Jesus the Bridegroom

The bestselling follow-up to Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist, this volume includes a reader’s guide and an excerpt from The Case for Jesus.

In Jesus the Bridegroom, Brant Pitre once again draws deeply from Jewish Scripture and tradition to illuminate one of the most familiar and yet most mysterious symbols of the Christian faith: the Cross of Christ. In this compelling study, Pitre demonstrates that the suffering and death of Jesus were far more than a tragic Roman execution. Rather, the Passion fulfilled ancient Jewish prophecies of a divine wedding, in which the God of the universe would unite Himself to humanity in an everlasting covenant of love.

Christians are well acquainted with the apostle Paul’s teaching that Christ is the Bridegroom and the Church is His Bride. Yet the meaning of this imagery is often left unexplored. Why would Paul compare the brutal death of Jesus to the love of a husband for his wife? How could a first-century Jew, fully aware of the horrors of Roman crucifixion, describe the Cross in nuptial terms and call it a “great mystery” as he does in Ephesians 5:32?

Pitre argues that the answer lies in reading the life and death of Jesus through the lens of Jewish Scripture and tradition. When salvation history is understood as a divine love story, stretching from Mount Sinai to Mount Calvary, the Passion emerges as the climactic moment in God’s covenantal marriage to His people.

Along the way, familiar biblical episodes take on new depth and coherence, including the Exodus, the Song of Songs, the Wedding at Cana, the Woman at the Well, the Last Supper, the Crucifixion, and even the Second Coming. Seen in this light, the life of Christ is revealed as nothing less than the greatest love story ever told.

This book offers readers a profound and accessible invitation to rediscover the Cross as the supreme revelation of divine love, rooted firmly in the Jewish soil from which Christianity was born.