When I was writing “Who Do You Say That I Am?” I was consciously trying not to say anything “new”. Too often in Scripture studies you find everyone trying to make a name for themselves by advocating some new theory or interpretation that no one has ever heard of before. This will make them stand out and, they hope, help them sell more books. In my view, if a Scripture interpretation is brand new, it is probably faulty. This is because for almost 2,000 years we have had saints, Fathers, doctors and scholars pouring over the words of Scripture – do we really have the arrogance to think that we have some new interpretation that no one has ever thought of?

This does not mean, of course, that old views cannot be said in new ways. I hope I have done this with “Who Do You Say That I Am?”. But always with the recognition that I am standing on the shoulders of those who came before me and that my interpretation of the Holy Scriptures is only an extension or restatement of what they have already taught the Church. Furthermore, I wanted to include the entire Tradition of the Church, not just one aspect of it; so saints from both the East and the West and throughout the centuries have been consulted.

With that in mind, I recently had to go through my manuscript and check all the references to make sure all were properly noted. While I did that, I kept track of the various people I quoted in my book, and I was pleased to see that I was able to include a broad spectrum of Christian voices from both the East and the West and throughout the centuries. Here is the list of people quoted in my book (the number following a name indicates multiple quotations):

• Aphrahat
• St. Augustine (4)
• St. Basil
• St. Bernard of Clairvaux
• Blessed Theophylact
• St. John Chrysostom (4)
• St. Clement of Alexandria (2)
• St. Cyprian
• St. Cyril of Alexandria (2)
• The Didache
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer
• Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom
• Divine Liturgy of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist Mark
• Fyodor Doestoevsky
• Eusebius of Caesarea
• St. Gregory the Great (2)
• St. Ignatius of Antioch
• St. Jerome (3)
• St. John of Damascus
• St. John of Karpathos
• St. John of the Cross
• St. Justin Martyr (2)
• St. Maximus the Confessor
• Origen
• St. Polycarp
• Pope John Paul II
• Pope Pius XI
• Psalm of Solomon
• St. Teresa of Avila
• Theodore of Mopsuestia
• St. Thomas Aquinas

As I mentioned, I was very pleased with the results: I included the voices of a wide variety of Christians and hopefully their voices will allow readers to enter more deeply into the words of Scripture. This list does not, of course, include all the quotations from Scripture in the book, which numbers almost 500 different verses from throughout the Bible. I’ll try to make a list of the different Biblical books I quote as well and post that later.