Jesus: "Who Do You Say That I Am?"

by Paula Fredriksen

This article aims to clarify questions regarding the identity of Jesus Christ. Paula Fredriksen focuses on the fact that the Jesus portrayed in the Gospels was Jewish. Since Jesus worshiped the God of Israel, his theological identity differs from his historical identity. Fredriksen relies on the Gospels in order to illustrate the clear difference between Jesus' modern identity as a figure of Christian worship, and his historical identity as a Jewish man. This article is part of a series, "Fathers of Faith," also available as a collection from The World & I Online.

Genres: Christianity, Religion

16 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 28, 2012

About the author

Paula Fredriksen, the Aurelio Professor of Scripture emerita at Boston University, since 2009 has been Distinguished Visiting Professor of Comparative Religion at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, she also holds two honorary doctorates in theology and religious studies. She has published widely on the social and intellectual history of ancient Christianity, and on pagan-Jewish-Christian relations in the Roman Empire. Author of Augustine on Romans (1982) and From Jesus to Christ (1988; 2000), her Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews, won a 1999 National Jewish Book Award. More recently, she has explored the development of Christian anti-Judaism, and Augustine’s singular response to it, in Augustine and the Jews: A Christian Defense of Jews and Judaism (2010); and has investigated the shifting conceptions of God and of humanity in Sin: The Early History of an Idea (2012). Her latest study, Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle (2017), places Paul’s Jewish messianic message to gentiles within the wider world of ancient Mediterranean culture.

Reviews

[Margie Dorn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unsatisfying in that it is not complete enough. I will read her other work, because in this brief treatment that is more of an essay than a book, it is clear that Fredriksen is a good researcher and writer.

[Marlene M. Oaks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Too Short

This fascinating read these tantalizing thoughts, make me want more. This us an appetizer, so I must look for more of her writings and watch her on YouTube.

[Elias E Sanchez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paula does an amazing job with another stellar of her literary writing in walking the reader through a question that has raised many answers through the ages: “Who do you say that I am?” or what we think of this man, his claims as presented in the Gospels and what we can learn about him from a historical perspective as well as from a theological one. Highly recommend this short treatise as well as her other books to any biblical student, believer or not.