Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of the Exile: Restoration Eschatology and the Origin of the Atonement

by Brant Pitre

What did Jesus teach regarding the eschatological tribulation? Brant Pitre's answer to this basic question has ramifications for Jesus' understanding of his own identity and mission. Pitre examines key texts pertaining to Jesus' perception of his own death. In line with Jewish eschatological teachings of his day, Jesus taught that an eschatological tribulation would precede the final ingathering of God's exiled people and interpreted his own death as a key triggering event in that sequence. This comprehensive treatment of the Great Tribulation includes a provocative critique of N. T. Wright's understanding of exile and has important consequences for Jesus' messianic self-understanding. This fresh contribution to the question of Jesus and the atonement will be valued by New Testament scholars and biblical theology students alike.

Genres: Catholic, Theology, Old Testament, New Testament

600 pages, Paperback

First published December 30, 2005

About the author

Dr. Brant Pitre is Professor of Sacred Scripture at Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans, Louisiana. He earned his Ph.D. in Theology from the University of Notre Dame, where he specialized the study of the New Testament and ancient Judaism. He is the author of several articles and the books Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of the Exile (Baker Academic, 2005); Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist (Image Books, 2011); and Jesus the Bridegroom (Image Books, 2014). Dr. Pitre is an extremely enthusiastic and engaging speaker who lectures regularly across the United States. He has produced dozens of Bible studies on CD, DVD, and MP3, in which he explores the biblical foundations of Catholic faith and theology. He currently lives in Gray, Louisiana, with his wife Elizabeth, and their five children.

Reviews

[Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a fairly comprehensive study that attempts to tap into the mind of the historical Jesus and reconstruct what his views may have been on topics such as Tribulation, Exile, and Atonement, among others, and particularly how he would have viewed his own role in each.

Pitre does a good job summarizing the central claims and conclusions of this study, so I will quote that here:

"Jesus, speaking of himself as both Son of Man and Messiah, deliberately took the sufferings of the tribulation upon himself in order to atone for the sins of Israel, sins which had led them into exile. Because he saw this tribulation as nothing less than an eschatological Passover, he sought to inaugurate it in both word and deed and, thereby, to bring about the End of the Exile and the restoration of the twelve tribes in a New Exodus" (pp. 505-06).

Pitre goes about this study by, first, giving an overview of positions taken by modern scholars regarding the role of tribulation and exile in the life of the historical Jesus, as well as his own role therein. Pitre then goes into a fairly detailed overview of various Second Temple sources that discuss tribulation and exile, and Pitre uses this information to reconstruct views and expectations on these topics that would have been held in the Second Temple period. After establishing this context, Pitre then spends the rest of the book studying various passages from the Jesus traditions that could shed light on Jesus' own expectations regarding tribulation and exile, among other topics.

The bulk of the book is spent closely analyzing Gospel passages in great depth. For example, Pitre spends 160 pages covering Mk 13:1-27. For each section of text that Pitre covers, he starts out by giving a thorough exegesis of the material, followed by a reflection on the historicity of each section, using a slightly modified version of Meier's authentication criteria.

Rather conveniently, Pitre is able to "authenticate" every single passage that he exegetes, therefore tying them all to the historical Jesus. After I realized that Pitre was just going conclude that all of the verses were authentic, it got a bit repetitive going through all the criteria for each. However, his findings were still interesting and generally convincing as well.

Overall, I found this to be a very interesting study and I learned a lot from it! I would definitely recommend it if you're able to get your hands on a copy!

[Charles Meadows · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pitre's dissertation book, and hard to find now. This was an eye opener! Pitre shows that certain stock phrases like "tribulation" and "last days" surround Jesus's crucifixion, marking it out as an eschatological event. It will challenge conservative readers who see the "apocalyptic" passages (like Mk 13 and Mt 24) in the gospels as straight predictions. Heavy interaction with Daniel and other OT and parabiblical literature.