From Jesus to Christ: The Origins of the New Testament Images of Jesus [Paperback]

Paula Fredriksen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 25, 1990

In this exciting book, Paula Fredriksen explains the variety of New Testament images of Jesus by exploring the ways that the new Christian communities interpreted his mission and message in light of the delay of the Kingdom he had preached. A new introduction reviews the most recent scholarship on Jesus and its implications for both history, and theology.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 268 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (July 25, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300048645
• ISBN-13: 978-0300048643
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,298,894 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

137 of 145 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thorough, balanced, insightful, October 27, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: From Jesus to Christ: The Origins of the New Testament Images of Jesus (Paperback)

I have read several other books from the "historic Jesus" genre. Because this book is thorough and balanced, I consider it the best I have read so far. In fact, I have used it as the basis for sorting out fair interpretation from biased speculation among the other books I have read. This book is not the easiest read; it sits on the cusps of popular writing on the subject as well as more purely academic research, and that means it takes patience and commitment to get through. But the commitment is worth it.

98 of 104 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE seminal work on historical Jesus, November 13, 2003

By 

William Alexander "Bill Alexander" (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: From Jesus to Christ: The Origins of the New Testament Images of Christ (Paperback)

If you only read one book on the historical Jesus this should be it. Although I think that Fredriksen oversteps in her analysis in a few cases, overall her analysis and conclusions are right on the money. She is one of the best New Testament scholars working in the field and her careful presentation of the evidence and support for her conclusions is strong and reliable. Her reasoning is exceptionally careful and for the most part simply allows the text to speak for itself with exceptional clarity.

Fredriksen first lays out the world of the New Testament. A brief introduction on the nature of the documents and the challenges that they present begins her discussion. For those who have done a careful reading of the gospels it is apparent that there are minor as well as significant differences between them. Far from being slight changes to previous copies, they represent different understandings of who Jesus was. In many cases they represent vastly different conceptions of theology, and the future for the followers of the risen Jesus. One must delve deep into the documents with an understanding of their history and transmission in order to gain a clear perspective on this. She has done this precisely and the reader is the one who benefits from her work. Extremely helpful for understanding this is a comprehension of the Hellenistic world that Jesus was born into, the enduring legacy of Alexander's conquests that we ourselves live in the shadow of to this day. History often turns on a dime and vast changes for posterity sometimes depend on the smallest of events: the birth and rise of Alexander of Macedon is one such event.

Fredriksen moves backward in time, beginning with the highly developed esoteric Christology in the gospel of John at the turn of the century back to the very Jewish, earthy, eschatological Mark, written between 65 and 75 AD. Carefully laying out the evidence of the texts, Fredriksen incisively reasons a very likely history of the development of the ideas of Jesus and takes us back to the most probable reconstruction of who the man of history truly was. She then evaluates Paul, who represents a sort of anomaly compared to the gospel development and demonstrates that the theological development wasn't necessarily as smooth a trajectory as one would presume.

In order to gain a proper understanding of the context all this takes place in and why indeed it even occurs one must have a modicum of knowledge about the history of Israel, and the development of messianism that began with the experience of the Babylonian Exile and the subsequent influence of Persian religious ideas on historical Judaism. Indeed it was this time, from the sixth century through the second, that proved formative to Jewish ideas, which when mixed with Hellenism produced the Christian religion that we know today, which subsequently greatly influenced Islam. (What an amazing time in history!) This book describes that process. For a more complete analysis of the particularities, I recommend Cosmos, Chaos, and the World to Come by Norman Cohn.

Fredriksen then proceeds to the development of the Christian faith and its process of evolving away from Judaism that occurred as a result of the experience of the resurrection (whatever that was). This experience and an exegesis of the Hebrew Scriptures led the first followers to make some dramatic conclusions about what had really happened and what Jesus' mission was. Also significant in this process was the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 70 AD, which had a profound effect on the subsequent development of the tradition. Fredriksen lays this out for the reader concisely and thoroughly. She then summarizes by building a smooth trajectory from what we know about Jesus, the earliest gospels, to what the tradition came to be at the beginning of the second century.

Do not let its 200 pages fool. This work is thorough and packed with information and analysis. It deserves two readings.

50 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent coverage of a little-known phenomenon, August 26, 2003

By 

Avid Reader (Franklin, Tn) - See all my reviews

This review is from: From Jesus to Christ: The Origins of the New Testament Images of Christ (Paperback)

It may be true that modern Christian theology is the correct interpretation of the life and teachings of the man who lived 2,000 years ago. This interpretation, though, is only one of many that co-existed the first century. Indeed, a perusal of both New Testament and accompanying writings of the day show an intense battle among various factions - all claiming to represent attempting to set the agenda.

Fridrekson argues that what we perceive as the basic Christian message came about over time through compromise, cultural wars and sheer power politics. The split between Christians and Jews was presetn as soon as Jesus was deemed "God". The idea of a god impregnating a human woman is mythological and was (and is) deemed heretical by Jews. They never thought the Messiah would be divine nor that his rule would include Gentiles. This set the stage for two millenia of Jewish persecution. Indeed, one of the first acts of the Church was to ban the Ebionites, a group of Jewish believer in Jesus who did not consider him divine.

A contradiction in the New Testament is present if one knows the date of origin: The earlier the book, the less that was known of the life of Jesus. The first books (Paul's works) show a remarkable lack of knowledge. Mark (written next) starts at manhood while Luke and Matthew go back to the birth. John, the last written, starts at the Beginning of the Universe. This process became static only when a conference of Christian bishops voted not only on Orthodox theology but on approved Scripture.

This is an important, well-researched work that should demand more attention.