Review of Novenson, Christ among the Messiahs

H-JUDAIC BOOK REVIEW:

Matthew V. Novenson. Christ among the Messiahs: Christ Language in Paul and Messiah Language in Ancient Judaism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. 256 pp. $74.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-19-984457-9.

Reviewed by Joshua Garroway (Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion, Los Angeles)
Published on H-Judaic (January, 2013)
Commissioned by Jason Kalman

Paul’s Jewish Messiah

Rarely can the thesis of a monograph be stated in a mere five words. Yet Matthew V. Novenson does not oversimplify by distilling his argument down to the bald claim that “Christos in Paul means ‘messiah’” (p. 3). This simple thesis is nevertheless bold and controversial because it challenges the commonly held view that Paul uses Christos as a (meaningless) name, not as a (meaningful) title. According to Novenson, Paul does not use Christos as a name or as a title but as a Hellenistic honorific, comparable to Augustus, Epiphanes, Soter, or Maccabee. As such, Christos means “messiah.”

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