employ ("if you are the Son of God, then...").
I loved that this book made me think deeper about the gospels and my own beliefs. Plus, the big words are great brain food. One more: kerygma! It means preaching in Greek, related specifically to oral proclamations about Jesus by the earliest Christians.
On to the content. Fredriksen writes from an academic, not a Christian, perspective. This was a pretty new experience for me as a reader. She writes from the supposition that the gospels and Paul's writings are NOT inspired or holy, but the writings of individuals trying to validate their beliefs and make sense of their historical context. I dismiss a lot of her arguments on the basis of my personal beliefs. But it was still really useful to read an analysis of the scriptures from that perspective and to understand more of the historical context and especially the Jewish condition of Jesus's era. She centered her argument on what she defined as the main problem with new Christianity in the first century: How did this new religion reconcile the idea that Jesus-- a Jewish teacher speaking mostly to Jews who claimed he was fulfilling Jewish prophecy-- was soundly rejected by his Jewish audience and believed instead by Gentiles? She looks at the culture of Jesus's day, the political climate between Jews and Romans, and compares the different scriptures pertaining to Jesus's ministry.
This book definetly gave me a deeper understanding of the context of the gospels. Mark was the first gospel written (though written after Paul's writings) and he, like Paul, believed Jesus would return promptly-- as in within his lifetime-- and the temple had just been destroyed which for him was a clear sign of the impending apocalypse. Paul had not encountered Jesus in the flesh, but the resurrected Jesus. It follows, therefore, that his writings were largely concerned with the resurrected Jesus and life in the Spirit rather than the corporeal. Matthew, Luke, and John were written further removed from Jesus's death, to 2nd and 3rd generation Christians. For those audiences, the 2nd coming hadn't come yet and was therefore not so impending. Matthew's writings suggest that Jewish rejection of Christ is just a continuation of a pattern. Jews historically rejected the prophets of the past, so it logically follows that they would reject the Messiah.
I loved her point about the historical resilience of the Jewish people. Historically, Jews suffered a lot of defeats. One would think it would have caused Jews to lose faith or to think God had abandoned them. But the prophets always redirected the Jews by claiming that exiles and defeats were actually signs of God's relentless pursuit of his people. This belief carried into Christianity. Persecution is actually a sign of faith.
Politically, the Passover was a charged time during Roman occupation, because Jews were awaiting their Messiah. Romans actually posted extra military support around the temple each Passover because they expected uprisings and revolts. The pharisees served as go-betweens with the Jewish people and Roman authority, so they would have found the figure of Jesus threatening, not just because of his insults and disdain for the Pharisees, but because he was stirring up the masses and drawing negative Roman attention.
Finally, the book introduced some interesting parallels I hadn't considered before: the prophet Samuel announcing King Saul and David with John the Baptist heralding the new Davidic king, also, Satan tempting Jesus uses the same taunt that later onlookers at the cross employ ("if you are the Son of God, then...").
I loved that this book made me think deeper about the gospels and my own beliefs. Plus, the big words are great brain food. One more: kerygma! It means preaching in Greek, related specifically to oral proclamations about Jesus by the earliest Christians.