The Originality of Jesus: A Critical Discussion and a Comparative Attempt 9783666536090, 9783525536094, 9783647536095

Citation preview

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Studia Aarhusiana Neotestamentica (SANt)

Edited by Eve-Marie Becker, Ole Davidsen, Jan Dochhorn, Kasper Bro Larsen, Nils Arne Pedersen Volume 1

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Per Bilde

The Originality of Jesus A Critical Discussion and a Comparative Attempt

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

We would like to thank Aarhus University Research Foundation (AUFF) for its generous financial support. Wir danken Aarhus Universitets Forskningsfond (AUFF) für die großzügige finanzielle Unterstützung dieser Serie.

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data available online: http://dnb.dnb.de. ISBN 978-3-525-53609-4 ISBN 978-3-647-53609-5 (e-book) Ó 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen/ Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht LLC, Bristol, CT, U.S.A. www.v-r.de All rights reserved. No part of his work may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher. Typesetting by Konrad Triltsch Print und digitale Medien GmbH Printed and bound in Germany by Hubert & Co, Göttingen Printed on non-aging paper.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

This book is dedicated to the memory of my late wife, Associate Professor in Classical Archaeology, Pia Guldager Bilde, who died the 10th of January 2013. My book is written in deep admiration of the fundamental contributions to the modern research on the historical Jesus made by Hermann Samuel Reimarus, David Friedrich Strauss, Johannes Weiss, Albert Schweitzer, E.P. Sanders, Gerd Theissen, S¦an Freyne, Richard Horsley, James H. Charlesworth, Dale C. Allison, Bart D. Ehrman, John P. Meier and Maurice Casey.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Introduction to SANt Studia Aarhusiana Neotestamentica addresses all scholars working in the fields of theology, biblical studies, religious studies, Patristics, Jewish studies and classics. The series focuses on the New Testament that needs to be interpreted in various ways in terms of methodology and subject matter as well as in regard to its original setting in the Hellenistic-Roman and Jewish worlds. Furthermore, it needs to take into account the vast history of reception from Early Christianity to Modernity. Rather like a prism the New Testament illuminates diverse processes of religious and cultural formation, reformation and transformation in and beyond the Western hemisphere. This academic series, edited by scholars working together in the research group ‘New Testament Studies’ at Aarhus University, Denmark, is intended to serve as a Nordic platform for building academic bridges between the scholarly traditions of continental Europe and Anglo-American academia. The editors are delighted to launch this series with an important monograph by Per Bilde. By considering “Jesus’ originality” this volume points towards the historical preconditions of early interpretations of Jesus in the New Testament. Without reflections such as these we would find it difficult to understand the rise of the early Christian movement and the collection of texts called the New Testament. Future volumes will examine the diverse and manifold perspectives in light of which the New Testament has to be read and interpreted, from the prehistory of the New Testament and its contextualization in the HellenisticRoman and early Jewish worlds to current discourses on application in university, society and church life. The New Testament thus remains a constant challenge for textual interpretation and interpreters. Aarhus, March 31st 2013

Eve-Marie Becker, Ole Davidsen, Jan Dochhorn, Kasper Bro Larsen, Nils Arne Pedersen

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Einleitung in die Serie SANt Die Reihe „Studia Aarhusiana Neotestamentica“ wendet sich an alle, die im Bereich von Theologie, Bibelwissenschaften, Religionswissenschaften, Patristik, Judaistik und Klassischer Philologie forschen und lehren: Sie betrachtet das „Neue Testament“ als frühchristliches Textcorpus, das sowohl in Hinsicht auf seine entstehungsgeschichtliche Kontextualisierung in der Hellenistisch-Römischen und -Jüdischen Welt als auch im Blick auf seine enorme Wirkungs- und Rezeptionsgeschichte über die patristische Zeit hinaus bis in die Moderne methodisch und thematisch vielfältig zu untersuchen ist. Das neutestamentliche Textcorpus erweist sich hiermit gleichsam als Brennglas für das Verstehen der abendländischen und inzwischen weit über das Abendland hinausreichenden Prozesse von religiöser und kultureller Formation, Reformation und Transformation. Die Reihe wird von den Dozenten, die in der Forschungseinheit „New Testament Studies“ an der Universität Aarhus zusammenarbeiten, herausgegeben. Sie versteht ihre geographische Verankerung als Teil wissenschaftlicher Programmatik: Als südlichste academia im Verbund der nordischen Länder ist die dänische Wissenschaftskultur in besonderer Weise um ihre Anbindung an Kontinentaleuropa und um den Brückenschlag der europäischen mit der anglo-amerikanischen Wissenschaftstradition bemüht. Die Herausgeberin/die Herausgeber freuen sich, mit dem vorliegenden Band – einer wichtigen Monographie von Per Bilde – die Reihe eröffnen zu können: Mit der Frage nach der ,Originalität Jesu‘ werden wir zu den historischen Voraussetzungen zurückgeführt, ohne die die frühen Jesusdeutungen in neutestamentlicher Zeit und so auch die Entstehung der neutestamentlichen Textsammlung kaum zu verstehen sind. Weitere Bände von SANt werden hier in gewissem Sinne anknüpfen und zugleich zeigen, in welchen Dimensionen der Interpretation sich das ,Neue Testament‘ befindet und bewegt: Von seiner Vorgeschichte und seiner Situierung in der hellenistisch-römischen und frühjüdischen Welt bis zur jeweils aktuellen Applikation in Wissenschaft, Gesellschaft und dem Leben der Kirchen bleibt das ,Neue Testament‘ eine ständige Herausforderung für die Textinterpretation und seine Interpreten/Interpretinnen. Aarhus, 31. März 2013 Eve-Marie Becker, Ole Davidsen, Jan Dochhorn, Kasper Bro Larsen, Nils Arne Pedersen

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Contents Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

15

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

17

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 Purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Why a new contribution on Jesus’ originality? . . . . . . 1.3 A definition of the “historical Jesus” . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4 The existing sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.5 How is it possible to reconstruct the historical Jesus? . . 1.6 What can we understand by “originality”? . . . . . . . . 1.7 Difficulties and benefits by comparing Jesus with related figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.8 Approach and outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . .

23 23 23 27 28 31 36

. . . . . .

39 43

2. A critical survey of modern Jesus research from Reimarus to 2012 . 2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Major positions in the first and second periods of modern Jesus research (from Reimarus to ca. 1970) . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Main positions in the third period of modern Jesus research (ca. 1970 – 2012) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Recent unhistorical interpretations of Jesus and contemporary popular literature and films about Jesus . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5 A critical presentation of modern Danish research on the historical Jesus from Georg Brandes (1925) to Mogens Müller (2008a) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5.2 Selected Danish Jesus monographs . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5.3 The negative or ambiguous attitude of leading Danish New Testament scholars to the issue of the historical Jesus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5.4 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6 General conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

47 47

. . . . . . .

. . . . . . .

3. A critical examination of previous proposals on the originality of the historical Jesus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

49 58 68 74 74 75 80 82 83 87 87

12

Contents

3.2

A preliminary overview of earlier interpretations of Jesus’ originality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 The traditional Christian answer : Jesus’ unique effort was to bring Christianity into this world . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 A new and higher ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5 Jesus’ parables and other formal features of the Jesus tradition 3.6 Liberation and emancipation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.7 The eschatological proclamation of the imminent coming of god’s kingdom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.8 Healings and other miracles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.9 Jesus’ authority and status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.10 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4. A revised reconstruction of the eschatological project of the historical Jesus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 The appointment of the twelve selected envoys . . . . . . . . . 4.3 The chosen “remnant” of the Jewish people . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 The Mosaic Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5 The temple in Jerusalem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.6 The journey to Jerusalem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.7 Jesus’ possible predictions and interpretations of his impending death . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.8 The institution of a new covenant between the Jewish god and the Jewish people . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.9 Jews and gentiles in Jesus’ eschatological project . . . . . . . . 4.10 Jesus and the Jewish ideas of the Messiah . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.11 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. The comparative Jesus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 A brief critical presentation of earlier comparative attempts . . 5.2.1 The traditional Christian interpretation of the originality of Jesus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.2 A comparative version of the traditional Christian interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.3 Random comparisons between Jesus and related figures in various regions and periods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.4 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 Jesus compared to related Jewish figures . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.1 Jesus compared with ancient (mythical) Jewish characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.2 Jesus compared to contemporary Jewish figures . . . . . 5.3.2.1 The Hasmonean Prince Simon . . . . . . . . .

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

88 97 99 107 110 114 120 123 128 130 130 132 134 137 145 149 153 158 162 165 170 174 174 176 176 177 178 179 180 180 181 182

13

Contents

5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 5.8

5.3.2.2 The Teacher of Righteousness . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.2.3 Rabbi Hillel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.2.4 Judas the Galilean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.2.5 John the Baptist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.2.6 Jesus Barabbas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.2.7 Theudas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.2.8 Paul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.2.9 The Egyptian Prophet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.2.10 Jesus Son of Ananiah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.2.11 Josephus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.2.12 Rabbi Jochanan Ben-Zakkai . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.2.13 Rabbi Akiba . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.2.14 Simon Bar Kochba . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.3 Jesus compared with related Jewish figures in later times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.3.1 Jehudah ha-nasi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.3.2 Sabbatai Zvi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.3.3 Menachem Mendel Schneersohn . . . . . . . . 5.3.3.4 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jesus compared with contemporary related Hellenistic-Roman figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jesus compared with later related Christian figures . . . . . . Jesus compared to other related religio-historical figures . . . Jesus compared with related “secular prophets” in modern times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.8.1 Main Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.8.2 Jesus compared to contemporary Jewish figures . . . . . 5.8.2.1 Similarities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.8.2.2. Differences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

6. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3 The concept of “originality” . . . . . . . 6.4 The term “comparison” . . . . . . . . . 6.5 Modern Jesus research . . . . . . . . . . 6.6 A Summary sketch of the historical Jesus 6.7 How original was Jesus? . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . .

183 188 190 198 218 220 223 226 228 230 234 236 238 241 241 242 244 245 245 251 252 253 255 255 257 257 258 261 261 261 262 263 263 264 267

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Abbreviations Abbreviations of the titles of writings from the Jewish Bible (the Old Testament), the New Testament and the Old Testament Apocrypha as in the OSB, p. XXIII – XXIV. Abbreviations of the titles of the writings in the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha as in Charlesworth 1983, vol. 1, pp. XLV – XLVII. In addition to the current English abbreviations the following abbreviations are used in the present book: Ant. Josephus, Antiquitates Judaicorum. Ap. Josephus, Against Apion. BAR Biblical Archaeological Review. BCE Before the common era. Bell. Josephus, Bellum Judaicum. BH Biblia Hebraica. CD The Damascus Document from Qumran. CE The common era. ch. chapter. col. column. DTT Dansk Teologisk Tidsskrift. Ed. Editor. et al. et alii. FS Festschrift. GBL Gads Bibel Leksikon, København 1st edition 1965, 2nd edition 1998. HE Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica. Hrsg. Herausgegeben, that is “edited” (by). HSHJ Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus, edited by T. Holm¦n and S.E. Porter, Leiden – Boston 2011. HTR Harvard Theological Review. JQR Jewish Quarterly Review. JB The Jewish Bible. JBL Journal of Biblical Literature. JSHJ Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus. LCL The Loeb Classical Library. LXX Septuaginta. par. with synoptic parallels. NovT Novum Testamentum. NTH Den nytestamentlige tids historie (Ed. S. Pedersen ærhus 1994). NT The New Testament. NTS New Testament Studies.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

16

Abbreviations

OSB OT Q

The Oxford Study Bible (cf. above in the preface). The Old Testament. Indicates the synoptical material common to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke and missing in the Gospel of Mark. QH The Thanksgiving Hymns from Qumran: 1QH: The Thanksgiving Hymns from Qumran, found in cave no. 1. QM The War Scroll from Qumran: 1QM: The War Scrolls from Qumran, found in cave no. 1. QpHab Commentary on the prophet Habakkuk from Qumran: 1QpHab: The Commentary on the prophet Habakkuk from Qumran, found in cave no. 1. QpPs (a) Commentary on the OT Psalms from Qumran: 4QpPs (a): Commentary on the Psalms from Qumran, found in cave no. 4. QS The Rule of the Community from Qumran: 1QS: The Rule of the Community from Qumran, found in cave no. 1. Qsa The Rule of the Congregation from Qumran: 1Qsa: The Rule of the Congregation from Qumran, found in cave no. 1. Qtest Testimonia from Qumran: 4QTest: Testimonia from Qumran, found in cave no. 4. RGG Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart. RvT Religionsvidenskabeligt Tidsskrift. StTh Studia Theologica. ThL Theologische Literaturzeitung. ThWNT Theologische Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament. vol. volume. ZNW Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft. ZThK Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Preface During the last 30 – 40 years an incredibly large number of books on the historical Jesus have been published. Most of them, however, are not general attempts at interpreting Jesus and his project as a whole. They are either specialised studies of limited aspects such as Jesus’ relationship to the Jewish temple in Jerusalem, like ædna 2000, research history, like Borg 1994a, background history, like Charlesworth 1992a, or popular introductions to the study of the historical Jesus.1 Such specialised studies are important and indispensable for Jesus research as a whole, but all of them rest on the basis of comprehensive interpretations of Jesus and his project such as the general ideas of the liberal, dialectical, existential, liberational or evangelical theology. More specifically, they often rest on fundamental interpretations of Jesus such as Hermann Samuel Reimarus ((1774 – 1778) 1835), David Friedrich Strauss ((1835 – 36, 1969) 2012), Ernest Renan ((1863) 1947), Adolf Harnack ((1900) 2005), Rudolf Bultmann ((1926) 1970), S.G.F. Brandon (1967), E.P. Sanders (1985), John P. Meier (1991 – 2009), Dale C. Allison (1998, 2010); James D.G. Dunn (2003), Martin Hengel – Anna Maria Schwemer (2007), Maurice Casey (2010) and Oakman 2012. Such basic interpretations of Jesus have been made from time to time in order to collect and synthesize the great number of earlier specialised studies with the intention to establish new comprehensive interpretations of Jesus and thus to contribute to the general progress in the study of the historical Jesus. The present book on Jesus’ originality is one more such fundamental attempt.2 However, it is neither another contribution to the general interpretation of Jesus, nor a detailed study of one particular aspect of his person or activity. Rather, it is an attempt to get one step closer to the historical Jesus by comparing him to related contemporary figures. With the overall aim of contributing to clarifying the question of the originality or uniqueness of the historical Jesus I have chosen to submit the issue of Jesus’ originality – i. e. the possibly innovative nature of his message and his project – to a detailed study : How did Jesus generally differ from other figures, primarily in contemporary Judaism, with whom he may reasonably be compared? Accordingly, this book is the result of my comparative research, and therefore it is primarily addressed to the international community of Jesus

1 Such as Kee (1990) 1991; Harrington 2010; Bauckham 2011, cf. the present work, ch. 2.3 – 4. 2 The present book is a revised and updated English translation of Bilde 2011a.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

18

Preface

scholars. At the same time, however, I have written it in a language and a style that should be understandable to the general interested public. The present book represents an attempt at innovation in Jesus research. Neither the subject of the originality of Jesus nor a comprehensive comparative examination of Jesus and his project has so far been undertaken (cf. ch. 3.1; 5.2). Accordingly, the main subject of the present book is Jesus’ originality : Is it possible at all to claim that Jesus was original in any sense? If this question can be answered in the affirmative, which implies an extensive and complex investigation, how can the originality of Jesus then be defined? Does Jesus’ originality consist in his person’s unique character of being both man and god? Do we find Jesus’ uniqueness in his being the only one who has descended from heaven from where he brought his divine message of salvation of the sinful human race, and after which he returned to his heavenly home? Does the specific character of Jesus consist in his claim to be the only true son of the only true god and the saviour of all men, as it is said in the Christian creeds? In other words, does the originality of Jesus consist in his bringing the unique Christian religion into this world? Or do we find Jesus’ possible uniqueness in his belief to stand in a particularly close relationship with the Jewish god, whom he called his “father” (in Aramaic: ‘abba)? Or can Jesus be claimed to be unique by virtue of his ethical message, as it has often been assumed, especially in the Jesus research of liberal theology of the last part of the 19th and the first part of the 20th century, and today in the so-called American Jesus Seminar? Does the originality of Jesus consist in his double call for love to god and men (Matt. 22.34 – 40 (par.)) and in the so-called golden rule,3 as many people today would answer to the question about the originality of Jesus? Or was it perhaps his parables and his other well-known peculiar stories and distinctive formulations that separated him from other contemporary religious teachers? Or do we find Jesus’ possible originality in his eschatological proclamation that the kingdom of god – whatever that expression means – was finally at hand? Or does Jesus’ special character consist in his call for people to follow him in his activity and destiny? Or did his miraculous exorcisms, healings, resurrections and other wonders sort out Jesus from similar and comparable figures? Others believe that the uniqueness of Jesus lies in his destiny, the fact that he – presumably because of his message and his activities – was eventually convicted and sentenced to death by the Romans so that he can be said to have suffered martyrdom for his cause. Or do the sources on Jesus which have been handed down not contain 3 Matt. 7.12: “Always treat others as you would like them to treat you: That is the law and the prophets.” cf. Lk. 6.31 and ch. 3.4

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Preface

19

anything that may be interpreted as unique? Does it make any sense at all to talk about originality in Jesus’ case? And if so, what does it mean to refer to Jesus as “original”? It is questions of this kind that I hope to clarify, discuss and answer in the present book. In advance, my readers might think that the question of Jesus’ originality must already have been analysed thoroughly, and that it must have been completely exhausted by earlier research. To my own surprise, however, a detailed review of the literature on this subject (ch. 3) has shown that this is far from being the case, whatever the cause may be. As it will be demonstrated below (ch. 2), during the last 30 – 40 years it has been surprisingly rare that the question of the historical Jesus’ originality has been explicitly raised at all. And when it finally has been touched upon, it has mostly been crossed over superficially, perhaps because it was assumed to have been answered already. In the relatively few cases where this issue has been considered, it has also been given quite different answers, as I have already suggested above. A chapter in this book, therefore, aims at reviewing the responses that have been given to this question in earlier research (ch. 3). During my work in preparing this book I have realised that it has been impossible for me to obtain a satisfactory answer to the question of Jesus’ originality without entering into a rather detailed dialogue with recent Jesus research, partly generally, partly in a number of specific areas. Therefore, in the present book I could not escape giving a much more detailed review of recent Jesus research (ch. 2) than the one I thought to be sufficient in my previous book on the historical Jesus (Bilde 2008a, 273 – 276). A serious discussion of the issue of Jesus’ originality, however, requires first and foremost a proper comparison between Jesus and a series of more or less related contemporary figures (ch. 5). But precisely this task has been most neglected in contemporary Jesus research (cf. ch. 1.7; 5.2). Naturally, there exist a few comparisons between Jesus and related figures, primarily the Teacher of Righteousness in the Dead Sea Scrolls (second or first century BCE), John the Baptist (first half of the first century CE) and Simon Bar Kochba (early second century CE), but also figures like Buddha (ca. 560-ca. 480 BCE), Socrates (ca. 470 – 399 BCE), Alexander the Great (336 – 323 BCE), Mohammed (ca. 570 – 632 CE) and Sabbatai Zvi (1626 – 1676). However, none of these comparisons are entirely satisfactory, and this assessment is my main reason for presenting in ch. 5.3 – 7 the most comprehensive comparative study and discussion of the historical Jesus so far. A satisfactory comparison between Jesus and such related figures, however, requires that we know what we are talking about. First, this applies to the term the “historical Jesus.” Therefore such a comparison requires a definition of the “historical Jesus” as well as a well-founded hypothesis about what the historical Jesus stood for and intended. This intention of Jesus I call his “project,” while other scholars term it “die Zwecke Jesu und seiner Jünger” (Reimarus (1774 – 1778) 1835) or “the aims of Jesus” (B.F. Meyer 1979). In

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

20

Preface

continuation of my previous book in Danish about the historical Jesus (Bilde 2008a, 284 – 285), therefore, in ch. 1.3 I present a definition of the “historical Jesus,” and in ch. 4, under the inspiration of the most important parts of recent Jesus research, I present a revised overhaul of my previous hypothesis about the project of the historical Jesus (cf. Bilde 2008a, 259 – 264). On this basis, in ch. 5 I compare this reconstruction of the historical Jesus with a range of figures, which, to varying degrees, can be said to resemble him. Furthermore, I strongly emphasize that this book, even more than its predecessors, is the result of a fruitful interaction between my former Josephus research in the period between 1970 and 2000 (in particular 1983a, 1988, 1998c) and the Jesus-research I have concentrated on over the last 10 – 15 years4 (cf. ch. 1.8). Finally, I wish explicitly to declare that, as its Danish predecessors, the present book is written from a sceptical and critical attitude towards Christianity which has been gradually developed during my studies during the last 50 years of the preconditions, development and establishment of the early Christian religion (cf. Bilde (2001) 2006). Thus the present book is written in the spirits of Baruch de Spinoza (1632 – 1677), Herrmann Samuel Reimarus (1694 – 1768), David Friedrich Strauss (1808 – 1874), Albert Schweitzer (1875 – 1965) and Gerd Lüdemann. Like Reimarus and Lüdemann, I have come to believe that the differences and the lack of continuity between the historical Jesus and the Jesus movement after his death, that is between “the historical Jesus” and “the Christ of the proto-Christian faith” (cf. my footnote 67), are greater than the resemblances and the continuities between the two, although these are remarkable (cf. ch. 3.9; 4.10; 5.2; 6.6). The reasons for this belief is first and foremost that the historical Jesus was an acute eschatological prophet and messianic pretender whose expectations of his own messianic enthronement and the establishment of the kingdom of god in Jerusalem were denied and disappointed by what really happened when Jesus was arrested, prosecuted, condemned to death and executed (cf. ch. 4).5 In addition, soon after the death of Jesus his movement reinterpreted his eschatological message by transforming it to a positive, soteriological interpretation of his death. A whole series of positive reinterpretations of Jesus’ death culminated in the belief in his resurrection and ascension (cf. Bilde (2001) 2006, 198 – 215; 2008a, 235 – 258). This implied that Jesus after his death had in fact been enthroned as the Messiah, however, not in Jerusalem, but in heaven, at the right side of the Jewish god. This reinterpretation was linked to another one which transformed Jesus’ eschatological project which

4 Cf. Bilde (2001) 2006a; 2008a; 2008b, but also 1978; 1979; 1980; 1983b. In other publications I have also tried to combine these two areas of research, cf. Bilde 1980; 1981; 1984; 1996a; 1996b; 2005b. 5 Several scholars reject this obvious interpretation, e. g., J.M. Robinson 2011, 3218.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Preface

21

originally was limited to the Jewish people to include the whole world and all human beings (cf. Bilde 2008b). Thus the eschatological project of the historical Jesus was very quickly reinterpreted and transformed from a particularistic Jewish project about the reestablishment of the twelve tribes of the Jewish people, the enthronement of Jesus, the creation of a new covenant, and the construction of a new eschatological temple in Jerusalem to a cosmic interpretation of Jesus as lord over the whole cosmos (cf. Phil 2.6 – 11) and to a universal movement including all human beings (cf. Matt. 28.18 – 20). In the present book’s text and footnotes a publication is only identified by indicating the author’s family name followed by its year of publication. In cases where there are more than one author of the same family name, I add the initial (or the initials) of the author’s first name(s), e. g., E.P. Sanders 1985. If there are several editions of a given publication, the year of the original version is indicated in brackets whereas the version used and quoted in this book is indicated without parenthesis, e. g. Bilde (2001) 2006. In the present book I further follow the general rule that a reference to one work in the secondary literature is given in parentheses in the text, while references to more than one work are placed in footnotes. The English translations of the biblical writings (including the Jewish Bible’s or the Old Testament Apocrypha) quoted in the book are borrowed from The Oxford Study Bible (OSB), edited by M. Jack Suggs et al. , New York (1976) 1992. The English translations of the writings from The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha quoted in this book are borrowed from The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, edited by James H. Charlesworth, Vol. 1 – 2, New York etc. 1983 and 1985. The English translations from the Dead Sea Scrolls quoted in this book are borrowed from Florentino Gac†a Mart†nez: The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated, Leiden-New York-Cologne (1992) 1994. The English translations of the writings of Josephus quoted in this book are borrowed from Josephus with an English Translation by H.St.J. Thackeray et al., The Loeb Classical Library, I – IX, London – Cambridge MA 1926 – 1965. The English translations of Danish, Norwegian and Swedish book titles and quotations from such works are my own. In all translations from ancient authors I put in square brackets brief explanations that to me appear necessary to understand the text. A list of the abbreviations used in this book follows after the table of contents. I thank my late wife, Associate Professor in Classical Archaeology, Pia Guldager Bilde, who died on the 10th of Januarty 2013, for her critical reading

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

22

Preface

of my English manuscript and for her suggestions to make the text clearer and better. I also thank my former Ph.D. student and present Post Doc, Ph.D. Birgitte Secher Bøgh, for her critical reading of my manuscript and for her suggestions at its improvement. Likewise I am grateful for the several good advices I have received from my former colleague at the University of Aarhus, Associate Professor, dr. theol. Nils Arne Pedersen who have kindly read parts of my manuscript. Furthermore, I thank the editorial board of the series Studia Aarhusiana Neotestamentica (SANt): Professor, dr. habil. Eve-Marie Becker, Associate Professor, dr. theol. Ole Davidsen, Associate Professor, dr. habil. Jan Dochhorn and Associate Professor, Ph.D. Kasper Bro Larsen, who have accepted my English manuscript to be published as the first volume of their new series, and who have presented me with numerous valuable suggestions to the improvement of my manuscript. Finally, I thank my friend Professor of Evolutionary Ecology at the University of Exeter, Ph.D. Tom Tregenza, who has most kindly revised and corrected the language of my English translation of Bilde 2011.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

1. Introduction 1.1 Purpose It is the intention of the present study to answer the question of whether the historical Jesus can be claimed to have spoken and/or acted in a peculiar, innovative or original manner (cf. ch. 1.6), and, if so, to what extent this can be claimed to have been the case.

1.2 Why a new contribution on Jesus’ originality? Why is it necessary, just now, to consider this subject? This has to be done for several reasons: First, I have personally neglected to address this issue explicitly in my previous contributions to Jesus research. The question of Jesus’ originality may be said to have been touched upon indirectly in my attempt to determine the nature of Jesus’ project,1 but so far I have only preliminarily investigated the explicit question about Jesus’ possible originality.2 Second, my studies of the history of Jesus research on this problem have demonstrated that the question of Jesus’ possible originality has received only scant attention, particularly in research since 1970. This fact surprised me because it would seem to be of great importance and therefore might be expected to have received a lot of attention in modern Jesus research.3 A great 1 Cf. Bilde (2001) 2006, 123 – 170; 2008a, 157 – 232. 2 Cf. Bilde 2005a. It is necessary to distinguish between the issue of the possible originality of the human being Jesus from Nazareth, the historical Jesus, a subject which has been examined by very few scholars, and the question of the unique character of the religious belief in Christ or Christianity, which has been discussed on a much larger scale. These two issues represent two different historical problems. The first one is examined in this book, and the second one has recently been discussed in, e. g., Knitter 1985; 1997; Cowdell 1996; Hick – Knitter 1987; Braaten 1992; Swidler – Mojzes 1997; Zahl 2003. 3 A large number of scholars have not treated this topic explicitly : Reimarus (1774 – 1778) 1835; Strauss (1835 – 1836) 1969; Case 1927; Norman Perrin (1963) 1967; Barrett 1967; Dodd 1970; Schillebeeckx (1974) 1976; B.F. Meyer 1979; Schneemelcher 1981, 54 – 73; Horsley (1987) 1993; 1995; 2003; 2008c; 2010a; 2012; Stanton (1989) 1993; Crossan (1991) 1993; 1994; Stuhlmacher 1992, 40 – 161; Thiering 1992; Burridge (1994) 2005; Martin (1994) 1995; Becker (1995) 1996; Stegemann – Stegemann (1995) 1997; Young (1995) 2008; (1998) 2009; Theissen – Merz 1996; Frederiksen (1999) 2000, 266; McKnight 1999; Witherington 1999; Freedman – McClymond 2001; Abrahamowitz 2002; Bock 2002a; 2002b; Kaz¦n 2002; Ebner (2004) 2007; Berger (2004)

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

24

Introduction

number of scholars take it for granted that Jesus was original or unique, but do not bother to justify this assumption.4 Only a few scholars have addressed this issue explicitly,5 and, as far as I know, only in relatively few cases has the question of the originality of Jesus been the subject of a separate investigation.6 2007; White 2004; W.R. Herzog 2005; Pitre 2005; Bauckham 2006; 2011; Beavis 2006; Bird 2006; Catchpole 2006; Evans 2006a; Levine 2006; Levine – Allison – Crossan 2006; Meeks 2006; Stanley 2006; Hengel – Schwemer 2007; Swidler 2007; Destro – Pesce (2008) 2012; Kvalbein 2008; Keener 2009; Allison 2010; Casey 2010; Puig i T—rrech 2010; W. Stegemann 2010; White 2010; Borchert 2011; Lohfink (2011) 2012; Bond 2012; Horsley 2012; Küng 2012; Oakman 2012; Scholl 2012. This situation corresponds to the fact that the question of the originality of Jesus has not been treated explicitly in one single contribution in the first ten volumes (2003 – 2012) published so far of the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus. Regrettably, the same is the case in a number of recent encyclopaedia on Jesus: In Geert Hallbäck’s article on “Jesus” in the Danish Gads Bibelleksikon (vol. 1, 368 – 374 (Hallbäck 1998b)), for example, the question of Jesus’ possible originality is not mentioned at all. The same is true for Jürgen Roloff ’s contribution on “Jesus von Nazareth” in (RGG (vol. 4, 2001, 266 – 267); the article on “Jesus Christ” (of 48 pages) in the Encyclopaedia Britannica; James H. Charlesworth’s guide to the study of the Historical Jesus (2008); Craig Evans’ Encyclopaedia of the Historical Jesus (2008); Daniel J. Harrington’s Historical Dictionary of Jesus (2010); Holm¦n – Porter (2011), a massive compilation of 111 individual articles written by nearly all the most well-known Jesus scholars, of which not a single one treats the question of Jesus’ originality explicitly. In my opinion, it is an open question whether this voluminous work in four volumes containing 3652 often elementary and repetitive pages contributes very much to the general progress of the study of the historical Jesus. 4 Thus, e. g., Banks 1975, 262; Goshen – Gottstein 1997. A third example is David Flusser. He has chosen to give the English version ((1997) 2007) of his German book on Jesus ((1968) 1975) the following title: The Sage from Galilee. Rediscovering Jesus’ Genius. A fourth example is Craig L. Blomberg: In a contribution on the historical reliability of the Gospel of John, Blomberg writes: “But the time has come for Johannine scholars to push back one stage further and ask the question many students of the Synoptics have raised of Matthew, Mark, and Luke: Does an origin with the unique genius of the historical Jesus not account for the bulk of John’s material better than a Jewish-community formulation in the early church, …” (2001, 82). A fifth example is Bock – Wallace 2007, 3: “… Jesus is a very distinct figure…,” however, without any explanation and justification. In a similar way on the book’s last page: “Jesus is not one among many but is unique in his religious impact and claims” (2007, 227, cf. 23.26.213). A sixth one is Dale Allison: “I find it very difficult to come away from the primary sources doubting that I have somehow met a strikingly original character” (2010, 23). Similarly Machovec (1972) 1976, 206; A.F. Segal 1986, 82, 86; W.R. Herzog 2005, 231; Freeman (2009) 2011, 30; Borchert 2011, 219. 5 For example Harnack (1900) 2005, 34 – 36; Jülicher 1909; Holtzmann 1911, 1, 173 – 175. 405 – 420; Cadbury (1937) 1962, 68 – 71; Banks 1975, 262 (Jesus’ attitude to the Law of Moses was unique); Stein (1978) 1994, 109 – 111; D. Hill 1979; Carver (1982) 2004, 24 – 25; E.P. Sanders 1985, 137 – 140. 239 – 240; 1990; Zeitlin (1988) 1990, 61 – 72.99 – 114; Meier, 1, 1991, 171 – 174; Funk (1993) 1997, 330 – 233; Sung 1993, 282; Alexander (1997) 2005; Allison 1998; 2010, 82 – 88; Zahl 2003; Dunn 2005, 69 – 78; Hellerman 2007; Holm¦n 2012, 14 – 17. 6 So far I am only aware of Braden 1957; Zeitlin (1988) 1990; E.P. Sanders 1985; 1990; Cowdell 1996; Swidler – Mojzes 1997; Zahl 2003. However, the last-mentioned three works primarily discuss the originality of the “Christian” Jesus, i. e., Christ, or, more precisely, Christ’s unique character (cf. footnote 1,2). Even though Amer 2009 cannot be regarded as an examination of the originality of Jesus, this work can be understood as an interpretation of the essence of Jesus’ message. On the other hand, this small book does not contain any comparison between Jesus and other, Jewish and non-Jewish, comparable personalities, and therefore I do not consider this work as a monographic investigation of the originality of Jesus. The same is true of E.P. Sanders 1990, a printed

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Why a new contribution on Jesus’ originality?

25

Third, a treatment of this topic is required in connection with the discussion of the origins of Christianity. There can be little doubt that with Christianity emerging, something new and original gradually appeared (cf. Bilde (2001) 2006). Despite the numerous important preconditions to Christianity in Early Judaism and in the Hellenistic-Roman world it can hardly be doubted that the deification of Jesus and his central position already in the early Christian cult may be described as a novum in the history of religion.7 Therefore, we have to ask from where this new phenomenon came? Did it begin already with the historical Jesus?8 Fourth, in continuation of point three this idea that today we need a comprehensive examination of the originality of Jesus is supported by the observation that both parties, Christians and Jews, seem to have regarded the separation of early Christianity from the rest of Early Judaism around 100 – 120 CE (cf. Bilde (2001) 2006) as inevitable. It is therefore necessary to ask whether the innovation in relation to Judaism, which may be claimed to be involved in Christianity’s gradual establishment as an independent religion, had any connection to the historical Jesus, or whether it can be considered to have been created entirely by the Jesus movement after the death of Jesus? At the same time these two last-mentioned questions also belong to the wider complex of problems that is often described as the issue of “continuity or discontinuity” in the relationship between the historical Jesus and the Jesus movement after his death.9 lecture containing the most qualified discussion so far of my subject. Perhaps the dialogue between Leonard Swidler and Paul Mojzes 1997 and Knitter 1997 comes closer to a proper attention to the issue of the originality of Jesus. On the other hand, these authors do not carry out any comparisons with Jesus either. The most comprehensive examination of my subject is Kearney – Zeitz 2009, first and foremost because this work compares Jesus with 27 contemporary Jewish and non-Jewish personalities. However, as I intend to demonstrate in ch. 5.2, Kearney – Zeitz 2009 does not distinguish properly between the historical Jesus and the Christ of the NTand later Christianity either (cf. footnote 1,2). 7 It is generally admitted that most of the traditional as well as the new religions in the HellenisticRoman period focussed on mythical, not historical deities. Furthermore, it is almost impossible to compare the religions that were concentrated on historical persons, first and foremost the ruler cult and the worship of Apollonius from Tyana, with Christianity (cf. ch. 5.4). This fact is due to our lack of knowledge of the number and the personal engagement of their adherents caused by the poverty of the existing sources (cf. Bilde 1998a, 43 – 73. 104 – 112; (2001) 2006, 276 – 284; 2008b). 8 This issue is discussed briefly in Flusser (1968) 1975, 175 – 177; Müller 2008a, 160, and more thoroughly in Zahl 2003; Ehrman 2009, 225 – 268; Bird 2010; Back 2011; Flores d’Arcais 2011. Barnett (2009) claims that Jesus not only regarded himself as the Messiah, but also identified himself with the Jewish god and thus regarded himself as divine (2009, 252 – 253). A related point of view has been argued in detail in several publications by Larry C. Hurtado (most comprehensively in 2003). This important issue is thoroughly discussed in Bilde 2008b and in the present work, ch. 3.9; 4.9; 5.2.1. 9 Cf. my preface and footnote 1,2 above. This question is discussed explicitly by Allison 1985, 142 – 162; Hampel 1990; Kazen 2002, 31; Wilckens (2002) 2005, I,1, 25 – 35; Zahl 2003; Catchpole 2006; Holm¦n 2007a (in particular in Holm¦n’s introduction: 2007b, 1 – 16); 2012; Müller 2008a, 160;

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

26

Introduction

Fifth, the present investigation of the originality of Jesus is required by the importance of the so-called criterion of historical plausibility (or of historical context) in actual Jesus research (cf. ch. 1.5).10 In the first half of the 20th century, when the Bultmann School dominated historical Jesus-research, the criterion of dissimilarity was considered to be most important to define and identify genuine Jesus-tradition.11 The historical Jesus emerging from such studies, by definition became an original innovator who clearly stood out from both Early Palestinian Judaism and Early Christianity. In the third period of Jesus research, which was signalled by Ernst Käsemann ((1954) 1965), substantially commenced by Geza Vermes (1973) and really received momentum with E.P. Sanders (1985), however, this criterion has been subjected to severe and justified criticism.12 Instead of the criterion of dissimilarity, many scholars, most notably Gerd Theissen and Dagmar Winter (1997), argued in favour of the criterion of historical plausibility (or historical context). With this criterion, however, the emphasis in the interpretation of the historical Jesus was moved from one extreme position to another because the historical Jesus was now interpreted as a fully integrated Palestinian Jew.13 If each of these two criteria is used in isolation, consequently and thoughtlessly, both have to be described as problematic and even as unhistorical (cf. ch. 1.5). In my view it is historically unthinkable, and thus historically implausible, that the historical Jesus should have been a completely original innovator who in all respects differed from his contemporaries (cf. ch. 1.6). But it is just as historically unthinkable and just as historically implausible that he should

10

11 12 13

Ehrman 2009; W. Stegemann 2010, 407 – 421; Bird 2010; Back 2011; Danz – Murrmann – Kahl 2011; Flores d’Arcais 2011; Wenz 2011. In modern Jesus research the so-called criteria of authenticity play a major role (cf. Porter 2011). In the second period of modern historical Jesus research (cf. ch. 2.2) many scholars attached great weight to the so-called criterion of difference or dissimilarity. According to this criterion, gospel traditions about sayings or doings of Jesus that differed from contemporary Judaism as well as from early Christianity were regarded as possibly authentic or genuine. In the third period of modern historical Jesus research (cf. ch. 2.3), on the other hand, numerous scholars have replaced the criterion of dissimilarity with the criterion of historical plausibility or context. According to this criterion, those texts in the canonical gospels are regarded as authentic which in a “natural” way may 1) be claimed to belong to Early Judaism, and 2) contributes to making the development in early Christianity understandable, 3) while, at the same time, they reflect some individual peculiarity (cf. Theissen – Winter 1997, 175 – 217). Recently, however, Dale C. Allison has contended that all these criteria of authenticity are of a dubious quality, cf. 2010, x. 20 – 30; 2011. Cf., e. g., Käsemann (1954) 1965, I, 205 – 206; D. Hill 1979; Theissen – Winter 1997, 11 – 174, in particular 107 – 144; W. Stegemann 2010, 124 – 153. Cf., e. g., D. Hill 1979; Theissen – Winter 1997; Niemand 2007, 23 – 24; Wedderburn 2010, 161 – 182. Cf. for example, Hahn (2002) 2005, I, 37: “Das spezifische der Gestalt und des Wirkens Jesu wird bewusst zugunsten einer Einordnung in die Tendenzen seiner Zeit zurückgestellt; bisweilen wird die Frage nach der Originalität Jesu geradezu als unzulässig angesehen,” cf. also W. Stegemann 2010, 153 – 207.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

A definition of the “historical Jesus”

27

have been a totally integrated Palestinian Jew who did not differ at all from his contemporaries. In the present research situation where Jesus research is dominated by the criterion of historical plausibility, therefore, there is an urgent need to ask and consider the question about Jesus’ possible originality and innovative effort.

1.3 A definition of the “historical Jesus” Inspired by John P. Meier (1, 1991, 21 – 40), in my book on the historical Jesus (Bilde 2008a) I defined the “historical” Jesus as “a constructions of Jesus, which scholars establish on the basis of their critical analysis of the available sources” (Bilde 2008a, 18, cf. 284 – 285). Of course, such reconstructions of the historical Jesus can never be regarded as identical with the “real” human being Jesus who lived in Palestine at the beginning of the first century CE. This real Jesus has left behind memories and other traces that may be found in the surviving sources but as a truly living person this real Jesus is definitively lost to posterity, in just the same way as other historical personalities such as Socrates, Caesar, Napoleon and Hitler. On the other hand, the purpose of every scholarly reconstruction of the historical Jesus is to get as close as possible to the real Jesus, and the value of such an historical reconstruction of Jesus is directly proportional to its proximity to the real Jesus. However, because we know that the real Jesus cannot be reached directly, but only indirectly through the optimal critical analysis of the existing sources, we cannot describe the optimal reconstruction of the historical Jesus in any other manner as the optimal historical interpretation of the existing sources in their totality. Therefore, I would like to emphasize more strongly than I did in my book from 2008 that the reconstructed pictures of the historical Jesus presented by scholars should be understood as hypothetical approximations to the real Jesus, that is, as suggestions of hypotheses about Jesus as he really was. On the other hand, it should of course be underlined that our scholarly reconstructions of the historical Jesus can never become anything more than – more or less well-founded – hypotheses. They stand and fall with the quality of the arguments presented in their favour. Furthermore, it goes without saying that the scholarly reconstructions of the historical Jesus are not identical with the Jesus figure(s) we find in the Christian sources, especially the canonical gospels. For these sources were all written 20 – 30 (Paul) and 40 – 80 years after Jesus’ death (the canonical gospels), and their interpretations and images of Jesus have obviously been greatly influenced by the religious faith in Jesus as a universal saviour god which very quickly came to dominate the Jesus movement and the early

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

28

Introduction

Christians by whom, and for whom, these works were written (cf. White 2010). Therefore these writings’ interpretations of Jesus could and should be termed (early) Christian Jesus receptions (cf. ch. 2.4). I wrote that “it goes without saying that the scholarly reconstructions of the historical Jesus are not identical with the figure(s) we find in Christian sources,” but this sentence is easier written than documented. As we shall see in ch. 2.3, there are a growing number of scholars who reject the very possibility of getting behind the canonical sources and reaching and reconstructing a Jesus who is different from the Jesus’es of the canonical gospels – and the rest of the NT. Probably this position is also the reason why, in a number of cases, scholars believe and postulate that the Jesus they, for example, compare with other comparable figures is identical with one of the Jesus pictures of the canonical gospels (cf. for example Kearney – Zeitz 2009, cf. ch. 5.2.2). Therefore it is very important that scholars remain conscious of the problem that the historical Jesus can be difficult to distinguish from the images of Jesus in the canonical gospels and other sources (cf. footnote 1,2).

1.4 The existing sources The foundation for scholarly reconstructive work is the existing sources: The canonical and apocryphal gospels, the rest of the NT, the existing early Jewish literature (first and foremost the latest books of the OT, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the OT Pseudepigrapha and Apocrypha and the works of Philo and Josephus) and other non-Christian sources.14 Among these sources all those writing directly on Jesus can be claimed to belong to the scholarly category “reception history” of Jesus (cf. ch. 2.4). The most important among these sources are the canonical gospels. They can be studied on the basis of many different presuppositions and with many different purposes. These purposes determine the methods to be used in every single case.15 Beside the Christian gospels we have the following few and brief nonChristian sources to Jesus: first the following two texts from Josephus: Ant. 18.63 – 64: the so-called Testimonium Flavianum, i. e., Josephus’ report about Jesus, the authenticity of which is not accepted by all scholars,16 and Ant. 20.197 – 202: Josephus’ report on the execution of James, “the brother of 14 For comprehensive presentations and analyses of the majority of the existing sources I refer to Meier, 1, 1991, 41 – 166; Theissen – Merz, 1996, 35 – 95; Hengel – Schwemer, 2007, 193 – 243; Casey 2010, 61 – 99; Holm¦n – Porter, 2011, 3, 1821 – 2180. 15 Cf. ch. 1.5 below. In addition I refer to Wedderburn 2010, 145 – 187; Dewey 2011, 1821 – 1840. 16 Bilde 1981; Meier, 1, 1991, 56 – 88; Theissen – Merz 1996, 75 – 82; Bardet 2002; Ulrich 2009; van Voorst 2011, 3, 2168 – 2171.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

The existing sources

29

Jesus who is said to be the Messiah,” both written about the year 96 CE; secondly, Pliny the Younger : Epist 10:96 written about 111 – 112 CE, stating that the Christians in the Roman province of Bithynia met and sang “a hymn to Christ as to a god;” thirdly, the Roman historical writer Tacitus: Annals 15:44, written about 115 CE, confirming that the Christians had their name after a certain “Christus,” who “had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilatus” (Translated by Jackson (1937) 1969, 283). The main importance of these non-Christian sources is their confirmation of the historical existence of Jesus (cf. ch. 2.3). Among scholars there is little doubt that apart from the Gospel of Thomas the apocryphal gospels, e. g., the Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of Peter , the Gospels of Magdalene, Mary, Judas and many other fragmentary gospels, are later and even more influenced by Christian ideological, i. e., theological and mythological, ideas than the canonical gospels.17 However there seems be to one exception from this assessment: the Gospel of Thomas.18 During the last 50 years this gospel has played a major role for the scholarly reconstructions of the historical Jesus, particularly in the so-called American Jesus Seminar and in other modern “liberal” theological interpretations of Jesus.19 Scholars belonging to this seminar and this school, first and foremost Crossan (1991) 1993, 427 – 428, have dated the oldest version of the Gospel of Thomas as early as to the 50s CE, that is, earlier than the canonical gospels and in fact as the oldest and most important source to Jesus. This decision was and is of crucial importance for their theological interpretation of the historical Jesus (cf. ch. 2.3), first and foremost because the Gospel of Thomas contains almost no apocalyptic or eschatological sayings of Jesus. I disagree with this interpretation of the Gospel of Thomas, partly because of the gnostic or proto-gnostic content of this writing which points to a rather later date,20 partly because the Coptic version of The Gospel of Thomas has been dated to about 340 – 350 CE, partly because its assumed Greek original cannot be dated earlier than about 170 – 180 CE, when it is mentioned by Irenaeus, and finally because all earlier datings of the assumed earlier versions of the Gospel of Thomas are hypothetical and supported by unconvincing arguments.21 17 Cf. ch. 1.3 and Meier 1991, 112 – 166; Nicklas 2011. 18 Cf. Valantatis 1997; Uro 1998; 2003; Broadhead 2011; Gathercole 2012. 19 Cf. Broadhead 2011, 2080; J.M. Robinson 2011, 453 – 461. I also refer the readers to ch. 2.1 and 2.3. In addition, I refer my readers to the thorough discussion of this problem in Allison 2010, 125 – 134. 20 Cf. Theissen – Merz 1996, 51 – 55; Uro 2003, 51 – 53. 134 – 135. 21 Cf. Valantatis 1997, 12 – 21; Bilde (2001) 2006, 416 – 421; Uro 2003, 134 – 138; Freeman (2009) 2011, 23; Bertalotto 2010, 38 – 39. Dale Allison adds to these arguments a detailed discussion of the relationship between the apocalyptical eschatology of the Jesus of the synoptic gospels and the non-eschatological Jesus of the Gospel of Thomas. Dale Allison interprets the “spiritualizing” position of the Gospel of Thomas as a result of the disappointment caused by the problem of the delay of the parousia, and he compares the solution of this problem in the Gospel of Thomas with those of the Gospel of John and 2 Pet. 3 (2010, 132 – 133).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

30

Introduction

Accordingly, as it is commonly accepted, the best sources to Jesus are the canonical gospels. But, as it is also commonly agreed, these sources are not of a particularly good historical quality, partly because they are relatively late (cf. ch. 1.3), partly because they all, in various ways, interpret the historical Jesus as identical with the resurrected, divine, heavenly Christ whom they regard as their only legitimate lord and saviour. Therefore these sources call for critical analysis.22 The first step in this critical procedure was the recognition, first reached by David Friedrich Strauss (1835 – 1836, (1969) 2012), that the three synoptic gospels are better historical sources than the Gospel of John. The primary foundation for this assessment is the thoroughly divinised Christology of the Gospel of John which Strauss interpreted as a decisive sign of a later date. Therefore, for a long time the Gospel of John was excluded from the most valuable historical sources to Jesus. However, since the publication in 1963 of C.H. Dodd’s monograph, The Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel, this evaluation of the Gospel of John has been somewhat softened (cf. ch. 2.3), and today it is widely acknowledged that this text is not without older, valuable traditions. I accept this recent revaluation of the Gospel of John, not at least concerning the relationship between John the Baptist and Jesus and concerning the Jewish and Roman processes against Jesus (cf. D.M. Smith 2011). The second step in the history of the critical analysis of the canonical gospels was the detailed examination of the relationship between the three synoptic gospels, which took place from the middle of the 19th century (cf. ch. 2.2). The first period of this work concluded in the general acceptance of the so-called hypothesis of Markan priority stating that the Gospel of Mark is the oldest gospel (cf. Dewey 2011, 1824 – 1827), and, in addition, of the socalled Two Sources Theory, assuming that the two oldest sources, Mark and Q,23 had been used by the editors of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke (cf. ch. 2.2). I estimate that this hypothesis of the two sources remains the most commonly accepted explanation of the literary relationship between the three synoptic gospels.24 On the other hand, at the same time it is a fact that there is no scholarly consensus about these two hypotheses.25 Before the middle of the 19th century the most commonly accepted explanation of the literary relationship between the synoptic gospels was that the Gospel of Matthew was the oldest, and that the Gospels of Mark and Luke depended on that of Matthew or of an older Hebrew version of this gospel.26 An alternative to this hypothesis of Matthean 22 23 24 25

Cf. Bilde 1978; (2001) 2006, 385 – 421; 2008a, 277 – 282; Dewey 2011, 1821 – 1840 (on Mark). Cf. Mack 1993; Tuckett 1996; 2011; Kloppenborg (1987) 1999; 1994; 2000; 2008. Cf. Goodacre 2001; Freeman (2009) 2011, 23; Dewey 2011. The hypothesis of Q is rejected by Edwards 2011; Goulder 2011, and the hypothesis of Markan priority is dismissed by Dungan 2011. I also refer to the critical discussions in R.E. Brown 1997, 111 – 122; Goodacre 2001; Burkett 2002, 139 – 154; White 2010, 428 – 431. 26 Other scholars have proposed a hypothesis of an older version in Aramaic or Hebrew of the

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

How is it possible to reconstruct the historical Jesus?

31

priority was and is the (Griesbach) hypothesis, that an early version of Luke, the so-called Proto Luke, was the first and oldest example of the new gospel genre. In the 20th century this discussion has been strongly revived, and scholars have continued to argue in favour of the priority of each of the three synoptic gospels or of hypothetical earlier versions of each of them.27 The uncertainty and doubt concerning the hypothesis of Q is even greater than that of Markan priority. Although some scholars have made serious attempts to identify and edit the “Gospel of Q,”28 and although others have written commentaries on Q (cf. Valantatis 2005), there is not yet established any agreement about this hypothesis, and several other scholars have presented serious arguments against Q.29 When I to this situation of uncertainty add the fact that an accurate dating of each of the canonical gospels has not yet been established to the satisfaction of the international scholarly community,30 I conclude that the Two Source Theory – or any other hypothesis about the relationship between the synoptic gospels – is unsuited as the foundation for the determination of the priority of the synoptical sources. Therefore I have decided to base my historical reconstruction of Jesus (ch. 4), not on any hypothesis of the literary and chronological relationship between the three synoptical gospels, but on the socalled criteria of authenticity and, particularly on a number of other critical procedures (cf. ch. 1.5).

1.5 How is it possible to reconstruct the historical Jesus?31 In this chapter I intend to present a sketch of my scholarly approach to the gospels and the procedures I find most fruitful and productive for

27

28 29 30 31

Gospel of Mark, the so-called Ur-Markus (cf. Farmer 1964, 1 – 35) or Proto-Mark (cf. Burkett 2004). Recently Aldridge 2011 has published an hypothesis of a common “first gospel” in Aramaic which he believes was written about 40 – 45 CE, and which he assumes to have been the common source of all the four canonical gospels. A related hypothesis was published in 2009 by James R. Edwards who argues in favour of a development from the original hypothetical Hebrew gospel to Luke, who is also dependent of Mark, while Matthew depends on Mark and some additional sources. Cf. the references in footnotes 1,25 – 26 and, furthermore, e. g., Farmer 1964 and Orchard (1976) 1977 (who makes an attempt at reviving the Griesbach hypothesis: that Matthew used Luke, and Mark used both Luke and Matthew); Stoldt 1977 (critique of the hypothesis of Markan priority); Rist 1978 (on the “independence of Matthew and Mark”); Horman 2011 argues in favour of the hypothesis that the gospels of Mark and Thomas are dependent of a common source (“N”), written in the middle og the first century CE. Cf. , e. g., Heil 2002; J.M. Robinson et al. 2002. Thus, e. g., Allison 2010, 118 – 125, and, in particular, Goulder 2011. Cf. J.A.T. Robinson 1976; R.E. Brown 1997; Burkett 2002; Theissen (2002) 2003; Rhee 2005. The following description of my methodology regarding the reconstruction of the historical

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

32

Introduction

reconstructing a historical Jesus who is as close to the real Jesus as possible (cf. ch. 1.3). This explicitly formulated purpose determines my methodology which can be described in the following way. First comes the critical use of the so-called criteria of authenticity (cf. ch. 1.2), particularly the criterion of dissimilarity, the criterion of embarrassment and the criterion of context or historical plausibility, especially when these criteria are combined (cf. below). In the second place follows the critical analysis and description of the major “ideological tendencies” in the canonical gospels and in the gospel tradition behind the gospels. In the third place, with E.P. Sanders and other scholars I postulate that it is possible to identify a number of historical “facts” by the means of which less certain historical hypotheses can be tested and anchored. Finally, in the fourth place comes the most important tool to reconstruct the historical Jesus: the creative historical imagination of the scholar in question, that is, her or his abilities to ask critical questions relevant to the interpretation of the sources and her/his creative fantasy to construct hypothetical explanations of as many problems in the sources as possible. First the criteria of authenticity :32 The criterion of dissimilarity presupposes that the historical Jesus differed from early Judaism as well as from the Jesus movement and early Christianity, and it postulates that texts testifying to such a Jesus reflect the real Jesus (cf. ch. 1.2). I agree with the criticism presented by Gerd Theissen and Dagmar Winter (1997), claiming that the first half of this criterion is problematic while the second is sound. Therefore the first half of this criterion should be replaced by the criterion of context or historical plausibility. This means that a story about, or a pronouncement or an act of Jesus can be regarded as being historically “plausible,” if it militates against the later ideas of the Jesus movement and early Christianity and, at the same time, is in agreement with its early Jewish context (cf. also Harvey 1982, 1 – 10). The criterion of embarrassment is a variant of the second half of the criterion of dissimilarity. It postulates that texts referring to sayings and doings of Jesus which do not harmonize with the culture of the later Jesus movement and of the early Christianity after the death of Jesus should be considered to be authentic (cf., e. g., Freeman (2009) 2011, 24). Jesus sums up and develops my earlier descriptions in Bilde 1978; (2001) 2006, 123 – 170. 385 – 421; 2008, 277 – 291. For constructive dealings with this problem I also refer to B.F. Meyer 1979, 60 – 110; E.P. Sanders 1985, 1 – 58; Theissen – Merz 1996, 35 – 124; Meier, 1, 1990, 1 – 200; Dunn 2003, 327 – 336; Ebner (2004) 2007, 19 – 34; Hengel – Schwemer 2007, 171 – 270; Webb 2009; Allison 2010, 1 – 30 and 435 – 462; Bertalotto 2010, 11 – 18; Casey 2010, 1 – 141; Puig i T—rrech 2010, 44 – 62; Wedderburn 2010; Holm¦n – Porter 2011, 1, 3 – 853. As it appears from the title of Allison 2010, this author consequently uses the phrase “constructing (Jesus),“ whereas I want to retain the ambiguity expressed in the formulation “reconstructing (Jesus).” 32 Cf., e. g., Theissen – Winter 1997; Porter 2011. In his latest works Dale Allison has dismissed the criteria of authenticity (2010, x. 10. 20 – 22; 2011).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

How is it possible to reconstruct the historical Jesus?

33

So far I have described my methodology in an abstract, theoretical manner. Now I shall try to be more specific and give an example: Lk. 19.11 (cf. ch. 4.6): “While they were listening to this, he went on to tell them a parable, because he was now close to Jerusalem and they thought the kingdom of God might dawn at any moment.” In this text the editor of the Gospel of Luke rejects the view ascribed to “they” in the beginning and in the end of the text. According to the editor, it was a mistake to think that god’s kingdom “might dawn at any moment,” because Jesus was now near Jerusalem. Why was this belief a mistake? Inspired by Albert Schweitzer (1901) 1956, I propose that the reason for this view was the fact that, at the time in which the text was written or edited, this expectation actually had been experienced not to be true. Furthermore, we have to ask why the editor is so eager to correct this error? Again I propose that his reason was that this expectation actually had been the historical and true expectation with which Jesus and his movement originally travelled to Jerusalem, but that this expectation later was experienced to have been wrong. Therefore in Lk. 19.11 the editor of the text presents this crucial expectation as false because, in hindsight, it had proved to be erroneous. Thus Luke 19.11 fulfils the demands of the combined criterion of dissimilarity, embarrassment and historical plausibility or context: It differs from the view of the later “Jesuanic” or “proto-Christian” editor and the ideology he represents, and it fits the historical context of early Judaism which was decisively marked by a strong eschatological expectation of the kingdom of god and/or the Messiah (cf. below, in ch. 2.2; 3.7; 4.6 – 10; 5.3.2.2; 5.3.2.4). I propose that we designate such texts survivals (remnants, traces or leftovers) from the history of the Jesus movement before the edition of the text in question, and in principle such texts can be survivals from the real Jesus. However, and this is important, such an interpretation depends on the agreements between the survival in question and our hypothetical reconstructions of the surrounding, contemporary early Judaism, of our hypothetical reconstructions of sayings and doings of the historical Jesus and of our reconstructions of the history of the Jesus movement with its growing and expanding christology. In the second place I base my historical reconstructions of the historical Jesus on the reconstruction of the major ideological tendencies of the canonical gospels, the synoptic gospels and the gospel tradition behind the canonical gospels: I propose that the identification and interpretation of the survivals mentioned above can be supported by what I here define as the “major ideological tendencies” working in and behind the historical development of the gospel tradition. One of the most important of these tendencies is the literary indications that the – canonical and apocryphal – gospels as well as both the whole, written and/or oral, history of the gospel tradition behind the gospels and furthermore the rest of the NTare marked by the phenomenon of the so-called

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

34

Introduction

delay of the parousia (“die Parusieverzögerung,” (cf. Grässer (1957) 1960). It appears from such texts as Matt. 10.23; 16.27 – 28; 24.1 – 4; 24.42 – 51; 25.1 – 11: 27.52 – 53; Jn. 21.20 – 23; Acts 1.6 – 8; 1 Cor. 15.51; 1 Thess. 4.17; 2 Pet. 3.1 – 13 that the NTas a whole is deeply influenced by two fundamental historical facts: First, the non-arrival of the kingdom of god (cf. above), as expected and predicted by John the Baptist, Jesus and the early Jesus movement (parousia number one), and, secondly, the non-return to this world of the Jesus figure who very soon after his death by his adherents was believed to have been resurrected from death, ascended to heaven and there to have been enthroned at the right side of god the father, wherefrom he was expected very soon to return in order to complete the divine salvation project on the earth, as believed by Paul and the Jesus-movement after the death of Jesus (parousia number two).33 Therefore the degree of eschatological expectation in the texts we analyse and in particular in the survivals which we have identified can be used as a reasonably reliable instrument to measure the age and authenticity of the text in question.34 Another important ideological tendency in the development of the gospel tradition is precisely the various degrees of christological development, from a “low” and “human” christology (such as “prophet”) to a “high” and “divine” christology (such as pre-existent “son of god” or “logos”).35 A third ideological tendency can be found in the interpretation of the relationship between Jesus and John the Baptist. If my reconstruction of the historical Baptist is correct (cf. ch. 5.3.2.5.9), John was originally the master of Jesus being his pupil. Therefore texts stating that the Baptist was “only” the forerunner of Jesus being the Messiah can be regarded as late and secondary whereas texts expressing the view that John was the master, that Jesus was his pupil, that Jesus at some time broke out from the Baptist movement, and that the two movements worked co-ordinately and even in competition, can be regarded as earlier and perhaps original traditions. A fourth ideological tendency can be found in the gospels’ description of the historical responsibility for the execution of Jesus (the Romans or the Jews?). A fifth one can be identified in the different interpretations of the 33 For an analysis of this fundamental problem I refer to A. Schweitzer (1901) 1956; Kümmel (1945) 1956; Grässer (1957) 1960; 1973; Künzi 1970; 1977; Beasley-Murray 1986; 1993; Witherington 1992; Bilde (2001) 2006, 171 – 197. 34 Cf., e. g., Freeman (2009) 2011, 26 – 27). In their argument in favour of the historical reliability of the synoptic Jesus tradition Eddy – Boyd (2007) 2008 does not discuss the problem of the delay of the parousia, and in my opinion their position is characteristic of what I call the evangelical wing of the traditional Christian interpretation of the historical Jesus (cf. ch. 2.3). 35 Cf. Cullmann (1957) 1963; Hahn (1963) 1966; Moule 1977; Hengel (1975) 1977; Frederiksen (1988) 2000; Casey 1991; Karrer 1991; 1998; Kreplin 2001; Hurtado 2003; White 2010, 19 – 83. 259 – 404; Grindheim 2012, 35 – 147 (only the synoptic gospels). I have analysed this christological development in more detail in Bilde (2001) 2006, 268 – 285; 2008a, 264 – 268; Bilde 2008b

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

How is it possible to reconstruct the historical Jesus?

35

religious importance of the death of Jesus (cf. Bilde 2008, 236 – 250), and others of the same sort may be revealed. In the third place I base my historical reconstructions on what I call a number of more solid and more certain “facts.” Since E.P. Sanders 1985 there has been a growing agreement among scholars about the existence of a number of such historical facts, that is, events in the canonical gospels on which scholars may be allowed to build when they analyse and consider the age and authenticity of a given text.36 One such historical fact is that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist and began his public activity as a follower of John (cf. ch. 5.3.2.5.9 – 10). Another one is the fact that Jesus was executed by the Romans, probably for political reasons (cf. Bilde 2008a, 23 – 41). A third one is the fact that Jesus was a Jew, remained a Jew and never considered rejecting Judaism and founding a new religion (cf. ch. 2.2 – 3). In continuation of this fact is a fourth one, being a growing scholarly acknowledgment that Jesus’ relationships to the Law of Moses and to the temple in Jerusalem were not negative, but positive (cf. ch. 4.4 – 5). Fourth, in the latest of his numerous contributions to the study of the historical Jesus Dale Allison has replaced the criteria of authenticity by what he describes as the most recurring themes and motifs in the relevant sources, first and foremost the synoptic gospels (cf. 2010, 10 – 22. As a good example Allison himself presents 17 traditions about Jesus’ exorcisms interpreted as his fight/ war against Satan and his demons (Allison 2010, 17 – 20). In the fifth place, the historical reconstructions of critical scholars are dependent on what I consider to be the most important tool in the endeavour to work out tools and methods to reach the real Jesus and to reconstruct the historical Jesus, that is, the critical historical imagination of the working scholar. By “critical” I refer to the critical tradition in the history of Jesus research represented first and foremost by Reimarus, David Friedrich Strauss, Albert Schweitzer, E.P. Sanders and Bart Ehrman (cf. ch. 2.2 – 3). By “historical imagination” I refer to the indispensable importance of formulating creative questions and inventing the most productive hypothetical theories about Jesus, his project and the Jesus movement like those created by the same five scholars (cf. ch. 2.2 – 3). The most important examples of this factor are the general interpretations of Jesus as a “saviour” from sin, Satan and death, as an “apocalyptic” or “gnostic” revealer, as a “scribal” interpreter of the Law of Moses, as a “reformer” of Early Palestinian Judaism, as a “healer” and exorcist, as a “magician,” as a “shaman,” as a “storyteller” and literary genius, as a “moral teacher” and ethical model, as a “philosopher” or even an itinerant Cynic, as a political “liberator” from all

36 Cf. E.P. Sanders 1985, 3 – 13 (identifying eight such facts); Charlesworth 1994, 12; Bock – Webb 2009, 825 – 853 (identifying 12 such facts); Freeman (2009) 2011, 24 – 27; Allison 2010, 21 – 22; Broadhead 2011, 1180 – 1182; Charlesworth 2011, 112 – 123.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

36

Introduction

kinds of suppression and marginalisation, as a “feministic” liberator of repressed women, as an eschatological prophet or as a messianic pretender. On the basis of such criteria, such survivals, such ideological tendencies and such historical facts it is the task and duty of the critical historical Jesus scholar to construct three hypotheses or theories, one of early Judaism (the historical context of Jesus, (cf. Bilde (2001) 2006, 40 – 170; 2008a, 43 – 107), one of the history and ideology of the Jesus movement and early Christianity from the time of Jesus to about 100 CE, that is the time when the canonical gospels were composed, edited and written (the reception history of Jesus (cf. Bilde (2001) 2006, 171 – 526), and one of the historical Jesus (cf. Bilde 2008a and ch. 4). The last step in this scholarly procedure consists of the experiment of trying to place and fit this hypothetically reconstructed historical Jesus into the hypothetically reconstructed history of early Christianity and its christology as well as that of contemporary early Judaism. This procedure has an obviously circular character. On the one hand, the various hypothetical elements depend on each other. On the other hand, to well-informed scholars some reconstructions of the historical Jesus, for example those of Albert Schweitzer or E.P. Sanders, are obviously of a better quality and therefore more reliable and trustworthy than others, for example those of Reimarus, Ernest Renan and S.G.F. Brandon, not to speak of those of the modern American and British “evangelicals.” The obvious higher quality of the first group of historical reconstructions derives from the simple fact that they agree better with all the operating factors in the historical context of Jesus than those of the last mentioned groups. They fit better all the existing survivals, all the ideological tendencies, all the historical facts and the hypothetical reconstructions of early Palestinian Judaism as well as those of the history of the Jesus movement and of early Christianity and its christology. The better the scholar’s hypothetical reconstruction of the historical Jesus fits both of these reconstructed historical contexts, the more reliable and trustworthy it can be regarded to be.

1.6 What can we understand by “originality”?37 Fundamentally the question of Jesus’ possible originality and his potential innovations is difficult, if not impossible to answer fully and with absolute certainty. As E.P. Sanders writes: “Most claims for uniqueness or originality are confessions of faith” (1990, 21). In the published lecture just quoted, E.P. Sanders demonstrates this assessment by calling attention to a number of 37 In modern Jesus research I have found almost no interesting discussions of the concept of “originality.” So far I am only aware of E.P. Sanders 1985, 240; 1990; Meier, 1, 1991, 172 – 174; Dunn 2005, 69 – 78.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

What can we understand by “originality”?

37

Christian theologians’ unhistorical assertions about Jesus’ originality. Elsewhere in the same paper E.P. Sanders writes: “Selective reading combines with confessional interest to produce claims of uniqueness” (1990, 22). In my assessment, however, these statements are perhaps too categorical and too pessimistic, but I admit outrightly that the questions of Jesus’ unique personality and originality are extremely complicated. First, this is due to the nature of the sources about the historical Jesus. As indicated above (ch. 1.4), the most important of these sources, the four canonical gospels, combine and integrate perhaps trustworthy memories and traditions about the real Jesus with the religious interpretations of Jesus as the divine saviour which developed among the gospel-writers’ co-religionists before and at the times when the gospels were written. Therefore it is not easy to determine whether a feature in these sources that appear to be new, unique or original, for example, the command to love one’s enemies, or Jesus’ criticism of other Jewish groups or denominations (Pharisees, Sadducees, etc.), really comes from the real Jesus, or whether they have been invented in later circles of Jesus-believers. Second, this question of the originality of Jesus is difficult to answer because a fully satisfactory answer must presuppose a complete knowledge of all contemporary Jewish (cf. ch. 5.3), all other Hellenistic-Roman (cf. ch. 5.4), and all other comparable figures (cf. ch. 5.5 – 7). And such knowledge is practically impossible to establish because of the fragmentary character of the existing sources.38 Therefore no fully satisfactory and unambiguous answer to the question of Jesus’ originality can be given, but always only a partial, tentative, relative and provisional one.39 When I still dare to consider such an answer I am therefore obliged to make the following reservations: There are serious difficulties with the concept of “originality” (cf. footnotes 1,37 and 1,39). What does this word and concept really mean? Does “originality” refer to something new in an absolute sense? To illustrate this problem I ask whether Pharaoh Akhenaton’s (1353 – 1335 BC) religious renewal in Egypt in the 14th century BCE (a type of “monotheistic” sun worship) was an absolute religio-historical innovation? Similarly we can ask whether the Jewish “invention” of the synagogue (the building as well as the service taking place in it) was an absolutely new creation? Furthermore can we regard the change of religion in Scandinavia from the old Norse religion to a sort of Christianity around 600 – 900 CE as an absolutely new formation? Was the reformation by Martin Luther (1483 – 1546) in the years after 1517 such a thing? And was it an 38 Similarly Nissen 1974, 9 – 10; E.P. Sanders 1990, 6, 23. 39 Similarly E.P. Sanders 1985, 240; 1990, 26. James D.G. Dunn also expresses himself critically against the attempt to encircle what he calls the “distinctive” Jesus, “distinctive in the sense of a Jesus different from his environment” (2005, 58). Instead of that Dunn pleads for looking for what was “characteristic” for Jesus” (cf. 2003, 405; 2005, 69 – 78; 2011b, 11). However, to my knowledge, neither Dunn nor other scholars have anything to say to the issue discussed in the present chapter.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

38

Introduction

absolute innovation when the European Pietists in the 17th century began to talk about a sharp, visible and datable personal Christian conversion? Or might “originality” also be said to consist in new accents, new aspects, new combinations and new questions? In other words, can “originality” be interpreted, not only as something “absolutely new” and “unique,” that is, as an expression of genuine “innovation” in the literal sense of the word, but also as a synonym or equivalent with “peculiarity,” “distinctiveness” and “character”?40 When it comes to the question of “originality” in the religio-historical sense – and I think that the same is true of other “cultural” cases or areas – I agree with those scholars who claim that none of the so-called religio-historical “renewals” and “innovations” ought to be described as “absolute,” but rather should be called “relative” or even “syncretistic.” That is to say that such innovations are not new in an absolute sense, but rather consist of new constellations of familiar older elements, as is clearly illustrated in the history of religions by “innovators” such as Mani (216-ca. 275 CE), Francis of Assisi (1182 – 1226), Martin Luther, Ron Hubbard (1911 – 1986, founder of Scientology) and the Reverend Sun Myung Moon (1920 – 2012, founder of the Unification Church (the Moonmovement)). Therefore I also need to acknowledge that in the world of religions, no clear boundary line can be drawn between genuine original innovations and what may be called as internal innovations and reforms. I see another difficulty in the fluid transition which may be said to exist between – either absolute or relative – “original” innovations, on the one hand, and what we call religio-phenomenological “types,” “roles” and “functions,” on the other. With these three concepts I refer to the determination of precisely Jesus’ religio-phenomenological type, role or function, that is, Jesus as an “eschatological prophet,” a “messianic pretender,” an “exorcist,” a “therapist,” a “healer,” a “shaman,” a “scribe,” a “philosopher” (perhaps Cynical?), a “magician,” a “reformer,” a “teacher,” a “storyteller,” an “apocalypticist” and a “revealer” (cf. Evans 2011). The more precisely we think that we can determine Jesus as belonging to one or more of these phenomenological categories, the closer we are probably also to knowing what especially characterized him, i. e., his distinctive character or proprium. In that case, too, however, we may ask whether we have come closer to the “originality” of Jesus in any absolute sense? Finally, it seems to me that the concept of “originality” concerning the historical Jesus also has to do with the nature of his purpose, program, or “project,” if we can use such a category (cf. Ben F. Meyer 1979). In my book about the historical Jesus (Bilde 2008a), I use this modern word “project,” and with that expression I aim at Jesus’ own understanding of his specific mission or task: What was actually Jesus’ intention? What was the main purpose of his public activity? (cf. ch. 4). I think that a proper answer to this question also has some importance for determining Jesus’ possible originality. By Jesus’ possible “originality” I thus understand important, reliable 40 Cf. E.P. Sanders 1990, 26; Dunn 2005, 58.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Difficulties and benefits

39

testimonies in the existing sources’ reports about Jesus’ words and deeds which can be described as “peculiar” or “unique” for Jesus when they are compared with other known and related figures, primarily in Jesus’ own time and context, i. e., in Jewish Palestine and the Eastern Mediterranean from ca. 170 BCE to 135 CE. Such possible original features will probably mainly have to be looked for in connection with Jesus’ peculiar project and with the specific religio-phenomenological roles and functions that were connected – by Jesus himself, his adherents and outsiders – to his main project.

1.7 Difficulties and benefits by comparing Jesus with related figures Comparison is an indispensable tool for historical understanding.41 However it is much easier and much more common to compare different types and genres of texts from the canonical gospels with related texts from other sources than it is to compare hypothetically reconstructed historical figures. Already in the 19th century David Friedrich Strauss had suggested that large parts of the texts in the gospels should be classified as “myths” (cf. Mack 2001), and therefore could and should be compared with myths of a similar nature, mainly from the OT, but also from Hellenistic-Roman literature. Strauss referred especially to the stories of Jesus’ birth in Matthew and Luke, the reports about the ascension of Jesus in Luke and Acts, the story about the transfiguration of Jesus in the three synoptic gospels, and many of the descriptions of his miracles (cf. ch. 2.2; 3.8). In a similar way other parts of the gospels, e. g., the parables, can be compared with texts of a similar character in Jewish, Greek, Roman and other cultures’ literature. It goes without saying that it is much more difficult to compare the hypothetically reconstructed historical Jesus with related figures in closer and more distant cultures. At first you might not think it would be so difficult to compare Jesus with related figures. In practice, however, I have encountered several problems. I got a foretaste of these problems when I prepared my publication of religious texts in Danish translation from the Hellenistic-Roman period (Bilde 1998a). I experienced other difficulties during the preparation of my presentation of the preconditions, the foundation and the oldest history of Christianity (Bilde (2001) 2006). Therefore a few years later I decided to write an article about this problem (Bilde 2005a), but here again I ran into so many difficulties that this article became only a modest preliminary work on some of the inevitable basic religio-phenomenological concepts needed for the determination of Jesus as a religio-phenomenological type (cf. also Goshen – Gottstein 1997, 31 – 34). I did not make much more progress in my book about 41 Thus also, e. g., E.P. Sanders 1990, 6; Gooch 1996, 12 – 13; Goshen – Gottstein 1997, 31 – 34. 55; Bilde 2005a, 38 – 41.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

40

Introduction

the historical Jesus (Bilde 2008a). Here, precisely as in my 2001 book, I did not proceed much further than to define Jesus as an “eschatological prophet” and/ or a “messianic pretender” like those we mainly know from Josephus.42 I have already touched upon three of these difficulties in the previous chapter (1.6). The first one concerns the heterogeneous sources forming the basis for solid comparisons. This difficulty emerges clearly by a comparison between Jesus and Simon Bar Kochba. The problem is that – because of the success of Christianity – infinitely more material has been preserved about Jesus than the few sources on Bar Kochba and many other related figures, with the possible exceptions of Buddha and Mohammed, not to mention modern figures like Joseph Smith (1805 – 1844, founder of the Mormon church), N.F.S. Grundtvig (1783 – 1872, a modern Danish “church father”) and Mahatma Gandhi (1869 – 1948). The second difficulty is that all these figures on closer investigation turn out not to belong to the same religio-phenomenological type or category (cf. Goshen-Gottstein 1997). With certain modifications Francis of Assisi, Luther, Calvin (1509 – 1564) and Grundtvig can all be defined as Christian “reformers” for whom the two canonical testaments are the unquestionable authority, while the historical Jesus, according to the existing sources, appear with a much clearer personal and “charismatic” authority, which is more similar to the one witnessed about comparable figures like the Teacher of Righteousness from Qumran, Ron Hubbard, Sai Baba (1926 – 2011, founder of the Sai Baba movement) and the Reverend Moon. Furthermore, the various other Jewish messianic pretenders are so different that a comparison has to be regarded as problematic. Again this problem can best be illustrated by looking at a comparison between Jesus and Simon Bar Kochba. For good reasons, the few and fragile sources of Simon Bar Kochba emphasize his activities as a military commander, while the sources of Jesus underline his activity as an eschatological prophet, a miracle-worker, an interpreter and a teacher of the holy Jewish scriptures and a messianic pretender. The third difficulty lies in the fact that figures from different historical periods and cultures are not easy to compare.43 We cannot simply compare Jesus with Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King (1929 – 1968), simply because they belong to widely different geographical areas, cultures and historical periods. On the other hand, I would not preemptively rule out such comparisons between figures, which are far apart in time.44 It seems to me to be obviously clear that scholars like those mentioned in footnotes 1,43 – 1,44 are right in 42 Cf. E.P. Sanders 1985; Bilde (2001) 2006, 63 – 122; 2008a, 65 – 85. 43 Scholars like Festinger – Riecken – Schachter 1956; Braden 1957; Afnan 1960; Betz 1961; 1968; Droogers 1980 are more optimistic than me regarding this type of comparisons. 44 The following works document that this type of comparisons might be fruitful: Festinger – Riecken – Schachter 1956; Braden 1957; Allison 1998, 78 – 94; Goshen – Gottstein 1997; Ehrman 1999, 3 – 19; Freedman – McClymond 2001.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Difficulties and benefits

41

claiming that figures such as Jesus, Sabbatai Zvi and Gandhi can all be described correctly as “charismatic.” I also agree that figures like the Teacher of Righteousness, John the Baptist, Jesus, Sabbatai Zvi, Joseph Smith and Charles Taze Russell (1852 – 1916, founder of the Jehovah’s Witnesses) can all be termed “eschatological prophets,” and that some of them, especially Jesus and Bar Kochba, may even qualify as “messianic pretenders.” Therefore these scholars may be granted a certain right to argue that certain fundamental (religio-) phenomenological types can be claimed to act alike in different historical periods. However, it is just as unquestionable that the content, the religious and social content of the messages of these, in one respect, similar figures is largely determined by their contemporary religion, culture and politics. For this reason – and also in order not to let this book’s ch. 5 swell to an unmanageable extent – I have chosen to limit the comparison between Jesus and related figures to the time of Jesus, defined in a relatively broad sense as the Hellenistic-Roman age, more precisely the period from about 170 BCE to ca. 135 CE.45 On the other hand, when I accept that Jesus in one or in a few respects can also be said to resemble certain figures in other cultures and at other times, I have also decided to carry out five brief “collective” comparisons between Jesus and respectively a number of other Jewish characters in other periods (ch. 5.3.3), a series of Hellenistic-Roman characters (ch. 5.4), a number of contemporary and later Christian figures (ch. 5.5), a number of similar figures in other religions (ch. 5.6) and a few so-called secular prophets (ch. 5.7). When we compare these historical figures it is important to be aware of what it is that we are comparing. Therefore, here and elsewhere in the book, I stress that I am trying to compare these characters’ self-understanding, insofar as this phenomenon can be historically reconstructed at all. In theory it would be desirable if we could compare scholars’ “objective” reconstructions of the historical figures that we are interested in, but for the two following reasons this is almost impossible: First, we know that such reconstructions in practice can rarely be described as “objective,” but usually are subject to considerable uncertainty, and hence a consensus can very rarely be obtained. Second, in that case the project that I work on in this book would be almost impossible to implement, since this procedure would require an extent for each figure, approaching a monographic presentation. Therefore this method would in fact make my project impossible. If I want to keep my project I therefore have to use a different approach. 45 The most important reason for this chronological limitation is the fact that precisely in this period, 170 BCE – 135 CE, the Jewish people fought politically and militarily for its autonomy (cf. Bilde 2011b). This fight was given up after Bar Kochba, and it does not seem to have existed in the years before the Hasmonean revolt. It could be considered to limit this period further to ca. 75 BCE – 135 CE, that is, the period between the Teacher of Righteousness and Bar Kochba which is in fact the period that in ch. 5.3.2 I call the “time of Jesus.” I have only included the years from ca. 170 to ca. 75 BCE because of the historical perspective (cf. ch. 5.3.3).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

42

Introduction

I determine this approach in the following way : On the basis of the existing sources and the recognized scholarly literature on the figure in question, I try to determine this figure’s self-understanding. Then I compare this result with my own reconstruction of the self-understanding of the historical Jesus (cf. ch. 4). Like many other scholars (e. g., Hyldahl (1993) 1997, 76), however, I am convinced that the main precondition for and the most important parallel to Jesus is John the Baptist (cf. Bilde 2008a, 87 – 122, and below in ch. 5.3.2.5). Another Jewish figure from this period that in several important respects resembles Jesus is the Teacher of Righteousness who seems to have been a key figure in the Qumran scriptures and the Qumran community. Therefore I regard the Teacher of Righteousness to be the next most important figure to compare with Jesus.46 According to Josephus, there were in the same period a number of other figures that appear to resemble both John the Baptist and Jesus.47 It seems obvious to investigate this group in order to consider, whether this group, Jesus and John can be argued to belong to the same religious type which we may describe as the Palestinian Jewish “eschatological prophet” of the first century. Oddly enough, there are surprisingly few scholars who really include these characters in their interpretations of Jesus and John.48 These contemporary Jewish figures as in one or more respects resembling Jesus are the third most important group to compare with Jesus (ch. 5.3.2). However in the Hellenistic-Roman world outside of Jewish Palestine we also find important preconditions for and figures who may be counted as parallels or analogies to John the Baptist and Jesus.49 Primarily, I am thinking of Apollonius of Tyana in eastern Asia Minor, who lived at the same time as Jesus. One can also point to Alexander from Abonuteichus (2nd century CE) in Paphlagonia, also in Asia Minor. In ch. 5.4 I compare briefly Jesus with these and similar figures. Yet, I wish to emphasize that the immediate and direct prerequisites for Jesus, his message and activity should be looked for in Jewish Palestine, while we have to trace the wider Hellenistic-Roman prerequisites for Jesus both in an already somewhat Hellenized Jewish Palestine and in the wider Roman Empire.50 46 Cf. Dupont – Sommer 1959, 369 – 392; G. Jeremias 1963, 351 – 353; Braun 1966; Wise 1999; Knohl 2000; Kuhn 2011. 47 Cf. Kennard 1945 – 1946; Hengel (1961) 1976; Rhoads (1976) 1979; D. Hill 1979; E.P. Sanders 1985; Charlesworth (1988) 1989; 1992a; Gray 1993; Evans 1995; Bilde 2008a, 65 – 85; Wenell 2011, 2789. To my surprise I have found no such treatment of Jesus and Josephus’ eschatological prophets and messianic pretenders in Holm¦n – Porter 2011. 48 D. Hill 1979, 143 – 144, voices the same surprise. 49 Cf. Baur (1876) 1966; Betz 1961; 1968; Evans 1995. However, only Kearney – Zeits do analyse these figures systematically, cf. 2009, 81 – 110. 223 – 283. 50 Cf. Porter 2011. Kearner – Zeitz 2009 have presented a unique examination of “saviours and messiahs” in the period from the first century BCE to the second century CE (cf. footnote 1,6), that is, the same period as that examined in the present book, in the entire Mediterranean world, i. e., in Jewish Palestine as well as in the Roman Empire as a whole.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Approach and outline

43

John the Baptist and the other Jewish forerunners for and followers of Jesus all thought, taught and acted within the framework of a Jewish universe. Here I am not thinking primarily of geography, language, economics and politics, or that it all took place in the Jewish communities in Palestine, but with this expression I want to point out the fact that everything these characters were doing was based on the sacred Jewish writings and the interpretations of these that were dominant at the time, and which we know from both the NT and the other contemporary Jewish literature (cf. Bilde 2008a, 43 – 63). Here I especially recall the important fact that it was precisely the interpretations of the sacred Jewish writings that mattered to them. Put in another way, Jesus and the contemporary Jewish figures that looked like him were all determined by an actualizing and eschatological understanding of the sacred writings as prophetic predictions that talked about precisely them and their time. They all seem to have assumed that their particular time was the “last” time, the “eschatological” time, which the prophets had predicted as the time of fulfilment, i. e., the time when all the biblical promises to the Jewish people for liberation, restoration, independence, glory, power and opulence would come true. In ch. 5.3.2 I present and discuss the most important figures from this group, as we know them from contemporary Jewish literature: The Hasmonean Prince Simon, the Teacher of Righteousness, known from the Qumran literature, Rabbi Hillel, Judas the Galilean, John the Baptist, Jesus Bar Abbas (Barabbas), Theudas, the Egyptian Prophet, Paul, Jesus Son of Ananiah, Josephus, Rabbi Jochanan Ben Zakkai, Rabbi Akiba and Simon Bar Kochba.

1.8 Approach and outline As indicated above (preface; ch.1.2), in the existing Jesus research I have been unable to find a systematic and exhaustive examination of Jesus’ originality. On the other hand, numerous scholars touch upon the issue more or less superficially. A more satisfactory investigation of Jesus’ uniqueness and potential originality cannot ignore these sporadic attempts. I have therefore made it a priority to collect, systematize and critically review these studies (ch. 3). After the present introduction (ch. 1) and my interpretation of the history of modern Jesus research (ch. 2) I therefore begin my own investigation by mapping the answers which have been given to this question in earlier research. I have chosen to do so in a combined systematic and thematic manner : After a brief introduction (ch. 3.1) I have divided the former answers into the following seven groups: An introductory taster in the form of a general overview of the most common responses (3.2), the traditional Christian response (3.3), Jesus’ ethical teachings (3.4), his parables and other

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

44

Introduction

formal features of the Jesus traditions (3.5), his proclamation of liberation (3.6), Jesus’ eschatological proclamation of god’s imminent kingdom (3.7), Jesus’ exorcisms, healings and other miracles (3.8), and Jesus’ unprecedented authority and status (3.9). This will be the first systematic presentation and analysis of earlier attempts to define the originality of Jesus. My mapping of earlier research on the originality of Jesus demonstrates the (expected) fact that these attempts are intimately associated with certain major trends and schools in modern Jesus research. In addition comes the almost self-evident acknowledgement that a satisfactory answer to the questions raised presupposes a full interpretation of the historical Jesus and his project. Therefore, in ch. 2 I present a relatively comprehensive, critical overview of modern Jesus research since the Enlightenment. This presentation is divided into four sections: A brief introduction (ch. 2.1), an overview of the main stations in Jesus research in its first and second periods (ch. 2.2), a little more detailed examination of the Jesus-research that has been carried out since ca. 1970, that is, the third period of modern Jesus research (ch. 2.3). These two main sections are followed by two less extensive reviews, partly a presentation of a selection of the numerous recent unorthodox and popular depictions of Jesus in modern popular literature and film (ch. 2.4), partly a critical overview of Danish Jesus research from 1925 to 2008 (ch. 2.5).51 My review of the history of modern Jesus research demonstrates (once again) the importance of the various scholars’ ideological and academic qualifications, interests and purposes for the nature and results of their research. Ideological premises, desires and goals, often disguised as something as noble as “theoretical,” “methodological” and “hermeneutic” reflections and choices, are essential in modern Jesus research. This fact plays no small role for scholars, who are sceptical regarding the possibilities of reconstructing the historical Jesus, and they often refer to this feature as an important argument for entirely rejecting that historical Jesus research can lead to any convincing results. Against this background I immediately stress in the opening of chapter 2 (ch. 2.1) that I, for my part, agree with the critical, so-called Jewish eschatological school, i. e., the way of research that has been initiated by Reimarus, continued by David Friedrich Strauss, Johannes Weiss, Albert Schweitzer and in the Form and Redaction Critical Schools. It is a path which in recent times has been pursued by contemporary scholars such as Geza Vermes, E.P. Sanders, Gerd Theissen, James H. Charlesworth, Sean Freyne, Paula Frederiksen, Bart Ehrman, Dale Allison, John P. Meier, Martin Hengel – Anna Maria Schwemer, and Maurice Casey, just to mention the most important and influential contemporary Jesus scholars (cf. ch. 2.2 – 3). This 51 I have included ch. 2.4 in order to illustrate that the German Kähler – Bultmannian taboorization of historical Jesus research, which was broken in Germany in 1953 – 1954, continued to be effective in Denmark until this day.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Approach and outline

45

school is working in a historical-critical manner. It assumes that Jesus was an apocalyptically thinking, eschatologically oriented Palestinian Jew who had no intention of founding a new religion. The basic insights of this Jewisheschatological school are presented in detail in ch. 2.2 – 3, and these insights constitute the foundation for the subsequent investigation of this book’s main problem, the question of Jesus’ originality (ch. 3 – 5). I have chosen to answer this question by organizing the substantial investigation in the following three steps: Based on my review of contemporary Jesus research history (ch. 2), my critical analysis of the previously given answers to the question raised (ch. 3) and on the latest scholarly interpretations of Jesus’ project or program, I have chosen to join the relatively recent interpretation of Jesus’ project as an eschatological recovery or restoration of the twelve tribes of Israel. On this basis in ch. 4 I carry out a revision of the interpretation and reconstruction of the historical Jesus and his project that I presented in Bilde 2008a. This is done through the following sections: Jesus’ instalment of his twelve major envoys (ch. 4.1), his words on parts of the Jewish people as a “remnant” of Israel (ch. 4.2), his relationship to the Mosaic Law (ch. 4.3) and to the temple in Jerusalem (ch. 4.4), his journey to Jerusalem (ch 4.5), his predictions and interpretation of his impending death there (ch. 4.6), his institution of a new covenant between the Jewish god and the Jewish people (ch. 4.7), the ethnic implications of Jesus’ project (ch. 4.8), and Jesus and mainstream Jewish ideas about the Messiah (ch. 4.9). With these investigations I intend to establish and formulate a new and relatively detailed overall interpretation of the historical Jesus’ project, which is more precise and more detailed than that which I presented in my book about the historical Jesus (Bilde 2008a). Thus, I will also have created a fundamental prerequisite for comparing Jesus with the figures mentioned above, because such a comparison also requires a detailed understanding and interpretation of the historical Jesus. The last part of my study, ch. 5, consists of an – in terms of volume and scale – unprecedented, comparison between Jesus and 14 selected comparable Palestinian-Jewish figures, more or less similar to Jesus. A relatively new feature of the present study is the consistent involvement of Josephus’ works in my efforts to interpret and compare the historical Jesus. In Jesus research, Josephus has previously been involved in a very modest and superficial manner.52 Usually his works have generally only been used as a sort of “quarry” used to assist the historical commentary on the relevant texts in the canonical gospels. Josephus’ writings have hardly ever been used as an appropriate help to understanding the essence of Jesus’ project: The 52 Cf. Bilde 1988, 221 – 229; Mason 1992; 2011. To my great surprise the recently published Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus (vol. 1 – 4) contains no explicit contribution on this important subject.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

46

Introduction

proclamation of the imminent coming of god’s kingdom (cf. ch. 3.7; 4.7 – 10; 5.3.2.4; 5.3.2.7 – 9),53 not to mention Josephus himself as a relevant parallel (“prophet”) to the actual historical Jesus (cf. ch. 5.3.2.11). I have earlier suggested this new perception of the use of Josephus’ works in Jesus research (Bilde 1988, 221 – 229), and later I have developed this idea (Bilde 1998c). In the present work this use of Josephus in Jesus research, on which I also drew in my work on the genesis of Christianity ((2001) 2006) and about the historical Jesus (2008a), has come to full expression. The results of the comparisons completed in ch. 5 provide the final basis for my definitive answer to the question of Jesus’ originality which is presented in ch. 6.

53 In this respect, as in so many others, Finn Jacobi 1978, E.P. Sanders 1985; Dale C. Allison 2010, and Richard Horsley 2012, represent admirable exceptions.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

2. A critical survey of modern Jesus research from Reimarus to 2012 2.1 Introduction Throughout history the historical Jesus has been interpreted in many different ways,1 as has also been the case with the figure of Christ (cf. my footnotes 40, 113 and 213). About 100 years ago the great scholar Albert Schweitzer wrote a book about all the different ways in which Jesus had been interpreted in the 18th and 19th century ((1906) 1966). He came to the sad but almost true conclusion that each scholar in his presentation of Jesus had come up with the historical Jesus that corresponded best to his own religious, ethical and political preferences (cf. A. Schweitzer (1906) 1966, 47). Subsequently many other scholars have reached the same disheartening conclusion.2 For many theologians, particularly in Germany and Denmark, this insight is one of the strongest arguments for their belief that it is (almost)

1 The present survey depends on the short representation in Bilde 2008a, 273 – 276, which has here been extended considerably. A complete survey of the reception and interpretation of Jesus from Paul to our time is available in Tatum 2009. For a more detailed review of Jesus research in the 17th, 18th and 19th century, the reader is referred to Schweitzer (1906) 1966; Kümmel (1958) 1970; Trocm¦ 1971, 9 – 22; B.F. Meyer 1979, 25 – 59; Evans (1989) 1996; Baird 1992; 2003; Wright (1992) 1993, 1 – 18; W.P. Weaver 2005, 21 – 37; Bejlby – Eddy 2010, 9 – 54. For a review of Jesus research in the 20th century, the reader is referred to Kümmel (1958) 1970; (1985) 1994; Aul¦n (1974) 1976; Borg 1994a (in particular on the American Jesus Seminar); Charlesworth – Weaver 1994; Chilton – Evans 1994 (thematical research history); Witherington (1995) 1997; Theissen – Merz 1996, 21 – 33; Koester (1997) 2007; Tan 1997, 11 – 22; Powell (1998) 2000 (a brief and popular representation of Jesus research in general (pp. 9 – 57) followed by particular chapters on six of the most important interpretations of Jesus: The American Jesus Seminar, John D. Crossan, Marcus J. Borg, E.P. Sanders, John P. Meier, N.T. Wright and an epilogue (pp. 179 – 197)); Roloff 1998; W.R. Herzog 2000, 3 – 33; Holm¦n 2001b; Schröter – Brucker 2002 (the Jesus research of the present period); Allison 2005, 1 – 26; Gowler 2007 (general, brief with emphasis on the third period of modern Jesus research); Evans 2008, 472 – 479 (an encyclopaedia article by Russell Morton); Bertalotto 2010 (Jesus research in the third period with an emphasis on the Italian interest in the relationship between Jesus and “Enochian” Judaism); Casey 2010, 1 – 59; Graham 2010 (an examination of the interpretations of the historical Jesus presented by John P. Meier, N.T. Wright, Elisabeth Schüssler, Fiorenza and John D. Crossan emphasizing in particular the influence on every single author’s interpretation of Jesus caused by the ideological position of each scholar); W. Stegemann 2010, 73 – 123; Wedderburn 2010, 1 – 92; Gnilka 2011, 56 – 178; Reiser (2011) 2012, 1 – 38; Oakman 2012, 3 – 22. Strange to say, Holm¦n – Porter 2011 does not contain any essay on research history. 2 Adolf Harnack, for example, had also reached this negative conclusion, cf. (1900) 2005, 10.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

48

A critical survey of modern Jesus research

impossible to recover the historical Jesus.3 However Albert Schweitzer himself did not accept this conclusion, and he constructed the historical Jesus as an eschatological prophet and messianic pretender preaching that the Jewish people needed to convert to a new righteous life as the proper preparation for the Jewish god’s imminent coming to pass the ultimate verdict on every single Jew and to restore the Jewish people’s ancient grandeur (Schweitzer (1901) 1956; (1906) 1966, 402 – 450). In his presentation of Jesus research between 1950 and 1980 Werner Georg Kümmel writes in an epilogue (Nachwort) that the literature on Jesus in this period had swelled to a “scary” and “unmanageable” extent (Kümmel (1985) 1994, 691). Today I can confidently add that this extent is nothing compared to the growth that has characterized the production of literature on the historical Jesus between 1980 and 2012. In order not to drown in this abundance of literature, and with the intention that the following overview should not swell disproportionately I here present my assessment of the modern scholarly literature on the historical Jesus as a whole: I believe that the vast majority of the works I am aware of can be argued to belong to one of the following three main schools: 1) the traditional Christian interpretation of Jesus,4 2) the school that looks at Jesus as a person determined by time and place, and interprets him as an eschatological, perhaps apocalyptic, Jewish prophet, perhaps a messianic pretender,5 and 3) the school that interprets Jesus as a Jewish sage and moralist, perhaps a philosopher, who – along with Socrates and Diogenes – have presented humanity with a philosophy of life and an ethics of a timeless character.6 Over time these three schools have been given different names, and I find it justified 3 Thus for example Bauckham 2006, 1 – 5, and the following Danish theological scholars: Diderichsen 1962; Hyldahl (1993) 1997; Fatum 1996, Engberg-Pedersen 1998; Hallbäck 1998a and b. 4 I connect this traditional, orthodox or conservative interpretation of Jesus (cf., e. g., Stuhlmacher 1988; Berger (2004) 2007; Ratzinger 2007; 2011; Lohfink (2011) 2012) partly with the school that was initiated by Martin Kähler in 1892 (see below), partly with the school which today is spreading at a great speed especially in the US and Great Britain, a school that is often called “fundamentalist” or “evangelical.” At the same time it should be remarked that this evangelical school consists of two main wings, one following Martin Kähler ((1892) 1956) that denies the very possibility of reconstructing the historical Jesus, and one group that seems to be historically interested and, to some extent, appears to follow the above mentioned Jewish eschatological school. (cf. ch. 2.3). Colin Brown simply terms this position “The Quest of the Unhistorical Jesus” (cf. C. Brown 2011). 5 This school includes the critical Jesus research from Reimarus over David Friedrich Strauss, Johannes Weiss, Albert Schweitzer, the form and redaction critical schools and Rudolf Bultmann to the present Geza Vermes, B.F. Meyer, E.P. Sanders, A.E. Harvey, Gerd Theissen, James H. Charlesworth, Sean Freyne, Paula Frederiksen, Dale Allison, Bart D. Ehrman, John P. Meier, Martin Hengel – Anna-Marie Schwemer, Charles Freeman and Maurice Casey (cf. Bertalotto 2010, 93 – 115; Horsley 2012, 9 – 14. 26 – 37). 6 Thus so-called liberal theology (cf. ch. 2.2), the American Jesus Seminar (cf. ch. 2.3) and a number of recent philosophical interpretations of Jesus (cf. Horsley 2012, 15 – 25, and ch. 2.4 below).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Major positions in the first and second periods

49

to designate them as 1) the “traditional Christian” school, 2) the ”Judeoeschatological” school and 3) the “liberal” school. Moreover, a chronological review of all the important works in international Jesus research would swell to an extent that would blow up the framework for this book. Instead I have given the following research historical overview a combined chronological, systematic and thematic character : I respect the chronology by dividing the review into two chronologically determined main sections: On the one hand, the so-called first and second periods of modern Jesus research, stretching from Reimarus to around 1970 (ch. 2.2), and, on the other hand, the third, that is, the current period of international Jesus research, covering the period from around 1970 to 2012 (ch. 2.3). At the same time, in both of these chapters I complement the chronological representation with a systematic or thematic description of the main positions of modern Jesus research. Finally I add two brief overviews, partly of some of the recent, unorthodox portraits of Jesus in contemporary popular literature and film (ch. 2.4), and partly of the Danish Jesus research from Georg Brandes (1925) to Mogens Müller (2008a) (ch. 2.5).

2.2 Major positions in the first and second periods of modern Jesus research (from Reimarus to ca. 1970) The traditional Christian interpretation of the historical Jesus is quite simply, that Jesus was not a Jew, but the first Christian, that his intention was to found and establish Christianity, and that he brought this religion into the world as something radically new (cf. ch. 3.3). This traditional Christian view of Jesus was exposed to the first steps of historical criticism in the 17th and 18th century, when first Spinoza ((1670) 2009) and later Reimarus took the initial steps to consider and study the Bible as a historical document that could and should be read and explored in the same way and by using the same methods as any other historical writing. These two and other scholars began to interpret Moses, Jesus and other biblical figures as historical personalities, rooted in time and place and therefore as determined by their specific historical contexts. In my opinion this initiative is the most important step that has ever been taken in modern biblical research, because it represents the fundamental transition from a religious, mythological and ahistorical position to a secular and historical approach and study of the sacred Jewish and Christian scriptures.7 7 Similarly A. Schweitzer (1906) 1966, 48. 56; Riches 1980, 1 – 4.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

50

A critical survey of modern Jesus research

We find the first scholarly interpretation of the historical Jesus in some of Reimarus’ surviving writings.8 They were first published a long time after the author’s death, precisely because they were so controversial. Reimarus thought that Jesus had understood himself as a Jewish messianic pretender whom the Jewish people as a whole did not recognize. Instead Jesus was rejected by the Jewish leaders, handed over to the Romans and executed by them in Jerusalem. However Jesus’ adherents could not accept this defeat. They stole Jesus’ body from the grave (cf. Matt. 27.64), hid it somewhere else, and claimed that Jesus had risen from death. At the same time they transformed the interpretation of Jesus from a political liberator of the Jewish people to a universal religious saviour for all peoples worldwide. Thus Reimarus was the first scholar who clearly distinguished between the historical – Jewish, earthly, human – Jesus, on the one hand, and the “Christian” – sublime, divine, heavenly – Christ-figure, on the other hand, and thus established a perhaps unbridgeable gulf between the historical Jesus and the divine Christ of the Christian faith.9 Reimarus was also the first scholar who recognized that Jesus was a Jew and remained a Jew until his death. Finally Reimarus anticipated the eschatological understanding of Jesus, an understanding that remained generally unknown until it really broke through with Johannes Weiss ((1863 – 1914), cf. Weiss (1892) 1964) and Albert Schweitzer ((1901) 1956), as described below. On this basis I regard Reimarus as the most important and most influential Jesus scholar of all (cf. Oakman 2012). In the 19th century the historical-critical efforts of Spinoza and Reimarus were continued by German scholars such as Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792 – 1860), who focused on Paul and the earliest history of Christianity, and David Friedrich Strauss ((1835 – 1836, 1969) 2012), who in his book on the life of Jesus mainly identified the mythological material in the gospels and separated it from the historical traditions (cf. A. Schweitzer (1906) 1966, 115 – 131). 8 Herrmann Samuel Reimarus, a philological and philosophical scholar and teacher in Hamburg, published a number of religio-philosophical writings which are not relevant in the present context. At the same time he worked on a comprehensive critical manuscript on the Old and the New Testament, which he gave the title Apologie oder Schützschrift für die vernünftigen Verehrer Gottes. Because of its radically critical character Reimarus did not dare to publish this work, but only circulated it among his closest friends. After Reimarus’ death the German philosopher Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729 – 1781) once visited Hamburg where he became acquainted with some of Reimarus’ children, became aware of the secret manuscripts and was allowed to read them and to publish them. This he did during the years 1774 – 1778 under the title Fragmente des wolfenbüttelschen Ungenannten (cf. Reimarus (1774 – 1778) 1835). The fragment most important for the study of the historical Jesus (number 7) Lessing gave the title Von dem Zwecke Jesu und seiner Jünger (Reimarus (1774) 1835, 3 – 80). For a more comprehensive critical review and analysis of Reimarus’s work on the historical Jesus I refer to A. Schweitzer (1906) 1966, 56 – 68. 9 Cf., e. g., Strauss (1865) 1971; Kähler (1892) 1956; Ristow – Matthiae (1960) 1962; Bultmann (1960) 1965; Sørensen 1992; B. Wilson (2008) 2009; Müller 2008a, 159 – 160; Spangenberg – Heinze 2010; Back 2011; Danz – Murrmann – Kahl 2011; Dunn 2011a; Flores d’Arcais 2011; Wenz 2011 (cf. footnote 1,9).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Major positions in the first and second periods

51

Strauss was also the first scholar who realized that the Gospel of John was later and historically much less trustworthy the synoptics. The 19th century, however, was not dominated by these two critical scholars, but rather by the so-called “Life of Jesus research” by the “liberal theologians” (cf. A. Schweitzer (1906) 1966, 106 – 244). They defined themselves in contrast to the traditional Christian interpretation of Jesus which could be orthodox or conservative, but in any event accepted the Christian tenets of Jesus at face value and an understanding of the Bible as a divinely inspired, and therefore, infallible book. This liberal theology, which dominated European, especially German, protestant theology from the middle of the 19th century to around 1920, was founded by Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768 – 1834) and Albrecht Ritschl (1822 – 1889), and it found its last great spokesman in Adolf von Harnack (1851 – 1930). In opposition to traditional Christianity the liberal theologians intended to modernize the Christian religion, which in the 18th and 19th century was forced onto the defensive by modern science and by the rationalism, critical attitude to traditional Christianity, and moralism of the movement of the European Enlightenment. The liberal theologians intended to move the foundation of Christianity, partly from Jesus’ death interpreted orthodoxically as a vicarious act of atonement, partly from the heavenly exalted Christ to the very earthly, historical Jesus as a moral teacher and model. The liberal theologians thought that this historical Jesus could primarily be found in the first three, so-called synoptic gospels. They assumed that these three gospels were primarily founded on two older sources, either the Gospel of Matthew and “Q” or the Gospel of Mark and “Q,” Q being an abbreviation of the German word “Quelle,” which symbolizes the material that Matthew and Luke have in common in addition to the material they both have in common with the Gospel of Mark (cf. ch. 1.4). In the course of time, the liberal theologians preferred the so-called “two source theory” assuming that Mark was the first and oldest gospel followed by Q, and that Matthew and Luke had both used Mark as well as Q. In addition, they were both assumed to have used particular sources, “M” and “L,” signifying the material they both have in addition to Mark and Q. On this basis the liberal Jesus scholars made many attempts to reconstruct the historical Jesus, his life and career, his self-understanding and message. Their results differed very much from Reimarus’ reconstruction of the historical Jesus. The liberal theologians did not interpret Jesus as a Jewish eschatological or apocalyptic prophet, nor as a messianic liberator of the Jewish people from Roman domination. Nor did they interpret Jesus as a divine revealer, as is the case in the Gospel of John and in Christian Gnosticism. Instead they saw Jesus and as a moral example for all human beings (cf. ch. 3.2 and 3.4). It was this liberal theological Jesus-figure who in the late 19th and well into the 20th century could be made both the world’s first socialist and an uptight

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

52

A critical survey of modern Jesus research

bourgeois moralist, and thus as a relevant model for modern European Christians. It was this liberal Jesus research, that Albert Schweitzer primarily described in his famous representation of the history of the previous European, mainly German “life-of-Jesus-research” ((1906) 1966). Two Danish representatives of liberal Jesus research are Ditlev Nielsen ((1924) 1933) and Paul Helms (1927, cf. ch. 2.5.2). Today the names of these two and of most of the other liberal theologians are forgotten, but their basic position is still very much alive. The liberal theologians’ fundamental ethical interpretation of Jesus emerges in every generation, and today it seems to have been taken over and continued by an astonishing number of modern Jesus scholars, especially the members of the American Jesus Seminar (cf. ch. 2.3). In my opinion the important Danish philosopher Villy Sørensen’s book on Jesus (1992) likewise belongs to this tradition.10 During the 19th century more and more scholars realized that an interpretation of Jesus as a Jew (Reimarus and Strauss) – perhaps a Jew keen on reform, but in no way a Jew who thought of leaving Judaism, let alone founding a new religion – inevitably led to fatal consequences for the core of Christianity. The more clearly and the more obviously Jesus was interpreted and reconstructed as a Jew, the further he was removed from the Christ figures of the NT, the Christian creeds and the Christian churches. This – the new and revolutionary interpretation of Jesus as a Jewish eschatological prophet, or a Jewish messianic pretender – culminated around the turn of the century (1900), provisionally with Johannes Weiss’ book Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes in 1892 (reprinted 1964), and wholeheartedly with Albert Schweitzer’s small treatise Das Messianitäts- und Leidensgeheimnis. Eine Skizze des Lebens Jesu in 1901 (reprinted in 1956). Finally it was repeated in Schweitzer’s monumental representation of the history of modern Jesus research from Reimarus to William Wrede ((1906) 1966, 402 – 450). For Christianity and Christians this situation was critical.11 Therefore something had to be done. One way to go was to claim that the “really” historical Jesus and the “truly” historical Jesus was, is and will always be the Christ-figure(s) of the NT, because it was these figures that had had historical significance and impact. This option was first chosen by Martin Kähler (1835 – 1912) with his small book Der sogenannte historische Jesus und der geschichtliche, biblische Christus ((1892) 1956). That this was a “good” choice

10 Many other contemporary Jesus scholars do the same, in particular all those who want to use their interpretation of Jesus for emancipatory purposes, e. g., Swidler 2007; Fiorenza 2011. Another example is the American theologian Joseph H. Hellerman, who in his book from 2007, Jesus and the People of God. Reconfiguring Ethnic Identity, argues that Jesus replaced the Jewish ethnical particularism with a new universal concept of an “ethical family.” 11 In a similar way Th.J.J. Altizer describes the gap that also today exists between critical Jesus research with its often sophisticated interpretations of Jesus, on the one hand, and contemporary religious, often fundamentalist Christianity, on the other hand (1997, IX – XII).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Major positions in the first and second periods

53

appears from the fact that Kähler was later followed by numerous other Christian scholars, not least in our time.12 Another way to go for traditional Christian theologians was to deny and reject the very possibility of a historical reconstruction of the real Jesus who had lived before the emergence of the Christian faith in Christ. This rejection was justified with reference to the poor quality of the existing sources, especially the (apocryphal and) canonical gospels. This school of scholars argued that this bad quality was due to the fact that these sources in a “hopeless” way had mixed the (oral/written) historical memories and traditions about the real Jesus with their own religious and Christian interpretations of the same traditions (cf. Bilde 1978). This path was chosen by one of the most influential German NT-scholars, Rudolf Bultmann (1884 – 1976), the majority of his later, important school of pupils, and many other Christian scholars, not least in Denmark. In recent years this position has been continued by, for example, the French scholar Etienne Trocm¦ (1971), the American New Testament scholars Leander Keck ((1972) 1981, 2000) and Luke Timothy Johnson ((1996) 1997),13 while in Denmark, it is most clearly represented by Geert Hallbäck (1998a, 1998b). The personal overlap between these two schools, the Kähler school and the school of Bultmann, demonstrates that these two schools cannot be separated completely. Some theological exegetes emphasize Kähler’s view, and others prefer Bultmann’s position, but they often unite in a strong rejection of any attempt to push the scholarly analysis behind the surface of the canonical gospels in order to uncover traces of the real Jesus who might have been different from the Christ-figure(s) of the canonical and non-canonical gospels and the rest of the NT. For the time being, Albert Schweitzer’s destructive criticism of liberal Jesus-research and Johannes Weiss’ and Schweitzer’s newly gained insight that the historical Jesus really seems to have been a Jewish eschatological prophet or a messianic pretender contributed to destroy liberal life-of-Jesus research. A little later, around 1920, a new school in the research of the synoptic gospels arose in Germany, that is, the so-called Form Critical School represented by scholars like Martin Dibelius (1873 – 1947, cf. (1918) 1961) and Rudolf Bultmann ((1921) 1961, cf. Bilde 1978). One of the key insights of this school was a new recognition that even the slender geographical and chronological framework of the canonical gospels for the most part seems to be of a secondary, often an editorial or redactional character. This insight 12 Thus, e. g., Keck (1972) 1981, 9; Bockmuehl 1994, IX, 143, 166; Johnson (1996) 1997; 2010; Meeks 2006; Sloyan 2008; Liderbach 2009; Back 2011. 13 Similarly Snyder 1999, 18; Borchert 2011, 238. A Jewish scholar accepting this sceptical view of the historical Jesus is Sandmel 1978, 393 – 398, especially p. 398. Another Jewish scholar arguing in favour of the impossibility of finding the real or the historical Jesus is Harold Bloom (2005, 1 – 14. 238), who none the less dare say something about him (2005, 14 – 25 ff.).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

54

A critical survey of modern Jesus research

destroyed the last part of the foundation of the attempts of liberal theologians to construct a “life of Jesus” as a true biography of Jesus. At the same time as the emergence of the Form Critical School a new theological interpretation of Christianity arose in Germany and other parts of the European continent, that is, the so-called Dialectical Theology with names like Karl Barth (1886 – 1968) and Rudolf Bultmann. Like Martin Kähler the dialectical theologians moved their theological interest away from the historical Jesus to the “kerygmatic” Christ, that is, the Christ proclaimed by Jesus’ followers and Paul as the divine saviour figure who actually dominates the entire NT. Thus the dialectical theologians transferred the theological emphasis from the historical Jesus as the great human being, the ethical preacher and a moral example back to the myth of Christ as the only true god’s only legitimate spokesman, representative and son, who, through his vicarious atoning death, had provided salvation for all sinful human beings. With these three breakthroughs – the eschatological interpretation of Jesus, the form-critical approach to the gospels and the dialectical theology – ended not only the life-of-Jesus research of the liberal theologians but, at least for a time, the whole scholarly exploration of the historical Jesus. It did so because the main part of this endeavour was carried out by theological exegetes of the NT who were influenced by Kähler and the dialectical theologians, and they accepted that it was generally impossible to reconstruct a historically credible Jesus. In addition, many of them also accepted the dialectical theological dogma that Christianity and Christian theology did not need such a historical basis as the human Jesus at all. They were convinced that Christianity could not build on accidental historical phenomena as the changing reconstructions of the historical Jesus, but had to be built on the solid rock of the “gospel” or the “kerygma,” i. e., the preaching of the saving significance of the death and resurrection of Jesus as it is formulated in the NT. With this confession dialectical theology with Bultmann as its leading spokesman issued a sort of taboo or fatwa against exploring the historical Jesus.14 This ban issued by (some of) the dialectical theologians, however, was just as untenable as the U.S. ban on alcoholic beverages in the years 1920 – 1933. In practice it quickly turned out that the positions of Martin Kähler and Rudolf Bultmann could not be maintained.15 While it is true that it is not the historical

14 Cf. Bultmann ((1960) 1965. This classic Kähler – Bultmann position has been retained until today by a part of the Bultmann school, as it appears from the references in my footnotes 2,12 – 13 and furthermore in, for example, Georgi 1992; Koester (1997) 2007, 282 – 284; Hallbäck 1998a; 1998b; J.M. Robinson 2007. However, it ought to be remembered that Bultmann himself did in fact not obey his own taboo. In his work on the history of the synoptic tradition ((1921) 1961) he often recurs to older, perhaps oral, traditions, and even to the historical Jesus, and in his book on Jesus ((1926) 1970) to a large extent he reconstructed the eschatological message of the historical Jesus. 15 A brief and sharp criticism of this “dogmatic” view, that the historical Jesus is impossible to

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Major positions in the first and second periods

55

Jesus, but the Christ figure(s) of the NT, who de facto has had the most glaring effects on later history, namely, in the form of the emerging Christianities, the Christian churches and Christian cultures, this truth does not, in principle, exclude the possibility that the real Jesus may be reached and the historical Jesus may be reconstructed historically. Such a claim and such a conclusion are not logical, but rather an expression of an (apologetic) logical short circuit. These two statements are not mutually exclusive, because they speak about two different problems, on the one hand, the question of the historical impact of the NT, on the other hand, the issue of whether a critical analysis of the canonical gospels can lead to a reliable historical reconstruction of Jesus. While it is a historical fact that Christianity has developed from the images and interpretations of Jesus that dominate the NT, it is an open question, whether the canonical gospels are of such a quality that they allow a reconstruction of the historical Jesus. It is really astonishing that so many trained scholars have overlooked or misunderstood this problem. For me there can be no doubt that the driving force behind this logical short circuit have been religious wishful thinking and/or conscious or unconscious Christian apologetics. In addition I think that the pre-gospel (real) Jesus, who seems to pop up in several texts in the canonical gospels (cf. ch. 1.4 and ch. 4), has also had historical influence, namely, in the numerous reform movements that we know from the history of Christianity.16 Some of the best known of these attempts to reform Christianity on the basis of inspiration from a reconstructed historical Jesus are Francis of Assisi in the 13th century, the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, and modern liberation theology in the 20th and 21st century, but also numerous other Christian attempts at reform and revival movements. Martin Kähler, Rudolf Bultmann and their followers are quite simply mistaken in their belief that there exists a real alternative between “the so-called historical Jesus” and the “truly historical, Biblical Christ.” However the main objection to the schools of Martin Kähler and Rudolf Bultmann is the reality that once (Reimarus) the question about the historical Jesus has been raised it can, of course, never be silenced – and certainly not by a “ban.” No matter how many historical, philosophical, hermeneutical and theological misgivings, bans and incantations that are hurled against the postulated “nave,” “positivistic” and “historistic” attempts to reconstruct the historical Jesus on the basis of sources which “everyone” should be able to see “does not allow such a thing,” this work, once started by Reimarus, will never stop, but will necessarily have to continue on its course. There will always be recover, can be found already in Lietzmann (1932) 1961, 34. Similarly, e. g., Wright (1992) 1993, 95 – 97. 16 Thus also A.N. Wilson (1992) 2003, 253 – 256. Like many of his evangelical party colleagues Luke Timothy Johnson (2010) overlooks that this fragmentary Jesus behind the surface of the canonical gospels differs from the dogmatic pictures of Christ that dominates precisely the surfaces of these texts.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

56

A critical survey of modern Jesus research

historians who wish to work on the question of the historical Jesus, just as there will always be other historians who want to work with the questions of the historical Socrates and the historical Martin Luther. Indeed it was mainly in Protestant Germany and, even more, in Lutheran Denmark that the taboo issued by the Bultmann school on the research of the historical Jesus was obeyed for a time, and is in some cases still required to be obeyed. Both in Germany and elsewhere, however, the process of “excavating” the historical Jesus of course continued without regard for the fact that in Germany and Denmark this whole project has been ridiculed time and again.17 Therefore a “rebellion” against Kähler and Bultmann had to come, and, at long last, in 1953 – 1954 came the hour, when the banner of rebellion was raised. It happened within the Bultmann school, and it was done by none other than the eminent student of Bultmann, Ernst Käsemann. It happened in a now famous lecture given in hand in 1953 and published in 1954.18 In this paper Käsemann states the reasons for his rebellion, both historically and theologically. First, he underlines that in the long run, historical problems cannot be suppressed (cf. my comments above), and second, that Christian theology cannot restrict itself to the kerygma on the dead, resurrected, ascended, divine and heavenly Christ, but always also will need the historical Jesus as an inspiration, an example and a role model. Today Käsemann can be claimed to have won this rebellion in so far as “die neue Frage nach dem historischen Jesus” can no longer be conjured into its grave again.19 At the same time, today almost every single Jesus scholar acknowledges that, after Albert Schweitzer’s crushing critique of the 19th century’s depictions of Jesus’ life, it is impossible to write a complete or even a partial biography of Jesus. The main reason for this is that, in the extant sources, primarily in the four canonical gospels, generally, we have only some disconnected fragments of memories about scattered episodes from a single or a few years of Jesus’ public activity. In addition these fragments have of course been influenced and coloured by the religious interpretations and images of Jesus that dominated the Jesus-believing communities in which the gospels were written.20 The question of the historical Jesus therefore had to be reformulated, and possible new answers would probably be different from those of the liberal 17 In Italy and other Roman Catholic countries like France, Spain and Latin America the modern research on the historical Jesus has never reached the same dimensions as in the protestant countries in Northern Europe, USA, Canada and among Jewish scholars in Israel and in the diaspora (cf. Augias-Pesce (2006) 2008, 235; Bertalotto 2010). 18 Besides Käsemann’s fundamental article I refer to Bornkamm (1956) 1960; Braun (1969) 1972. 19 Cf. Bornkamm (1956) 1960; J.M. Robinson (1960) 1967; Braun (1969) 1972 – in spite of Bultmann (1960) 1965 and the Danish theological exegetes Mogens Müller, Troels Engberg-Pedersen and Geert Hallbäck mentioned above and below in ch. 2.5 20 Thus this form critical insight has strengthened Albert Schweitzer’s criticism of the liberal theological “life-of-Jesus-research,” cf., e. g., Stauffer (1938) 1948, 10; Schneemelcher 1981, 54.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Major positions in the first and second periods

57

theologians. In Germany a small group of rebellious Bultmann pupils therefore began to speak of “die neue Frage nach dem historischen Jesus” (J.M. Robinson ((1960) 1967, 113 – 214), as if they, by this magic formula, could lift the old taboo which had had such fatal consequences. Germany, therefore, experienced no real or genuine revival of Jesus research, and apart from Günther Bornkamm’s and Herbert Braun’s small publications about Jesus no important works on the historical Jesus appeared here in the years between 1953 and 1973.21 It is this brief period from 1953 to 1973 (when Geza Vermes’ first book on Jesus appeared), which in many descriptions of the history of Jesus research is called its “second period” (see below). Therefore this term represents a gross exaggeration, since this period, with its few and uncreative works on Jesus, in fact represents only a parenthesis in the history of modern Jesus research. The year 1973 is important because it was the year in which the HungarianBritish Jewish scholar Geza Vermes published his first and ground-breaking book about the historical Jesus, Jesus the Jew, in which he interprets Jesus as a Galilean chasid, that is, a charismatic miracle worker in the style of a few figures appearing in the rabbinical literature.22 In my opinion it was this work that opened the so-called “third period” of modern Jesus research but now, no longer concentrated in Germany which until then had dominated this field of research, but in the Anglo-Saxon world. Geza Vermes’ work from 1973 is ground-breaking because, in continuation of Reimarus, Vermes consistently regards Jesus as a Jew. This new departure marked symbolically that the willingness to continue Reimarus’, Strauss’, Weiss’ and Schweitzer’s fundamental insights into the Jewish Jesus no longer existed in Germany but had to arise elsewhere. And so it did. The next important contribution to contemporary Jesus research was also British: E.P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (1985).23 Both titles indicate the essence of the insights reached by these two scholars, insights that 21 Besides Bornkamm (1956) 1960 and Braun (1969) 1972 only a few unorthodox and popular books were published, e. g., Aron 1962; Ben-Chorin (1967) 1972; Augstein (1972) 1999. 22 Since 1973 Geza Vermes has published an impressive number of other, more or less repetitive, books on Jesus: 1981; (1983) 2003; 1993; 2000; 2003; (2003) 2006; 2007; 2009. For a brief presentation I refer to Bertalotto 2010, 45 – 53. 23 I regard E.P. Sanders’s 1985 book on Jesus and Judaism as one of the milestones in modern Jesus research, i. e., on the level of Reimarus, D.F. Strauss, Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer. Compared to these his great predecessors E.P. Sanders added the new element of including Josephus and his works as an important part of the historical context of Jesus (cf. ch. 1.8 with footnote 1,52). This position of E.P. Sanders is also recognized by, e. g., Bertalotto 2010, 93 – 101. In the same direction as E.P. Sanders 1985 is Allison 1985. The periods proposed above, however, should not be taken too seriously. S.G.F. Brandon’s famous book on Jesus and the “Zealots” appeared already in 1967, and this book, too, is a qualified attempt to reopen the discussion about the historical Jesus. This is even more the case with B. F. Meyers The Aims of Jesus from 1979, because Meyer, like E.P. Sanders 1985, defines the project of the historical Jesus as the restoration of Israel (1979, 220 – 222), cf. ch. 4 below.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

58

A critical survey of modern Jesus research

incidentally were not at all new, partly because they are similar to those presented by our four main pioneers,24 partly by being very close to the results presented by significant Jewish Jesus scholars.25 Since 1973 and 1985 Jesus-research has exploded, and in this period in almost all other countries apart from Denmark (and most Roman Catholic countries) there has been published hundreds of monographs and thousands of scholarly articles on the historical Jesus.

2.3 Main positions in the third period of modern Jesus research (ca. 1970 – 2012) In the period from the middle of the 19th century to ca. 1970, that is in the first two periods of the history of modern Jesus research described above, many theological scholars, traditional Christians, liberals as well as dialecticals, were eager to emphasize the differences between Jesus and contemporary Judaism. They gave this type of Judaism the problematic designation Late Judaism (Spätjudentum). This term expressed the conviction of the involved contemporary Christian theologians that Judaism of the time of Jesus was the “last” one in the history of Judaism. As all “good” Christians in the beginning of the 20th century “knew,” Jesus and Christianity had actually replaced Judaism (“supersessionism”). Therefore, in principle, Judaism had departed by death, why it was a bit of a misconception that it nevertheless continued to exist. In any case, almost by definition, Judaism of the time of Jesus was regarded as Judaism in its last phase. In these two periods, therefore, Christian Jesus scholars highlighted and emphasized Jesus’ conflicts with his fellow Jews – the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Herodians, the ”Zealots,” the scribes, the elders and the priests – and these scholars insisted that Jesus definitively broke with the “particularism,” the “casuistics” and the “slavery” under the Law of Moses in contemporaneous Judaism (cf. ch. 3.2 and 3.4). 24 Reimarus, David Friedrich Strauss, Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer. Since Vermes (1973) and E.P. Sanders (1985) it has become rather commonplace to state that Jesus was not a Christian, but a Jew, cf. e. g., Lee 1988; Freyne 2004. Before Vermes and E.P. Sanders this truth had in Britain been formulated already in 1965 by G.B. Caird and in Germany as early as in 1905 by Wellhausen and in 1909 by Jülicher. 25 First and foremost Klausner (1907) 1952; Buber 1950; Enslin 1961; Aron 1962; Sandmel 1965; 1978; Ben-Chorin (1967) 1972; Flusser (1968) 1975; 1980, 1981; 1991; 1997; (1997) 2007; Vermes 1973, (1983) 2003, 1993, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2008; Lapide 1974; 1976; 1990; Neusner 1993; Young (1995) 2008; (1998) 2007; M. Hoffman 2007; B. Wilson 2008. The earlier history of the Jewish contributions to the research of the historical Jesus is described by Lindeskog (1938) 1973; Lapide 1974, 69 – 135; Hoffman 2007, 13 – 60; B. Wilson (2008) 2009; Jaff¦ 2009, cf. also Meier, 4, 2009, 5 – 8. It is surprising that Holm¦n – Porter 2011 does not contain an essay on Jewish Jesus research.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Main positions in the third period

59

Against this background it was not surprising that Geza Vermes in his book of 1973, Jesus the Jew, broke with this way of thinking. For Vermes was a Jew, and, in principle, Vermes continued the work of a great number of remarkable Jewish predecessors, who had long worked on the historical Jesus (cf. my footnote 2,25). For these Jewish scholars it was a matter of course that Jesus was a Jew. In addition this position of theirs was not unconnected with their own Jewish “apologetic” interests in removing an important part of the tension between Jews and Christians that down through history had been a major reason for Christian anti-Semitism. It was a different matter when the non-Jew, E.P. Sanders’ epoch-making book, Jesus and Judaism, was published in 1985. In this book E.P. Sanders turned the hitherto dominant Christian view of Jesus and Judaism upside down. E.P. Sanders’ book brought about, so to speak, a “Copernican turn” and a true shift of paradigm.26 For E.P. Sanders and his numerous successors it is a key feature that Jesus – like Paul in 1977 – should now be interpreted as a Jew, more precisely as an eschatological, apocalyptic and/or “Zealotic,” but non-militant Jew. Like mainstream Jewish Jesus research E.P. Sanders and his successors thus emphasize the similarities between Jesus and contemporary Judaism.27 With this important book E.P. Sanders contributed decisively to the introduction of the third period in modern, predominantly Christian, Jesusresearch. Inspired by Ernst Käsemann (1906 – 1998; (1954) 1965) and prepared by S.G.F. Brandon (1967), Geza Vermes (1973) and Ben F. Meyer (1979) this period is characterized by names like Sean Freyne, John D. Crossan, N.T. Wright, Charles H. Charlesworth, Craig A. Evans, Gerd Theissen, Richard A. Horsley, Paula Frederiksen, John P. Meier, Michael Bird, James D.G. Dunn, Bart D. Ehrman, Darell L. Bock, Richard Bauckham, Brant Pitre, Martin Hengel, Anna Marie Schwemer, Pieter Craffert, Craig S. Keener, Maurice Casey and Dale C. Allison, to name just the most well known of the numerous Jesus scholars of the third period (cf. Evans 1995, 1 – 49). This third period of the modern Jesus research has since split into the three schools mentioned above in ch. 2.1, namely 1) the traditional Christian school, including most of our time’s “evangelical” Jesus-research, 2) the eschatological school, initiated by Reimarus and continued by David Friedrich 26 In 1977 E.P. Sanders had already both suggested and caused a similar paradigm shift in Pauline research. In his famous and epoch-making book, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, he intended to demonstrate that Paul should also be regarded as a genuine Jew, and that traditional Christian, in particular Lutheran, anti-Jewish Pauline research was founded on a number of misinterpretations of central ideas in early Judaism as well as in Paul’s letters. 27 This insight, which was anticipated by Reimarus, David Friedrich Strauss, Johannes Weiss, Albert Schweitzer, Julius Wellhausen, Adolf Jülicher, C.B. Caird (cf. footnote 2,24) and nearly all the Jewish Jesus scholars (cf. footnote 2,25), has now won the status of a universal scholarly truth: Jesus was a Jew, and he never considered leaving Judaism or founding a new “Christian” religion (cf. Augias-Pesce (2006) 2008, 24 – 37; Bertalotto 2010, 43; Flores d’Arcais 2011, 1 – 19) – although all the consequences of this revolutionary insight have not yet been seen and understood by all those who today pay lip service to this truth.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

60

A critical survey of modern Jesus research

Strauss, Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer, to which also Geza Vermes and E.P. Sanders belong, and which today is represented by most of the abovementioned scholars, and finally 3) the liberal school, today dominated by the American Jesus Seminar that understands the historical Jesus in continuation of the Jewish wisdom literature and interprets Jesus as a Jewish, Cynic-like itinerant philosopher, a thesis that has found supporters especially in the Anglo-Saxon world.28 In the present section I intend first to critically present these three schools’s contributions to recent Jesus research and next to discuss some of their main interpretations of Jesus. However I begin with a few general observations concerning contemporary Jesus research as a whole. Looking first at the question of the historical existence of Jesus, the third period of international Jesus research does not differ from the first and the second period. Also today most active Jesus scholars are convinced that Jesus was a real historical being, who existed as a Palestinian-Jewish person in the beginning of the first century CE.29 With this conviction these scholars oppose a considerable number of scholars from Arthur Drews ((1911) 1924) over Danish Georg Brandes (1925) to G.A. Wells (1971, (1975) 1986, 1982, 1989, 1996, 1999, 2004, 2009),30 Alvar Elleg”rd (1992), Francesco Carotta (1999) 2005, Earl Doherty ((1999) 2000), Freke – Gandy (1999) 2007, Robert M. Price (2000, 2003, 2007, 2010), and Hector Avalos (2007), who all argue that Jesus has never existed, but is a purely mythological “invention.” Second, I find it justified to maintain that a fundamental change in the perception of Jesus’ relationship to Judaism has taken place in almost all the publications of Jesus scholars of the third period. In contrast to the liberal as well as to the dialectical theologians31 the vast majority of the third period’s Jesus scholars no longer interpret Jesus as standing in fundamental opposition to the rest of early Judaism. Instead these scholars understand Jesus as a genuine representative of the Judaism of his time.32

28 This school includes among other members the following scholars: Borg (1984) 1998; (1989) 2008); 1994b; 1994c; 2000; Oakman 1986; 2008; 2012; Downing 1988; 1992; 2011; Crossan (1991) 1993; 1994; 2010; Funk (1993) 1997; 1998; 2002; Mack 1993; 1996; 2001; Lang 2010. 29 Cf. recently, e. g., Eddy – Boyd (2007) 2008, 165 – 233; Freeman (2009) 2011, 25; Byrskog 2011. 30 In his most recent works, 1996, 1999, 2004 and 2009, however, G.A. Wells has abandoned his original belief that Jesus never existed. Wells now joins the mainstream of international Jesus research in accepting the historical existence of Jesus, and today Wells only differs from that mainstream in assuming that the canonical gospels are the result of a “fusion” between some historical traditions in Q about a Galilean preacher by the name of Jesus, and the testimony of the Pauline letters about a mythological, supra-natural Christ figure (cf. 2009, 14 – 15). In (1906) 1966, 451 – 560, A. Schweitzer presents an overview of and a critique of the rejection of the historicity of Jesus in the literature until 1911. 31 We find the most extreme representative of this position in the German Nazi-inspired Jesus research, e. g., Walter Grundmann 1941, who made an attempt to argue that Jesus was not a Jew at all. 32 Thus already Reimarus, Wellhausen 1905, 113; Jülicher 1909, 54 (cf. my footnote 2,24).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Main positions in the third period

61

This trend is also consistent with a fundamental feature of Jewish Jesus research in the 19th and 20th century (cf. the references in my footnote 2,25). Third, however, I regard it as an open question whether, in this third period of modern Jesus research, we are allowed to talk about a significant change regarding the question of the (im)possibility of reconstructing the historical Jesus. It is, however, my impression that Martin Kähler’s and the classic Bultmann-school’s dismissive answer to this question has been considerably softened in the Jesus research during the years from 1970 to 2012. Thus it can be claimed that this period’s research has continued Käsemann’s, Bornkamm’s and Braun’s “rebellion” against Bultmann. However, this is only unambiguously true for the last two of the three schools mentioned above. Unlike the classic Bultmann school these two schools regard the “historical Jesus” as neither easier nor more difficult to reconstruct than the historical Socrates.33 As noted above in ch. 2.2, however, there are two wings in the first, traditional Christian, school. Its first wing consists of a minority represented by such scholars as Leander Keck and Luke Timothy Johnson. They seem to stand firmly on the Kähler – Bultmannian point of view that the real, historical Jesus is inaccessible, and for that reason contemporary exegetes have to content themselves with the Jesus-figures of the gospels and the NT. Beside this Kähler – Bultmannian wing we find a far more numerous group claiming to be historically interested and making it appear that it follows the eschatological school.34 In reality, however, this wing also shrinks back from a critical analysis of the canonical gospels as a way to try to penetrate their surface of Jesuanic, proto-Christian and early Christian interpretations of Jesus. What is special about this group is that, on the one hand, it considers the canonical gospels, especially the three synoptic gospels, to be valuable and highly credible sources for the historical Jesus (cf. below), while, on the other hand, they are convinced that it is impossible to move beyond the existing gospels. This wing’s confidence in the canonical gospels are not the least directed against the scepticism that dominated major parts of the form and redaction critical gospel research from about 1920 to ca. 1970.35 Thus this group is working in a direct continuation of earlier conservative generations’ criticism of the form and redactional critical schools, and very often it takes its starting point in the Swedish scholar Birger Gerhardsson’s optimistic view on the oral 33 Thus, for example, Grant (1977) 1992, 7 – 8. 255 – 264; Kümmel (1985) 1994, 692; Evans 1995, 2 – 3; Gooch 1996; Müller 1996; Tan 1997, 4 – 5; Theissen – Merz 2003, 7 – 12; Barnett 2009, 10. 34 Thus for example Marshall 1977; 2004a; 2004b; 2008; Blomberg (1987) 2008; 2001; Stuhlmacher 1992, 45; Bockmuehl 1994; Witherington 1994; 1999; 2006; Bock 2002a; 2002b; Dunn 2003; 2010; Bauckham 2006; Kosmoszewski – Sawyer – Wallace 2006, 259; Eddy – Boyd (2007) 2008; Kvalbein 2008; Barnett 2009; Keener 2009; Liderbach 2009; Puig i T—rrech 2010; Borchert 2012, 238. Similarly Flusser (1968) 1975. 35 Cf. Dibelius (1918) 1961; Bultmann (1921) 1961; Conzelmann (1954) 1962 (cf. Bilde 1978), and, among the evangelicals, especially Marshall 1977, 164 – 213; Stuhlmacher 1992, 45; Meadors 1995.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

62

A critical survey of modern Jesus research

and written transmissions of the traditions behind the gospels (cf. Gerhardsson (1961) 1964; (1977) 1978; 2001). An example of this evangelical wing’s views on the historical reliability of the canonical gospels we find in Marshall 2008, 16: This is not the place to discuss the issue in detail, and all I can do here is to record my belief that the picture in the gospels is so close to the history that to offer a separate (re)construction of the historical Jesus alongside what the Evangelists have given us would be tediously repetitious and unnecessary.36

This trend in the largest wing within the first school of the third period’s Jesusresearch, which is inclined to accept the synoptic gospels’ images of Jesus as the “historical” Jesus, can thus legitimately be described as “evangelical.” According to my assessment, this wing represents a sort of “evangelical” apologetic project designed primarily to build a protective wall against the critical reconstructions of Jesus, that have been presented by scholars like Reimarus, Johannes Weiss, Albert Schweitzer, the form critical school, Paula Frederiksen, Dale Allison, Bart Ehrman and Maurice Casey. In my opinion this evangelical group is not seriously interested in reconstructing the historical Jesus, but primarily in defending the Jesus as he is “remembered” in the canonical gospels as the truly historical Jesus.37 With this fundamental position this wing of the traditional Christian school also corresponds to Martin Kähler’s position ((1892) 1956). When it comes to the crunch, both wings of the first school agree to maintain Kähler’s position, although the majority wing makes a fuss of the idea that with the images of Jesus in the canonical gospels we are actually as close to the historical Jesus as we can possibly be. Fourth, within Johannine research in the same period, ca. 2000 – 2012, we can observe a similar trend to rehabilitate this gospel as a partially credible source for the historical Jesus. This trend is of course connected to C.H. Dodd’s important book from 1963: Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel, and it includes mainly recent works such as Ensor 1996, Blomberg 2001, Fortna – Thatcher 2001, Siegert 2004, 2010, Anderson 2006, Thatcher 2006, 2007, 2009, Charlesworth 2010, Dunn 2011b, 70 – 91, and D.M. Smith 2011. Behind these works two very different motives seem to operate. On the one hand, we probably find the same traditional Christian apologetic tendency to 36 In the same way, strangely enough, already A. Schweitzer (1901) 1956, VIII – IX, and later, e. g., Flusser (1968) 1975; Stuhlmacher 1992, 46; Yoshimura 2010; Lohfink (2011) 2012, 43. The most thorough and comprehensive defence for this “evangelical” position is Eddy – Boyd (2007) 2008. 37 Cf. the title of James D.G. Dunn’s comprehensive work from 2003: Jesus Remembered. That the members of the evangelical school of Jesus scholars themselves are aware of this problem is confirmed by the fact that the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus has devoted an entire issue (9, 2011, no. 1) to a discussion of “the question of how evangelical Christian scholars can contribute productively to a historical quest for Jesus that seems to presuppose tenets at variance with the convictions of their faith …” (JSHJ, 9, 2011, 1). In his latest work Dale Allison has presented a devastating critique of the reliability of human remembrance (2010, 1 – 9).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Main positions in the third period

63

legitimize a belief in the historical reliability of the canonical gospels as was pointed out above regarding the synoptic gospels. On the other hand, here I also trace a serious attempt to upgrade the value of the Gospel of John as a historical source in contrast to the main trend in the 19th and 20th century to distrust of this gospel as a historical source.38 In addition Folker Siegert’s works on the Gospel of John over the last 5 – 10 years seems to me to be a bold attempt to revive the source criticism of John’s gospel in so far as Siegert argues, with good reasons, that it is possible to separate older sources from the existing, editorial text.39 Therefore not all of these new trends in Johannine research can be dismissed as conservative apologetic attempts to postulate that with the Johannine Jesus we are faced with the real Jesus. In other words, in these new trends in Johannine research it is not only the first, traditional Christian, school with its two wings that is operating, but scholars from all the three schools mentioned. We now move to the differences between these three schools in the third period of historical Jesus-research. First, I turn to the liberal or philosophical school (cf. the references in my footnotes 2,6 and 2,28). This school is mainly composed of a remarkable number of North American and British Jesus scholars who interpret Jesus, not primarily as a Jewish eschatological and/or apocalyptic prophet or as a Jewish messianic pretender, but instead as a Jewish sage or even as a Jewish “Cynical” itinerant philosopher.40 The most important reason for this interpretation is the existence of obvious agreements between the Graeco-Roman sources’ information about the Cynical itinerant philosophers, on the one hand, and the canonical gospels’ and the Gospel of Thomas’ descriptions of Jesus, on the other hand, especially on Jesus’ rupture with his family, home and daily work, on his criticism of wealth and of social, political, cultural and religious power, and on his own and his followers’ wandering life as “mendicants.”41 This hypothesis has become rather popular and widespread, especially in the United States, where it primarily has been adopted by the American Jesus

38 David Friedrich Strauss ((1835 – 1836, 1969) 2012) was the first critical gospel scholar who realized that the Gospel of John was permeated with later Christian mythology to a degree that excluded this text as a possible source to the historical Jesus. This point of view quickly met with sympathy, and since Strauss it has dominated Johannine research until Dodd 1963. 39 In other words, with this work Folker Siegert revives Rudolf Bultmann’s attempt at sorting out older sources from the Fourth Gospel ((1941) 1962). 40 As for brief information about the Cynics, I refer to, for example, Theissen 1977, 14 – 21; Rosenau (2005) 2011, 5 – 7, and for more substantial information, I refer to Lang 2010, 53 – 134; Weeber 2012. 41 Cf. Downing 2011. In a recent book Bernhard Lang has argued that in the ancient world there actually existed a Jewish Cynical philosophy of which he finds traces in Ecclesiastes, in some of Philo’s works, in Josephus’ portrait of the ascetic desert figure of Bannus (Vita 11 – 12) and in some of the material about John the Baptist, Jesus and, perhaps, Hillel (2010, 65 – 70).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

64

A critical survey of modern Jesus research

Seminar.42 In my view this adoption is also connected with this seminar’s liberal Christian apologetic interest in reconstructing a historical Jesus, who is really able to present something important to the members of the seminar as well as to other modern Christians in America. For this purpose the philosophical, Cynical Jesus is much better suited than the eschatologicalapocalyptic one,43 simply because the latter Jesus is tied so firmly to his time and context that he only with very great difficulty can be interpreted and translated into a language that is relevant to Christians today. For this purpose, the Jesus who, with respectable ethical interests, is critical of richness and power, is a much better choice. At the same time this philosophical interpretation of the historical Jesus serves as an ideal platform for the Jesus seminar’s liberal American theologians’ struggle against the evangelical exegetes and theologians of the extreme Christian right in the United States (cf., e. g. Freeman (2009) 2011, 24). The same attitude is expressed by Douglas E. Oakman (2012, 135 – 139). Finally it is a great advantage for this group that with its thesis of the Cynical Jesus they have found a way out of the difficulties that are implied in the interpretation of Jesus as an eschatological and/or an apocalyptic prophet and a messianic pretender, first and foremost the unpleasant fact that Jesus, in practice, proved to be a false prophet because god’s kingdom, which he believed was imminent, actually did not come, and that the same is true about Jesus’ promise quickly to return from heaven to earth.44 It is my assessment that the apologetic discomfort with the eschatological and/or apocalyptical interpretation of Jesus has been just as important a motive for establishing the hypothesis of Jesus as a Jewish Cynical philosopher as the actual similarities between the two sets of sources – which are, in fact, very striking and remarkable. If this assessment of the Jesus seminar’s apologetic interests in a Cynical Jesus holds true, this hypothesis seems to be seriously weakened. This weakness is further aggravated by the fact that archaeological studies of Galilee in the Hellenistic-Roman period have failed to demonstrate that the 42 Cf. Funk (1993) 1997; 1998; 2002; Bilde 1998b. The American Jesus Seminar has recently ben adequately described in Bertalotto 2010, 25 – 43. 43 Evidence for this claim can, for example, be found in the British moral philosopher, Don Cupitt. He accepts the American Jesus Seminar’s ethical interpretations of Jesus, and on this basis Cupitt has written a short book about Jesus as the moral philosopher whom Cupitt regards as a unique innovator of human ethics because Jesus broke with the principle of “reciprocity” in human relations (Cupitt 2009, XIV – XV, 68). In Miller 2001 the question of whether Jesus should be interpreted as an apocalyptical prophet or a timeless sage, is discussed by, e. g., Dale C. Allison, Marcus J. Borg, John D. Crossan and Stephen Patterson. 44 For discussions of this issue I refer to Erich Grässer’s classical representation of the postponement and the absence of the parousia in the canonical gospels and the Acts of the Apostles ((1957) 1960; 1973); Martin Künzi’s two research historical accounts for the interpretation of Matth. 10.23 (1970) and Mk. 9.1 (par.) (1977); Wright 1996, 657; Lüdemann 2000, 886; Crossan 2010, in particular p. 131, cf. my ch. 1.5.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Main positions in the third period

65

Hellenistic-Roman culture was very strong here, at least not before the 3rd-4th century CE.45 An important example is Sepphoris, where Jesus, according to the Cynical thesis, is believed to have met with Hellenistic-Roman culture. However, here it has proved very difficult to document remains of buildings from the first half of the first century CE and earlier. Finally, in addition to these two critical arguments, a third, and in my opinion a decisive one, can be added. It consists of the general consideration that to me it seems to be much more historical to compare Jesus with the Teacher of Righteousness from Qumran, John the Baptist, and the other eschatological prophets mentioned by Josephus, than it is to compare him with Diogenes and other Cynical philosophers (cf. ch. 5.3.2; 5.4).46 Because of these weaknesses of the hypothesis of Jesus as a Jewish sage and Cynic-like itinerant philosopher, support for this hypothesis has been declining during the last decade, while the acceptance of this hypothesis’ main competitor, the thesis of Jesus as an eschatological and/or apocalyptic prophet and/or messianic pretender, has increased during the period 1985 to 2012.47 With the acknowledgement that Jesus was not only a Palestinian Jew, but an eschatological and/or apocalyptically thinking and acting Jew, it is much easier for Jesus to find a “natural” historical place among a significant part of the contemporary Jews. This implies that it is Reimarus’, Johannes Weiss’ and Albert Schweitzer’s basic thesis that, after the interim of the dialectical theology and the classical Bulltmann-school, returns to honour and dignity. Therefore it is also understandable that it is this hypothesis that has been preferred in almost all the major new representations of the historical Jesus since John D. Crossan’s great work in 1991 (cf. the references in my footnote 2,47). Since it is impossible to review every single contribution to the overwhelming amount of literature that can be said to belong to this eschatological school, which – as far as I know – has not been recorded in its entirety over the last five years (cf. the references in my footnote 2,1), I here again take the 45 Cf. Freyne (1980) 1981; 2000; 2004; Reed (2000) 2002; Chancey 2002; 2005; Jensen 2006; 2007; 2008; Clausen – Frey 2008. 46 For criticism of the Cynical Jesus presented by other scholars, I refer to Betz 1994; Horsley 1994; Johnson (1996) 1997; Aune 1997; Koester (1997) 2007, in particular on p. 263; Allison 2010, 30 – 164; Bertalotto 2010. 47 Today this hypothesis is preferred by leading Jesus scholars such as Theissen 1977; 2003a; E.P. Sanders 1985; Meier, 1 – 4, 1991 – 2009, especially 2, 1994, 235 – 506; Burridge (1994) 2005, 172; Theissen – Merz 1996; Wright 1996; Allison 1998; 2005; 2009; 2010; 2011; Ehrman 1999; Dunn 2003; Freyne 2004; Hengel – Schwemer 2007; Freeman (2009) 2011; Bertalotto 2010, 28; Casey 2010. Dale Allison has recently presented a comprehensive and convincing argument in favour of this hypothesis (cf. 2010, 31 – 220). Opposite we find Bernhard Lang as an almost lonely contemporary spokesman for the Cynical thesis. In my opinion it is a decisive weakness of Lang’s book that it does not take the comprehensive material into consideration, which points in the direction of Jesus as an apocalyptically thinking eschatological prophet. In his most recent work Richard Horsley 2012 makes an attempt to transcend the conflict between the eschatological and the liberal position, but I estimate that Horsley ends up closer to the first position.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

66

A critical survey of modern Jesus research

liberty to point to what I perceive as the core of the matter : Jesus was a Jew;48 he had no intention of founding a new religion, but perhaps – like so many others of his day – to contribute to reform and purify the Jewish people as a necessary precondition for its proper preparation for the saving intervention of the Jewish god with his eschatological judgement and the following revival of the Jewish people that many people at Jesus’ time expected anytime.49 Therefore it is probably true that, according to the critical part of Jesus research in its third period, the NT and Christianity are based on a great number of preconditions, both in early Judaism and in the Hellenistic-Roman world, but it is not true without further ado that the NT and Christianity can legitimately claim to be based on the historical Jesus. Of course, they presuppose the historical Jesus, who remains a crucial prerequisite for Christianity (cf. Bultmann (1958) 1961, 1 – 2), but their Christ-figures are not simply identical to the self-perception of the historical Jesus. These figures are much more than the Jesus of history, a subject that cannot be pursued here, as it requires separate investigations. Therefore the eschatological school in the Jesus research of the third period emphasizes the problem known as “continuity and discontinuity.”50 In my article about the deification of Jesus (2008b) I began analyzing and interpreting this problem, and it is also a main purpose in the present work (cf. especially ch. 4 and 5). If we move further into the substance of the eschatological school in the Jesus research of the third period I intend briefly to identify and comment on some of its other main trends. An important trend has been – and still is – a long series of attempts to understand and interpret Jesus as a representative of some sort of regional Galilean Judaism.51 By the way these attempts appear in all three schools in the third period although their motives and interpretations are different. When we look at these attempts, one result is that it has proved exceedingly difficult to reach any agreement on which specific features that were prevalent in Galilee in the Hellenistic-Roman period, and especially in the first half of the first century CE. According to many scholars, not least archaeologists, it has not yet been possible to prove that Galilee in the time of Jesus was particularly poor, impoverished and/or fleeced by Rome and distant landlords.52 48 Cf. Charlesworth (1988) 1989; 1991; 1992a. John H. Elliott (2007) insists that Jesus should neither be designated as a “Christian” nor as a “Jew,” but rather as an “Israelite,” a designation that reminds me of Richard Horsley’s interpretation of Jesus as an old Israelite reform Jew (cf. the references in my footnote 2,51) 49 Cf. Pitre 2005; Bird 2006, and the references in ch. 1.2; 4.1. 50 Cf. ch. 1.2; 6 – 7, and further Holm¦n 2007b; 2012; Müller 2008a, 159 – 160; Oakman 2012, 123 – 134. 51 Cf. Bauer 1927; Bilde 1980; Lee 1988; Freyne (1980) 1981; 2000; 2001; 2004; Crossley 2006; Horsley 1995; 1996; 2008a; 2008b; 2008c; Jensen 2006; 2007; 2008; Fiensy 2007; Clausen – Frey 2008. 52 Cf. Reed (2000) 2002; Meier, 3, 2001, 615 – 622; Chancey 2002; 2005; Jensen 2006; 2007; 2008; Clausen – Frey 2008.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Main positions in the third period

67

It has been equally difficult to prove that Galilee in this period should have been very “pagan” and/or “Hellenized” to any particularly high degree.53 Scholars have also failed in their attempts to convince their colleagues that the inhabitants of Galilee in this period were especially “Zealotic” or rebellious Jews.54 It has also been difficult to point out features in the sources on Jesus, which should be characteristic of a specific sort of Galilean Judaism. Presumably these negative results constitute the main reason why scholars like Sean Freyne, B.J. Lee and D.A. Fiensy cannot be said to have successfully managed to convince their readers. In spite of the fact that I, in an article in 1980, expressed some sympathy for the hypothesis of a historical Jesus with some sort of “Galilean” profile, I have, for the reasons mentioned above, later changed my mind, and today I therefore tend to believe that we can no longer seriously consider the various versions of this hypothesis. Turning to the question of Jesus’ messianic self-consciousness, it is my assessment that the mainstream of modern Jesus research in the third period has been moving in the opposite direction, that is, from rejection to acceptance. Over the past decades a growing number of works have appeared that are influenced by the conviction that Jesus saw, or gradually came to consider himself the Messiah.55 This hypothesis, which was accepted by Albert Schweitzer, but rejected by Wrede, Bultmann and many of Bultmann’s students, was revived by Hengel ((1975) 1977) with good arguments. After Hengel it has slowly been accepted by more and more modern Jesus scholars (cf. footnote 2,55 and the present work, ch. 3.9; 4.10). In contrast the hypothesis that through the 20th century had some support, that Jesus was connected to the ”Zealots,”56 has only been able to gather a few adherents in the third period of modern Jesus research.57 However this 53 Cf. Bauer 1927; Bilde 1980; Jensen 2006; Zangenberg – Schröter 2012. 54 Cf., e. g., Bauer 1927; D. Hill 1979, 150 – 151; Bilde 1980; Freyne (1980) 1981. 55 Thus already Reimarus; Strauss (1835 – 1836) 1969; Albert Schweitzer (1901) 1956; (1906) 1966, 402 – 407; Jülicher 1909, 50; E. Meyer, (1921) 1962, vol. 2, 444 – 448; Dahl (1960) 1962; 1991; Manson (1953) 1961; Käsemann ((1954) 1965, 206 – 212); Hengel (1975) 1977; Moule 1977; Leivestad 1982. This interpretation has now been widely accepted, cf. E.P. Sanders 1985; Hampel 1990; Stuhlmacher 1992, 107 – 125, in particular p. 124; Sung 1993, 282; Evans 1995, 437 – 456. 460; 2011; Müller 1996; Flusser (1968) 1975; 1997; Wise 1999; Knohl 2000, 2; Pitre 2005, 477; Hengel – Schwemer 2007, V. 544 – 548; Tabor (2006) 2007; Bird 2009; Allison 2010, 221 – 304; Back 2011; Bertalotto 2010, 149. A brief survey of the history of research is available in Karrer 1991, 37 – 40. However, the traditional critical German rejection of this hypothesis is carried on by scholars like Bultmann (1958) 1961, 8.26 – 34; Hahn (1963) 1966, 159 – 179; A.F. Segal 1986, 86; Karrer 1991, 406; Roloff (2000) 2007, 118; Schreiber 2000, 492; Freeman (2009) 2011, 30. Theissen (2000) 2004, 51 – 53, leaves this question undecided. 56 Cf. in particular Eisler 1929 – 1930; Brandon 1967 (cf. ch. 3.6). 57 Cf. especially the rejection of this hypothesis by Cullmann 1970; Hengel 1970. Horsley (1987) 1993; 2003; 2008a; 2008b; 2008c; 2010a; 2010b, however, cannot be counted as belonging to the group mentioned in my footnote 2,56, because his interpretation of Jesus as an ancient Israelite prophet of renewal does not underline armed resistance against the ruling political power, but

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

68

A critical survey of modern Jesus research

interpretation should not be confused with the assumption that Jesus’ project was not directed against Rome. So it was, but Jesus stood for a non-militant, quietistic-apocalyptic strategy, while the militant wing of the zealously-minded Palestinian Jews insisted on the armed Hasmonean and “Zealotic” strategy.58

2.4 Recent unhistorical interpretations of Jesus and contemporary popular literature and films about Jesus With ch. 2.1 – 3 my presentation of the most important positions in the three periods of modern Jesus research is completed. It is, however, no secret that in our time, besides the scholarly investigations of the historical Jesus, an immense quantity of unscholarly Jesus-interpretations, popular literature and movies, and a lot of fantastic literature about Jesus are continuously being published. Here in ch. 2.4 it is my intention to present my readers with an overview of this part of the modern interpretations of Jesus. In the first place I point to a series of monographs that generally have only one limited purpose, one single, exclusive approach to Jesus, or which takes one and only one view of or perspective on the source material. The first and most regrettable example of this type of “research” are the works on Jesus that appeared in Germany between 1933 and 1945. Their authors tried to argue that Jesus was not Jew, but an “Aryan.” The best known representative of this Nazi-inspired Jesus-interpretation is Walter Grundmann (1941). His strongly Nazi-coloured Jesus “research” has lately been critically described, analysed and criticized in Fenske 2005, Amaladoss 2006, and Heschel 2007. An example of another type is Johannes Lehmann’s Jesus-Report. Protokoll einer Verfälschung, published in 1970. This book is determined by the single idea that Philo’s and Josephus’ accounts of the Essenes together with the evidence of the Dead Sea Scrolls prove that the historical Jesus was an Essene.59 Furthermore Lehmann argues that this truth was falsified by Paul and the canonical gospels, which have made attempts to transform the Essene Jesus to the divine Christ. Lehmann’s book resembles a series of recent failed attempts instead practised a non-militant, quietistic revival of the ancient Israelite, autonomous local society, the village. Oakman 2012 associates himself with Reimarus, but rejects Eisler’s and Brandon’s thesis of a close relationship between Jesus and the Jewish militants, the “Zealots”. 58 More on this problem in ch. 3.6; 4.5 – 6; 5.3.2.4; 5.3.2.14. 59 By the way, this hypothesis, that Jesus and the Jesus movement were Essene or came from the Essenes, is extremely old in the history of Jesus research, because it can be claimed to have been founded, or at least hinted at, by Eusebius, who in his great Church History (HE 2.17) underlines that Philo’s description of the “Therapeuts,” who are identical with or closely related to the Essenes, is a group very close to the Christians. This hypothesis has been adopted by several modern scholars, e. g., Gardner 2006.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Recent unhistorical interpretations of Jesus

69

by such authors as Robert Eisenmann (1983; 1986; 1996), Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh (1991), Barbara Thiering (1992) and Vinning 2008 to prove that Jesus was or was not an Essene.60 A third example of this one-sided approach is J. Landrum Kelly’s presentation of Jesus as the most radical social and political philosopher of all (1994). Naturally this interpretation is pushed forward at the expense of the interest in Jesus’ historical context and, worse yet, at the expense of the deepest and most important insights of modern Jesus research, that is to say, that Jesus was an apocalyptically thinking Jewish eschatological prophet and/or a messianic pretender. It is characteristic of Kelly’s voluminous treatise that these features are completely absent. According to the index of his book, the word “eschatology” appears twice, and only in one of these two cases the author has something to say about this subject: According to Kelly, the most radical saying in Jesus’ ethical teachings is the commandment to love one’s enemies (Matt. 5.44 par.), “… and to work for the good until such time as the forces of secular domination are no more. That seems to be the eschatology of the Christ…” (1994, 59). However, Kelly reveals no understanding that there is a correlation between this commandment to love one’s enemies and Jesus’ proclamation of the imminent kingdom of god (cf. the present work, ch. 3.4). Thus Kelly’s book is a good example of a biased and ahistorical philosophical interpretation of Jesus.61 A fourth example of this kind of one-sided Jesus-books is Andries van Aarde’s Fatherless in Galilee. Jesus as Child of God (2001). In this book the author seeks to explain the whole of Jesus’ way of living, acting and thinking on the basis of the traumatic fact that he was fatherless. According to the author, this fact led to his marginalization in Jewish society. Furthermore these experiences led Jesus partly to compensate for the loss of his biological father with a close family relationship to the Jewish god, partly to his unusual taking care of children, women and other marginalized groups.62 A fifth example is Pieter Craffert’s attempt to understand, interpret and 60 Cf. Rudolf 1993. A recent work similar to those mentioned above is B. Wilson (2008) 2009 who makes an attempt to explain the “transformation” of Jesus from a “Jewish teacher” to “Christ, the Son of God” by the means of a weak hypothesis about a “cover-up” constructed by Paul (cf. 2008, 1 – 4. 109 – 149). Similarly O’Grady 2012. 61 The same sort of fundamental criticism can be turned against Akers 2000, who is claiming that Jesus first and foremost brought a message about simple living and non-violence (cf. also Yoder 1972, in particular pp. 90 – 93), against Carroll 2007, who does describe Jesus as a thinker of existential philosophy, against Amer 2009, contending that Jesus brought the following five fundamental commandments into this world: 1) Do not condemn! 2) Forgive everybody! 3) Do not act violently! 4) Act towards everybody as a humble servant! 5) Liberate yourself from property! Finally, this criticism can also be turned against Don Cupitt 2009; Moser 2009 and Freeman 2010, who all describe Jesus as an ahistorical ethical or a post-metaphysical philosopher. 62 Donald Capps has written two representations of Jesus that appear to be related to van Aarde’s book: Jesus. A Psychological Biography (2000) and Jesus the Village Psychiatrist (2008).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

70

A critical survey of modern Jesus research

describe Jesus as a shaman (2008). Therefore the author has chosen an “anthropological-historical” approach to the existing source material. In this case again the investigation is carried out without any critical analysis of the sources used and with little sense of Jesus’ historical context. In the second place I present a comprehensive group of literature on Jesus under the heading reception history, that is, works describing how Jesus, after his death, was received, understood and interpreted throughout history. Actually all existing Jesus literature and art with Jesus as its motif can be alleged to belong to the category of reception history (cf. Tatum 2009). This applies to the existing sources on Jesus, too, because all of them – from Paul’s scattered remarks about Jesus to the canonical and apocryphal gospels and the Jewish and Graeco-Roman fragmentary notices – reflect a certain “reception” and interpretation of the transmitted memories and traditions about the real Jesus. As a matter of fact we can already talk about Paul’s reception of Jesus, the reception of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark, Josephus’ reception of Jesus, etc.63 Then follows the other canonical gospels’ reception of Jesus, those of the apocryphal gospels, the Jewish Christian receptions of Jesus, those of Montanus, Marcion, the gnostics and the church fathers’ receptions of Jesus.64 And so you can continue to the present day. Today this large group of Jesus-representations can naturally be divided into several subgroups, because there are significant differences between the traditional, dogmatic Christian reception history, a purely recording history of changing times’ and changing ideologies’ receptions of Jesus and, for example, the reception history of art, especially fiction and painting. One important subgroup is of course the Christian dogmatic reception of the Jesus figure which has been recorded in the usual representations of the Christology of the New Testament and the later ecclesiastical theology.65 Another subgroup can be constructed as the historical review of the most important and influential cultural receptions of Jesus from antiquity to our time (cf. Tatum 2009). A very good example of this type of reception history is Pelikan (1985) 1999, who seeks to collect a large number of different general interpretations of Jesus down through history. He divides them into thematic groups gathered around a number of key interpretations of Jesus as, for example, the “Rabbi,“ the “Cosmic Christ,” the “Christ Crucified,” the “Prince 63 Burridge (1994) 2005; Vermes 2000; Warrington 2009 and Scroogs 2011 present explicitly the various interpretations of Jesus in the gospels and the rest of the NT. A considerable number of modern monographs on Jesus are in fact only representations of these, the oldest receptions of Jesus in the NT and other sources. Thus, for example Kee (1970) 1996; Kvalbein 2008; Keener 2009. 64 Riley (1997) 2000; Pokorny´ 1998; Roukema 2010; Grindheim 2012 describe the receptions of Jesus in Paul, the canonical gospels, the Christian church fathers and a number of gnostic writings. 65 Cf. the references in my footnotes 1,35; 2,55; 3,80 and 4,74 and representations such as Hägglund 1956; D. Schweitzer 2010.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Recent unhistorical interpretations of Jesus

71

of Peace,” the “Liberator” and others. In a similar way, Thomas Altizer (1997) investigates the apocalyptic, Pauline, gnostic, Catholic, protestant, Buddhist, and nihilistic interpretations of Jesus. Horst Georg Pöhlmann ((1976) 1978) presents a Jewish, a humanistic, a social revolutionary, a pop-cultural, and a popular Christian picture and reception of Jesus, while Olav Hammer (2009) outlines what he describes as the gnostic, the apocryphal, the Manichaean, the Islamic, the Hindu, the theosophical, the aryan, and several other “alternative” Jesus-figures.66 In the same subgroup I place Nichols 2008, who examines the North American interpretations of Jesus from the Puritan fathers to Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (2004).67 A third subgroup of the receptions of Jesus are the purely fictional depictions of Jesus in our own time, especially those based on an acceptable historical basis, such as Lagerkvist (1950) 1955, Graves (1976) 1994, Theissen (1986) 1988, Schwager (1991) 1998 and Chilton (2000) 2002. Dan Brown’s novel about the Da Vinci Code from 2003 does not pretend to be anything other than a fictional thriller, although it claims to be based on apocryphal and legendary traditions. Closely related to such fictional literary receptions of Jesus is a series of contemporary cinematic representations of Jesus such as Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) and Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (2004). Related to these interpretative Jesus movies is the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar (1973). The literary fictional representations can be viewed in the context of these pictorial interpretations.68 In the third place I present what one might call a critical contemporary Jesus reception. I call it “critical” because it is critical of existing Christianity and the Christian churches. These are attempts to reconstruct a historical Jesus whom the authors critically can play out against the existing Christian churches and religious communities. A key example of this type of Jesus reception is Jack Nelson-Palmeyer’s Jesus against Christianity. Reclaiming the Missing Jesus (2001). This book can be described as an energetic and purposeful effort to reinvent a “Jesuanic” sort of Christianity, governed by compassion and mercy, and intended to replace the “violent god” of ecclesiastical Christianity. The purpose of this project is to contribute to revitalizing a more genuine contemporary Christianity. The core of Nelson-Palmeyer’s effort to uncover Jesus’ own “Christianity” consists of the author’s focus on the basic human values as compassion and non-violence. In this regard this attempt resembles earlier historical attempts like those of 66 Skovmand – Giversen 1999 and Moxnes 2000 are anthologies of Jesus receptions of a type similar to that of Hammer 2009. 67 Cf. also Prothero 2007. One of the most important receptions of Jesus is the Jewish one that can be followed from Paul and the canonical gospels, Josephus, the “Jew Trypho” by Justin up to the Jewish reception of Jesus in modernity, cf. the references in footnote 2,25. 68 Cf. the representations in Burns 2007; Reinhartz 2007; Auken – Pedersen 2008; Burkett 2010, 475 – 531; Marsch 2011.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

72

A critical survey of modern Jesus research

Francis of Assisi, Jan Hus and liberal theology. Therefore Nelson-Palmeyer’s book is closely related to a number of the projects described above, especially Yoder 1972; Akers 2000; B. Wilson (2008) 2009; Amer 2009. Another example of this type of interpretation of Jesus is Leonard Swidler (2007), who interprets Jesus as a feminist and argues that earlier versions of the Gospels of Luke and John were written by women. Another example of this type is Goss 1993, who interprets the liberation that Jesus is believed to bring, as a liberation from the fear of homosexuals to make their status public and to “jump out of the closet.” In both cases the main point of this particular interpretation of Jesus is polemical against the prevailing “reactionary” Christian positions. A third example of a slightly different kind is Ben Witherington’s book Jesus and Money. A Guide for Times of Financial Crisis (2010), which in my opinion is a sort of “biblical theology of money and wealth.” This book is a piece of typical American evangelical biblical theology, which is reminiscent of Spencer 2003 (cf. below), that is, a biblically justified and a biblically based handbook on how Christians should handle money in their daily life. A fourth example is F. Scott Spencer’s book: What Did Jesus Do? Gospel Profiles of Jesus’ Personal Conduct (2003). Spencer’s point of departure is today’s American Christians’ favourite question: “What would Jesus have done in the present situation?” Spencer focuses on a number of texts in the canonical gospels describing what Jesus did in fact do in various specific situations. Spencer’s exegesis is undisturbed by any critical distinction between different layers in the texts. Thus we are confronted with a highly selective description of Jesus’ acts with a purely edifying purpose. In this group I also place a number of quite arbitrary modernizations of Jesus found in contemporary popular Christian depictions of Jesus, such as Susan Campbell’s Dating Jesus. A Story of Fundamentalism, Feminism, and the American Girl (2009). This author tells about her upbringing in a fundamentalist American family, where she met and “dated” her “(boy) friend” Jesus at home, in her Sunday school and in her church. This type of modernizing interpretation of Jesus is akin to Swidler’s feminist one, Aker’s pacifist one, Spencer’s moralist one and other subjective actualizing interpretations of Jesus, but Campbell’s book certainly has its own profile strongly influenced by the American idealizations of the Jesus figure, which takes place in Sunday schools and confirmation classes. In the fourth place we are today confronted with a whole series of pure Jesusfantasies like Kamal Salibi: Who Was Jesus? A Conspiracy in Jerusalem ((1988) 1992). Salibi argues that the portraits of Jesus in Paul and the canonical gospels are secondary constructions, the results of a merger of two historical figures: a certain “Jeshu” of David’s family who were executed in Jerusalem, and the prophet “Issa,” who had lived in Arabia in the aftermath of Ezra.69 69 Thus Salibi’s construction is akin to B. Wilson (2008) 2009.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Recent unhistorical interpretations of Jesus

73

In the same category I place Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy : The Jesus Mystery (1999)70 The same applies to Francesco Carotta: Was Jesus Caesar? ((1999) 2005), in which the author argues that Jesus never existed, but that he and Christianity in the second century CE was invented and designed according to a model based on the Roman Caesar-cult which at that time was languishing. In this group I also place some frankly amazing literary works such as Robert Aron’s book, Die verborgenen Jahre Jesu (1962) about Jesus’ life between his birth in Bethlehem and his baptism in the Jordan River by John the Baptist. This book is based on the apocryphal gospels on the childhood of Jesus and the author’s general knowledge of Jewish life past and present. The same goes for Michael Baigent The Jesus Papers. Exposing the Greatest Cover-Up in History (2006), which, like others of this author’s books, is a mere robber novel (pulp fiction) about a surprising discovery of some letters written by Jesus’ own hand to the Jewish council, the Sanhedrin, in Jerusalem. As Roman Heiligenthal’s ((1997) 1999) and Oskar Skarsaune’s (2006) books document, several serious Jesus scholars have actually taken their time to read critically, to comment on and to criticize some of the writings that I have mentioned above. They have made this heroic effort in order to avoid large numbers of innocent and professionally incompetent readers being seduced by these unscholarly books on Jesus.71 Generally the immense number of fanciful Jesus books, of which I have here given my readers a few glimpses, is not historical but ideological, and “useroriented.” Most of this literature looks like a caricature of the life-of-Jesus literature produced by the liberal theologians in the 19th century which Albert Schweitzer criticized for creating a series of images of Jesus, which in reality were merely reflections of their authors’ own favourite ideas and wishes.

70 According to Freke and Gandy, Jesus is not a historical person, but an erudite, artificial construction combining the pagan mystery god Osiris-Dionysus and traditional Jewish ideas about the Messiah. It remains obscure, however, who was the constructor of this combination, and it remains unclear when and where it took place. In addition the two authors are unable to explain why Josephus in fact is referring to Jesus as well as John the Baptist. 71 Evangelical books like Craig A. Evans’ Fabricating Jesus. How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels (2006a) and Ben Witherington’s What Have They Done with Jesus? Beyond Strange Theories and Bad History – Why We Can Trust the Bibel (2006) have been written with the same purpose. The same is true for Wright (1992) 1993, and Komoszewski – Sawyer – Wallace 2006.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

74

A critical survey of modern Jesus research

2.5 A critical presentation of modern Danish research on the historical Jesus from Georg Brandes (1925) to Mogens Müller (2008a)72 2.5.1 Introduction Danish research on the historical Jesus cannot be said to be rich, and insofar as it has asserted itself in line with the international Jesus research, this has largely been done by writers outside the New Testament departments of the theological faculties. Today anyone able to read Danish can easily verify this assessment because Mogens Müller in 2008 presented an almost complete description of this topic (2008a).73 In fact, in the period here rewieved we have relatively few monographic contributions to Danish Jesus research, namely Georg Brandes (1925) 1989, Ditlef Nielsen (1924) 1933, Paul Helms 1927, Vilhelm Grønbech 1935, A. Drewsen Christensen 1937, Paul Diderichsen 1962, Thestrup Pedersen (1970) 1989, Bent Noack 1975, Niels Nøjgaard 1975, Erik Nørgaard 1975, Søren Ruager 1975, Finn Jacobi 1978; 2005, Knud Hansen 1983, Villy Sørensen 1992, Niels Hyldahl (1993) 1997, Ebbe Gudmand-Høyer 1997, Troels EngbergPedersen 1998, Finn Abrahamowitz 2002, Bent K. Jepsen, 2005, Per Bilde 2008a; 2011,and Ole Bjørn Petersen 2011. However, as I intend to demonstrate in the next section, a considerable proportion of these monographs cannot be considered scholarly works about the historical Jesus, but rather ought to be classified as belonging to the literary genre of brief popularizations.

72 Chapter 2.5 was originally written for the Danish version of the present book. When preparing the English version I first decided to exclude this chapter as presumably uninteresting for an international readership. Later I realized that it might be interesting for Non-Danes to get an impression of the Danish exegetical debate on modern Jesus research, and, in particular, to realize how effective the Kähler-Bultmannian taboo on historical Jesus research has been in Denmark. For these reasons I ended by deciding to keep this section, however in a slightly different version. 73 I write “almost” for in Müller’s book I miss the mention of Bent Noack’s important works on Jesus (1967, 1969, 1975), Thestrup Pedersen’s book on the preaching of Jesus ((1970) 1989) and Søren Ruager’s representation of the Kingdom of God and the person of Jesus (1975). By the way, Mogens Müller himself is the Danish NTscholar who has contributed most titles to the history of Jesus research. As early as in 1978 Müller presented a brief description and assessment of modern Jesus research since Reimarus (1978, 7 – 30), accompanied by a collection of 17 extracts from the most important, mainly German, Jesus scholars in Danish translation (1978, 31 – 71). Between 1975 and 2008, Mogens Müller has published a series of scholarly articles on modern Jesus research: 1975; 1980; 1996, but he has never presented his own interpretation of the historical Jesus.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

A critical presentation of modern Danish

75

2.5.2 Selected Danish Jesus monographs Let us first look at the monographs that explicitly pretend to deal with the historical Jesus. Brandes (1925) 1989 can in no way be described as an exposition of the historical Jesus, first and foremost because Brandes in this small work, in continuation of Arthur Drews ((1911) 1924), argues that Jesus has never existed, but should be regarded as a purely mythological construction. On this basis Brandes is precluded from presenting an interpretation of the historical Jesus. Nielsen (1924) 1933 is the most outstanding, if somewhat belated, Danish contribution to the Life-Jesus research of the liberal theology. However, Nielsen’s religio-historical interpretations and comparisons of Jesus are so random, far-fetched and poorly justified, that they cannot be taken seriously (cf. Müller 2008a, 71 – 76). En passant I will just mention that I consider to Helms’ (1927), Drewsen Christensen’s (1937) and Nørgaard’s (1975) small publications on Jesus not only as modest, but also as popular, hence, in the present context, I do not regard them as contributions to Danish Jesus research. Vilhelm Grønbech’s Jesus-book (1935) is a selective, unhistorical and too modernistic interpretation of Jesus as the “happy son of life.” Grønbech’s book is selective because it chooses only those parts of the source material that can support the author’s interpretation. It is unhistorical because, strangely enough, this professor of the history of religions does not take into account the historical and religio-historical context of Jesus. Finally, Grønbech’s interpretation of the historical Jesus it is far too modernistic because the author is constructing a Jesus who fits into his sharp criticism of contemporary Christianity. It is amazing that a historian of religions has been able to persuade himself to ignore Jewish eschatology and apocalypticism that had been so clearly pointed out by Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer. The short booklet of 90 pages published in 1962 by Børge Diderichsen and entitled Den historiske Jesus (The Historical Jesus), cannot be said to live up to its title. It contains six lectures, held at Folkeuniversitet (the People’s University) in Copenhagen. These lectures can in no way serve as research. This small book provides, in an educational manner, a basic orientation about the traditional sources of Jesus (ch. 1 – 5) and, on this basis, the author presents a sketch of the life and teaching of Jesus (1962, 65 – 89). For many years Thestrup Pedersen’s book on Jesus’ “preaching” ((1970) 1989) was frequently used in Danish teacher training colleges in the discipline of Christian Studies. The main reason why this book also cannot be said to produce a historical Jesus, is that its title is misleading since it does not reconstruct the proclamation of the historical Jesus. Instead, in line with a wide range of related works, such as that by the Norwegian Hans Kvalbein 2008, it restricts itself to commenting on the interpretations of Jesus’

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

76

A critical survey of modern Jesus research

preaching found in the canonical gospels. This happens in a sort of gentle drawing from the dialectical theological understanding of Christianity. Niels Nøjgaard’s booklet from 1975 is a slim portrait of Jesus of approximately 60 pages. Nøjgaard’s portrait resembles Grønbech’s interpretation of Jesus in finding Jesus’ most important traits in his humour, irony, smile and gentleness. Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom of god is mentioned, but it stands apart as a sort of appendix. The booklet’s final section is titled “Disciplenes besvær med billedet af mesteren” (“the disciples’ difficulties with the image of the Master,” pp. 57 – 65). Here the author is drawing an image of the disciples as dull and foolish, an image that was widespread in the 1960s and the 1970s. The disciples were unable to understand Jesus and his exalted ideas about the Messiah. Despite their continual community with Jesus the disciples could not get rid of their former traditional Jewish national and political pictures of the Messiah. Søren Ruager’s dissertation on god’s kingdom and the person of Jesus (1975) is one of the most serious Danish attempts to reconstruct the historical Jesus, partly because this work is fully on a level with the international scholarly literature of its day, partly because, in accordance with his teachers in Tübingen and Oxford, namely Otto Betz, Martin Hengel and Geza Vermes, the author has learned and understood that Jesus was Jewish, and that he was a Jewish eschatological prophet and/or a messianic pretender. In 1978 Finn Jacobi, an exceptionally gifted high school teacher in the disciplines of French and Religion, in cooperation with three young university teachers, Knud Jeppesen, Kirsten Nielsen and Peter Steensgaard, published a textbook Jesu død og opstandelse. Læsninger i Det nye Testamente (“The Death and Resurrection of Jesus. Readings of the New Testament”). This book is constructed thematically, and each subject is illustrated by a brief introduction, one or two important texts in Danish translation, mainly from NT and Josephus, and a brief commentary and discussion. The book is divided in two parts, “The execution of Jesus of Nazaret as a rebel” (pp. 13 – 89) and “The message about Jesus Christ” (pp. 91 – 166), followed by six “excurses” on crucial historical questions based primarily on Josephus. The unique character of the first part of this book consists in its sober comparisons between Jesus and the “Zealots” represented by Judas the Galilean. By virtue of this character Jacobi’s book was unique for its time, represents a pioneering work and has been a model for my own work. The critical assessment I offered above of Thestrup Pedersen’s book on Jesus’ preaching can be repeated in proportion to Knud Hansen’s book from 1983. It bears a title that was rather popular at that time: Forargelsen. Senjødedommen og Jesu forkyndelse (The Scandal. Late Judaism and the Preaching of Jesus). Otherwise, part of the content of this book is rather promising, as Hansen partly describes ancient Israel and contemporary Judaism, including the Dead Sea Scrolls, as the historical background of the historical Jesus, partly delivers a broad representation of Jesus and his

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

A critical presentation of modern Danish

77

religious program. But the book is marred by a hotchpotch of dialectical and Grønbechian theology viewing Jesus as standing in categorical opposition to the “Late Judaism” so strongly despised by the author. This ideological position has caused Hansen to have completely lost sight of Jesus’ eschatological and apocalyptic context. The famous Danish philosopher and man of letters Villy Sørensen’s monograph from 1992 has been the most discussed Danish book on Jesus since Grønbech’s work.74 Almost all the Danish theological exegetes, who expressed views on this book, distanced themselves from Sørensen’s interpretation of Jesus. The main reason seems to me to be, that the author established an almost unbridgeable gulf between the historical Jesus and the Christ-figures of later Christianity. Another important reason for the theological exegetes’ rejection of Sørensen’s book was that Sørensen reconstructed the historical Jesus, not as a Jewish eschatological prophet and/or messianic pretender, but as a philosophical sage who formulated general ideas about political “power” which was criticized by the unique “force” of Jesus’ own words. Basically, in my opinion, Villy Sorensen’s remarkable work must be characterized as a sort of revival of liberal theological ideas in the same style as the interpretations of Jesus worked out by the so-called American Jesus Seminar. This is definitely not the case with Niels Hyldahl’s thorough and informative presentation from (1993) 1997 of the history of the oldest Christianity.75 However, if we look at Hyldahl’s extensive chapter about Jesus (pp. 59 – 131), it leaps to the eye that Hyldahl completely fails to reconstruct the historical Jesus. He describes thoroughly the difficulties associated with this task (pp. 68 – 75), further the question about Jesus’ possible messianic self-understanding (pp. 108 – 119), the “Christological issue” (pp. 101 – 108), the question of Jesus’ resurrection (pp. 119 – 131), John the Baptist (pp. 75 – 86), and the relationship between John and Jesus (pp. 86 – 101). All these sections are provided with detailed summaries of the most recent research, but we find no comprehensive historical reconstruction of Jesus! Why? Probably because Hyldahl – like his colleagues at the University of Copenhagen: Geert Hallbäck, Mogens Müller and Troels Engberg-Pedersen, and many other Danish New Testament scholars – considers such a reconstruction to be an impossible historical task, and, in addition, that such a reconstruction does not have any theological interest. Like Grønbech’s book on Jesus (1935) and several works published abroad in recent years (cf. ch. 2.3 – 4 above), Ebbe Gudmand-Høyer’s monograph from 1997 was critical of contemporary Christianity, as it already appears from the book’s title: Jesus, Kristus og kirken. Et sagligt korstog mod hellige køer (Jesus, Christ and the Church. A Factual Crusade against Sacred Cows). Like 74 I refer to my comprehensive review of this Book (Bilde 1993b). 75 Cf. my review of this book (Bilde 1994).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

78

A critical survey of modern Jesus research

Villy Sørensen Ebbe Gudmand-Høyer finds an unbridgeable gulf between Jesus and Christ, between the historical Jesus and subsequent Christianity (cf. Müller 2008a, 139 – 144). This “crusade” the author describes as “factual” because he is convinced that his reconstruction of the historical Jesus as a Jewish eschatological prophet is the result of an objective scholarly investigation. The “sacred cows” against which this ”crusade” is directed, are the existing Danish Lutheran Church and Christianity, because, according to Gudmand-Høyer, this sort of Christianity is not entitled to invoke the historical Jesus.76 Troels Engberg-Pedersen’s meritorious anthology from 1998, entitled Den historiske Jesus og hans betydning (The Historical Jesus and his Significance), neither can, nor will, serve as an account of the historical Jesus. It is an anthology presenting a few samples of the international Jesus research of the third period. The book contains a useful critical overview by the editor of the most recent Jesus-research. Moreover it contains three contributions by foreign Jesus scholars (Gerd Theissen, E.P. Sanders and Halvor Moxnes), translated into Danish, and finally two Danish contributions by Jens GlebeMøller and Geert Hallbäck. However, the publisher’s own view of the historical Jesus appears as clearly sceptical, as also evidenced by his formulation of the title of the third period’s Jesus-research: “The Third Hunt < = Quest>,” a hunt that, according to the editor, cannot succeed. In 2002 another Jesus book by an outsider appeared, or rather a real insider’s interpretation of the historical Jesus, namely the Danish half-Jewish writer Finn Abrahamowitz (1939 – 2006)’s monograph on Jesus. The author was courageous enough to call his book a ”biography,” a term that most people after A. Schweitzer ((1906) 1966) thought to be impossible. If you read the book you will quickly realize that the word “biography” is not used with its usual Danish and English meaning, but rather in the sense of “fragments of a life story.” For with this book Abrahamowitz has not fallen back into the illusions of the liberal theology. He presents a rather sober analysis, characterized by the author’s familiarity with Judaism and with substantial parts of international Jesus research. As might be expected, the author does not equivocate in his interpretation of Jesus as a Jew. Quite the contrary! As it is the case with the other Jewish Jesus-researchers (cf. the references in footnote 2,25), Abrahamowitz’s interpretation is marked by his considerable familiarity with Judaism: Jesus was a Jew, not a Christian! If I should point out a shortcoming in Abrahamowitz’s book, it must be that his Jesus is not Jewish enough. By that I mean that the eschatology and apocalypticism that were dominant in Judaism at the time of Jesus are not taken seriously enough. I also miss comparative considerations. Therefore Abrahamowitz’s interpretation of

76 Accordingly, Ebbe Gudmand-Høyer’s book belongs to the same category as the third group presented above in ch. 2.4.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

A critical presentation of modern Danish

79

the historical Jesus does not clearly enough point in the direction that I describe in the present book’s ch. 4 and 5. In 2005 came two important Danish publications about the historical Jesus, on the one hand, Finn Jacobi’s comparison between the two legal processes against Socrates and Jesus, and on the other, Bent K. Jepsen’s interpretation of Jesus as a Jewish prophetic figure who by all means “wanted to be executed” in order thereby to provide the “vicarious suffering” that, according to the author, was a necessary condition for establishing a “new covenant” between the Jewish god and the Jewish people. Jacobi’s book does not aim to be a general reconstruction of the historical Jesus, since it concentrates all its attention on comparing the two legal processes with reference to identifying the differences and similarities between them.77 This book has a particular value precisely in this concentration, because, as I have previously argued, I am convinced that the Romans’ legal conviction and execution of Jesus represent one of the two main keys to an adequate understanding and interpretation of the historical Jesus (cf. Bilde 2008a, 23 – 41). Jepsen’s book is anachronistic and ideologizing because it focuses on the Jewish “patriarchy” as the institution against which Jesus first and foremost turned. In his book this idea actually limits Jepsen’s understanding and interpretation of the “new covenant” which Jepsen is interpreting politically and socially, instead of looking at it and understanding it in an eschatological context. Therefore I will describe Jepsen’s interpretation of Jesus as a step backwards compared to the general trend in the third period of modern international Jesus-research. Ole Bjørn Petersen’s recent publication (2011), to which I myself have contributed at an early stage, is a piece of educational communication at a high and well-informed level, but the book has no scholarly ambitions. On the background of this brief sketch of Danish Jesus research since Georg Brandes I argue that – apart from my own contributions (in particular Bilde 2008a and 2011) – in this period there has been published only two works that really deserves the designation “Jesus-research,” and this is Bent Noack’s small book from 1975: Jesus Ananiahsøn og Jesus fra Nazaret (Jesus Son of Ananiah and Jesus from Nazareth) and Jacobi 1978. Obviously, Noack’s work is not a full representation of the historical Jesus either, but it is a valuable examination of Josephus’ interesting text in his sixth book of the Jewish War (6.300 – 309/VI, 5.3). Furthermore, Bent Noack compares this text with the canonical gospels’ description of Jesus’ passion story. Noack’s book is helpful, partly because Josephus’ text contains several of the legal and political expressions and procedures, which we also meet in the passion story of Jesus, partly because Noack’s work is the only Danish comparative study of Jesus published between Rasmussen 1904 and 1905 and Bilde 2011. 77 Cf. my extensive review of this book (Bilde 2006b); Müller 2008a, 147 – 148.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

80

A critical survey of modern Jesus research

Finally, it should be mentioned that besides this small, yet important treatise Bent Noack has contributed constructively to Danish Jesus research with his two small books on Luke 17.21 (1967) and the Lord’s Prayer (1969). In both of these books, which obviously do not pretend to be comprehensive expositions of the historical Jesus either, Noack emphasizes the acute eschatological nature that characterizes both Jesus’ words and his activity, especially his miracles.78

2.5.3 The negative or ambiguous attitude of leading Danish New Testament scholars to the issue of the historical Jesus Of the 20 – 25 Danish presentations and interpretations of Jesus included in ch. 2.5.2 only five have been written by scholars from the theological faculties of the Danish universities, while the rest have been written by other types of authors. On the sole basis of the number of publications, therefore, I think that I am entitled provisionally to conclude that the historical Jesus did not interest Danish university theologians to any great extent in the period between 1925 and 2008. The content of the five publications mentioned confirms that Danish theological exegetes at the universities in this period remained either completely dismissive or somewhat ambivalent to the problem of the historical Jesus. In my opinion, apart from myself, Bent Noack is the only Danish theological exegete in the 20th century who has taken a strictly objective and professional position to this problem. Besides Bent Noack one might perhaps point at Mogens Müller, who in 2008 published his remarkable review of the Danish Life-of-Jesus literature. In addition Müller has written an impressive number of scholarly articles on this subject (cf. footnote 2,73). However, in the major part of these papers Müller discusses the intricate theological problem of the relationship between the historical Jesus and the Christ figures of the Christian faith, that is, the question of continuity versus discontinuity between Jesus and Christ (cf. my footnotes 1,2 and 1,9). In my opinion the most important of Müller’s works on the historical Jesus are his research historical contributions (1978, 2008a). Müller is also quite adept at criticizing other scholars’ interpretations of the historical Jesus, and usually Müller brushes these interpretations aside with one of two standard arguments. The first is that they do not interpret the historical Jesus, but 78 Beside these two minor books by Bent Noack one could point to other recent Danish exegetical works on the parables of Jesus, in particular Noack 1965a (on Mark 4) and Stiller Kjärgaard 1986 (a philosophical contribution on metaphors and parables), but these works cannot be regarded as contributions to the investigation of the historical Jesus. Beside Noack 1965a one might also refer to some Danish contributions to Markan research, e. g., Simonsen 1966 and Pilgaard 1983, but these works ought to be classified as redaction critical studies on Mark rather than studies of the historical Jesus.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

A critical presentation of modern Danish

81

simply find what they want to find, namely, reflections or duplications of their own ideals, wishes and ideology. Thus Müller confirms one of Albert Schweitzer’s basic insights. Müller’s second standard argument is that these Jesus scholars, including myself, tend to overemphasize the elements of discontinuity between the historical Jesus and subsequent Christianity at the same time as they tend to overlook the elements of continuity between these two entities. If one considers Müller’s own interpretation of Jesus, I first note that, so far, Müller has never really expressed himself explicitly about the historical Jesus. At the end of his book about Danish Life-of-Jesus literature, however, Müller suggests, that Jesus scholars are perhaps not predestined to end in one of the two misinterpretations mentioned above: “But that does not mean that the question of the historical Jesus should not be posed, and that one should not make an attempted to answer it” (2008a, 159). However, so far, I have to conclude that after 35 years of work with the historical Jesus Müller has not yet mobilized the courage necessary to tackle this problem, whatever the cause may be.79 In ch. 2.5.2 above I think I have shown that in (1993) 1997 Niels Hyldahl did not know what to do with the historical Jesus. It must however be recognized that Niels Hyldahl in this book – like Mogens Müller – in principle is accepting that the task is not insoluble, but for reasons unknown to me, in his (1993) 1997 book Hyldahl abstained from formulating his own interpretation of the historical Jesus. In his 1998 anthology Troels Engberg-Pedersen chose a position which I believe lies between Hyldahl’s and Müller’s generally positive attitude to the problem of the historical Jesus, on the one hand, and Geert Hallbäck’s total rejection of it (see below), on the other. In ch. 2.5.2 I have pointed out that with the negatively-charged title of his relatively long and thorough introduction to the anthology : “Gain and Risk in the Hunt < = Quest> for the Historical Jesus” Troels Engberg-Pedersen marks a clear distance from, and voices a deep scepticism about this problem. This dismissive attitude is also reflected in the “problem” to which Engberg-Pedersen devotes most energy and space in his introduction. This “problem,” he believes, is that some Jesus scholars “want to anchor something they themselves find valuable in the ‘Jesus story,’ in the historical Jesus himself – or avoid to find something in Jesus one can not use.”80 With an inscrutable expression Engberg-Pedersen describes this 79 Carsten Breengaard is another Danish scholar who, during a long academic career, has never been sparing at his scorn towards the blockheads, including my-self, who naively believe that it is possible, through meticulous literary and historical analysis, to trace the historical Jesus (cf. Breengaard 2002). In Breengaard 2007, however, also this author is singing in another tune: “Is it impossible to imagine a Jew who because of his strong eschatological involvement is insisting on a law of quite another type than the Mosaic Law? …” (2007, 200 (my translation)). 80 1998, 14 – 15 (my translation). With this consideration Engberg-Pedersen, too, repeats one of Albert Schweitzer’s main objections against the Life-of-Jesus research of the liberal theology.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

82

A critical survey of modern Jesus research

problematic motivation for investigating the historical Jesus as the “fundamentalist short circuit,” an expression which he finds so fortunate that he repeats it eight times (1998, 15. 20 – 21. 27. 30. 35. 37. 41. 42). In my opinion, however, this way of reasoning has nothing to do with the threadbare word “fundamentalism.” Geert Hallbäck has repeatedly expressed his categorical rejection of the entire project of the historical Jesus. Basically he does that in the introductory words to his contribution (“The historical Jesus as a theological project – a critical consideration”) to Engberg-Pedersen’s anthology : The following is to be understood as a kind of counterbalance to the book’s other contributions, all of which are in principle positive towards the very project of the historical Jesus. This contribution is not so; I regard the historical Jesus as a historically mistaken project… (1998a: 159 (my translation)).81

Accordingly it is Hallbäck’s opinion that the question of the historical Jesus cannot be answered historically, and that it does not have any theological interest either. Therefore Hallbäck recommends that the theological exegetes restrict themselves to analyzing the texts in the canonical gospels in their present form.82 2.5.4 Conclusions The conclusion of my critical review of Danish theological university exegetes’ research on the historical Jesus between Georg Brandes and Mogens Müller can thus be formulated as follows: Among the theological exegetes researching and teaching at the Danish universities, this research has been virtually nonexistent. Probably the reason for this situation has primarily been of an ideological nature, although these exegetes themselves prefer to characterize their reasons in more sympathetic terms such as the “theoretical,” “methodological” and “hermeneutic” difficulties of the issue of the historical Jesus. This ideology comes from the dialectical theological rejection of, and almost prohibition of, working on the historical Jesus. Two reasons are generally given for this rejection, first, that the sources of the historical Jesus are so poor that they do not allow a historically reliable reconstruction of Jesus, and secondly, that the whole project of finding the historical Jesus is theologically illegitimate and therefore objectionable because it reveals sinful man’s untiring urge to let his fragile religious belief find a firm footing (cf. ch. 2.2 above). In the case of Geert Hallbäck – and several others – a third reason is added to these two: This is the 81 Geert Hallbäck has expressed this point of view elsewhere, e. g., in his comprehensive article on “Jesus” in Gads Bibel Leksikon (1998b, 368 – 374). 82 This point of view is very close to the traditionally Christian and the evangelical view presented and criticized in ch. 2.1; 2.3.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

General conclusions

83

recent so-called literary methods to read and interpret the gospels. These methods are so popular among theological exegetes in Denmark because they often are understood as excluding a (critical) historical approach to the same texts. In contrast to this position, which I regard as apologetical, not only ideologically, but also theologically, because it serves to protect the historical Jesus against historical criticism, as already mentioned above in ch. 2.2, I am convinced that the source material to Jesus is not poorer and thus not more difficult to analyse than the sources of other historical figures such as Socrates, Alexander the Great and Gaius Caligula, not to speak of the Teacher of Righteousness, John the Baptist, Apollonius of Tyana or Simon Bar Kochba. And for this reason alone historical scholars will continue to make attempts at reconstructing the historical Jesus, whether or not theological exegetes find this possible, acceptable or appropriate. Above in ch. 2.2 – 3 I have demonstrated that numerous such attempts have in fact been made since 1970.

2.6 General conclusions In my opinion modern international Jesus research since 1970 is marked by two fundamental characteristics. The first one is that this research wishes to adhere to the insights that have already been formulated by Reimarus, David Friedrich Strauss, Johannes Weiss, Albert Schweitzer, Julius Wellhausen (1905), Rudolf Bultmann ((1958) 1961, 1 – 2) and others, namely, that Jesus was a Jew, that he operated within the boundaries of early Judaism, and that he did not desire to abandon Judaism or to found a new religion.83 During the last 100 years many Christian theological scholars have formulated a verbal acceptance and a hypocritical tribute (lip service) to this insight but in practice only a few have complied with it (cf. Meier, 4, 2009, 648). By solemn occasions the two first-mentioned schools in Jesus research, the traditional Christian and the liberal, in principle manage to summon up to recognize this premise, but we have seen, that they fail to do so in practice. Therefore it is only the critical, eschatological and apocalyptically oriented school in the third period of international Jesus research that, both in theory and practice, is able to comply with this recognition although its consequences are not always clear for all writers and all readers. Clearly it is dangerous for Christianity to realize and assert that the historical Jesus did not intend to move beyond the boundaries of Judaism, and that the idea of founding a new religion probably never occurred to him. 83 The same recognition can be claimed to be the main result of John P. Meier’s extensive investigations in volume 4 of his magnus opus on Jesus as A Marginal Jew (Meier, 4, 2009, 1 – 25 and 647 – 663).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

84

A critical survey of modern Jesus research

The second fundamental feature which I will point out here is the interpretation of Jesus as a “restorative Jew” (cf. ch. 4). By this formulation I mean that the project of Jesus was to regenerate, reestablish or “restore” Judaism of his day, which he and many other Jews with him, such as the Qumranites and John the Baptist, regarded to be errant, apostate and sinful. This insight is not as old as the first one, but still it is now about 50 years old. Over the last 20 to 50 years, this hypothesis has been developed gradually, motivated and polished so that, in my opinion, today it is the most serious scholarly bid for an interpretation of the real Jesus’ project. In my opinion this hypothesis is particularly strong because it manages to encompass and explain a significant part of the surviving source material, especially Jesus’ appointment of the twelve envoys, his words about Israel’s rebirth, about building a new temple and founding a new covenant as well as his predictions of his own death and rehabilitation as well as about an eschatological mission to the non-Jewish peoples, the Samaritans and the pagans (cf. ch. 4.2 – 9). By accepting these two fundamental hypotheses it follows that the first two of the three schools mentioned in ch. 2.1 – 3 have had their day. The traditional Christian or evangelical school, that interprets the historical Jesus as identical with the Jesus Christ of the NT, especially of the canonical gospels, is simply uncritical and unhistorical and therefore cannot be taken seriously in future historical Jesus research. Furthermore, during the last twenty years the American Jesus Seminar’s interpretation of Jesus as a sage and philosopher in the Cynical style has been exposed to such scathing criticism that it is no longer taken seriously by the majority of today’s leading Jesus scholars.84 I conclude this chapter by briefly touching upon the important question of whether it is justifiable to speak of “objective progress” in the research on the historical Jesus (cf. Wedderburn 2010, 81 – 143). This question is important because many Christian theological sceptics ascribe a negative answer to this question a central place among the reasons for their rejection of the possibility of finding a historical Jesus. Especially in the post-modernist and constructivist periods, which has also influenced Jesus research in the last part of the 20th century, such an assertion has been regarded as “positivistic” and therefore ridiculous (cf. Mayordomo – Smit 2011). However, this trend and this period are over now, and it has again become acceptable – and, in addition, good style – to talk about “true” and “false” in the humanities including historical research. Therefore it will come as no surprise to my scholarly enemies who have often named me a “neo-positivist” that I unwaveringly opt for answering this question positively, and I shall here briefly indicate the arguments in favour of my position: If we, on the basis of the present chapter’s overview of the history of modern 84 Bernhard Lang’s recent attempt at breathing new life into this hypothesis is weakened in my opinion by the fact that he does not know what to do with the fundamental eschatological and apocalyptical elements in gospels.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

General conclusions

85

Jesus research (ch. 2.2 – 3), take a look at modern international Jesus research as a whole I think, first, that compared with the previous theological, ecclesiastical tradition Reimarus’ critical texts on Jesus were, and are, synonymous with an objective step forward in Jesus research (cf. also A. Schweitzer (1906) 1966, 52 – 53. 65). Furthermore I think that the same can be said of David Friedrich Strauss’ discovery of the existence and the significance of “myths” in the gospels that was published in his Das Leben Jesus ((1835 – 1836, 1969) 2012). Secondly, in the international society of Jesus scholars, only few will deny that Johannes Weiss’ Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes ((1892) 1964) and Albert Schweitzer’s Das Messianitäts-und Leidensgeheimnis Jesu. Eine Skizze des Leben Jesu ((1901) 1956) represent another scientific, that is, an objective, step forward, because these two works, in continuation of Reimarus and Strauss, brought Jesus research back to its eschatological cornerstone without which any attempt to understand, interpret and explain the historical Jesus inevitably ends in arbitrariness, subjectivism and self-reflection. The Christian theological Jesus-research that took place between Reimarus and Schweitzer, on the one hand, and between Schweitzer and the time around 1970, on the other, can be summarized as a series of more or less unsuccessful attempts to oppose and reject these two objective progresses in Jesus research. Therefore the “breakthroughs” in the third period of modern Jesus research that began with the works of Brandon 1967, Flusser (1968) 1975, 1973, Vermes, 1973, Ben F. Meyer 1979 and especially E.P. Sanders 1985 can rightly be understood and interpreted as a return to Reimarus’, Strauss’, Weiss’ and Schweitzer’s positions. After the barren period in Jesus research between 1900 and 1970 the works of these scholars can be claimed to be efforts to recover the insights of these three or four “pillars,” and therefore they, too, can be regarded as a third objective “progress.” After the steps backwards taken by the dialectical theologians, the form and the redaction critical studies between 1900 and 1970, it cannot but be regarded as an objective step forward, when the scholars mentioned above brought modern Jesus research back to the positions of Reimarus, Strauss, Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer. Whether it is justified to speak about further objective progresses in the third period of modern Jesus-research from 1970 to 2012 is, in my opinion, an open question. Should anyone ask me to take a position on this matter I would point to the efforts in the research I describe in more detail in ch. 4 and 5. With this interpretation of the development of modern Jesus research the scene has been set for a fruitful discussion of the question of the originality of Jesus. This question should be discussed in the light of the “facts” which I dare to call the results of my review of the history of modern Jesus research. Therefore it is in the context of these results and insights – that Jesus was a Jew, that he did not seek to transcend the borders of Judaism and the Jewish people, that he was thinking in an apocalyptic way, that he, like many of his

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

86

A critical survey of modern Jesus research

compatriots, was driven by strong eschatological expectations, and that it was the recovery and reestablishment of the twelve tribes of the Jewish people that all his hopes and all his words and acts were about – that we can ask the question about the originality of Jesus.85 It can hardly have escaped my readers’ attention that, in the examination of modern Jesus research, we have not even once met the question of Jesus’ originality. This question does not seem to appear explicitly in modern Jesus research at all (cf. my footnote 1,3). However if we pose the question of whether this issue is indirectly and implicitly present in modern Jesus research, I claim that this is very much the case. In my opinion the liberal theological interpretations of Jesus as a great moral personality can very well be characterized as an expression of the same school’s fundamental beliefs about the issue of the originality of Jesus. The same is true for liberal and dialectical theology’s understanding of Jesus as standing in absolute and categorical opposition to contemporary Judaism. This applies also to the American Jesus Seminar’s interpretation of Jesus as a “Hellenistic” philosopher of the Cynical type, and to the evangelical school’s interpretation of the historical Jesus as identical with the images of Christ that we find in the NT. In all these cases the historical Jesus is claimed to be original in comparison with his early Jewish context (cf. ch. 3). Contrary to this position, Reimarus’ understanding of Jesus as a failed Jewish messianic pretender and Johannes Weiss’, Albert Schweitzer’s and the current Jewish eschatological interpretation of the historical Jesus imply, almost by definition, a vision of Jesus as a less original figure (cf. ch. 1.2). In ch. 3 I have assigned to myself the task to explicitly describe, analyse and criticize the answers that in previous Jesus research have been given to the question of Jesus’ originality. On this basis and on the basis of the critical review of modern Jesus research presented above, in ch. 4 I intend to turn to a closer examination of the information in the traditional sources about Jesus’ attempts to contribute to the reestablishment of the Jewish people. Furthermore, in ch. 5 I present the most comprehensive comparison between the historical Jesus as reconstructed in ch. 4 and a number of related figures mainly in Jewish Palestine in the period between ca. 170 BCE and 135 CE. On this basis, finally, in ch. 6 I end up by discussing the main question of whether the Jesus figure as reconstructed in this way can be alleged to have appeared, spoken and acted in an original and innovative way.

85 Accepting these historical insights limit the number of ideological agendas which so far have dominated historical Jesus research (cf. Marsch 2011).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

3. A critical examination of previous proposals on the originality of the historical Jesus 3.1 Introduction According to Matt. 9.14, the followers of John the Baptist on one occasion asked Jesus why he and his adherents did not fast, while they themselves and the Pharisees fasted “so much.” According to Matt. 9.17, Jesus answered “… Nor do people put new wine into old wineskins; if they do, the skins burst, and the wine runs out and the skins are ruined. No, they put new wine into fresh skins; then both are preserved.” If this statement can be considered as a genuine remark of the historical Jesus it can be interpreted as an expression of a high degree of awareness of its own originality. If Jesus with this pronouncement wanted to emphasize that his message and activity were new and original both in form and content we must ask, more precisely, what these original features consisted of.1 The first step to answering this question is taken here in ch. 3 which aims to establish an overview and a critique of the proposals in previous research to determine the originality of Jesus. To the best of my knowledge such a critical presentation of earlier attempts to define the originality of Jesus has not been undertaken before. Chapter 3 begins with an attempt to provide the reader with a sort of foretaste of these proposals. This is done by painting a general picture in order to establish a preliminary overview. On the basis of this sketch I divide the material into seven subject areas, which in my opinion bring together nearly all the proposals submitted so far. These seven topics are: 1) the traditional Christian responses, 2) Jesus as a moral teacher, 3) his parables and other distinctive or metaphorical forms of speech, 4) Jesus’ liberation of human beings, 5) his eschatological proclamation the Jewish god’s imminent kingdom, 6) Jesus’ healings and other miracles, and 7) Jesus’ unusual authority and status.

1 Of course the wording of Matt. 9.17 can also be interpreted as a secondary and late saying, formulated by the Jesus movement after the death of Jesus, about the absolute originality of the teacher Jesus Christ when compared to all other contemporary Jewish teachers.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

88

A critical examination of previous proposals

3.2 A preliminary overview of earlier interpretations of Jesus’ originality Jesus’ statement in Matt. 9.17 may well be interpreted as an allegation that his message was absolutely new and original in form as well as content. Against this background it is not surprising that traditional Christian exegesis finds the uniqueness of Jesus in his dual nature of being both divine and human. According to this exegesis, Jesus is the only human being who is the spokesman of the only true god in the way that he is the divine son of the Jewish god in a substantial or essential sense, and that it was his unique assignment to bring Christianity’s message of a divine salvation of all human beings into this world. This view of Jesus’ originality dominates in the NT, the Apostolic Fathers, the Church Fathers, the ancient Christian creeds, and thus the entire ecclesiastical Christian exegesis until the Enlightenment and the breakthroughs of the historical-critical methods in the study of the Bible.2 In my opinion several of the subsequent “modern” interpretations of Jesus’ originality can be claimed to be extensions of this traditional Christian answer in the way that they can be perceived as translations or interpretations of the mythological language of the traditional Christian statements. This applies for example to the Danish philosopher of religion, Johannes Sløk. In his book (Det absurde teater og Jesu forkyndelse (The Absurd Theatre and the Preaching of Jesus), 1968) Sløk in his own characteristic manner finds the unique element in Jesus precisely in the fact that human are unable to understand Jesus. Sløk begins the chapter “The absurd in the preaching of Jesus” (pp. 24 – 45) as follows: “Nobody has ever understood Jesus, and no one will ever be able to understand him” (p. 24). And on the same page: “Jesus is a mystery that cannot be solved” (p. 24). Sløk presents the solution to this conundrum at the end of the chapter : ”Understanding requires a third body : God. In Jesus the divine is present” (p. 44). Thus a human understanding of Jesus is bestowed by god: “As Jesus is a wonder, the understanding of him as the wonderful is a wonder, and otherwise there is no understanding” (p. 45). Thus the understanding of Jesus is granted by god, but at the same time Sløk writes in a characteristic Kierkegaardian manner, that one has to decide for it: “The decision is a leap and it creates boundaries” (p. 45). According to Sløk, therefore, the unique and the original in Jesus is his divinity, a divinity, which cannot be understood in any ordinary way. The understanding of Jesus’ originality has to be provided by the deity at the same time as you still have to make a decision to choose it. Thus – if I dare to interpret this sort of gift of tongues – Jesus’ originality is something that man 2 Cf. ch. 2.2. This traditional Christian position is also adopted by several modern Christian scholars, e. g., Cowdell 1996; Zahl 2003; Ratzinger 2007; 2011.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

A preliminary overview of earlier interpretations

89

himself chooses to attribute to Jesus, precisely as did the Jesus movement and the Christian church after Jesus’ death. A position related to that of Johannes Sløk is taken by the German exegete Detlev Dormeyer (2010). In this work Dormeyer does not treat the “theology” of the historical Jesus extensively (p. 150), but in the preface to his little introduction to “New Testament Theology” he briefly remarks: “Der Mensch Jesus von Nazaret bringt die grossen Bereiche Mensch und Welt in eine solche unmittelbare Nähe zu Gott, wie sie weder im Alten Testament noch in der Antike für möglich gehalten wurde” (p. 9). According to Dormeyer, this new proximity to god is thus established by Jesus himself, who, therefore, in this respect may be described as “original.” We find a similar position taken by a German conservative interpreter like Peter Stuhlmacher. He claims that the originality of Jesus lies in his new way of talking about faith in god: Jesus “… hat in ganz neuartiger Art und Weise vom ‘Glauben an Gott’ (Mark 11.22) gesprochen” (1988, 38). In this group I also place the German Jesus exegete Karl Herbst who in two volumes has identified, analysed and commented on the sayings of Jesus which, in his opinion, are genuine (1979; 1981). In the introduction to volume two Herbst writes: “Jesus verkündete unerhört Neues über die Gesinnung Gottes. Er tat es mit Vollmacht, auch gegen manche Aussagen der alten Propheten” (1981, 7). A variant of this point of view can be found in the likewise German interpreter Georg Strecker (1995) 1996. He finds the originality of Jesus in “Die Radikalität des Anspruches Jesu” (p. 279). Although Jesus as a religiohistorical type, completely in line with John the Baptist, can be said to belong to the religio-phenomenological category, the “apocalyptic prophet,” …, so steht er doch mit der Radikalität seiner Botschaft vom kommenden Gottesreich, insbesondere der damit gegebenen Thorakritik einzigartig im Judentum seiner Zeit, um so mehr als er den Gotteswillen mit pneumatischer Autorität neu definiert (p. 279).

According to Strecker, Jesus appeared with a hitherto unknown claim to act on behalf of the Jewish god, that is, with an immediate divine authority, that also allowed him to criticize and correct the Mosaic Law ((1995) 1996, 279). This view, that the unique element in Jesus was his “authority” and his “radicalism,” appears in the works of many other Christian scholars such as the great liberal theologian Adolf Harnack. He remarks that Jesus’ “peculiarity” consisted in the power or authority (in Greek: exousia) with which he preached and taught.3 Jesus did not appear with a new message but he repeated the “old” message of the holy Jewish scriptures, the prophets and John the Baptist with a new and mighty force. In 1956 the Danish philosopher of ethics, K.E. Løgstrup, wrote a famous 3 Cf. Mk. 1.22 (with parallels); Harnack (1900) 2005, 20, 35 – 36.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

90

A critical examination of previous proposals

book entitled Den etiske fordring (The Ethical Demand). Here Løgstrup describes the “authority” (“myndighed”) of Jesus as unique in so far as he presupposes and claims that the “demand of life” (“tilværelsens fordring”) is identical with the claim of god and Jesus ((1956) 1958, 229). Løgstrup continues by stating that the unique character of Jesus’ demands are not their content, that may have parallels or analogies, but the fact that the are pronounced “on behalf of God and himself ” (“at de udtales p” Guds og egne vegne”) ((1956) 1958, 230, cf. pp. 228 – 239). Something similar applies to the Danish New Testament scholar, Bent Noack (mentioned in ch. 2.5.2 – 3). In the first edition of Gad’s Danish Bible Dictionary (1965) Noack wrote that the new element in Jesus’ message of god’s kingdom is that it “is imminent” or “that it has come near.” At the same time, however, Noack declares that with this message Jesus is “in line with several other preachers in contemporary Judaism.” Yet, Noack claims that “Jesus’ preaching about the kingdom of God is something completely and utterly new.” What is new is that “it has arrived, or better, that it is in full swing to arrive.”4 The Jesus scholars presented above thus claim that the new and original feature of Jesus was his authority, power, radicalism, and personality. But does this claim not imply that these scholars answer the question about Jesus’ originality with reference to his – originality? Another group of Jesus scholars, mainly liberal and dialectical theological exegetes, shift the emphasis in their definition of Jesus’ originality from his “authority” to the content of his criticism of his own Jewish religion, Judaism.5 These scholars believe that Jesus’ innovative effort primarily can be found in his criticism of the ethnic “particularism,” the “barter logic” and the “casuistry” of contemporary Judaism, and in his own universalistic, individualistic, ethical and spiritual new interpretation of Judaism. The German liberal theologian scholar Wilhelm Bousset, for example, found the geniality and the “religious peculiarity” of Jesus in the fact that he blew up the national character of the Jewish hope for the future, and thus introduced universalism: Hier greifen wir das Geheimnis, jene wunderbare Kraft, durch welche aus Schlachten allüberall durchsichtiges klares Gold wird. Es ist die innerste religiöse Eigenart Jesu, die sich hier offenbart. Für ihn ist Gott wieder unendlich grösser und unendlich mehr als alle Welt … (1904, 43).

According to Bousset, Matt. 19.28, speaking of the eschatological Son of Man and the twelve chosen disciples who in the eschatological future will be sitting on thrones judging or ruling over the twelve tribes of Israel (cf. ch. 4.2), only 4 Noack 1965b, vol. 1, col. 965 and 966. This idea is formulated even more clearly in Bultmann ((1958) 1961, 5), a text which is quoted below in ch. 5.4. 5 Cf. ch. 2.3, the quotation from Georg Strecker above, and the title of Wilhelm Bousset’s book on Jesus from 1892: Jesu Predigt in ihrem Gegensatz zum Judentum ….

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

A preliminary overview of earlier interpretations

91

represents the last remnants of the national political character of Jewish eschatology (1904, 44), while Jesus’ most profound religious and ethical breakthroughs were precisely the opposite values: Universalism and individualism (1904, 44 – 45. 60 – 61). Other German Protestant New Testament scholars like Ernst Lohmeyer interpreted Jesus as standing in absolute contrast to his own people: “Jesus steht in allem und jedem wider das Gesamtleben seines Volkes und seiner Zeit” ((1921) 1973, 64). Something similar applies to the scholars who, in continuation of the traditional Christian view believe that the singularity of Jesus consisted in his criticism and rejection of the law of Moses as a whole (cf. Bultmann (1958) 1961, 10 – 15/21), or at least of the Jewish rules of purity (cf. A.F. Segal 1986, 82). Bultmann formulates Jesus’ rejection of “the Jewish cult of the Law” (p. 10) as follows: “Die Folge ist vor allem, dass das Motiv zur sittlichen Tat verdorben wird” (p. 11). Therefore this view is also connected with the ethical interpretation of Jesus’ originality found in liberal theology as set out in ch. 2.2 and 3.4 of the present book. The famous German liberal theological scholar, Adolf Jülicher, also did not doubt that Jesus brought something new into the world (cf. 1909, 54 – 70), and he interpreted this new phenomenon as a different kind of religion: “In Wahrheit jedoch steckt hinter seiner Reichspredigt und seinem Auftreten als Messias die Erbauung einer neuen Welt der Religion” (p. 60). According to Jülicher, the new insight that Jesus brought was primarily his own personality : “… das Neue war er selber, seine Persönlichkeit” (p. 60), that is, Jesus as an ethical ideal to imitate (p. 60). Jesus’ message cannot be reduced to his proclamation of the imminence of the kingdom of god and the repentance and conversion that this requires. Large parts of Jesus’ teaching are completely independent of the intense eschatological expectation, and it is of an eternal character (pp. 61 – 62). According to Jülicher, the new element in Jesus’ message was the linking of religion and ethics, and thus Jesus “hat die Versittlichung der Religion bis zum Ende geführt” (p. 62, similarly Harnack (1900) 2005, 49). To the Jews and the Pharisees “ist die Religion ein Geschäft, das der Mensch mit Gott abschliesst …” (p. 63). According to Jülicher, instead of this form of barter religion Jesus introduced “den gewaltigen Ernst seines Pflichtgefühls” (p. 64). This emerges in particular from Mark 7.15 (m. par.) and Matt. 25.31 ff.: “… das bedeutet die Entdeckung einer neuen Welt” (p. 65). Also compared to the OT Jülicher determines the religion of Jesus as “new”: “… auch dem ganzen Alten Testament gegenüber ist sie in ihrer Verbindung von Wärme, Kraft, Einfalt und Gesundheit ein Neues, so wie der Mann, in dessen Herzen sie geboren war, ein neuer Man ” (p. 70). This interpretation of Jesus’ originality is not far from the view of Jesus that focuses on him as an extraordinary and unusual personality, a religious genius (cf., e. g., Holtzmann 1911, 1. 159 – 420, in particular pp. 159. 178. 405 – 420).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

92

A critical examination of previous proposals

Although everything Jesus said, did and taught was Jewish, the “spirit” was “new.” To illustrate what this meant, Holtzmann, like other scholars, liked to use the images of “centre and periphery,” “shell and core,” “determined by time” and “timelessnes” (1911, 1, 408 – 418). This view of Jesus’ originality was widespread in the heyday of liberal theology, and we find it also in the works of the Danish liberal theologian Paul Helms: “… it is still obvious that he with his powerful and original personality and with his religious genius that made him a born leader of the people…” (Helms 1927, 51). Further on, Helms writes: “The religion of Jesus is a deepening and an interiorizaton of Judaism. Its originality lies in the personality of the founder more than in the ideas he presented” (1927, 53). That it was the interiorization or the spiritualization of religion that represented Jesus’ unique contribution to the history of religion was also highlighted by Eduard Meyer in his great work from 1921 about the emergence of Christianity. Meyer thought that the new and unique element of Jesus was the “disposition” (die Gesinnung) and the “individualization” ((1921) 1962, 2, 428 – 438). And a few pages later, Meyer almost makes the historical Jesus into a Kantian ethicist: So ist die Ethik Jesu in der Tat nichts anderes als eine Umsetzung des kategorischen Imperativs in ein praktisches Gebot: „Handle so, dass die Maxime deines Willens jederzeit zugleich als Prinzip einer allgemeinen Gesetzgebung gelten könne“ ((1921) 1962, 2, 431).

Just as Jesus spiritualized the (Mosaic) Law, he also spiritualized the concepts of god’s kingdom and the messianic concept (vol. 2, 445 – 446), and Meyer seems to think that it is these spiritualizations that represented Jesus’ unique contribution to the history of religion, although Meyer does not use this terminology. Over the last decades these images, translations and interpretations of Jesus’ originality have emerged again and again, partly in the American Jesus Seminar (cf. ch. 2.3), partly from the Jewish scholar Geza Vermes.6 These scholars’ references to Jesus’ personality and his religious genius are just as general and empty as the answers of the first group I criticized above. The references to Jesus’ criticism of the Judaism of his time and to his universalism, individualism and higher ethics should be subjected to a closer scrutiny, which I try to do in ch. 3.4 – 7; 4.3 – 4. A third group of Jesus scholars concentrate their interpretations of the originality of Jesus on some other of the presumed timeless elements of his message and practice, not least his activity as emancipator and liberator of 6 In a postscript to his first book on Jesus (1973) Geza Vermes writes that Jesus was: “…second to none in profundity of insight and grandeur of character, he is in particular an unsurpassed master of the art of laying bare the inmost core of spiritual truth and of bringing every issue back to the essence of religion” (1973, 224, cf. 2000, 253 – 258).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

A preliminary overview of earlier interpretations

93

diseased, weak, poor and marginalized human beings such as the despised “publicans” (cf. ch. 3.6). Some scholars have highlighted Jesus’ statements about and attitude towards women as “revolutionary.”7 Other scholars such as the German exegete Jürgen Becker have accepted that the historical Jesus himself turned to non-Jews, and Becker judges this approach by Jesus as “unique” ((1995) 1996, 387). Also to these hypotheses I will return critically below.8 A fourth group of Jesus scholars have pointed at some specific features in the sources as a testimony of Jesus’ distinctive personality and activity. The American scholar Jack T. Sanders (2000), for example, defines the peculiarity of Jesus as his character of being a charismatic prophet and teacher who managed to convince people to join his message and to follow him: In his filling of this role Jesus had no models – not the Hebrew prophets of centuries earlier, not the messianic revolutionaries with whom he was more or less contemporary, not the rabbis of a later day, and certainly not the Cynic sages of his own. … In this he was supremely successful, far more successful than he doubtless ever dreamed that he would be, the most successful such figure ever to live….9

I consider the influential German scholar Martin Hengel’s view, that Jesus’ call to people to literally follow him on his walk, his activity and his fate is the most original trait of Jesus,10 as very close to Jack T. Sander’s view. In a similar way, other scholars have focused on the Sermon on the Mount as the most original contribution of Jesus, in particular its climax: The commandment to love one’s enemies (Matt. 5.43 – 48). According to Martin Hengel, the Christian tradition has always regarded these verses as the core of Jesus’ message and the clearest sign of its originality and force (Hengel 1968, 41 – 93). Hengel has also highlighted the statements of Jesus that are without formal parallels either in the rest of contemporary Judaism or in subsequent Christianity, in particular Jesus’ rough exhortation to let “the dead bury their dead.”11 7 Thus for example Frend (1984) 1986, 67; Swidler 2007; Fiorenza 2011. 8 Bruce Chilton spreads this understanding of Jesus as “liberator” out to include the whole world. According to Chilton Jesus’ purpose was no less than “to repair and renew the world” (2010, 8). 9 J. T. Sanders 2000, 71, with references to Max Weber’s and Roy Wallis’ works on new religious movements, cf. 2000, 11 – 71. In relation to the quotation above from J. T. Sanders, it ought to be added that, according to our sources, some of the figures mentioned had remarkable followings, e. g., The Teacher of Righteousness, Judas the Galilean, John the Baptist, Theudas, The Egyptian Prophet and Simon Bar Kochba (cf. ch. 5.3.2.2 – 5.3.2.14). 10 Thus Hengel (1968, 41 – 93). In the preceding chapter of the same work Hengel presents an overview over comparable calls to imitation in early Judaism and in the Hellenistic-Roman world (1968, 18 – 40). 11 Hengel 1968, 16 – 17 on Matt. 8.21 – 22. To this text John P. Meier (4, 2009, 74 – 234. 647 – 663) adds Jesus’ exceptionally severe opposition to divorce (Mk. 10.1 – 12) and his unreserved resistance against swearing (Matt. 5.33 – 37).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

94

A critical examination of previous proposals

In a similar manner Bart D. Ehrman suggest that Jesus was the first person who used the expression “Son of Man” as a messianic title.12 In continuation of such assessments other scholars have pointed to Jesus’ parables as something absolutely unique and original (cf. ch. 3.5). In extension of the Gospel of John’s interpretation of the passion story Hugh Schonfield argues that Jesus’ genius was expressed in the plan or “plot” which Jesus “constructed” before his journey to Jerusalem. This “plot” included all the Jesus-events in this city down to his own capture, interrogation, death sentence, execution and quick revival.13 For my own part, in my book on the historical Jesus from 2008 I defended the view which other scholars have also argued, that Jesus, in an original way, read and interpreted Isa. 53 (cf. ch. 4.7 in the present book). In this interpretation Jesus identified himself with the “Servant of the Lord” who is described as a unique figure who suffers and is persecuted, whose suffering and death in the text is interpreted as a vicarious sacrifice, and who ultimately is raised to glory by the Jewish god.14 With all these interpretations of the uniqueness and originality of Jesus we have moved a considerable way along the modernistic road of translation, interpretation and metaphorization of the traditional Christian interpretation of the originality of Jesus. And we can ask ourselves how far the distance is from the spiritualizing and moralizing liberal theological interpretations of Jesus to Bultmann’s existential interpretation in which the uniqueness of Jesus’ preaching consists of challenging the listener to make a personal or existential, i. e., an individual decision (cf. Sløk 1968) and to all these later interpretations. Another contemporary version of the translation, interpretation or metaphorization of the originality of Jesus as exemplified above is Allison 2009: The Historical Christ and the Theological Jesus. This book is a minor work in which Dale C. Allison, in continuation of Resurrecting Jesus from 2005, is moving on from a historical to a theological understanding and interpretation of Jesus. Here Allison takes his point of departure in the fundamental Jewish eschatological experience, which is dominated by the idea of a movement from suffering and death to victory and exaltation (p. 116). On this basis Allison interprets Jesus’ significance for the modern world as follows: “Part of the reason that Jesus so fascinates and inspires is that his life incarnates this eschatological pattern” (p. 117). In his person, according to Allison, Jesus unites the “extremes of human experience,” but even more important is the “victory,” that is, that life is victorious (pp. 117 – 118). If I may be allowed to interpret these statements as expressions of Allison’s 12 Cf. Ehrman 1999, 145 – 148, cf. Bertalotto 2910, 103. 13 Cf. (1965) 1978, 125. Schonfieldd’s interpretation is similar to that of Jepsen 2005. 14 Thus Bilde 2008a, 268 – 272, cf. Wolff (1942) 1984; Lohmeyer (1945) 1953; Manson (1953) 1961; Schweizer (1955) 1962; Ruppert 1972; de Jonge 1991; Janowski – Stuhlmacher 1996; Stuhlmacher 1996; Bellinger – Farmer 1998.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

A preliminary overview of earlier interpretations

95

personal view of Jesus’ religious or theological originality I think that with them we have reached the point in the history of interpretation where Jesus has become a symbol of the general and vague optimism of human beings in spite of their negative experiences. This means that Jesus has become an expression of the very human hope for a better day tomorrow. If this interpretation is acceptable it must also be said that with this view the concept of “originality” has once more become almost empty of content. Like several of the scholars mentioned above the Christian reformer Jack Nelson-Palmeyer (cf. ch. 2.4) does not use the terms “original,” “unique,” “innovative” or “peculiar.” Yet, there can hardly be any doubt that the essence of his interpretation and his attempt to mobilize the ideal figure of the historical Jesus in his fight against today’s “reactionary” and “violent” Christianity, which he is criticizing, can be found in the compassion and nonviolent practice which he finds in Jesus, and which he opposes to the violent god of ecclesiastical Christianity and the violent behaviour of this institution. Thus I interpret Nelson-Palmeyer’s view of the originality of Jesus as his compassionate and non-violent practice. With such interpretations of Jesus’ originality, however, we are far away from the historical Jesus, and we have moved deep into the ill-timed modernizations of Jesus which are so widespread. The same assessment applies to Landrum J. Kelly (cf. ch. 2.4), who finds the uniqueness of Jesus in his being the most radical social and political philosopher “who ever lived, and he is the one who most consistently have lived in accordance with the revolutionary idea …”. (1994, II). With good reasons Luke Timothy Johnson refuses these reconstructions of the historical Jesus as worthless: “The alternatives offered by the historical reconstructions reveal their fantasies and abstractions, held together by scientific acumen, but unable to resist intrusive investigations and much less able to ‘galvanize’ human life” (1999, 74). As we have seen in ch. 2.3, Johnson replaces such “historical” Jesus’es with the images of the character of Jesus found in the gospels, Paul and other parts of the NT. These images “recall most importantly with Jesus his character, i. e. the way he used his freedom in relation to God and his fellows” (1999, 73). However, with this alternative we are back to the traditional Christian interpretation of Jesus’ originality and its problems (cf. ch. 3.3) Finally more than a few scholars have come to the conclusion that they have not found anything new at all in the sources on Jesus, or maybe just a little bit that can be considered original.15 15 Thus Johannes Weiss (1892) 1964, 153: “Das Geheimnis seines Erfolges liegt nicht in der überraschenden und blendenden Neuheit seiner Lehren, sondern …”; “… Und so werden wir von der Verkündigung Jesu und ihrem Inhalt, der ja eigentlich nicht so bahnbrechend neu war, …”. Gerd Theissen emphasizes that the historical Jesus did not “reject,” but instead “radicalized” various parts of early Judaism ((2000) 2004, 37 – 53). Similarly Sacchi (2000) 2004, 485 – 495.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

96

A critical examination of previous proposals

The Danish scholar, Emil Rasmussen, is one of the historians who thinks that Jesus did absolutely not create anything new: “The Master has not brought into this world any new idea that does not already exist among the prophets even often in the exact phraseology, in which Jesus expressed himself …” (1905, 103). The great Jewish scholar Joseph Klausner agrees: Jesus’ teaching did not contain anything new, that is: “… nothing that is not already contained in Judaism – although they indeed seem new because of their sequence and composition.”16 According to Klausner, Jesus was completely Jewish, but it is worth noting that Klausner completed the English version of his great work on Jesus with the following words: “But in his ethical code there is a sublimity, distinctiveness and originality in form unparalleled in any other Hebrew ethical code; neither is there any parallel to the remarkable art of his parables” ((1907) 1928, 414). The Canadian exegete Craig A. Evans, too, believes that Jesus did not bring anything new into the world: “One point that has become clear is that the similarities between Jesus and his Jewish contemporaries are numerous and significant. Very little, perhaps nothing of Jesus’ teachings and activities, when viewed individually, are truly unique” (1995, 459). A similar view is expressed by the American scholar Paula Frederiksen: “Further, what distinguished Jesus’ prophetic message from those of others was primarily its timetable, not its content” ((1999) 2000, 266). Based on this review of a number of examples of the answers of modern Jesus scholars to the question of the originality of Jesus I feel that I am already able to draw the following three preliminary conclusions: First, it seems obvious that over time there have been given many amazing and surprisingly different answers: Jesus’ personal relations to the Jewish god, his authority (derived from this relationship), his radicalism, his unique personality, his ethical teachings and admonitions, his criticism of the other versions of Judaism in his own time and his associated spiritualization and universalization of Judaism, his emancipatory activities and his personal ethical example. Second, we have observed that several of these definitions of Jesus’ originality are general, broad, vague and almost empty of content. Third, these two observations suggest that it does not seem to be an easy task to define the originality of the historical Jesus. In the following chapters I try to put most of these many (and several other) perceptions of Jesus’originality and uniqueness into some sort of order and to present them in a thematic overview (ch. 3.3 – 9, cf. the overview in ch. 3.1). I have arranged the following seven groups in a chronological order, since 16 Klausner (1907) 1952, 570 – 571. A slightly different assessment can be found on p. 414. Similarly Bultmann 1926, 78; Lindeskog (1938) 1973, 217 – 232; Vermes 2000, 256.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

The traditional Christian answer

97

they seem to represent successive stages in the history of Jesus research. Moreover I emphasize that the thematic categories that I have here formulated are not mutually exclusive. For this reason the same scholar can appear with different answers in more than one group. Therefore it must be noted in advance, that it is also possible to present more than one positive answer to the question about the possible originality of Jesus.

3.3 The traditional Christian answer : Jesus’ unique effort was to bring Christianity into this world The traditional Christian answer to the question of Jesus’ originality did not know the modern distinction between the historical Jesus and the Christ of the Christian faith. These two were one and the same. Jesus’ peculiar character therefore consisted in his being both god and man. This traditional Christian answer to the question of Jesus’ originality assumes that it was Jesus himself who founded Christianity and presented the traditional Christian soteriology with its matching christology, ecclesiology and eschatology. We find this view in several church fathers, most of the reformers and in a figure such as the Danish “church father” Grundtvig, who believed that the apostolic creed came from Jesus himself: After his resurrection among other things Jesus used the forty days between his resurrection and ascension (Acts 1.3) to teach his disciples this creed. This means that the Christian doctrine of the religious significance of Jesus’ atoning death also came from Jesus himself.17 As we saw in ch. 3.2, this answer can also be “translated,” interpreted, modernized and metaphorized. One more example is the German exegete Kurt Niederwimmer (1968). He concludes his little book on Jesus by considering the question: “Was hat Jesus gebracht?” (1968, 80 – 88). These considerations, however, completely avoid the question of what Jesus historically has brought into the world, that is, his historical project, and Niederwimmer concentrates entirely on the theological question of Jesus’ general religious importance to human existence. A particular position is taken by Sung 1993, who is speaking of “Der 17 Cf. Schillebeeckx (1974) 1976; Ratzinger 2007; 2011. This interpretation of the originality of Jesus also dominates the traditional Christian or the Evangelical School of Jesus research (cf. ch. 2.3). It is, for example, expressed by Sloyan 2008, 179. A variant of this interpretation claims that the unique and the peculiar feature in Jesus was that god raised him from death (thus Sloyan 2008, 3). The eminent Jewish scholar David Flusser is surprisingly close to this position. He writes that in the light of his particular mission, and in contrast to Hillel, Jesus recognized the unique significance of his own person (Flusser 1997, 191).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

98

A critical examination of previous proposals

Einzigartigkeit der Verkündigung Jesu” and thereby, in the first place, does not refer to the imminent kingdom of god proclaimed by the historical Jesus: Seine Botschaft ist in mancher Hinsicht einzigartig in der Geschichte Israels. Er beansprucht die Vollmacht Gottes. Er redete und handelte wie Gott (die Antithesen in der Bergpredigt, der Heilszuspruch in eigener Autorität), holte die Sünder und Ausgestossenen in die Lebensgemeinschaft des Volkes zurück und rechtfertigte sein Handeln in einzigartiger Weise (Gleichnisse) (Sung 1993, 282).

Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) emphasizes several times that the Jesus who is truly understood rises above comparisons with, for example, Buddha, Confucius and Socrates, because he is the only true spokesman of the only true god (2007, 339 – 340. 373). Jesus is “original” because he alone is the “son” (2007, 396, 406). In his second volume Ratzinger writes the following on the “real” and the “historical” Jesus: … Ein wenig übertreibend könnte man sagen, ich wollte den realen Jesus finden, von dem aus so etwas wie eine „Christologie von unten“ überhaupt möglich wird. Der „historische Jesus,“ wie er im Hauptstrom der kritischen Exegese aufgrund ihrer hermeneutischen Voraussetzungen erscheint, ist inhaltlich zu dürftig, als dass von ihm grosse geschichtliche Wirkungen hätten ausgehen können; er ist zu sehr in der Vergangenheit eingehaust, als dass persönliche Beziehung zu ihm möglich wäre.

These quotations indicate clearly that Joseph Ratzinger is not interested in the historical and the real Jesus, but only in the Christian interpretation of this figure as found in the NT and the Christian creeds (cf. the criticism of Ratzinger’s two books on the historical Jesus by Flores d’Arcais 2011, 11 – 26). These and similar conservative, orthodox and/or evangelical responses to the question of the originality of Jesus must be rejected as wrong for the following two reasons: First and foremost they are wrong because they are mythological, theological and dogmatic, and not historical, that is, they fall outside the specific character of historical scholarly work and they do not belong to the specific literary genres of academic literature and historiography. Second, they are wrong because they contradict Jesus’ historical context: early Palestinian Judaism. These responses reflect, not the world of the historical Jesus, but the world of the later Jesus movement after the death of Jesus, the NT and Christianity. They reflect the Hellenistic-Roman Christian conceptions of Jesus as pre-existent, incarnate, risen from the dead and ascended to a divine status in the heavenly world. We find this sort of christology already in Paul and later most outspoken in the Gospel of John, but not in the earlier traditions about the historical Jesus in the synoptic gospels (cf. ch. 1.4 – 5). These responses thus represent a pre-critical understanding of the gospels and the NT, and therefore the conservative, orthodox and/or evangelical

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

A new and higher ethics

99

responses to the question of the originality of Jesus are wrong in the context of modern historical studies of Jesus.

3.4 A new and higher ethics The answer to the question of Jesus’ originality which has most often been given in modern Jesus research, and which was given very early in its history, assumes that the peculiar historical contribution of Jesus lies in his ethical teachings and practices (cf. Meier, 4, 2009, 478 – 646). A good example of this interpretation of the originality of Jesus is Irving M. Zeitlin’s attempt to identify Jesus’ distinctive character : “When we try to grab his uniqueness and originality, we must recognize that Jesus was innovative because of his ethical radicalism and by virtue of his daily deeds of love, mercy and compassion.”18 As we have seen in ch. 2.2 and 3.2, this response was primarily given by the liberal theological school. It claimed that something new and original, perhaps the most important new phenomenon in Jesus, was his linking of religion and ethics and his formulation of a new and more severe ethics (cf. ch. 3.2). Jesus was first and foremost a great moral teacher, who, in an original way summarized the entire Mosaic Law in the so-called double love commandment: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart …Love your neighbour as yourself” (Matt. 22.37 – 39 (par.)).19 The interpretation of the word “neighbour” is of course hotly debated, but most modern scholars believe that Jesus extended this word from referring only to the Jewish or local neighbour and the Jewish fellow countryman (Lev. 19.18) to include all the foreigners and otherwise all people that a human being meets on his way. Many scholars regard Jesus’ commandment that people should love their enemies (Matt. 5.38 – 45 (par.)) as something completely new, and perhaps the most original element in Jesus’ teaching (cf., e. g., Reiser (2011) 2012, 92). This commandment includes Jesus’ injunction to his followers to refrain from bodily resistance against criminals (Matt. 5.39 (par.)) as well as his injunction to refrain from trying to obtain right for themselves at the courts (Matt. 5.40 – 41 (par.)).20 The whole of this admonition complex in Matt. 5.38 – 45 is regarded by many modern interpreters as an expression of a religiously

18 Zeitlin (1988) 1990, 104, cf. also Blank (1972) 1977, 50 – 53. 112 – 116; Theißen – Merz 1996, 311 – 358; Lindberg 2008, 28 – 32. 19 Thus for example Bousset 1904, 66 – 67; Brun 1917, 382 – 389; Nissen 1974; Merklein (1978) 1984, 144; Ehrman 1999, 167 – 172; Hengel – Schwemer 2007, 433 – 437; Keener 2009, 216. 20 Thus for example Piper 1979; Klassen 1984; 1999; E.P. Sanders 1990, 13 – 14; Lindberg 2008, 29 – 30.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

100

A critical examination of previous proposals

motivated pacifism, and it is often considered to be absolutely new in the sense that we do not know of any parallels to it.21 A non-eschatological – and perhaps modernizing – variant of this interpretation of the stricter ethics of the Sermon on the Mount is that Jesus would not abolish the law of Moses, but intended to extend it by pointing out that behind the law of Moses was a higher law, conceived either as the original divine “law of the creation”22 or as the individual’s conscience, in which the divine will is reflected (Carpenter 1980, 51 – 54). The English philosopher Don Cupitt (cf. ch. 2.3 – 4) is convinced that Jesus contributed “something unique about ethics…” (2009, XIII). He believes that Jesus “was the most significant pioneer in antiquity, because he introduced a kind of radical humanism in ethics, which is still up to date, and which even today is a challenge” (2009, XIII). Don Cupitt thinks that it is not the double commandment of love and the “golden rule” (Matt. 7.12 (par.)) that illustrate and attest to Jesus’ originality, because they only represent the ordinary sort of “reciprocal ethics” (2009, XIV – XV.) Don Cupitt finds the unique feature in Jesus’ ethics in his “non-reciprocal ethics”: “In his view, it is essential that we should think and love beyond mere reciprocity…” (2009, XV). Perhaps it can be claimed that even Akers 2000 is closely related to this noneschatological, modernized sort of interpretation of the ethical core of Jesus’ message. Akers argues that the Jewish Christian interpretation of Jesus is the original one, and that it is in harmony with the very historical Jesus (cf. Akers 2000, 35 – 75). Akers defines the peculiar and the original trait by Jesus as a simple, vegetarian and pacifistic life, which I tend to describe as one of several contemporary versions of classical liberal theology.23 Another modernizing variant of the interpretation of Jesus’ tightening of the Law of Moses as found in the Sermon on the Mount interprets this tightening as an expression of a sort of a “spiritualizing” ethics of disposition (cf. ch. 3.2): An “external” (visible) fulfilment of the demands of the Mosaic Law is not enough. The attitude, mind or disposition must also be present. David Flusser formulates this idea as follows: “Jesus hat also die sittliche Seite des Lebens gegenüber der rein formellen Seite der Gesetzespraksis hervorgehoben.” This interpretation can also be described as a variant of German liberal theology talking perpetually about “morality” (Sittlichkeit). At the same time this interpretation can be linked to the Lutheran interpretation of the Sermon 21 Thus for example Flusser (1968) 1975, 68 – 69; Dodd 1970, 67; Theissen 1977, 61; Piper 1979, 19 – 65, in particular p. 64; Carpenter 1980, 48 – 50; Nelson-Pallmeyer 2001; Lindberg 2008, 30. 22 Thus Roloff 2001, 467; Breengaard 2007, 51 – 69. 23 A great number of modern interpretations of the ethics of the historical Jesus can be placed in this group, first and foremost the “Cynical” hypothesis of Jesus as an itinerant Cynical philosopher who criticized wealth, property, money and power, but also other modernizing interpretations of Jesus as a vegetarian and a pacifist (cf. Akers 2000; Nelson-Pallmeyer 2001), or as a “feminist” (cf. Swidler 2007; Fiorenza 2011), or as a theologian of liberation (cf. Sobrino (1982) 1987; (1991) 1993; Vinning 2008).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

A new and higher ethics

101

on the Mount as the unrealizable law, the true meaning of which is to force the sinful human being to despair and – thus to be driven to accept the mercy of Christ (cf. Gal. 3.23 – 24). Other scholars have seen another important ethical innovation by Jesus in his spiritualization of traditional cultic ideas of “purity” (cf. ch. 3.2): The true kind of “purity” is not the one that observes traditional rules about corporal purification after various forms of cultic defilement, but rather the spiritual kind of purity.24 Over time several other assumptions that this or that thought in the transmitted traditions about Jesus is new and original have been formulated. An interesting example is Hannah Arendt ((1958) 2005), who claims that “the first who discovered the importance of forgiveness in the sphere of human affairs, was Jesus from Nazareth.”25 Arendt also believes that it was Jesus and Christianity, who first “discovered” pure “goodness,” that is, not skill, competence or virtue (in the Greek sense), but ethical “goodness” in an absolute sense: “The only activity that Jesus in word and action urged to was to do good deeds.” ((1958) 2005, 92). A quite different example is Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer (2001, cf. ch. 2.4). He argues that later Christianity very quickly destroyed the teaching of the historical Jesus, who really did not want to be a national and militant Jewish Messiah, who rejected Jewish apocalypticism and the traditional Jewish image of the Jewish god as a jealous and violent god, and replaced it with the idea of god as a sympathetic and compassionate father figure, and who proclaimed non-violence and a big “yes” to life in its rich abundance.26 Finally I refer to the – in our time exceedingly popular – version of the “ethical” response to the question about the “originality” of Jesus, namely the hypothesis, that the new phenomenon that Jesus brought into this world was Christianity as the “religion of love” (cf., in particular, C. Lindberg, 2008). This answer, that Jesus’ unique contribution is first and foremost to be found in his new ethical principles, is the most widespread, the best known, and probably also the most popular answer to the question of Jesus’ possible originality. It is a classical response that Christian and non-Christian 24 Matt. 15.1 – 20 (par.), cf. E. Meyer (1921) 1962, 2, 428 – 430; Ben Chorin (1967) 1972, 21; Kee (1990) 1991, 113; Becker (1995) 1996, 371 – 387, in particular p. 387; Kaz¦n 2002, 60 – 88. Kaz¦n, however, recoils from interpreting Jesus’ attitude to “purity” as “original,” even though his analysis could indicate such a conclusion. See also Theissen 2003b, 73 – 89. 25 Arendt (1958) 2005, 239. Bruce Chilton has presented a more thorough examination of the material testifying to Jesus’ attitude to forgiveness (2010, 123 – 147). Recently David Konstan (2010) has argued that our modern idea of “interpersonal forgiveness” did not exist at all in Antiquity or in the Middle Ages, but was invented as late as the 18th and 19th century when the Christian idea of divine forgiveness was secularized, and therefore Konstan rejects Arendt’s suggestion (Konstan 2010, 112 – 113). 26 Cf. Nelson-Pallmeyer 2001, VII – XV. 137 – 149. 198 – 199. 215 – 230. 260 – 275. 345 – 353 (cf. ch. 2.4, 3.2). This view of Jesus and his “originality” is related to that of the Danish historian of religions Vilhelm Grønbeck 1935.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

102

A critical examination of previous proposals

interpreters have given again and again through history, particularly since the enlightenment. However, this response is most prominently characteristic of the answers given by the liberal theologians in their numerous representations of the historical Jesus in the second half of the 19th and in the early 20th century. As I demonstrated in ch. 2.2, this theology interpreted Jesus as the unique great personality who united religion and ethics, who, in his ethical teaching, led humanity up to a higher level, and who, by his personal example, showed all human beings this new ethical way (cf. ch.s 2.2; 3.2). As we have seen in ch. 2.3, this answer can in no way be considered a “dead” historical response, which may be limited to the 19th and 20th century. In the last half of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century this answer has appeared again and again, not least in the American Jesus Seminar. This response is probably also what every other man on the street today would give an interviewer who wanted to know what contemporary Europeans consider to be Jesus’ most original contribution. If we look at this answer from a historical angle, however, it may be assessed as both right and wrong. Johannes Weiss ((1892) 1964) and Albert Schweitzer ((1901) 1956; (1906) 1966), and after them form critical scholars such as Rudolf Bultmann and dialectical theologians formulated critical objections against it. And this criticism has more recently been repeated and confirmed by many other scholars. As we have seen in ch. 2.2, according to Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer, it was not Jesus’ ethics that was the gist of his message. It was Jesus’ eschatological proclamation that the kingdom of god was imminent, and that this imminence demanded repentance and conversion from the Jews who wanted to enter this kingdom. Weiss and Schweitzer interpreted the stricter ethics of the Sermon on the Mount as inextricably connected with Jesus’ preaching of the kingdom. They thought that these stricter ethical demands only made sense as an extraordinary ethical effort in the short time that remained before the last judgement and the coming of god’s kingdom. Therefore Schweitzer designated this ethics as a “provisional ethics” (Interimsethik),27 that is an ethics that should be applied in the short interval, the “interim,” between Jesus’ proclamation of the imminence of god’s kingdom and its actual realization. Jesus’ unique ethical exhortations not to resist violence and to love one’s enemies28 belong to the Gospel of Matthew’s so-called Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5 – 7 (par.)). In this admonition complex it is a common feature that Jesus makes the commandments of the Mosaic Law stricter (cf. E.P. Sanders 1990, 8). 27 Cf. A. Schweitzer (1901) 1956, 10. 19. However Wilder (1939) 1950, 31 – 34. 235 – 236; Merklein (1978) 1984, 168 – 169, and others reject Schweitzer’s hypothesis. In contrast Meier (4, 2009, 657) is close to Schweitzer’s hypothesis. 28 Joachim Ringleben writes with perfect justification that “die ‘Feindesliebe’ … ist ein radikalisierter Fall der biblischen Nächstenliebe” (2008, 177).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

A new and higher ethics

103

An example of this is that in Matt. 6.38 – 39 (par.) Jesus replaces the so-called “laws of retaliation” (lex talionis) with a new principle of abstaining from any form of retaliation (cf. Davis 2005, especially pp. 149. 167 – 168). This phenomenon can – and should also, in my opinion – be interpreted in line with Johannes Weiss’ and Albert Schweitzer’s hypothesis of Jesus’ eschatological tightening of the requirements of the Mosaic Law. On the background of the imminent eschatological judgement and god’s kingdom’s imminent coming Jesus demanded repentance, conversion and a stricter observation of the Mosaic Law, just as it presumably was the case with John the Baptist, the Qumranites, including the Teacher of righteousness, and (some of) the “Zealots.” The form critics and the dialectical theological exegetes took a third road. They moved the attention in a different direction than that of the liberal theologians and Albert Schweitzer. They turned away from Jesus’ ethical admonitions to his proclamation of god’s imminent judgment, ruling and kingdom. They emphasized that the eschaton depended solely on the Jewish god and his mercy, and they interpreted Jesus’ stricter ethical admonitions in the light of Luther, that is, as commandments that in principle were unrealizable, and the meaning and purpose of which were to open sinful man’s eyes to the truth that he/she is unable to work his/her way to divine salvation, and that therefore the grace of god and Jesus’ atoning self-sacrifice were the only way to salvation they could hope for (cf. Gal. 3.23 – 24). In addition these exegetes regarded the answer of the liberal theologians to be objectively and factually incorrect or misleading because in Judaism before Jesus as well in the Hellenistic-Roman world and in other religions there actually exist several parallels to all those commandments of Jesus which had long been considered unique and original.29 In the first place this applies to the double commandment of love and the so-called “golden rule.” An example from the Qumranian Damascus Document 6.20 – 7.1 illustrates this fact regarding the commandment to love one’s neighbour : “… for each to love his brother like himself; to strengthen the hand of the poor, the needy and the foreigner ; … for each to seek the peace of his brother. …”30 29 Jacob Neusner and Bruce Chilton have collected and edited a series of presentations of various types of “altruism” in the world religions in an anthology (2005). In the preface to this anthology the editors define “altruism” as the “unrewarded action for the sake of another person” (2005, VII, cf. IX – XIV, cf. Chilton’s contribution on altruism in Christianity (2005, 53 – 66)). In 2008 the same two scholars published a similar anthology on the “golden rule.” In these two works Neusner and Chilton have collected a comprehensive amount of comparative material that illustrates the universality of these ethical ideas. 30 Martinez 1994, 37. Well known is also the rabbinical tradition that Hillel connected the two commandments to love god and to love one’s neighbour, cf. E. Meyer (1921) 1962, 2, 430 – 431; Stauffer 1959, 40 – 48 and 55 – 60; Nissen 1974, 1 – 9, 219 – 329; Alexander (1997) 2005; Theissen 2003b, 57 – 72. See also Flusser (1968) 1975; 1991, 165 – 173 (referring to Pirque Aboth 1,3; 2,3; Jub. 36 etc.). E.P. Sanders emphasizes that the commandment to love the Jewish god was the most Jewish of all the Mosaic commands: “There are few things which Jesus could have said

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

104

A critical examination of previous proposals

According to Dihle 1962, the golden rule (including the commandment to love one’s neighbour), was first formulated in the Greek world (cf. Herodotus, Hist. 3.142). In the Hellenistic period this idea penetrated from Greece into the Jewish literature (cf. especially The Book of Tobit 4.15; (Jubilees 36); Aristeas 207; Philo’s writing The Special Laws (de Leg. Spec.) 2.63; further, Philo according to Eusebius Prep. Ev. 8.7.6; Josephus: Against Apion 2.212).31 By the way, the golden rule also appears in Chinese literature (Confucius),32 in Buddhism,33 and in other cultures. Even the “super-unique” commandment to love one’s enemies is anticipated in earlier Jewish writings such as Prov. 25.21: “If your enemy is hungry, give him food; if he is thirsty, give him a drink of water” (cf. E.P. Sanders 1990 12 – 13). According to E.P. Sanders, the commandment in Prov. 25.21 is not new either, since it appears in other formulations in Proverbs and other Jewish writings such as Prov. 20.22; 25.21 – 22; Joseph and Aseneth 29.3 – 4; Josephus: Against Apion 2.212.34 Against this background the double commandment of love, the “golden rule” and the commandment to love one’s enemies cannot be counted as Jesus’ original contributions, but rather as his reformulations of earlier Jewish ideas.35 Still, the formulations, that the canonical gospels ascribe to Jesus, are rather close to unique: They are, as E.P. Sanders writes: “… succinct, arresting, fresh and unforgettable,”36 but they are not original and unique in any absolute sense. In early Judaism we also find analogies to the postulated new Jesuanic idea of “salvation through renunciation,” that is, the idea of service, humility and debasement as a way to “exaltation” and salvation, an idea (of kenosis) which is of crucial importance in the Jesus tradition.37 The best known Jewish parallel to this postulated “Christian” idea is the “suffering servant” in Isa. 53. Later, this idea reappears in 2 Macc. 6 – 7’s description of the famous Maccabean

31 32 33 34 35

36 37

which would have been less unique than calling the ‘schema’ the greatest commandment.” (1990, 18). Cf. E.P. Sanders 1990, 12 – 14; Armstrong 2006, 383; Young 2007, 75 – 76; Ringleben 2008, 177; Neusner – Chilton 2008; Bertalotto 2010, 133. Cf. Braden 1957, 123; Alexander (1997) 2005, 496 – 497. Cf. Braden 1957, 36 – 39; Amore 1978, 11. In his recent book on Jesus as a Cynic Bernhard Lang emphasizes that love to one’s enemies was regarded a particular Cynical virtue, and that this virtue has been discussed in several Greek and Roman writers (cf. Lang 2010, 132 – 134). Similarly Stauffer 1959, 40 – 48. 50 – 55. 119 – 146. The Danish theologian and philosopher of religion K.E. Løgstrup is in agreement with this view so far as he, in his book on the “ethical claim” (Den etiske fordring (The Ethical Demand), (1956) 1958), argues that he is able to deduce the commandment to love one’s neighbour from a non-religious phenomenological analysis of how human beings actually are living together. Cf. E.P. Sanders 1990, 15, using quotations from Davies and Allison’s commentary to the Gospel of Matthew 5.43 – 48 ((1988) 2004, 552). cf. Matt. 16.24 – 28 (par.); 20.20 – 28 (par.); Lk. 14.7 – 15; 18.9 – 14, cf. Schweizer (1955) 1962; Ortwein 1999.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

A new and higher ethics

105

martyrs (cf. van Henten 1997, and ch. 5.8.2 in the present work). Even later, Josephus describes something similar about the Jewish martyrs in Roman times (cf. Against Apion 2.217 – 219). Accordingly, it seems to be clear that the most prominent of Jesus’ ethical commandments and exhortations cannot be claimed to be unique or original in any absolute sense. At the same time, however, it is apparent from the above analysis of the material and the research history that for numerous scholars it is very difficult, not to say impossible, completely to give up this very thought and interpretation Finally, I present a specific example in order to illustrate that my conclusion stated above is in fact the truth: The American NT exegete Robert H. Stein is one of the few scholars who explicitly discusses the question of Jesus’ originality, namely in a section: “The Originality of Jesus’ Ethical Teachings” in his book The Method and Message of Jesus’ Teachings ((1978) 1994, 109 – 111). At the same time Stein’s account illustrates the difficulty in his project: On the one hand, he admits flatly that there exist parallels to all statements in the canonical gospels about Jesus’ ethical teaching. On the other hand, he believes nevertheless that one can legitimately talk about Jesus’ unique moral lesson, namely, when we consider this as a whole. Stein articulates this interpretation of the originality of Jesus’ ethics as a whole in the following five points: 1) Jesus’ ethical teaching consists of a clever collection of ethical key messages; 2) Jesus has removed the “parasitic,” that is, external and secondary traditions, which threatened to undermine the genuine OT’s moral teaching; 3) Jesus’ ethics represent an “intensification” of the Mosaic Law; 4) Jesus introduces a new ethical motivation (namely man’s gratitude for God’s grace); 5) Jesus’ ethical teaching is accompanied by a perfect example, namely that of Jesus himself (p. 110 – 111). However, one does not need to dwell long on these five sentences before it becomes evident that they do not provide any valid proof of Jesus’ originality either : As we have seen above, the very collection of Jesus’ ethical exhortations, especially as they appear in the Sermon on the Mount in Matt. 5 – 7, do not prove the ethical originality of Jesus. (1). It appears from Matt. 8.4 (par.); Matt. 17.27 ; Mk. 12.41 – 44 (par.) that Jesus has not removed the “parasitic” commandments from the OT. (2). If the English word “intensification” means to tighten or to sharpen the ethical requirements and to make them more severe, we find the same features in the Dead Sea Scrolls, amongst some of the so-called “Zealots” and by John the Baptist. (3). As for the “new motivation,” this idea seems to be a later Christian theological reflexion, for it does not appear in the gospels. In addition in his book from 1977, E.P. Sanders has demonstrated that man’s “gratitude” in relation to his Jewish god understood as an ethical motivation plays as great a role in Judaism as it does in the later Jesus movement and in Christianity.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

106

A critical examination of previous proposals

According to E.P. Sanders, this “gratitude” refers to this deity’s “selection” of the Jewish people and to his establishment of the divine “covenant” between himself and the Jewish people. (4). Finally, as regards Jesus’ “perfect example,” it cannot be excluded that it is possible to demonstrate that Jesus had practiced his own ethical teachings although this demonstration seems to be rather difficult. However, the same may be claimed for Moses, Samuel, Elijah, the Teacher of Righteousness and John the Baptist. (5)38 Accordingly it appears that even Stein’s five points are unable to prove the thesis of Jesus’ moral originality. On the other hand, it might perhaps be possible to discuss whether E.P. Sanders is right in interpreting Prov. 25.21 as a true parallel or analogy to Jesus’ command to love one’s enemies.39 The text in Prov. 25.21 – 22 is formulated as follows: “If your enemy is hungry, give him food; if he is thirsty, give him a drink of water; for so you will heap live coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you” (cf. Paul in Rom. 12.20). Opposite we have Lk. 6.29 – 30: “If anyone hits you on one cheek, offer the other also; if anyone takes your coat, let him have your shirt as well” (cf. Matt. 5.38 – 41). First, in the gospels we do not find the peculiar reasons for the exhortation presented in the last sentence of Prov. 25.22. And this argument weakens the two previous commandments because it presents some advantageous reasons for the merciful act. Second, one can discuss whether the claim of enemy love is expressed more radically in the gospels than it is in Prov. 25.21. Still I am inclined to conclude that in both texts we find an unusual ethical injunction to treat even one’s enemies well. Returning to Hannah Arendt, she may be right in claiming that nobody else has emphasized the significance of forgiveness as strongly as Jesus, and that Jesus is perhaps the first human being who introduces forgiveness as an important ethical act. She might be right because forgiveness opens up otherwise hidden possibilities for reconciling enemies and thus reduces the extent of potential violence and revenge in the community. On the other hand, Hannah Arendt’s idea may be wrong because Jesus was still primarily talking about divine, and not about interpersonal forgiveness (cf. Konstan 2010), and because the Sermon on the Mount as a whole is also presented in the framework of “payment and reward” (cf. Matt. 6.1 – 21). Thus my conclusions cannot be clear-cut: On the one hand, I must admit that Jesus’ ethical instructions really take up a lot of space in the canonical 38 The truth rather seems to be that none of the existing sources are interested in this question and therefore they are not very informative on this issue. 39 Cf. E.P. Sanders 1990, 12 – 13. In contrast to E.P. Sanders, I refer to, e. g., Nissen 1974, 304 – 329; Piper 1979, 19 – 65. Theissen – Merz (2003, 15 – 17) interprets this commandment as a sort of a “radicalization” of Jesus’ commandment to love one’s neighbour, because it extends the word “neighbour” to include the enemy and the non-Jew, cf. Ringleben 2008, 177 (cf. footnote 3,28).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus’ parables

107

gospels, and therefore Jesus’ ethical teaching might perhaps be described as “original” (cf. ch. 1.6 and the quotation from Joseph Klausner given at the end of ch. 2.2).40 The ethical dimensions are more prominent in the traditions about Jesus than they are in other cases, not merely in the rest of contemporary Jewish literature, but also in the Greek (including Plato about Socrates) and Roman literature (including Seneca and Epictetus). On the other hand, in the contemporary literature handed down to us we find parallels to almost all the testimonies in the canonical gospels about Jesus’ ethical teaching.41 In addition Jesus’ ethical injunctions are presented in the same framework of “payment and reward” as those in the OT and in other examples of contemporary Jewish literature. Yet, nowhere else do we seem to find anything like the concentration and rigor that characterizes the ethical teachings which in the gospels are attributed to Jesus, primarily in the Sermon on the Mount, the parables and his instructions to his adherents. I therefore tend to conclude that the idea dominating the research history of the historical Jesus that an important part of Jesus’ originality can be claimed to be found in parts of his ethical teaching is not without some foundation.

3.5 Jesus’ parables and other formal features of the Jesus tradition In Jesus research it is widely believed that the parables represent Jesus’ linguistic and artistic uniqueness more clearly than other parts of the gospel tradition.42 In his ground-breaking study of Jesus’ parables Adolf Jülicher discusses in detail the question of the authenticity of the parables ((1910) 1969, vol. 1, 1 – 24). And despite his careful review of the uncertainty that characterizes the oral and written tradition of the parables of Jesus, Jülicher, referring to the most critical part of the previous German exegesis, concludes that generally the parables represent the oldest and the most authentic part of the Jesus tradition (p. 11 – 12). In addition, according to Jülicher, Jesus’ parables, as to 40 In a postscript to his book, Jesus the Jew, Geza Vermes quotes the same words by Joseph Klausner ((1907) 1928, 414), and Vermes introduces this quotation with the following sentence: “… no objective and enlightened student of the Gospels can help but be struck by the incomparative superiority of Jesus” (1973, 224). And after the quotation from Klausner Vermes comments: “Second to none in profundity of insight and grandeur of character” (1973, 224). 41 In addition, so far as I can see, this situation can be said to correspond to Løgstrup ((1956) 1958)’s analysis of the “ethical claim” (of Jesus), a claim which Løgstrup believed could be extracted from a purely phenomenological analysis of the life human beings are living together (cf. my footnote 3,35). 42 Cf. for example Cadbury (1937) 1962, 35; Boucher 1981, 9, 51 – 54; Zeitlin (1988) 1990, 112 – 113; Stanton (1989) 1993, 204; Hedrick 1994, 7 – 35; Hahn (2002) 2005, 67 – 69; Wilckens (2002) 2005, I, 1, 164; Bloom 2005, 10; Hengel – Schwemer 2007, 396; Hultgren 2011.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

108

A critical examination of previous proposals

their literary form, represent a unique phenomenon. In the eyes of Jülicher no equivalent has been found either in the OT, in contemporary Jewish literature or in Paul and in the later Christian literature. (pp. 22 – 24). In a similar manner the French NT scholar Maurice Goguel assesses the “literary” form of Jesus’ teaching as being of a uniquely high quality : On peut dire de l’enseignement de J¦sus que la richesse de sa fond a fait tort ‚ l’originalit¦ de sa forme. L’attention, concentr¦e — bon droit sur ce que J¦sus a dit, a souvant ¦t¦ neglig¦e, plus qu’il n’aurait ¦t¦ ¦quitable, d’appr¦cier la maniÀre don’t il l’a dit. Les paroles et les discours de J¦sus supporteraient pourtant la comparaison avec les productions les plus achev¦es de l’¦sprit humain et m¦riteraient d’Þtre class¦s parmi les chef-d’oevre de la literature mondiale ((1932) 1950, 263).

In particular Goguel accentuates Jesus’ parables (p. 270 – 271), and later, he praises Jesus as an artist of words (p. 279 – 286). Assessed as a poet Goguel thus judges Jesus to be original. The important British NTexegete C.H. Dodd introduces his classic study of Jesus’ parables, The parables of the Kingdom ((1935) 1961), as follows: “The parables are perhaps the most characteristic element in the teaching of Jesus Christ recorded in the Gospels” ((1935) 1961, 1). According to Dodd, the parables as a whole bear “… the stamp of a highly individual mind …” (p. 1). In the first part of his New Testament Theology (1971) the influential German scholar Joachim Jeremias reaches the same result as Jülicher : In der ganzen intertestamentarischen Literatur des antiken Judentums, in den essenischen Schriften, bei Paulus, in der rabbbinischen Literatur, finden wir nichts, was den Gleichnissen Jesu an die Seite gestellt werden könnte (1971, 38).

Jeremias emphasizes that Jesus neither uses fables as in the OT and the Qumran literature nor allegories as in the First Book of Enoch (pp. 38 – 39): Seine Gleichnisse führen uns vielmehr mitten hinein in das pulsierende Leben des Alltags. Mit dieser Lebensnähe, mit ihrer Schlichtheit und Klarheit, mit der Meisterschaft ihrer knappen Schilderung, mit dem Ernst ihres Gewissensappells, mit ihrem liebvollen Verständnis für die religiös deklassierten stehen sie analogielos dar (1971, 39).

Many New Testament scholars share this view. Irving M. Zeitlin ((1988) 1990) evaluates the parables in the same way as Jeremias and Goguel: “The Gospel parables bear the unmistakable mark of an original and exalted personality ; and even if Jesus was not the original author of them all, his adaptation was accomplished with extraordinary skill” ((1988) 1990, 113). In his small book in Swedish on the parables of Jesus (1999) Birger Gerhardsson writes that, especially in recent American parable research, it is widely believed, “att Jesus använde spr”ket p” ett nytt och originellt sätt … .” (“that Jesus used the language in a new and an original manner” (1999, 12)). An example of this tendency in American parable research is Bernard

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus’ parables

109

Brandon Scott who additionally combines the idea of Jesus’ parables as unique as regards their literary form and genre with the idea of Jesus’ personality as a religious genius. Scott begins a book about Jesus’ parables as follows: “The parables of Jesus, which rank among the supreme literary creations of Western literature, testify to the consummate religious genius who had a unique vision of God, a vision he discovered and communicated in parables” (2001, 1). Finally I quote Arland J. Hultgreen who has recently written as follows: If one is to speak of the genius of Jesus the man that will have to include reference to his ability to tell parables and to tell the ones he did. The person who has tried to compose a parable and to match those of Jesus, soon begins to marvel at those told by Jesus (2011, 2571).

Against these views, however, stands a more critical group of scholars: Even more than 100 years ago the German exegete Paul Fiebig documented that Jesus’ parables are not unique in terms of literary form and genre ((1904) 1982). Fiebig determined the originality of Jesus’ parables on the basis of their content and not by virtue of their shape. Based on his investigation of a large number of almost contemporary Jewish parables he noted: “Die Originalität der Gleichnisse Jesu liegt nicht in der Form, sondern in dem Inhalt”.43 Fiebig, however, determined this content in a very general, vague and airy way (p. 57). Birger Gerhardsson also denies that Jesus was particularly innovative in regard to linguistic form: “Och ser man p” Jesu bruk av metaforer är det tveksamt om han egentligen skapade en enda helt ny och originell metaphor själv” (“And if one looks at Jesus’ use of metaphors it is to be doubted whether he himself created one singular new and original metaphor” (1999, 15)). In one of the recent major works on Jesus’ parables Klyne Snodgrass 2008, after a review of the use of parables in the surrounding world, remarks that Jesus was neither the only nor the first person to use parables. On the other hand, we do not know many forerunners of Jesus who narrated parables: “Jesus’ parabolic teaching is not unique, but we do not have evidence that anyone prior to him used parables so frequently and forcefully as he did” (2008, 59). In several works Joachim Jeremias has argued that, in addition to the formal parable, the tradition about Jesus contains other formal characteristics that testify to the authenticity and uniqueness of the Jesus-tradition. Among other features Jeremias mentions an Aramaic tone of Jesus’ language and the socalled passivum divinum, that is, an impersonal verb in the passive mode instead of a direct term for god as the subject of a sentence. This form of expression is a typical Jewish circumlocution for the holy name of the Jewish god. Moreover Jeremias points at antithetical parallelism and at a rhythm of words that approaches poetry. Finally Jeremias highlights Jesus’ address to his god as “father” (‘abba) (1971, 20 – 38). According to Jeremias, the purpose of 43 Fiebig (1904) 1982, 56, cf. 57. In the same direction Young (1998) 2009.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

110

A critical examination of previous proposals

these analyses and observations was to get back to what Jeremias describes as vox ipsissima Jesu, that is, “Jesus’ own voice” (cf. 1971, 38 – 45). Especially Jeremias’ emphasis on Jesus’ direct address to the Jewish god as abba won the acceptance of many other scholars, and this thesis soon became immensely popular.44 Today one can still find this hypothesis in the relevant textbooks and manuals. However, also the popularity of this hypothesis seems to rest on a flimsy basis. First, this way of addressing the deity occurs only once in the canonical gospels, namely, in Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane, and here only in Mk. 14.36 (“’Abba, Father,’ he said, ‘all things are possible for you; take this cup from me. Yet not my will but yours’.”), and not in the parallel texts in the gospels of Matthew and Luke.45 In addition in two detailed articles from 1992 and 2006, Mary Rose D’Angelo has identified a great number of texts in the GraecoRoman literature, where a god is also addressed as “father.” Finally, in my opinion, Joachim Jeremias’ other formal characteristics, an Aramaic language tone, passivum divinum, rhythm and antithetical parallelism, are also too general and too widespread to count as formal linguistic characteristics of Jesus’ own original, distinctive tone of language. Against this background I am forced to conclude that neither the parables as a literary genre or as a language form nor the other suggested formal characteristics of “Jesus’ own voice” have been able to withstand subsequent critical analysis, nor therefore they must be abandoned. However this conclusion does not imply that one must also abandon the appreciation of and recognition that some of Jesus’ parables are immediately engaging, artistically attractive and ethically appealing.

3.6 Liberation and emancipation Is it possible to establish a link between the interpretation of Jesus’ ethics as his most important innovation and an understanding of Jesus arguing that the core of his message was human emancipation or liberation? In the canonical gospels Jesus’ emancipatory activity is described as a liberation of humans being possessed, sick, poor and hungry, or of women, children, slaves, lepers, tax collectors and other marginalized people. These people were liberated from one or more oppressive powers: Satan and his demons, cultic impurity (including non-Jewish, that is pagan, status), other types of diseases, poverty, hunger, and sin. The connection between Jesus’ ethical teaching and his emancipatory activity stems from the fact that it was the same Jesus, who 44 Cf. for example Zeitlin 1988, 61 – 64; Stuhlmacher 1992, 85 – 87; Casey 2010, 204 – 212; Bauckham 2011, 62 – 68; Thompson 2011, 2595 – 2596. 45 Besides the gospels, this address appears twice in Paul, namely in Rom. 8.15 and Gal. 4.6.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Liberation and emancipation

111

implemented all these forms of liberation of people from various oppressive powers, and who exhorted his followers to act well against their fellow men. I therefore have to ask: Can Jesus’ emancipatory activity be interpreted as expressions of his own original ethical practice? This emancipatory dimension in the traditions about Jesus has been strongly emphasized in modern Jesus research, not least in the 20th century. Today it remains strong in actual Jesus research, just as the so-called “liberation theology” is still visible in contemporary theology and Christianity.46 Some 250 years ago Reimarus interpreted Jesus as a national and political liberator of the Jewish people from Roman domination. In the 19th century Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels interpreted Jesus and early Christianity as archaic examples of an early type of “communism,” (“Urkommunismus”), and after the emergence of the socialist movement in the period between 1850 and 1900 several interpretations of Jesus as a socialist were published.47 In 1929 – 1930 the Jewish historian of religions Robert Eisler published his great work: JÞsous basileus ou basileusas (“Jesus, the king who did not come to reign”). Eisler extended the existing basis of sources for the political interpretation of Jesus to include the “Greek” Josephus as well as the old Russian/Slavonic translation of the original Aramaic version of Josephus’ first major work, The Jewish War. Eisler argued that this version was translated, not from our known Greek manuscripts of Josephus’ work, but from the Aramaic original version mentioned in Bell. 1.3. Eisler believed that he could rediscover this original Aramaic version behind the old Russian translation. The decisive point in this translation was that it described John the Baptist and Jesus as militant “revolutionaries.” Eisler’s work led to an extensive and lengthy debate which ended with a general rejection of Eisler’s hypothesis (cf. Bilde 1981, 115 – 118). However, the core of Eisler’s interpretation, that Jesus was a kind of “Zealot,”48 was difficult to kill. In 1967 this hypothesis was forcefully revived 46 Classical examples of this interpretation of Jesus are Eisler 1928–1929, Brandon 1967; Machovec (1972) 1976; Vermes 1973, 224; Nørgaard 1975; Sobrino (1982) 1987, 70–71. 76. 84–94. 165; p. 86: “The reign of God is the establishment of justice and right with regard to the poor …”; (1991) 1993; Oakman 1986, 168. 198. 205–220; 2008; 2012; A.F. Segal 1986, 68–95; Horsley (1987) 1993; 1996; 2003; 2008a; 2008b; 2008c; 2010a; 2012; Herrenbrück 1990; Crossan (1991) 1993; 1994; 2007, 97– 142; Lunny 1994; Prior 1995; Theissen – Merz 1996, 256–284; 2003, 17–22; Nacpil (1998) 1999; W.R. Herzog 2000; Moxnes 2000; 2003; Hendriks 2006, and numerous other modern revolutionary, postcolonial and feminist interpretations of Jesus. Forceful voices against this interpretation have been presented by, e. g., Cullmann 1970; Hengel 1970; Sweet 1984; Mendels 1994. 47 Cf. Engels (1895) 1970; Kautsky 1908; Case (1927) 2007; Kirk (1950) 1972; Wernström 1972; Nørgaard 1975; Eagleton 2007. However, it should to be noticed that Kautsky has nothing to say about the historical Jesus because he thought it impossible to say anything certain about him (1908, 1 – 25). 48 The uncertainty regarding the word and the notion of “Zealot” is due to the fact that in historical research this word has been used as a general term designating the militant Jewish rebels against

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

112

A critical examination of previous proposals

by the British historian of religions S.G.F. Brandon in his famous work of Jesus and the Zealots. Brandon’s work led to a fresh outbreak of the discussion about a political interpretation of Jesus. Although this interpretation can be said to have been “authoritatively” rejected by conservative NTscholars such as Oscar Cullmann (1970) and Martin Hengel (1970), it remained long in life, and today it still exists,49 albeit hardly in perfect health.50 Furthermore, the connection between Jesus’ ethical teaching and exhortations, on the one hand, and his general emancipatory enterprise, on the other, can also be said to manifest itself in his criticism of wealth, power and domination (cf., e. g., Matt. 20.24 – 27 (par.)). This link can also be claimed to exist in Jesus’ seemingly historically unique free association with, acceptance and “liberation” of women,51 children, sick, poor,52 non-Jews and other marginalized people in contemporary Jewish Palestine.53 In addition Alan F. Segal is right in asserting that the slogan, often repeated in the synoptic gospels, that the first shall be last and the last first (cf. Matt. 19.30, 20.16; Lk. 13.30), should not only be interpreted as a religious statement referring to a spiritual realm and the afterlife, but that it also contains a political potential (A.F. Segal 1986, 82). Today this emancipatory, political interpretation of Jesus must be said to be as prevalent as ever. In our time Jesus is cited as a liberation icon for all species of modern ideology from feminism (cf. Swidler 2007) over homosexuality (cf. Goss 1993) to ecological programs for the salvation of the world (cf. Akers 2000). As far as I can see, the American Jesus Seminar’s interpretation of Jesus as an itinerant social critical “Cynical” philosopher belongs to the same category. Finally, in my opinion, the same applies to the influential American NT exegete Richard A. Horsley, who interprets Jesus and his movement as an attempt to revive an old Israelite, local and democratic type of community.54 My most important hesitations about this popular and widespread interpretation of the historical Jesus concern its modernizing and thus potentially anachronistic and ahistorical character. This interpretation seems

49 50 51 52 53 54

Rome in the whole period between Pompeius and Bar Kokhba (cf. Hengel (1961) 1976; Brandon 1967). But this interpretation of the word “Zealot” is problematic because our main source, Josephus, restricts himself to using this term only about one of several rebellious groups, a specific priestly group that was established rather late in the history of the first Jewish revolt against Rome (66 – 70 (74)). Cf., in particular, Sobrino (1982) 1987; (1991) 1993; Horsley (1987) 1993; 2003; 2010a; 2010b; 2012; Crossan (1991) 1993; 1994; 2007; Lunny 1994; Oakman 2012. After Cullmann’s and Hengel’s fundamental criticism came other critics such as Bammel (1984) 1985; Sweet 1984; Mendels 1994. Cf. Swidler 2007; Ruckstuhl 1996; Fiorenza 2011. Cf. Schottroff – Stegemann (1978) 1981; Kvalbein 1981. Thus, for example, Flusser (1968) 1975, 86; Herrenbrück 1990; Kee (1990) 1991; Crossan (1991) 1993, XI – XII; Bolyki 1998; Carver (1982) 2004; Rau 2000; Beavis 2006; Carey 2009. Cf. Horsley (1987) 1993; 1994; 1995; 1996; 2003; 2008; 2010a; 2010b; 2012; Horsley – Silberman (1997) 2002 (cf. Bertalotti 2010, 69 – 77).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Liberation and emancipation

113

all too easily and all too quickly to be dominated and controlled by modern scholars’ own current emancipatory interests. Thus this interpretation is all too easily removed from the historical context in which these Jesus-traditions belong (cf. ch. 3.7 – 9 and ch. 4). In other words this popular social and political interpretation of Jesus is also affected by Albert Schweitzer’s critique of the liberal theological interpretation of Jesus as the great “moral” personality, namely, that the liberal theologians in their studies in fact created a Jesus in their own image. Similarly most of the social and political interpretations of Jesus discussed here can be suspected to be primarily driven by modernizing exploitations of Jesus to their own ideological and political purposes, often with a religious and/or Christian sign. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that Jesus spoke and acted in what we in our time and language may call an emancipatory manner. But this classification, which is probably correct, leads us astray, unless the interpreters maintain the important fact that this “emancipatory” activity had an eschatological character, because it belonged to the contemporary Jewish eschatological expectation.55 More specifically this crucial insight implies that Satan and his anti-godly forces cannot be excluded from this interpretation of Jesus’ “emancipatory” project, but must be maintained as a major figure in the salvation historical drama in which the canonical gospels view and interpret Jesus: He liberated the possessed and the other sick from “Beelzebub’s,” that is, from Satan’s or the Devil’s control. Therefore Jesus’ public activity is introduced by his baptism, in which he is equipped with divine power (the spirit of the Jewish god); and therefore his baptism is followed by his rejection of and victory over Satan in the temptation story (Matt. 4.1 – 11 (par.)). This victory is also the reason why Satan in the Gospel of Luke, after this defeat is described to leave Jesus “for a while” (Lk. 4.13). This “while” includes the whole of Jesus’ public activity until the passion story, where Satan, according to Lk. 22.3, is said to return, and apparently once more is given the opportunity to act. This interpretation can be said to be supported by Lk. 10.18: “He replied, ‘I saw Satan fall, like lightning, from heaven’.” However, this text can be interpreted both negatively and positively : Satan’s “fall” from heaven can be seen as a defeat, perhaps referring to the temptation story (Matt. 4.1 – 11 (par.)), but this “fall” can also be interpreted as a permission and an access to earth where Satan is now able to act.56 55 Cf., e. g., Es. 61.1 – 2, and Bilde 2008a, 195 – 199. Alan F. Segal has drawn a picture of Jesus as the “Jewish revolutionary,” but in contrast to most other modern adherents of this interpretation Segal explicitly connects Jesus’ revolutionary profile with the sort of Jewish apocalypticism that we know from the Book of Daniel, the Hasidaeans, the First Book of Enoch and some of the Dead Sea Scrolls (1986, 68 – 95): “Jesus was a passionate advocate of political and individual justice who predicted a terrible and imminent end for the evil regime ruling Judea” (1986, 81). 56 Compare the account of Satan’s role during the last eschatological events in Rev. 12 – 13; 17 – 18; 20.1 – 10, and to these texts Evans 2003.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

114

A critical examination of previous proposals

This entire mythical universe may possibly be ascribed to the evangelist, but this assumption is not likely. Since this universe also dominates the Dead Sea Scrolls, it is more likely that it gives us a glimpse of the historical Jesus and his world generally (cf. Allison 2010, 17 – 20). At the same time I suppose that the texts bearing witness to Jesus’ forgiveness of “sins,” such as Matt. 9.1 – 8 (par.), should also be interpreted in this context.57 The canonical gospels’ interpretation of Jesus as a “liberator” is not unique in early Jewish literature. If we look at the political side of this role, Jesus can be claimed share it with the so-called “Zealots” (similarly Allison 2010, 75, footnote 195). In Josephus’ account of Judas of Galilee’s uprising in 6 CE it is a key issue that Judas prohibited his countrymen to pay taxes to the Roman emperor, because they thereby indicated that they recognized the Roman emperor and not the Jewish god as the rightful lord of the “holy” country (Bell. 2.117 – 119). Therefore it can be assumed that the exemption from taxpaying to the Romans was an important part of Judas of Galilee’s eschatological program (cf. ch. 5.3.2.4). In Josephus’ portrayal of the first Jewish revolt against Rome (66 – 70 (74)), which by the participants themselves presumably was interpreted as an eschatological event (cf. ch. 5.3.2.4), Josephus, among other things, refers to a liberation of slaves and indebted persons (cf. Bilde 2006a). We are much less informed about Bar Kochba’s messianic revolt (132 – 135 CE), and therefore we do not know whether these phenomena played any role in it (cf. Bilde 2008a, 82 – 84), but it cannot be excluded (cf. ch. 5.3.2.14). If we look at the mythical side of Jesus’ role as liberator, it can be argued that there are many parallels between the canonical gospels, on the one hand, and contemporary Jewish apocalyptic writings on the other, in particular, the Book of Daniel, the First Book of Enoch, the Fourth Book of Ezra, the Apocalypse of the Syrian Baruch, some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Josephus’s works, and in the NT the Book of Revelation. On this basis it is not yet possible for me to formulate a clear judgment on the question of the originality of Jesus as liberator, and therefore we have to return to this issue in ch. 4 and 5.

3.7 The eschatological proclamation of the imminent coming of god’s kingdom58 In Jesus research since about the year 1900 there has been a broad agreement among NTscholars that the proclamation of the imminence of the kingdom of 57 Cf. Sung 1993; Carey 2009. 58 I refer to the research historical introductions and overviews in Otto (1933) 1954; Norman

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

The eschatological proclamation

115

god stood at the centre of Jesus’ public activity.59 In contrast there has been a high degree of divergence as regards the content of the kingdom of god, that is, what the kingdom of god really referred to. The early church, the Catholic Church of the Antiquity and the Middle Ages and the Reformed Churches of the 16th century generally interpreted Jesus’ expectation of the imminence of god’s kingdom as partially fulfilled in and with Jesus’ resurrection, his ascension, the outpouring of the “holy spirit” to the believers, and the establishment of the Christian church. More specifically the coming of the kingdom of god was understood as fulfilled partly with Jesus’ resurrection, ascension and heavenly cosmocratic reign, partly with the genesis of the Christian church, and finally, in the future, with the return of Jesus and the eschatological consummation. The first two fulfilments were understood as connected partly by the “holy spirit,” partly by Jesus’ heavenly guidance of the church. Thus Jesus’ kingdom of god was partly identified with the divinely guided society of believing Christians, “the communion of the saints,” on earth as well as in heaven, (civitas dei), as Augustine (354 – 430) formulated it in contrast to “the earthly society,” that is the actually existing empires, kingdoms, principalities and city states as well as some of the Christians (civitas terrena).60 This understanding involves the simultaneous interpretation of god’s kingdom as referring both to the community of true Christians on the earth and to the heavenly community of the trinity surrounded by archangels, angels and holy souls, that is, the heavenly bliss, which believers after their death could hope to obtain. This implies that in the Christian church after the death of Jesus, the kingdom of god was no longer understood as an imminent eschatological event that would happen when the Jewish god established his territorial rule in Jerusalem, Jewish Palestine and all over the world.61 The new “ecclesiastical,” and now traditional Christian interpretation of god’s kingdom proved to be durable, since it has lasted from the beginning to our time. Perrin (1963) 1967; Schlosser 1980, 1, 47 – 64; Merklein (1983) 1989; Camponovo 1984, 11 – 71; Chilton 1994; Meier, 2, 1994, 237 – 288; Theissen – Merz 1996, 221 – 284; W. Stegemann 2010, 297 – 353; J.M. Robinson 2011. I completely agree with Dale C. Allison who in his recent monograph has offered a complete overview and analysis of the meaning of the “kingdom of god” in the NT, the Gospel of Thomas and the other early Christian literature (2010, 164 – 204). 59 Cf. the following fundamental works: Weiss (1892) 1964; A. Schweitzer (1901) 1956; (1906) 1966, 402 – 450; Wellhausen 1905, 98 – 108; Kümmel (1945) 1956; Grässer (1957) 1960, 3 – 75; 1973; Künzi 1970; 1977; Allison 1985; 1998; 201; E.P. Sanders 1985, 123 – 241. Against this interpretation, for example, Beasley-Murray 1986; 1993; Witherington 1992; J.M. Robinson 2011. 60 In other words, civitas terrena includes primarily the human beings outside the Christian church. C.E. Hill (1992) 2001 presents a detailed account of two main interpretations of civitas dei in the early church: The kingdom of god as an earthly entity (the church) and/or as a heavenly entity. This new ecclesiastical view of the kingdom of god is already expressed in the NT, cf., e. g., Rom. 14.17; 1 Cor 4.20; Jn. 18.36. 61 Cf. Martin Künzi’s detailed account of the research history on Matt. 10.23 and Mk. 9.1 (par.) and the research historical overview in Camponovo 1984, 11 – 71.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

116

A critical examination of previous proposals

Accordingly the liberal theologians’ interpretation of god’s kingdom can be claimed to be a direct continuation of the ancient, medieval and reformation point of view. In liberal theology – and the same is true in many other modern Jesus-interpretations – there was a widespread inclination to interpret the kingdom of god, which is so crucial in Jesus’ public activity, as the religious and social body, that was created in and with the Jesus movement and which, after the death of Jesus, continued in the Jesus movement and the protoChristian and Christian churches and religious communities, which in turn were associated with the heavenly kingdom and the future paradise. According to this dominant ecclesiastical interpretation, the kingdom of god, which Jesus proclaimed as imminent, was thus partly realized with the formation of the Jesus movement and the later proto-Christian and Christian churches. And when Christianity eventually extended to all peoples across the earth, god’s kingdom could be said to have been almost completely realized. On the other hand, this could not be fully implemented before the end of the world, Jesus’ parusia or second coming, the resurrection of the dead and the reconciliation of the earthly and the heavenly church. In terms of content, the liberal theologians emphasized the Christian “moral” quality, that is, their Christian ethical practice. Therefore it was a truly revolutionary discovery when first Reimarus in the 18th century, then Johannes Weiss ((1892) 1964) and, a few years later, Albert Schweitzer ((1901) 1956) demonstrated that this classical Christian understanding of the kingdom of god did not correspond to the Jesus of the canonical gospels, and therefore had to be described as nothing less than an anachronistic mistake. Instead of this anachronistic mistake these scholars pointed to the understanding of god’s kingdom found in the other early Jewish apocalyptic literature like the First Book of Enoch, parts of the Qumran literature, the Fourth Book of Ezra, the Syrian Book of Baruch (and in a possibly earlier Jewish model for the Revelation of John), which are all deeply inspired by the Book of Daniel. Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer read the canonical gospels’ words about the kingdom of god in the light of this literature.62 And when they did so, it dawned on them that Jesus rightfully should be classified, not as a Jewish sage teaching wisdom and ethics, not as a great ethical personality, but as an early Jewish apocalypticist and as an eschatological prophet.63 Thus it was here that one should look for a possible originality of

62 Cf. Camponovo 1984 with a survey of the previous, contemporary and later Jewish literature. Beavis 2006 argues that this Jewish eschatological understanding of the kingdom of god should be read in connection with contemporary Greek-Roman (and Jewish, cf. Philo’s “therapeuts”) literary visions of the “utopia,” cf. also Gatz 1967; Günther – Müller 1988. 63 Thus also Bultmann (1926) 1970, 23 – 42; (1958) 1961, 3 – 5; Kümmel (1945) 1956; Grässer (1957) 1960, 4; 1973; Künzi 1970; 1977; Jeremias 1971, 40 – 43; Grant 1977, 13 – 83; Merklein (1978) 1984; (1983) 1989; Camponovo 1984; Becker (1995) 1996; Allison 1998; 2010; Ehrman 1999;

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

The eschatological proclamation

117

Jesus, that is, in relationship to other Jewish contemporary eschatological prophets (cf. ch. 5.3.2). After Reimarus’ revolutionary discovery that Jesus had to be classified as a failed Jewish messianic pretender, in my opinion, this insight by Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer is the most important step forward ever achieved in Jesus research (cf. ch. 2.2). This interpretation of god’s kingdom has been accepted and continued by a great number of recent scholars who have studied the expression the “kingdom of god” in the synoptic gospels (cf. footnotes 3,58 and 3,59). Although this apocalyptic-eschatological interpretation of the kingdom of god to many scholars today seems to be obviously true, it has never been accepted without reservations by all NT exegetes. Probably first and foremost for the reason that many Christian exegetes cannot accept that Jesus with his imminent eschatological expectation simply made a mistake and that the Christian church, which was not predicted by the historical Jesus, erred in its reinterpretation of the kingdom of god.64 For this reason the apocalyptic-eschatological interpretation of the kingdom of god (and of the historical Jesus) has been fiercely debated for more than 300 years. If we first look at the traditional Christian and the evangelical school, it has never unambiguously acknowledged the insights of Reimarus, Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer. The proponents of the traditional Christian school are doing everything they can to explain away these insights, as it clearly appears from such works as Beasley-Murray 1986, 1993 and Witherington 1992, 1994. If we turn to the liberal or the philosophical school it is also this “apocalyptic” or “eschatological” answer that is the sticking point in the discussion between the American Jesus Seminar and their opponents who follow Weiss and Schweitzer, first and foremost E.P. Sanders, Gerd Theissen, Sean Freyne, John P. Meier, Paula Frederiksen, Dale Allison, Bart Ehrman, Martin Hengel – Anna Maria Schwemer and Maurice Casey : Was Jesus really an eschatologian and an apocalypticist, or was he a timeless wisdom teacher, perhaps a travelling philosopher in the style of the Cynics? This question therefore remains the most crucial issue in modern Jesus research: “Here is Rhodes, and here you have to jump”.65 Here I will try to formulate this historically correct answer to the question of the originality of Jesus a little more precisely. In itself this eschatological answer does not define Jesus as unique. Quite the opposite, because this apocalyptic eschatology seems to dominate a large part of contemporary early Frederiksen (1999) 2000, 266; Witherington 1999; Vermes 2000, 257; Roloff 2001, 466; Abrahamowitz 2002, 166; Dunn 2003, 383 – 387; Pitre 2005; Niemand 2007, 15. 64 Cf. my preface; J.M. Robinson 2011, 3218 – 3219, and the discussion in Miller 2001. 65 My own rather free translation of a sentence in Aesop (hic Rhodus, hic salta), that after Hegel was often used by later philosophers such as Karl Marx.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

118

A critical examination of previous proposals

Judaism and appears to be characteristic for several of Jesus’ contemporary colleagues. Such a clarification has been attempted in several ways. For instance Camponovo (1984, 444) and other scholars have suggested that although the term the “kingdom of god” occurs in Jewish literature before Jesus, it does not appear in any other piece of Jewish scripture as often and as dramatically as it does in the synoptic gospels. For this reason they argue that it is particularly characteristic of the historical Jesus who thus makes the “kingdom of god” the central concept and the centre of his activity. Camponovo also believes that Jesus’ originality is reflected in the fact that he interpreted this contemporary, well-known concept of “god’s kingdom” in the light of his own particular experience of nearness to the Jewish deity, that is, his personal experience of this god as abba (cf. ch. 3.5), and not primarily as a national political concept (Camponovo 1984, 445). To Camponovo’s exegesis it should be noted, first, that the term the “kingdom of god” actually does not occur particularly often in the synoptic gospels either.66 Second, it may not be appropriate to conclude from a lack of presence of the phrase the “kingdom of god,” for example in Josephus’ accounts about other eschatological prophets, that Josephus and these prophets did not know and use this phrase. This is problematic, partly because these accounts are so brief in comparison with the synoptic gospels, partly because Josephus has an obvious ideological interest in “de-eschatologizing” these prophets because he religiously or theologically disagrees with them and considers them to be illegitimate (cf. Bilde 1988, 173 – 206). Third, both in the synoptic gospels and in the rest of the contemporary Jewish literature, it is likely to assume, that the content and significance of this phrase could be presupposed by the readers as well as the authors. This assumption may be the main reason why the content of this sentence is never explicitly explained. The author just had to mention this phrase, and its meaning was automatically activated by his readers (cf., e. g., Wellhausen 1905, 107). In light of these facts the interpretation of Camponovo seems to lose its persuasiveness. In addition I refer to the fact, that we do find the very idea of god’s kingdom or royal power in several contemporary Jewish texts, not only in the Jewish Bible (e. g., Ps. 22.28; 45.6; Isa. 24.23; Mic. 4.7; Zech. 14.9), especially in the Book of Daniel (ch. 2.44; 3.33; 7.12 – 27), but also in some contemporary Jewish writings such as the Book of Jubilees (1.28), the Psalms of Solomon 66 According to Schmoller ((1869) 1960), this expression occurs four times in the Gospel of Matthew, 10 times in the Gospel of Mark, 16 times in the Gospel of Luke, and only once in the Gospel of John, cf. Allison 2010, 165 – 168, who includes the Matthean expression “the kingdom of heavens”.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

The eschatological proclamation

119

(2.30; 10.3. 10; 17.3: “god’s kingdom”), the Book of Tobit (13,1: “Praise to the ever-living God and to his kingdom,” the Ascension of Moses (10.1: “his kingdom”), Second Enoch (J) 1.3: “the most wise and great and inconceivable and unchanging kingdom of God almighty” and the War Scroll from Qumran (1 QM 6.6, “For kingship belongs to the god of Israel,”) and in the rabbinical literature (malkuth ha-shamaim, the “kingdom of heavens”).67 My point in this section is even more precise, namely, that a large number of modern scholars, with good reasons, suppose that there was an intimate relationship between Jesus’ proclamation of the imminence of god’s kingdom and Jesus’ simultaneous practical activity as exorcist, healer and meal spender (cf., in particular, Matt. 12.28; Lk. 11.20; 17.20 – 21 and ch. 3.8). Rudolf Bultmann and other scholars find Jesus’ innovation here: “Das Neue und Eigene aber ist die Sicherheit, mit der er sagt: ‘Jetzt ist die Zeit gekommen! Die Gottesherschaft bricht herein! Das Ende ist da!’ …” (Bultmann (1958) 1961, 5). Jürgen Becker, too, formulates this thought: “Das hatte so zugespitzt vorher in Israel und im Früjudentum noch niemand gesagt” ((1995) 1996, 154).68 However, this interpretation does not withstand a closer examination of the figures comparable with Jesus (cf. ch. 5.3.2). Although we do not find in Josephus’ accounts of these characters the phrases that “now” the time is at hand, and that the kingdom of god is being established “here and now,” this insight does not imply that these figures did not express themselves in the same way as Jesus does in the synoptic gospels. They almost must have done so, otherwise their resistance and rebellion against the Romans, reported by Josephus, make no sense at all. In all these cases, but most obviously in the two major revolts against Rome in 66 – 70 (74) and 132 – 135 CE, it makes no sense for the small Jewish people to revolt against the superpower of that time, Rome, if they had not been convinced that the predetermined date for the establishment of the kingdom of god had “now” been reached, and that the Jewish god himself would “now” intervene and establish his kingdom (cf. Bilde 2006a). 67 Cf. Allison 2010, 170 – 177). Some scholars argue that the Jewish ideas about the kingdom of god or the messianic realm should be interpreted as a variant of a more general ancient idea of a golden age or a utopia (cf. Gatz 1967; Ferguson 1975, 146 – 153; Günther – Müller 1988; Beavis 2006). This hypothesis is weakened by the fact that the main idea in the expression, the “kingdom og god,” is the Jewish god’s unrestricted power, and that this idea is absent from the concepts of the utopia or the golden age. 68 The same assessment is expressed by David Flusser : Jesus is “der einzige und bekannte antike Jude, der nicht nur verkündet hat, dass man am Ende der Endzeit steht, sondern Gleichzeitig, dass die neue Zeit des Heils schon begonnen hat” ((1968) 1975, 87). Thus also Kjær Nielsen 1987, 39. The same understanding can be traced in Brun 1917, 116 – 118; Dodd (1935) 1961, VIII, 159; 1971, 115; Käsemann (1954) 1965, I, 211 – 212; Jervell 1962, 59 – 73; J. Jeremias 1971, 40 – 43; Pöhlmann (1976) 1978, 29; Grant (1977) 1992, 17 – 18; Crossan (1991) 1993, XII; de Jonge 1991, 55 – 75; Becker (1995) 1996, 124 – 154; Kreplin 2001, 226 – 234. 268; Roloff 2001, 466 – 467; Abrahamowitz 2002, 166; Kaz¦n 2002; Dunn 2003, 383 – 387; Bell 2007, 66 – 114; Niemand 2007, 15; Keener 2009, 238 – 255.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

120

A critical examination of previous proposals

Therefore I have to conclude that, if these texts are interpreted correctly, that is, in their historical context, the testimonies of the canonical gospels about Jesus and Josephus’ account of the Jewish rebels against Rome 66 – 70 (74) are closely related by the common expectation of the imminent coming of the “kingdom of god.” In addition in both groups of texts the fundamental expectation of the imminence of the kingdom of god contained important elements of liberation of the Jewish people (similarly Allison 2010, 75, footnote 195). Therefore it is difficult to defend the hypothesis that Jesus with this proclamation of the imminence of the kingdom of god should be regarded as original.

3.8 Healings and other miracles Jesus’ miracles have also been regarded as characteristic for his project, and so perhaps as an original part of his activity.69 According to the canonical gospels, Jesus was not only an eschatological prophetical preacher, an ethical teacher, an interpreter of the Mosaic Law, but also a practitioner of miracles, a miracle worker, a “thaumaturg” or a “magician.”70 This appears not only from the canonical and apocryphal gospels, but also from the Testimonium Flavianum, Josephus’ famous testimony to Jesus, a text which had frequently been rejected as a genuine text by Josephus (cf. Bilde 1981), but which is now regarded as genuine by a growing number of scholars.71 Josephus’ text begins as follows: “About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who wrought surprising feats …”.72 Most modern interpreters accept this text as authentic, except perhaps the subordinate clause: “… if indeed one ought to call him a man.” Jesus’ exorcisms, healings and other miracles are certainly a feature that distinguishes him. They clearly separate him from most other contemporary, comparable Jewish figures such as the Teacher of Righteousness, Rabbi Hillel, John the Baptist, Judas the Galilean, Theudas, The Egyptian Prophet, Jesus Son of Ananiah, Rabbi Jochanan Ben Zakkai, Rabbi Akiba and Simon Bar Kochba (cf. ch. 5.3.2).73 Geza Vermes, however, has pointed at two miracle workers in 69 Cf. van der Loos 1965; Theissen 1974; M. Smith 1978; Kee 1983; (1986) 1990; Kjær Nielsen 1987; Stanton 1989, 273; Twelftree 1993; 1999; 2011; Meier, 2, 1994, 509 – 1038; Davies 1995; Theissen – Merz 1996, 256 – 284; Avalos 1999; Eve 2002; 2009; Bell 2007, 66 – 114; Hengel – Schwemer 2007, 461 – 497; Freeman (2009) 2011, 25; Allison 2010, 17 – 20; Berger 2010; Cotter 2010; Kollmann 2011. 70 Cf. M. Smith 1978; Holm¦n 2011; Kollmann 2011. 71 Cf. Meier, 1, 1991, 56 – 88; Theissen – Merz 1996, 75 – 82; Bardet 2002; Ebner (2003) 2007, 31 – 32; Ulrich 2009. 72 Ant. 18.63 in the translation of Louis H. Feldman, LCL, IX, (1965) 1969, 48 – 49. 73 Eric Eve 2002 examines all texts in the contemporary Jewish literature referring to miracles and

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Healings and other miracles

121

the rabbinical literature, Honi and Hanina Ben Dosa (Vermes 1973, 69 – 80) but the traditions about their thaumaturgical activity is much weaker than that which we have about Jesus. Something similar applies to contemporary, comparable HellenisticRoman figures, e. g., Apollonius of Tyana who came from eastern Asia Minor and was a Neopythagorean philosopher, teacher, healer and performer of other miracles. He worked simultaneously with Jesus (cf. ch. 5.4), but he is known only from a comprehensive biography written about 220 CE by the Greek writer Philostratus (cf. ch. 5.4).74 Therefore Graham H. Twelftree can rightly conclude his large and, in its ideological tendency, conservative study of Jesus’ miracles as follows: He cannot be seen only, or even primarily, as a wise sage or as a wandering Cynic or as a Jewish holy man. He was first and foremost a prolific miracle worker of great power and popularity, expressing in his activity the powerful eschatological presence of God (1999, 358).

However, these miracles of Jesus have been interpreted very differently in the course of the history of Jesus research. In pre-modern times, that is, before the European Enlightenment, the accounts in the gospels of Jesus’ miracles were usually understood and interpreted literally, since it was taken for granted that the divine Jesus was able to break the laws of nature. From the Enlightenment to well into the 20th century, however, Jesus research was very uneasy, embarrassed and hesitant regarding the interpretation of the gospel accounts on the miracles of Jesus. One tendency was to interpret these texts rationalistically, either by postulating a natural explanation for these seemingly supernatural events, or simply by trying to explain them away, for example by claiming that they were later Christian “inventions” aimed at illustrating the divinity of Jesus. Since the middle of the 20th century this rationalistic interpretation has been replaced by a more and more common tendency towards interpreting the gospels’ accounts of Jesus’ exorcisms, healings and other miracles in their historical context. This intention implies that the miracles of Jesus should be interpreted in the context of the ancient world views, in conjunction with the stories in the Jewish Bible about the miracles of Moses, Elijah and Elisha (cf. Eve 2002), and in connection with the eschatological expectations of early Judaism, first and foremost the expectation of the “kingdom of god.” he concludes that all other Jewish texts are generally less occupied by healings than the canonical gospels (2002, 378). In addition he concludes that among earlier and contemporary Jewish miracle doers Jesus is most closely related to Moses, Elijah and Elisah (2002, 385). 74 Jean-Louis Bernard airs the uncommon point of view that some of Jesus’ miracles have been borrowed from Apollonius (1977, 262 – 263). Bernard presupposes partly the existence of an old, living and reliable oral, tradition on Apollonius long before Philostratus and his written sources, in particular Damis, partly that the canonical gospels were written as late as sometime in the 2nd century CE.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

122

A critical examination of previous proposals

The starting point for this historical interpretation is those texts in the canonical gospels that link the exorcisms of Jesus with Satan, who, also under the name of Beelzebub, was considered to be the king of the evil spirits (cf. Matt. 12.22 – 29 (par.)).75 As I have demonstrated in ch. 3.6, the synoptic gospels interpret Jesus’ public activity as a battle between Jesus as the representative of the Jewish god and Satan as this deity’s salvation historical adversary. This view emerges most clearly in the story of Satan’s temptation of Jesus (Matt. 4.1 – 11 (par.)), in the important text in Lk. 10.18 describing Satan’s fall from heaven, and in the quarrel between Jesus and the Pharisees concerning the interpretation of the power behind Jesus’ healings: Did his power come from Beelzebub, that is, Satan, or did it come from the Jewish deity? (Matt. 12.22 – 28 (par.)). By the means of this contextual approach scholars have gradually reached the understanding and interpretation, that the gospels perceive Jesus‘ miracles as a fully integrated part of his entire eschatological project.76 In addition it is also important to keep in mind that this material on Jesus’ miracles in the canonical (and apocryphal) gospels is quite overwhelming when compared with other texts about healers and miracles workers, early Jewish as well as Hellenistic-Roman texts.77 The second most important observation regarding Jesus’ exorcisms, healings and other miracles is their close relationship with his proclamation of the imminence of god’s kingdom. The interpretation of this connection ought to be based on Matt. 12.28 (par.): “…but if it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out the devils, then be sure the kingdom of God has already come upon you.” On the background of these observations I draw the preliminary conclusion that these texts indicate that the synoptic gospels (Matthew and Luke) as well as, presumably, the historical Jesus not only proclaimed the imminence of the kingdom of god, but that they were also convinced that this kingdom had already arrived in some way, and now manifested itself in Jesus’ healing activity. This interpretation of Matt. 12.28 (par.) can be claimed to be supported by Lk. 17.20 – 21. According to this text, Jesus answered the question of the Pharisees about the time of the arrival of the kingdom of god: “You cannot tell 75 Cf. in particular Weiss (1892) 1964, 88 – 95; Twelftree 1999, 266 – 277; Evans 2003; 2009; Bell 2007, 66 – 114; Allison 2010, 17 – 20. 98 – 116; Bock 2011. 76 Thus for example Flusser (1968) 1975, 91; Vermes 1973; Kjær Nielsen 1987, 39; Evans 1995, 8. 213 – 250; Eve 2009. Morton Smith (1978) takes his starting point in the interpretation of Jesus’ miracles which was apparently formulated among Jesus’ adversaries who regarded him as a magician or a sorcerer. 77 Eve 2002 illustrates this fact with regard to the Jewish material: The Dead Sea Scrolls, the OT apocryphal works and the OT Pseudepigrapha together with the rabbinical material contain almost no examples of miracle stories, and Philo and Josephus have only a few cases. The material from the Greco-Roman world is more comprehensive: Philostratus has a few miracle stories about Apollonius from Tyana, while the inscriptions from Epidaurus, the sanctuary of the Greek healer god, Asclepius, on Peloponnesus, contain an impressive number of cases, cf. R. Herzog 1931; Kee 1983; (1986) 1990; Cotter 1999; 2006.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus’ authority and status

123

by observation when the Kingdom of God comes. You cannot say, ‘Look, here it is,’ or ‘There it is!’ For the Kingdom of God is among you” (cf. Noack 1967). Almost the same view appears in Lk. 4.16 – 30 describing the beginning of Jesus’ public activity in the synagogue in Nazareth. According to this text, Jesus quotes Isa. 61.1 – 2 describing a person who is authorized by the “spirit” of the Jewish deity. This person is sent by the Jewish god “to announce good news to the poor,” and he restores “sight for the blind ….” (Lk. 4.18). After his reading Jesus is said to comment upon the quotation with the following words: “’Today’, he said, ‘in your hearing this text has come true’” (Lk. 4.21).78 These three texts thus indicate that the particular character of these traditions about Jesus seem to insist on this unique combination of the eschatological future and eschatological present. Therefore many scholars believe that this particular combination is an adequate answer to the question of the originality of the historical Jesus: The kingdom of god was so imminent that it had already become present in Jesus’ exorcisms and other healings. In other words, the idea is that the eschatological battle had already begun with Jesus’ healings understood as his fight against Satan and his demons. I therefore have to conclude that in a great part of recent research on the miracles of Jesus, a crucial importance is ascribed to these miracles, and that they are interpreted as an essential part of Jesus’ eschatological public enterprise.79 Perhaps this interpretation even allows us to describe Jesus’ eschatological miracles as a distinctive feature of his originality?

3.9 Jesus’ authority and status This striking feature, that Jesus, according to several important texts, linked his own person to his proclamation of the imminence of the kingdom of god, especially to its current realization, namely in his healings, necessarily raises the question of Jesus’ view of his own rank and status.80 These texts are also better sources for a clarification of this issue than the so-called messianic titles,81 that the gospels associate with Jesus: “Messiah,” “Son of David,” “Son 78 Most exegetes regard this text as editorial or redactional, that is, as a secondary element belonging to a later tradition or to the editor of the Gospel of Luke (cf., e. g., Conzelmann 1954). However, I ask whether Conzelmann’s hypothesis about “Die Mitte der Zeit” as such a secondary, later, editorial idea should not be discarded and replaced by the interpretation presented above. 79 Cf. Twelftree 1999, 357 – 359; 2011, 2546 – 2547. 80 Cf., e. g., J. Jeremias 1971, 239 – 284; E.P. Sanders 1985, 319; Stuhlmacher 1992, 107 – 125; B.F. Meyer 1979; Theissen – Merz 1996, 447 – 492; 2003, 26 – 29; Kreplin 2001; 2011; Hengel – Schwemer 2007, 498 – 548; Wedderburn 2010, 275 – 321. 81 Cf. Cullmann (1957) 1963; Hahn (1963) 1966; Moule 1977; Hengel (1975) 1977; Frederiksen (1988) 2000; Casey 1991; Karrer 1991; 1998; Kreplin 2001; 2011; Hurtado 2003; Grindheim 2012.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

124

A critical examination of previous proposals

of God,” “Lord,” “Master,” “Saviour,” “Son of Man,” etc. It is therefore not surprising that many scholars find that it is a characteristic feature of the tradition of Jesus that it ascribes a crucial role to him.82 However, it is not surprising that Jesus dominates Christian texts. It is likely that the Pauline-Johannine interpretation of Jesus – as a pre-existent divine being, who in the “fullness of time” (Gal. 4.4) was “incarnated” as a human being, suffered death, rose from the dead, ascended to heaven in order there to regain his exalted place at the right hand of the only true god – reflects the ideas of the Jesus movement after his death rather than traditions that go back to the days before Jesus’ death. Therefore it is other images of and ideas about Jesus we are tracking, when we try to work our way back to the historical Jesus. Besides the striking texts mentioned above in ch. 3.7 – 8, we can get some help in ch. 3.4 about Jesus’ ethical teaching and in ch. 3.6 about his emancipatory enterprise. For all these texts are marked by the common trait that they emphatically place Jesus himself, that is, his person, in the most central place in their stories.83 In what follows I intend to call attention to other features pointing in the same direction. In his famous article from 1954 about the need to resume work on the historical Jesus Ernst Käsemann remarks that he finds the clearest testimony of Jesus’ originality precisely in the extraordinary authority with which Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, pronounces the so-called antitheses: “You have heard that our forefathers were told,.… But what I tell you is this: …” (Matt. 5.21 – 22, cf. 5.27 – 48). According to Käsemann, this very wording places Jesus in a position that is higher than that of Moses, and this was unheard of in contemporary Judaism: Wer sich aber Autorität neben und gegen Moses beansprucht, hat sich faktisch über Moses gestellt und aufgehört, ein Rabbi zu sein, dem ja immer nur von Moses abgeleitete Autorität zukommt … Dazu gibt es keine Parallelen auf jüdischem Boden und kann es sich nicht geben. Denn der Jude, der tut, was hier geschieht, hat sich aus dem Verband des Judentums gelöst oder – er bringt die messianische Thora und ist der Messias.84

Käsemann finds the same sort of “un-Jewish” authority in a number of other texts such as Mk. 2.23 – 28 (par.); 7.1 – 15 (par.) and Matt. 11.12 – 13 (par.).85 In these texts as well as those mentioned in the previous chapter Jesus’ person is given an excessive weight. 82 Cf. Merklein (1983) 1989, 145 – 171, in particular p. 165; Flusser (1997) 2007, 175 – 177. 83 Cf. Merklein (1983) 1989, 151 – 152; Flusser (1997) 2007, 175. Cadbury ((1937) 1962, 70) points at Mk. 1.21 – 28, where Jesus’ listeners in the synagogue in Caphernaum experience Jesus’ power in the unique “authority” with which he taught and healed (cf. verses 22 and 27, cf. also ch. 3.2). 84 Käsemann (1954) 1965, 1, 206. For a critique of this point of view, see E.P. Sanders 1990, 7 – 12. 85 Käsemann (1954) 1965, I, 207 – 210. The same position is taken by Martin Hengel, who is speaking of Jesus’ “charismatic authority” and his “unique messianic authority” (1968, 74); Schneemelcher 1981, 65 – 66; Roloff (2000) 2007, 119 (cf. ch. 3.2).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus’ authority and status

125

In his classic study of Jesus’ parables, which by most scholars are considered to belong to the oldest layers of tradition about Jesus (cf. ch. 3.5), Joachim Jeremias reaches the same conclusion: “… alle Gleichnisse Jesu zwingen den Hörer, zu seiner Person und seiner Sendung Stellung zu nehmen” ((1947) 1958, 194). Also Rudolf Bultmann emphasizes Jesus’ personal significance and authority, for example in relation to the Jewish Bible: Auf jeden Fall aber zeigen die Verse eine selbstverständlich-souveräne Haltung gegenüber dem AT, eine Haltung, die kritisch zwischen wichtigem und unwichtigem, dem wesentlichen und dem Gleichgültigen unterscheidet“ ((1958) 1961, 15).

It is these and similar texts – and they include material in the oldest text layers – that forces otherwise sober scholars to talk about the historical Jesus’ towering self-awareness.86 Other texts bearing witness to Jesus’ extraordinary closeness to his Jewish god point in the same direction. Matt. 11.27 is a clear expression of this close relationship between Jesus and the Jewish deity : “Everything is entrusted to me by my father, and no one knows the Son but the Father, and no one knows the Father but the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” This text sounds almost Johannaic although it appears to be a combination of Q-material and particular Matthaean material. Another strong expression of the solidarity between Jesus and the Jewish god can be found in the text according to which Jesus calls this god abba, which is an Aramaic phrase that describes the child’s usual word for “father.”87 This word as well as the word amen, which is also a Greek transcription of an Aramaic word meaning “surely” or “certainly,” are considered by many scholars as linguistic evidence of Jesus’ originality.88 These features in our sources may indicate that both the historical Jesus and his followers from an early date seem to have given Jesus a very strong authority and an unusual status in relation to Moses and the Jewish deity. A good example of how scholars focus on this question is James H. Charlesworth. In an overview 86 Thus for instance Klausner (1907) 1952, 566; Pöhlmann (1976) 1978, 28; Charlesworth (1988) 1989, 131 – 164. 165 – 166; B.F. Meyer 1979, 351 – 352; Schweizer (1994) 1996; Müller 1996, 176; Kreplin 2001, 198 – 271; Roloff 2001, 466; Pitre 2005, 505 – 506; Keener 2009, 268 – 282. 87 Cf. Mk. 14.36 (cf. ch. 3.4).This Aramaic word does not appear in the synoptic parallels in Matt. 26.39 and Lk. 22.42. This interpretation can be found in, e. g., Kittel (ThWNT); Bornkamm (1956) 1960, 118; Bultmann (1958) 1961, 24; J. Jeremias 1966, 15 – 67. 145 – 148; 1971, 45; Pöhlmann (1976) 1978, 29; Merklein (1983) 1989, 83 – 84; Kreplin 2001, 218 – 219; Dunn 2003, 711 – 724; Hengel – Schwemer 2007, 457 – 458; Barnett 2009, 254; Keener 2009, 271 – 272. 88 Thus in particular J. Jeremias (1954) 1966, 148 – 152; 1971, 43 – 44, but also, e. g., Käsemann (1954) 1965, I, 209 – 210.Against this interpretation, e. g., Berger 1970.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

126

A critical examination of previous proposals

of “consensus” in Jesus research in 1994, comprising 19 points, Charlesworth writes: “For the fifteenth, nothing is as clear as the fact that Jesus was recognized as unusual because of the power and authority, he claimed.”89 It is important to notice that we arrive at this insight before we even have mentioned the messianic or christological titles which in the canonical gospels are used about Jesus (cf. the references in my footnote 3,81). Even if we critically evaluate all or nearly all of these titles to be secondary, the features considered above force us to recognize that we cannot escape the question of Jesus’ authority and status, i. e., Jesus’ self-estimation as well as his earthly followers’ view of his role and project.90 Personally I am inclined to consider and, partially, to accept Käsemann’s interpretation of the antitheses in the Sermon on the Mount and the other texts mentioned above.91 These texts may be interpreted as one of several signs of Jesus’ own messianic self-consciousness. Here I understand the “messiah” (i. e., the “anointed one”) as the Jewish god’s chosen representative, spokesman and agent on the same level as Moses. This “anointed one” may be a prophet as well as a king or a priest.92 This issue relates to Jesus’ own role in the “project,” he launched with his public appearance. In his article from 1954 Käsemann emphasizes that the gospels describe the authority with which Jesus appeared, preached and taught, as “unusual” ((1954) 1965, I, 206). Numerous other scholars have noticed the same trait and associated it with the gospels’ evidence of Jesus’ towering selfconsciousness and of his exceptionally close relationship to the Jewish deity. We know of no other Jews in the ancient world, about whom such things are told, neither the Hasmonean princes, the Teacher of Righteousness, Judas the Galilean, John the Baptist nor Simon Bar Kochba, just to name the most prominent among the contemporary Jewish personalities comparable to Jesus.93 89 Charlesworth 1994, 12. Also Rudolf Bultmann emphasizes that it is Jesus himself who is the decisive sign signalling that the time for the revelation of god’s kingdom has arrived ((1958) 1961, 6, 8). 90 Thus also Kreplin 2001, 271: “… Jesus hatte ein messianisches Selbstverständnis, aber ohne Messiastitel” (a quotation from Theissen – Merz 1996, 468). 91 However, the antitheses can also be interpreted otherwise, and Käsemann’s interpretation of these and of Jesus’ messianic self-consciousness is therefore rejected by E.P. Sanders 1990, 7 – 12. 92 Cf. the references in my footnotes 1,35; 2,55 and 3,81. The following scholars are inclined to think that Jesus claimed to be the Messiah: Klausner (1907) 1952, 569; Manson (1953) 1961; Käsemann (1954) 1965, I, 206 – 211; E.P. Sanders 1985, 235; de Jonge 1998, 145; Pitre 2005, 505 – 507, 513; Hengel – Schwemer 2007, 461 – 548; Barnett 2009, VII – VIII. 257 – 264; Bird 2009; Keener 2009, 256 – 267; Kreplin 2011, 2508. Theissen – Merz (2003, 26 – 29) are more reluctant. The hypothesis, that Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, is rejected, e. g., Bultmann; Flusser (1968) 1975, 96. 124 (with reservations); Becker (1995) 1996, 234 – 249, in particular p. 249. 93 Bar Kochba is the contemporary Jew who with regard to messianic features comes closest to Jesus. According to the rabbinical literature (the Jerusalemite Talmud, the Treaty Ta’anith 4,8), Rabbi Akiba publicly pointed Simon Bar Kochba out as the Messiah (cf. Num 24.17). But our sources on Bar Kochba are so few and so poor that it is impossible to decide whether this

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus’ authority and status

127

It is obviously in the context of these testimonies of Jesus’ extraordinary authority and his particularly close relationship with the Jewish god that we should judge the so-called messianic titles like “Messiah,” “Son of Man,” “Son of David,” “Lord,” “Son of God,” “Saviour,” etc. In other parts of the contemporary Jewish literature such titles are also used about unusual Jewish figures like those mentioned above, such as the “messiah” of the coming Jewish saviour king of the Psalms of Solomon (number 17), whereas Simon Bar Kochba is called the “star.” The expression the “Son of Man” is used as a messianic title about the coming saviour and redeemer in the First Book of Enoch and Fourth Book of Ezra.94 In the canonical gospels these titles and several others, e. g., the returned Moses or Elijah95 and the (Lord’s) “servant” (Isa. 53),96 are used about Jesus. This diversity of titles can also be interpreted as a testimony of several attempts to put into words the impressions of authority experienced by some of Jesus’ contemporaries and by his later followers when they believed that they had met Jesus again. It seems to me to be obvious that these experiences represent the starting point for all the (later) attempts to formulate the significance and importance of Jesus ending with the recognition and confession of Jesus as the pre-existent son of god who from the divine heavenly world had descended to earth where he was incarnated with the divine purpose of providing salvation for men, where he died, rose from the dead and returned to heaven (cf. Bilde 2008a, 264 – 268; 2008b). Based on the review in this chapter of texts about and scholarly interpretations of Jesus’ authority and status I conclude that a significant portion of the material, including some of the most ancient sources about Jesus, testify to the interpretation that the historical Jesus seems to have acted and taught with an authority that far exceeds the authority which in contemporary Jewish sources are attributed to figures comparable to Jesus (cf. Bilde 2008a, 264 – 268; 2008b). The historical Jesus thus seems to have ascribed to himself an exceptional function, role and status, which he presumably believed had been awarded to him by the Jewish deity. identification of Akiba’s was accepted by Simon and won general support (cf. Schäfer (1981) 2003, 51 – 77, cf. ch. 5.3.3.14). 94 Müller 1972; 1984; 2008b; Casey 2007; J.J. Collins 2011. In recent years Italian scholars such as Gabriele Boccaccini have argued that the First Book of Enoch in its entirety was composed before the time of Jesus, and that Jesus might have received his ideas about the Son of Man from the “Enochian Judaism” behind this work which used the expression “The Son of Man” as a mesianic title, cf. Bertalotto 2010, 117 – 153. Therefore these Italian scholars believe that Jesus, too, used this title as a messianic title, cf. Sacchi (2000) 2004, 492 – 494. 95 Cf. Teeple 1957 (Moses); J.A. Weaver 2007 (Elijah). Meier 1991 – 2009 highlights Jesus as the eschatological prophet in the style of Elijah (Meier, 4, 2009, 655 – 658). See also Abrahamowitz 2002, 238 – 239. 253; Allison 2010, 267 – 274. David Catchpole uses the expression the “ultimate prophet” (2006, 305 – 306). 96 Thus Wolff (1942) 1984; Leivestad 1982, 179 – 183; de Jonge 1991; Stuhlmacher 1996; Bilde 2008a, 268 – 272.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

128

A critical examination of previous proposals

3.10 Conclusions The review of a comprehensive and, I believe, representative selection of the proposals presented in previous research to answer the question about Jesus’ possible originality has thus demonstrated: First, that some of these answers are purely religious and dogmatic (cf. ch. 3.3), since they just repeat the traditional Christian claim that Jesus is the only true mediator between the one and only true god, on the one hand, and the Jewish people and humanity, on the other. Second, that some of the other responses referring to Jesus’ authority, radicalism or “newness” (cf. ch. 3.2) are of a purely postulating character and actually empty of content. Therefore I describe these answers as modernizing translations, metaphorisations or interpretations of the previous dogmatic answer (cf. ch. 3.3). Third, that another part of the registered responses lack a solid base in our sources. At the same time they may rather be described as determined by the leading ideas of the time of the interpretation, because the content of their answers to the question of Jesus’ originality has been shown to depend on each interpretative period’s ideas about what is ideal and unique. This means that these attempts just repeat the illusions and failures of the liberal theology demonstrated by Albert Schweitzer ((1906) 1966). This applies especially to the interpretations of Jesus’ originality as consisting in his extraordinary personality, his religious genius, his capacity as an ethical teacher and as an ethical example and model for other human beings (cf. ch. 3.2; 3.4). The same is true of many of the ideas of liberation which modern exegetes believe they have found in the material about Jesus (ch. 3.6), since the “liberation” which they claim to have found to be characteristic of Jesus’ activity to a lesser extent seems to refer to Jesus’ historical context and rather appear to be characteristic of the prevailing tendencies of the scholars’ own time. At the same time there seems to be little doubt that “liberation” really was a central feature of the historical Jesus’ activities, but that this concept may also be put as a heading over most of the other eschatological prophets and messianic pretenders who emerged in Jewish Palestine in the Hellenistic-Roman period (cf. ch. 5.3.2). Fourth, in ch. 3.5, we could note that even the parabolic speech which seems to be so distinctive of the gospels’ images of Jesus could not be claimed to be original in an absolute sense. On the other hand, the canonical gospels’ testimonies of Jesus as a narrator of parables, other folk tales and proverbs actually leaps to the eye, and their very quantity, to say nothing about their quality as narratives, separates Jesus from the comparable figures in Judaism in the Hellenistic-Roman period. Fifth, our studies have demonstrated how important and significant are the canonical gospels’ traditions about Jesus’ exorcisms, healings, resurrections and other miracles (ch. 3.8). On the one hand, they are certainly not unique in

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Conclusions

129

the sense that nothing similar is told about other figures both in early Judaism and in the rest of the Hellenistic-Roman world. Still, Jesus’ peculiar combination of these miracles with his crucial proclamation of the imminence of the kingdom of god is certainly unique. Therefore, in agreement with several other scholars, I tend to describe it as an original feature, when Jesus in this way combines the present and the future when it comes to god’s kingdom. According to the historical Jesus, the eschatological kingdom of the Jewish god had not only been brought very close to the present, but in a way, it had already arrived, because it manifested itself in Jesus’ exorcisms, his other healings, his resurrections and other miracles. With these wonders the scripture could already be claimed to have come true (cf. Lk. 4.18 – 21), and with them Satan and his demons could be claimed to have been already defeated (cf. Matt. 12.28 (par.); Lk. 10.18). Sixth, something similar can be said to apply to a part of Jesus’ ethical teaching and admonitions (ch. 3.4). Here as well we found that a few of Jesus’ ethical teachings seem to be virtually without parallels and analogies. I am here referring primarily to Jesus’ command to love one’s enemies, his emphasis on the necessity of forgiveness (cf. Matt. 6.12 (par.); 18.21 – 35) and his uncompromising rejection of divorce. Against this background I feel forced to conclude that, although most of the previously proposed answers to the question of the possible originality of Jesus must be claimed to be inadequate, there are good reasons to believe that the afore-mentioned combination of Jesus’ eschatological proclamation of the kingdom of god and his activity as exorcist, healer and miracle-worker may be claimed to be unique. The same applies to the mentioned parts of Jesus’ ethical teachings to which it has been impossible to find analogies, and, to some extent, to his activity as a storyteller. These findings imply another one, namely, that a substantial part of the evidence in the available sources seems to demonstrate that, with time, not only Jesus’ adherents, but perhaps also Jesus himself seem to have ascribed to him(self) an unprecedented authority and status (ch. 3.9, cf. ch. 4.10). Thus we have also established the foundation for the hypothesis that Jesus – at least towards the end of his career – came to see himself as the chosen and anointed spokesman of the Jewish god, the promised eschatological prophet (the returned Moses or Elijah), or the foretold Messiah.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

4. A revised reconstruction of the eschatological project of the historical Jesus 4.1 Introduction The answer to the question of Jesus’ possible originality, which will be described, analysed and decided in ch. 4 – 5, is not a new and independent one, but a variant, or rather a clarifying interpretation of the already given responses summarized in ch. 2.3 and 3.5 – 8. This answer assumes that Jesus did not break with Judaism, as traditional Christianity as well as the liberal and dialectical theologians believed. Nor did Jesus reject the Law of Moses or the temple in Jerusalem. Instead this answer contends that Jesus may rather have suggested a project to renew, reform, “restore” and reestablish Judaism.1 Possibly Jesus perceived himself as an eschatological prophet, perhaps as the prophet predicted in Deut. 18.15. Many in early Judaism interpreted this eschatological prophet as a returned Moses or Elijah who should prepare, purify and renew the Jewish people immediately prior to its eschatological redemption.2 Moreover it was commonly believed

1 Thus an impressive number of scholars in the third period of modern Jesus research: B.F. Meyer 1979, 128. 220 – 221; E.P. Sanders 1985; (1993) 1995; Frederiksen (1988) 2000, 127; Stanton 1989, 274; Wright (1992) 1993; 1996; Evans 1997; Allison 1998, 141 – 145; 2010, 157; Theissen (2000) 2004, 46 – 47; Aune – Stewart 2001; Meier, 3, 2001, 148 – 154. 616; Bryan 2002; Hirschberg 2004, 103 – 105; Dennis 2006; Levinson 2006; Horsley 2008b, 83 – 95; 2012; Casey 2010, 234; 312; Bauckham 2011. For the terminology of “restoration” I refer to Ackroyd 1968; Clements 1998; Bryan 2002; Pitre 2005; Crane 2008 (despite its title, Israel’s Restoration, this work is a purely text critical examination of the manuscripts to Ezekiel 36 – 39); Knoppers 2009. It ought to be noticed that Ackroyd 1968; Clements 1998; Knoppers 2009 use the word restoration about the historical rebuilding of the city of Jerusalem after 539 BCE when the exiled Judaic Jews in Babylon received the permit of the Persian king to return to Judaea. The other scholars mentioned above use the same word to describe the eschatological reestablishment of the Jewish people. Beavis explicitly rejects this interpretation of Jesus’ proclamation of the imminent kingdom: ”Jesus did not subscribe to the kind of nationalistic, restaurationist theology attributed to him by some scholars” (2006, 98). As for my own methodology I refer to ch. 1.4. 2 This eschatological purification and renewal of the Jewish people with a view to the reestablishment of Israel, “the restoration of Israel,” was also observed by some earlier scholars such as Caird (1965, 15); Ackroyd 1968. However, it is only in the Jesus-research of the recent three to four decades that this subject has become a main theme, cf. B.F. Meyer 1979, 197 – 198; E.P. Sanders 1985, 59 – 119; Horsley (1987) 1993, 167 – 284 (193 – 208); 1994, 84 – 90; Wright (1992) 1993; 1996; Tan 1997; Evans 1997; Aune – Stewart 2001; Meier, 3, 2001; Scott 2001 (particularly important); Talmon 2001; Bryan 2002; Theissen 2003a, 39; Pitre 2005; Bird 2006, 26 – 45; Freyne 2007, 110 – 111; Keener 2009, 164. The interpretation of Jesus as an eschatological prophet in the style of

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Introduction

131

that this redemption would follow the same model as the Jewish people’s redemption from bondage in Egypt as described in Exodus. In this way the eschatological salvation of the Jewish people would repeat the pattern from of its original and founding redemption (cf. Allison 2010). Therefore Jesus’ focus on his own role and significance as the final eschatological herald of God’s kingdom also belongs to this context.3 This focus includes Jesus’ predictions of his impending death and its possible saving importance. The same is true of Jesus’ words about his institution of a “new covenant” (Lk. 22.20) and his possible allusions to Isaiah’s ideas of a righteous “remnant” of the Jewish people (cf. especially Isa. 10.20 – 21). Finally scholars like Brant Pitre (2005) and Michael Bird (2006) suggest that the historical Jesus – in precisely this same eschatological context – may have been talking about an approach and a mission to the non-Jewish nations, the gentiles. It goes without saying that this “particularistic” and “ethnic” interpretation of the historical Jesus militates against the traditional interpretations of him. As mentioned earlier these interpretations emphasize that Jesus broke with Judaism, whether, as the liberal theologians, they focus on universalism and individualism as opposed to particularism and popular culture, or, as the dialectical theologians, they underline the liberation from the Jewish “casuistic” understanding of and from its “slavery” under the Mosaic law, or they presume that Jesus replaced the ethnic entity with a concept of the “family.”4 In this chapter I intend to review and reinterpret those texts in the synoptic gospels which are associated with the problems listed above. I intend to argue that several of the texts, which the liberal and the dialectical theologians believed unequivocally pointed in the direction of Jesus’ departure from contemporary Judaism, can just as well, and perhaps even better, be interpreted in the opposite way, namely, as expressions of what is described here as Jesus’ eschatological restoration of the Jewish people of twelve tribes.

Moses or Elijah is not common, but it appears, at least partly, in, e. g., Witherington 1999, 246 – 292. 3 Aune – Stewart enumerate six other important elements belonging to this eschatological tradition: 1) the (holy) land, 2) the (chosen) king/kingship, 3) the gathering of the Jewish people (including the return from the exile), 4) Jerusalem and the temple, 5) paradise and 6) cosmos (cf. 2001, 175 – 177). 4 Thus Hellerman 2007. Kearney – Zeitz (2009, 195 – 200) limit themselves to present a fragmentary overview of selected texts and secondary literature. They make no attempt at reconstructing a historical Jesus and thus locate themselves in the group of traditionally Christian interpretations of Jesus (cf. op.cit., pp. 197 – 198).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

132

A revised reconstruction of the eschatological project

4.2 The appointment of the twelve selected envoys5 According to Mk. 3.13 – 18 (par.), Jesus appointed twelve named adherents who were called “apostles,” i. e., envoys, because they were instructed to travel around in Jewish Palestine to repeat Jesus’ message of the imminent kingdom of god and to continue his healings and exorcisms. This institution of the twelve envoys does not appear often in the canonical gospels. Yet it should be regarded as a historical fact, since Paul is aware of it (1 Cor. 15.5) and since Acts 1.15 – 26 in detail describes the election of a new, twelfth member to replace the traitor Judas. In earlier research it was not uncommon to interpret this institution of the twelve envoys as a late and secondary phenomenon which the Jesus movement had “invented” in order to prove that the early Christian idea of travelling apostles came from Jesus himself.6 In the third period of modern Jesus research this interpretation has been abandoned as weakly motivated, and it has been replaced by the seemingly more “conservative” view that the number of twelve goes back to the historical Jesus.7 The best argument for this “new” interpretation of “the twelve” is Matt. 19.28 (par.): “Jesus replied, ‘Truly I tell you: In the world that is to be, when the Son of Man is seated on his glorious throne, you also will sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel’.” This translation from the Revised English Bible (the OSB) is not accurate. In the Greek text there is no word for “the world that is to be”. Instead we have palingenesia (meaning “rebirth”). Thus the translation of this word is decisive. We cannot just translate literally : “… in the rebirth …,”8 because something seems to be implied or presupposed, but what? The presented English translation of the OSB seems to me to be prejudiced by some Christian idea of the eschatological coming “kingdom” as a “spiritual” entity, and definitely not a “territorial” or an “ethnic” one. However, the correct translation can only be found in the context of this crucial word, and this context is unambiguously “ethnic.” The twelve envoys and their twelve thrones do not belong to “the world that is to be,” but to the 5 Cf. Klein 1961; Meye 1968; E.P. Sanders 1985, 95 – 106; Meier 3, 2001, 125 – 197; Allison 2010, 67 – 76; Green 2011, 444 – 446; Horsley 2012, 120 – 122. 6 Thus, e. g., Wellhausen 1905, 112; Klein 1961 (very detailed). 7 Cf. Weiss (1892) 1964, 122 – 123; Ruager 1975, 152 – 161. 165; E.P. Sanders 1985, 95 – 106; Hampel 1990, 140 – 151; Theissen – Merz 1996, 200 – 201; Evans 1997; Meier, 3, 2001, 125 – 197 (very detailed); Roose 2004. 30 – 95. 310; Freeman (2009) 2011, 28; Green 2011, 2444. Meye 1968 examines the relationship between Jesus and the twelve in the Gospel of Mark, and he concludes that the twelve are well-established in Mark as well as in the NT as a whole. However, he demonstrates no interest in the interpretation of the significance of the twelve as appointed by the historical Jesus. 8 The Roman Catholic Holy Bible from 1914 translates palingenesia as “regeneration,” and this translation is just as imprecise as that of the OSB.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

The appointment of the twelve selected envoys

133

holy land of Israel. Therefore the words “the world that is to be” should be replaced by either “Israel” or “the Jewish people.” Accordingly a more contextual and therefore also a more precise translation of the sentence in question is the following: “In the rebirth or regeneration …,” and it can paraphrased as follows: “When Israel is reborn, ….”.9 The translation of the OSB must therefore be described as a piece of Christian apologetic intending to oust the ethnic-Jewish perspective of Jesus’ project and to replace it with a “universalistic” perspective which is consistent with the Great Commission in Matt. 28.19: “Go therefore to all nations and make them my disciples….”10 My own interpretation and translation of Matt. 19.28 seems to be supported by Matt. 10.5. This text relates that when Jesus sent his twelve envoys out on their “mission” to the cities of Jewish Palestine, he delivered a speech which begins as follows: “These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: ‘Do not take the road to gentile lands, and do not enter any Samaritan town; but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel’.” These two texts point clearly to the interpretation that Jesus’ eschatological project was restricted to the Palestinian Jewish territory and to the Jewish people. Matt. 10.5 – 6 and 19.28 point in the same direction as such texts and Lk. 1.67 – 79; 19.11; 24.21 and Acts 1.6. Of course this “new” “ethnic” understanding of the historical Jesus and his project is not at all new, but has been accepted by critical scholars for generations, in particular Reimarus, David Friedrich Strauss, Julius Wellhausen, Johannes Weiss ((1982) 1964, 122) and Albert Schweitzer. It has, however, far-reaching perspectives which have been difficult to accept for most NT scholars in the 20th century, who therefore have “forgotten” this interpretation. If the number “twelve” really comes from the historical Jesus – and it is difficult to imagine that this number has been invented by the Jesus movement after his death – it cannot but refer to the twelve tribes of Israel. And that implies that Jesus must have regarded his eschatological project as one that included not only the Jews of Palestine, traditionally identified as the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, but as including the ten tribes of the Northern Kingdom as well. Historically these ten tribes have often been regarded as having completely disappeared after the Assyrian conquest of the Northern Kingdom, “Israel,” in 722 BCE. However, this understanding is a modern, historical one. As the eschatological idea of reestablishing the twelve tribes of Israel can be 9 This interpretation of the word “rebirth” (palingenesia) is confirmed and thus supported by Josephus who in Ant. 11.66 is writing about the “(the recovery) and rebirth of their native land” (palingenesian tÞs patridos). 10 OSB 1992, 1303. The OSB’s defective translation of Matt. 19.28 demonstrates that the traditional Christian interpretation of the historical Jesus does not restrict itself to misinterpreting Jesus, but even does not shrink from mistranslating the original Greek text.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

134

A revised reconstruction of the eschatological project

found in other contemporary Jewish texts than the Gospel of Matthew,11 this idea must have been accepted by wider Jewish circles as well. This means that, at the time of Jesus, not all Jews believed that all members of the Northern Kingdom’s ten tribes had completely vanished from the earth, but that they survived “somewhere” in the diaspora, for example, or in a distant foreign country (cf. 4 Ezra 13.40 – 41). Against this background I think we have to accept that Jesus’ eschatological program also included the entire Jewish Diaspora. In other words, the unique text of Matt. 19.28 (with a parallel in another context in Lk. 22.28 – 30) seems to force us to accept the “new” ethnic and territorial Jewish view of the historical Jesus.12 However, it is not easy to determine whether Jesus with this idea should be regarded as original. However, since other Jewish texts refer to an eschatological restoration of the Jewish twelve tribes, I tend to reject this interpretation.

4.3 The chosen “remnant” of the Jewish people The chosen Jewish people of the twelve tribes, however, is an ideal and not an actual entity. Neither in the Jewish Bible nor in early Judaism in general or in the canonical gospels’ traditions about John the Baptist and Jesus is the Jewish people referred to as a physical or a biological phenomenon. In the Jewish Bible the prophets criticize the many apostate and godless Israelites. The same is true in the Qumran literature and other early Jewish writings such as Matt. 3.9 (par.) on John the Baptist: “… do not imagine you can say, ‘We have Abraham for our father.’ I tell you that God can make children for Abraham out these stones.” Against this background it is not surprising that John the Baptist, according to both Josephus and the canonical gospels, urges his countrymen to repentance: “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is upon you!” (Matt. 3.2). Moreover John criticizes those Jews who trust their physical membership of the chosen people and therefore fail to respond positively to his call to repentance: “Vipers’ brood! Who warned you to escape from the wrath that is to come?” (Matt. 3.7). In the gospels’ traditions about Jesus the situation is the same. Jesus too 11 Cf., e. g., Ps. Sol. 8.28; 11.2 – 3; 17.4. 21. 26 – 28; Sir. 48.10; Ass. Mos. 3.4 – 13; 4.7 – 9; Test. Jud. 25.1 – 2; Test. Benj. 10.7, and many others, cf. Volz (1934) 1966, 347 – 348. 12 Cf. Allison 2010, 73; Green 2011, 2446 – 2446. Julius Wellhausen, who has demonstrated a very critical interpretation of the three synoptic gospels, and who insisted that Jesus was a Jew, still remained an adherent of the liberal theologian view of Jesus as a person who did not oppose Rome and did not have any political aspirations, but exclusively turned against the Jewish high priests and scribes (1905, 93 (and 108)).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

The chosen “remnant” of the Jewish people

135

calls on his hearers to repent (Matt. 4.17). And Jesus distinguishes sharply between the “blessed” and the “lost” (Lk. 6.20 – 26 (par.)). Jesus praises the poor, the hungry and the grieving and calls them “happy” while he calls the rich, the satisfied and the cheerful unhappy and lost. Likewise, Jesus condemns the cities of Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum because they had rejected him (Matt. 11.20 – 24; Lk. 10.13 – 16). Later he predicts in a similar manner and for the same reason the destruction of Jerusalem (Matt. 23.37 – 39 (par.); Lk. 19.41 – 44; Matt. 24.2 (par.); Lk. 21.20 – 24). Contrary to Joachim Jeremias’ view ((1949) 1966, 131), in the canonical gospels’ traditions about Jesus there is no doubt that the eschatological restoration of Israel will only include a portion of the actually existing Jewish people, namely the repented, the converted and the righteous, cf. Matt. 5.20: “I tell you, unless you show yourselves far better than the scribes and Pharisees, you can never enter the Kingdom of Heaven” (cf. Matt. 5.48). It is this repented, converted and righteous part of the Jewish people of the twelve tribes which in parts of the early Jewish literature is described as the “remnant.” In 1 Kgs. 19.18 the very word “remnant” does not occur, but the idea of the remnant is clearly present in the words that the Jewish god “shall leave seven thousand in Israel, all who have not bowed the knee to Baal, all whose lips have not kissed him.” These seven thousand will be saved by their god. The very word “remnant” appears primarily in the Book of Isaiah: (20) On that day the remnant of Israel, and the survivors of Jacob, will lean no more on him who scourged them; without wavering they will lean on the LORD, the Holy One of Israel. (21) A remnant will return, a remnant of Jacob, to God their strength. (22) Israel, your people may be many as the sands of the sea, but only a remnant will return… (Isa. 10.20 – 22).

This idea of the “remnant” as a limited part of the whole Jewish people appears several times in the Book of Isaiah (e. g., Isa. 4.2 – 6; 6.13; 11.16) and in some of the other books of the OT as well (e. g., 2 Kgs. 19.30 – 31; Ezra 9.14 – 15; Mic. 5.7). This idea occurs sporadically in the Dead Sea Scriptures as well, especially in Damascus Document (e. g., CD 1.4 – 7; 2.11), where the idea carries a greater weight, but also in the War Scroll (1QM 14.5.8), here, however, without any specific weight. In the NT we find the very word only once, namely in Paul, Rom. 9.27: “But about Israel Isaiah makes this proclamation: ‘Though the Israelites be countless as the sands of the sea, only a remnant shall be saved’.” However, here and in the context of Rom. 9.19 – 33 Paul interprets the “remnant” of the Jewish people as being equal to the Jesus-believing Jews. Whereas the word “remnant” does not occur in the canonical gospels, the idea of the “remnant” still seems to be present. At first sight, however, this seems not to be the case, for the canonical gospels’s mention that Jesus chose twelve envoys. (Matt. 10.1 – 4 (par.)) suggests that Jesus and his eschatological project

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

136

A revised reconstruction of the eschatological project

indeed had all twelve tribes, i. e., the entire Jewish people in mind.13 This interpretation seems to be supported by the important text in Matt. 19.28, quoted above in ch. 4.2, saying that the twelve selected envoys in the messianic future are to “judge” or to “reign” the twelve tribes of Israel. However, this interpretation appears to be contradicted by Matt. 13.10 – 17 (par.) because this text clearly expresses a sharp distinction between the large crowd listening to Jesus’ parables, but understanding nothing of their content, and the small selected group of Jesus’ followers to whom alone “it has been granted to know the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matt. 13.11). Jesus is speaking in a similar manner in his great eschatological speech (Matt. 24 – 25 (par.)). It is only to the three selected followers that Jesus addresses his words, and in Matt. 24.22, Jesus is speaking about “the sake of God’s chosen.” This distinction corresponds with Matt. 11.25 where Jesus distinguishes between “the learned and wise,” on the one hand, and “the simple,” on the other : “At that time Jesus spoke these words: ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for hiding these things from the learned and wise, and revealing them to the simple …” The same is true about Lk. 12.32: “Have no fear, little flock; for your Father has chosen to give you the kingdom” (cf. Lk. 22.29). According to Jari Laaksonen (2002, 253), Lk. 12.32 is an unquestionably genuine word of Jesus, and he judges that this verse is the clearest evidence in the gospels that the historical Jesus knew Isaiah’s idea of a “remnant” and used it about his own eschatological project.14 On the background of these and similar texts we ought to consider whether the fact, that the canonical gospels do not contain the word “remnant,” necessarily excludes that they are familiar with the idea of the “remnant.” I think that the texts referred to above indicate that they knew this idea.15 Therefore it cannot be excluded that this idea was also known and used by the historical Jesus. This interpretation also seems to be supported by the idea of the “new covenant” (cf. ch. 4.8), since this idea presupposes that the “old covenant” has been broken by the people as a whole. Furthermore my interpretation can claim to receive additional support from Jesus’ sharp condemnation of a “wicked, godless generation” (Matt. 12.39 (par.)) and by his already mentioned condemnation of the cities of Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum and Jerusalem. These condemnations point to the conclusion that, to the historical Jesus, large parts of the Jewish people no longer belonged to the selected “remnant” with whom the new covenant should be concluded. 13 Thus J. Jeremias (1949) 1966, 121 – 132; Laaksonen 2002, 333 – 346, while this interpretation is rejected by Baumbach 1971, 47. 14 Cf. Laaksonen 2002, 346 – 353: Yoshimura 2010, 279 – 284. 15 Thus also Pitre 2005, 209 – 210. 314 – 318. Against this interpretation: J. Jeremias (1949) 1966, 131; 1971, 167 – 170.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

The Mosaic Law

137

With these interpretations of the relevant texts I think that I have made it probable, that the historical Jesus shared the biblical and contemporary early Jewish idea that the eschatological restoration of Israel’s twelve tribes would not include all the individual members of the Jewish people, but only its penitent, converted and righteous “remnant.”16 On this problem Jesus appears to agree with several other voices in early Judaism, as we have seen. Therefore with this view Jesus cannot be maintained to have been original. Instead, in relation to this issue, Jesus should rather be described as a “mainstream” early Jew.

4.4 The Mosaic Law17 If we read through the canonical (and apocryphal) gospels it soon turns out that they suggest a picture of Jesus with an ambiguous relationship to the Mosaic Law (cf. Banks 1975, 237 – 253): On the one hand, Jesus confirms the legitimacy and validity of the Law of Moses, and, on the other, there are several texts in the canonical gospels indicating that Jesus was not that scrupulous in his observance of the law. The first attitude dominates a text like Matt.19.16 – 22 (par.)) on the (rich, young) man who asked Jesus for advice about the road to eternal life: “Teacher, what good must I do to gain eternal life?” (v. 16). According to the text, he received the following answer : “’Good?’ said Jesus. ‘Why do you ask me about that? One alone is good. But if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments’.” (v. 17). In the present context we can ignore the question of identifying the content of the word “good” and instead focus our attention on the rest of Jesus’ answer. I interpret the man’s question and Jesus’ answer as concerning the access to the kingdom of god.18 The man’s question corresponds thus to the Baptist’s and Jesus’ call to repentance and to lead a righteous life against the background of the imminence of the kingdom of god. However, these questions are not crucial in the present context where we focus on Jesus’ relationship to the Mosaic Law. Jesus’ answer is both clear and simple: if you wish to join the kingdom of god, you must obey the Law of Moses! This answer seems to surprise the questioner who immediately asks Jesus for further clarification and 16 On this issue I regrettably disagree with the most important Jesus scholar of our time, E.P. Sanders 1985. 17 On this issue I refer to Banks 1975; Harvey 1982, 36 – 65; E.P. Sanders 1985, 245 – 269; Broer 1992; Loader 1997; 2011; Meier, 4, 2009, the whole volume, but in particular pp.1 – 25 and 647 – 663; Bertalotto 2010, 133 – 139; Moyise 2011, 1140 – 1152; Horsley 2012, 122 – 129. 18 In the canonical gospels the expressions “kingdom of god,” “kingdom,” “realm,” “life,” and “eternal life” are often used as synonyms.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

138

A revised reconstruction of the eschatological project

prioritization of the numerous commandments and prohibitions in the Law of Moses (v. 18a). Jesus answers his question by mentioning five of the wellknown Ten Commandments (vv. 18b – 19). The questioner is not satisfied with this answer either, since he believes always to have kept these commandments. Therefore he asks for additional instruction (v. 20). The text as a whole culminates with Jesus’ answer in v. 21: “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give to the poor, and you will have a treasure in heaven; then come and follow me,’” a call the questioner is unable to follow (cf. ch. 3.4). This text thus gives two answers to our main question about Jesus’ relationship to the Mosaic Law: First, Jesus confirms the law of Moses (like in Matt. 8.1 – 4 (par.)), and second, to those wanting to be perfect, he adds a major new commandment. However, it is important to observe that this new commandment is not the so-called “commandment of charity” since this has already been mentioned (v. 19). No, the new commandment is the additional and extraordinary call to the questioner to sell all his property, give the money to the poor, and then to follow Jesus. Both linguistically (“perfect”) and regarding its content this additional commandment points back to the central text in the Sermon on the Mount: Matt. 5.48: “There must be no limit to your goodness, as your heavenly Father’s goodness knows no bounds.” This English translation of the OSB, however, is not correct, because it leaves out the important Greek word teleios (“perfect”). I claim, therefore, that the following translation is more precise than that of the OSB: “You should therefore be perfect (teleioi) as your heavenly father is perfect (teleios).” Thus Matt. 5.48 as well as Matt. 19.21 expresses the idea, that, according to Jesus, against the background of the imminence of the kingdom of god, observing the Mosaic Law was not enough. Therefore the Mosaic Law should be supplemented by the commandment to be “perfect” like the Jewish god himself.19 This interpretation seems to be supported by another key text in the Sermon on the Mount: Matt. 5.17 – 20, which for its main part is material peculiar to the Gospel of Matthew: (17) Do not suppose that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to complete. (18) Truly I tell you: So long as heaven and earth endure, not a letter, not a dot, will disappear from the law until all that must happen has happened. (19) Anyone therefore who sets aside even the least of the law’s demands, and teaches others to do the same, will have the lowest place in the kingdom 19 My colleague, Jan Dochhorn (and others), have argued that because Matt. 19.21 and 5.48 are peculiar material of the Gospel of Matthew they might be editorial and secondary. Of course this is a possibility, but it is also a possibility that this peculiar material in Matthew comes from a Matthean source (M) and thus might come from the historical Jesus. Moreover, the fact, that the parallels to Matt 19.21 in Mark and Luke have another wording, but with a meaning close to that of Matt. 19.21, indicates that although the wording may be editorial, the idea seems to be traditional and therefore might come from the historical Jesus.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

The Mosaic Law

139

of Heaven, whereas anyone who keeps the law, and teaches others to do so, will rank high in the kingdom of Heaven. (20) I tell you, unless you show yourselves far better than the scribes and Pharisees, you can never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

This text is the strongest expression of Jesus’ acceptance of the Mosaic Law in the Gospel of Matthew as well as in the entire NT. Moreover this text also contains an element of addition to the existing Law of Moses, namely, the last sentence: Jesus’ followers must not only keep the law of Moses to the letter, but “far” more than that. As in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5.20 and 5.48), Jesus adds a new commandment or an additional demand to the Mosaic Law in Matt. 19.21 mentioned above. In my opinion all three additions to – or tightenings of – the law of Moses should be interpreted in the light of Jesus’ proclamation of the imminence of the kingdom of god and of his call to repentance and to a new, righteous life that followed as a consequence of the eschatological proclamation.20 The figure of Jesus emerging from this analysis may amaze some interpreters, for how is it possible to understand that a Jesus who confirmed and tightened the Mosaic Law in the style of the Letter of James (1.19 – 27), so despised by Martin Luther, in the course of only two to three decades factually and logically could lead to a Paul who perhaps rejected the Law of Moses, at least as binding for the non-Jews? In the present context we cannot move into a discussion of this traditional, almost dogmatic, thesis that Paul denied and rejected the law of Moses.21 Instead I will look at some of the texts in the synoptic gospels that seem to indicate that Jesus broke the law of Moses. This attitude seems to be expressed almost programmatically in Matt. 9.13 and 12.7: “… I require mercy, not sacrifice.” This catchphrase can be interpreted as a an expression of preference for the moral commandments of the Mosaic Law rather than its numerous commandments concerning the sacrificial worship in the temple in Jerusalem.22 Actually the quoted sentence from these two texts in the Gospel of Matthew represents a quote from Hos. 6.6: “For I require loyalty, not sacrifice, acknowledgement of God rather than whole-offerings.” However, this text does not represent an isolated idea in the Jewish Bible. We find a parallel in 1 Sam. 15.22: “Does the Lord desire whole-offerings and sacrifices as he desires obedience? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen to him better than the 20 In addition to these three examples illustrating Jesus’ tightening of the demands of the Mosaic Law, I refer to the rest of the Sermon on the Mount, in particular Matt. 5.13 – 14, 21 – 48; 6.1 – 4, 16 – 18; 7.1 – 5, 13 – 14, and to Matt 19.1 – 9, where we find the same phenomenon. 21 Against this traditional “Lutheran” thesis, se primarily E.P. Sanders 1977; Räisinen (1983) 1987; Bilde 1993a; 1993c; 1993d; (2001) 2006, 357 – 384. 22 A synoptic comparison demonstrates that Matt. 9.13 and 12.7 have no parallels in Mark and Luke. Once again this fact can be interpreted both ways, either as a sign of editorial, secondary addition to an older source, or as a sign of Matthew’s use of a supplementary source (“M”), cf. my footnote 4,19.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

140

A revised reconstruction of the eschatological project

fat of rams.” And in Isa. 1.11 – 17 this idea is unfolded far and wide, and the text ends with these characteristic words: “…wash and be clean; put away your evil deeds far from my sight; cease to do evil, learn to do good. Pursue justice, guide the oppressed; uphold the rights of the fatherless, and plead the widow’s cause” (Isa. 1.16 – 17). Among biblical scholars a discussion has gone on for generations about the interpretation of these texts from the OT: Do these “prophetic” words mean that the traditional sacrificial cult should be replaced by ethics, or do they simply say that sacrificial worship should always be supplemented with morality? Of course this discussion cannot be pursued here, but it inevitably pops up in connection with the interpretation of Matt. 9.13 and 12.7. Furthermore it appears in connection with the interpretation of Jesus’ socalled cleansing of the temple (Matt. 21.12 – 17 (par.)). For in this text, Jesus is quoted as having said: “Scripture says, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a bandits’ cave” (Matt. 21.13, cf. Isa. 56.7; Jer. 7.11). In the present context this discussion cannot be brought to a final conclusion, and below (ch. 4.5) I return to the question of the temple. Still I think that we can confidently state that in the texts discussed above Jesus at least seems to express a hierarchical ranking of the commandments of the Law of Moses. Pointing in the same direction are the texts in the canonical gospels indicating that Jesus was accused of breaking the Sabbath commandment. The first text we find in Matt. 12.1 – 8 (par.) telling the story that on a Sabbath some of Jesus’ followers became hungry and therefore plucked ears of corn in a cornfield to eat them. Some Pharisees saw it, and in front of Jesus they criticized this violation of the law of Moses. However, Jesus defended his followers by referring to important precedents in the Jewish Bible (cf. MeyerHaas 2003, 439 – 448). When we interpret this text we first note that Jesus does not reject the criticism of his opponents. Jesus finds that the accusation of the Pharisees is actually true, but as a clever scribe and as a competent biblical scholar Jesus finds evidence in the Jewish Bible justifying that in certain exceptional cases Jews actually are allowed to break the commandment about resting on the Sabbath. In this case it is obvious that every single version of the three synoptic texts ends quite differently, apparently because each of the three versions tries to draw its own general lessons from the story, but we do not need to get lost in interpreting these lessons. I am content with sticking to the main point in the present context, namely, that Jesus accepts the Mosaic law in its broad sense as including all parts of the Jewish Bible, but that he interprets the Bible’s commandments concerning the Sabbath in a way that differs from the interpretation of the Pharisees. The story of Jesus’ sabbatical healing of the man with a withered hand

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

The Mosaic Law

141

(Matt. 12.9 – 14 (par.)) looks like the one just examined:23 Jesus is healing on the Sabbath, and this act raises the question of whether Jesus thereby violates the Law of Moses (cf. Exod. 20.9 – 10). In this story Jesus does not engage directly in an exegetical discussion, but he asks the rhetorical question of whether it is permitted to do well on the Sabbath. Here, once again, I think that Jesus is showing an unspoken respect for the Sabbath commandment while, at the same time, he is engaging in a theological-ethical discussion on the range of this commandment. In order to understand this text properly we have to remember that in early Judaism, as well as in modern Judaism, it was and is generally accepted that “work” performed in connection with saving human lives is exempt from the prohibition to work on the Sabbath. This means that the Jesus of this text is claiming that by healing a sick person he is “saving life” and therefore he cannot be said to break the rules of the Mosaic Law concerning the Sabbath. Jesus’ discussion with some Pharisees and scribes on ritual and moral purity (Matt. 15.1 – 20 (par.)) plays an important role in the exegetical debate about Jesus and the Law of Moses.24 This story is available in three versions that presumably have their origin in a microscopic single core (Matt. 15.1 – 2; Mk. 7.1 – 2; Lk. 11.37 – 38). Subsequently this core seems to have been extended in various ways. The expansion is most modest in the Gospel of Luke who has added v. 39 – 44, an extension, which by the way appears also in Lk. 20.45 – 47. This text has a similar parallel in Mk. 12.38 – 40 and a dramatically expanded parallel in Matt. 23.1 – 36, Jesus’ so-called large polemical address against the Pharisees and scribes. By studying these developments one can gain a vivid and clear impression of how the tradition behind the synoptic gospels worked, were handled, and developed. However, this topic is not directly relevant for our examination of Matt. 15.1 – 20 (par.) with which we are dealing here. The core of Lk. 11.37 – 38 (par.) mentioned above tells us that Jesus (or (some of) his followers) on one occasion sat down to eat without having washed their hands before the meal. Their behaviour was observed by a Pharisee (or by some Pharisees (and scribes)), who complained about it to Jesus. This criticism naturally caused one or more answers from Jesus, but in the presentation of Jesus’ answer, the Gospel of Luke moves in one direction (Lk. 11.39 – 42/52), while the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, as so often, agree to go in another direction (Matt. 15.3 – 20 (par.)). In all the three versions, however, it is the essence of Jesus’ answer that he moves the “purity” from the outside, that is, the hands, the food and the tableware, to the interior, that is, the thought, the intention, the “heart:” “He 23 Lk.14.1 – 6 belongs to the same type as Matt. 12.9 – 14 (par.) and therefore there is no need to analyse it separately. 24 I refer to the detailed and comprehensive examination of this problem in Westerholm 1978, 62 – 91; E.P. Sanders 1985, 182 – 187; Kaz¦n 2002; Meier, 4, 2009, 342 – 477.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

142

A revised reconstruction of the eschatological project

called the crowd and said to them, ‘Listen and understand! No one is defiled by what goes into his mouth; only by what comes out of it’.” (Matt. 15.10 – 11 (par.), cf. Kazen 2002, 261)). In a portion of the peculiar material that he has added to the common tradition, the writer – or the editor – of the Gospel of Mark emphasizes this idea so that everyone is able to understand it: “By saying this he declared all foods clean” (Mk. 7.19), an addition, which by most exegetes is regarded to be editorial and secondary, reflecting not the Palestinian-Jewish world of the historical Jesus, but rather the wider Hellenistic-Roman world of his adherents after his death.. In all three versions of this tradition Jesus’ immediate response to the criticism of the Pharisees and the scribes of the eating practices of his followers is connected to other of Jesus’ objections against these two groups, who, at the time when the gospels were put into writing, were important opponents of the Palestinian-Jewish Jesus movement. One of these objections we find in Matt. 15.3 (par.)): “Why do you break God’s commandment in the interest of your tradition?” What this “tradition” is about is explained in Mk. 7.3 – 4: (3) For Pharisees and Jews in general never eat without washing their hands, in obedience to ancient tradition; (4) and on coming from the market-place they never eat without first washing. And there are many other points on which they maintain traditional rules, for example in the washing of cups and jugs and copper bowls.

In this text we are confronted with the so-called “oral tradition” of the Pharisees which included interpretations of the often briefly formulated written rules of the Mosaic Law. The Pharisees made an effort to collect these oral traditions and to hand them down to their disciples. About the year 200 CE this process was put into writing in the Mishnah by Judah the “Prince” (cf. ch. 5.3.3.1). With this explanation we have established a basis for understanding and interpreting the texts mentioned above: According to the Pharisees, Jesus and his followers have not only broken the oral tradition of the Pharisees regarding the interpretation of the commandments concerning the Sabbath. They have also offended against the oral traditions that interpreted the Law of Moses concerning cultic purity.25 This practice of the Jesus movement was naturally criticized by the Pharisees, and in the canonical gospel traditions about the defences of Jesus we may catch a glimpse of the historical Jesus‘ own original position. In one respect Jesus’ position in relation to the written Mosaic Law and the oral Pharisaic traditions about their specific interpretations was in accordance 25 Liberal and dialectical theologians usually pay most attention to this aspect of Jesus’ relationship to the Mosaic Law (cf. ch. 3.2 and 3.4). Even the critical German scholar Julius Wellhausen concludes his small book on the three synoptic gospels by adopting this point of view. Thus he finds that Jesus withdrew more from the Judaism of his time than any of his predecessors (1905, 113 – 114).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

The Mosaic Law

143

with the Sadducees who also rejected the Pharisees’ oral traditions and instead settled exclusively for the written rules of the Law of Moses (cf. Theissen 1996). My examination of Matt. 15.1 – 20 (par.) thus strengthens one of the results reached above, namely, that the historical Jesus apparently stuck to the scriptures of the Jewish Bible alone and rejected the Pharisees’ traditional oral interpretations of the Law of Moses. Beside this result in the texts analysed above we have reached another conclusion, which also corresponds to one of the conclusions reached above, namely, that the historical Jesus apparently interpreted the concepts of the Mosaic Law on ritual purity spiritually or morally, i. e., he reinterpreted the idea of ritual purity in a spiritual and/or moral manner. This “spiritualization,” which we may call this phenomenon, is similar in spirit to the catchphrase of the biblical prophets: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” (Matt. 9.13, cf. Hos. 6.6). However in the canonical gospels we have a text that indicates that Jesus’ relationship to the Mosaic Law has not been described adequately by the two results mentioned above. This text is Matt. 19.3 – 9 (par.) describing a discussion between Jesus and some Pharisees about divorce.26 Here the Pharisees ask Jesus: “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause he pleases?” (v. 3). The reason for this question by the Pharisees is the following provision in the Mosaic Law on divorce: “If a man has taken a woman in marriage, but she does not win his favour because he finds something offensive in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her, and dismisses her ….” (Deut. 24.1). For the Pharisees and other interpreters of the Law of Moses the interpretation of this text turned on the word “offensive.” What did this word mean? The Pharisees’ question to Jesus concerns this word. In his answer Jesus does not reject the question. Instead he embarks on a discussion with them about the interpretation of the intention of Moses. In his reply (v. 4 – 6), however, Jesus does not enter into the discussion about the word “offensive.” Instead Jesus turns to the story about the creation of man and woman in the beginning of Genesis (1.27 and 2.24). After having quoted Gen. 2.24: “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and attaches himself to his wife, and the two become one,” Jesus adds on his own account: “Therefore what God has joined together, man must not separate” (v. 6). With this answer Jesus, without any exception, rejects the possibility of divorce. Therefore his Pharisaic interlocutors must refer again to Moses: “’Then why’, they objected, ‘did Moses lay it down that a man might divorce his wife by a certificate of dismissal?’” (v. 7). This objection caused the following reply from Jesus: (8) He answered, ‘It was because of your stubbornness that Moses gave you permission to divorce your wives; but it was not like that at the beginning. (9) I tell

26 I refer to the comprehensive examination of this text in Meier, 4, 2009, 74 – 181.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

144

A revised reconstruction of the eschatological project

you, if a man divorces his wife for any cause other than unchastity, and marries another, he commits adultery’ (vv. 8 – 9).

When we compare this text with its parallel in Mk. 10.11, it is noteworthy that Mark lacks the words “for any cause other than unchastity.” The same applies to 1 Cor. 7.10 – 11, where Paul quotes Jesus’ words about marriage and divorce. Since these words in Matt. 19.9 also contradict the phrase in Matt. 19.6, quoted above, we can safely conclude that the sentence mentioned in Matt. 19.9 is a secondary, perhaps editorial, addition of an easing character. It serves pragmatically to modify Jesus’ otherwise unconditional ban on divorce, and, apparently, this is what the historical Jesus said and meant.27 This means that, once again, the historical Jesus interprets the Law of Moses more severely than the questioning Pharisees (cf., e. g., Freeman (2009) 2011, 25). Furthermore, Matt. 19.3 – 9 (par.) tells us that Jesus apparently was of the opinion that a more original and a more authentic law was in force before the times of Moses. With the Danish historian of Christianity, Carsten Breengaard, I prefer to name this law the “law of creation,” in contrast to the Mosaic Law.28 On the basis of the texts examined above I can conclude the following about the relationship of the historical Jesus to the Law of Moses: First, that Jesus did not abolish or revoke the Law of Moses.29 Second, that, at least in some cases, Jesus rejected the oral traditions of the Pharisees about the interpretation of the Law of Moses. Third, that the historical Jesus appears to have continued the biblical prophets’ criticism of the traditional sacrificial cult and ritual purification, if and when these were considered to act automatically with the consequence that the participants’ actual (moral) behaviour was of no importance. If I should express myself a little bit more accurately, I would write that the historical Jesus continued the biblical prophets’ attitude to sacrificial cults, rites and morality, because they too stated that the sacrificial cult and the corresponding purity rules cannot be isolated from morality, and that ethics is always indispensable. Fourth, we have seen that Jesus in some cases tightens the moral requirements of the Law of Moses. As far as I can see this tightening ought to be regarded as being in continuation of the biblical prophets’ upgrading of ethics, but it should first and foremost be interpreted as closely connected to the eschatological call to penance, conversion and a new righteous life preached by John the Baptist as well as by Jesus against the background of their proclamation of the imminence of the divine judgement and the kingdom of god.30 27 According to John P. Meier, this severe point of view and Jesus’ corresponding severe attitude to oaths (Matt. 5.33 – 37) clearly separates Jesus from all other contemporary, known Jewish interpreters of the Mosaic Law. 28 Cf. Breengaard 2007, 59. Similarly Becker (1995) 1996, 166 – 167. 29 Thus Reimarus (1774 – 1778) 1835, 1 § 19, later, e. g., Westerholm 1978, 123. 30 I regret to state that with this interpretation I disagree with Johannes Weiss (192) 1964, 134 – 138.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

The temple in Jerusalem

145

Accordingly, it is my opinion that the most important feature of the relationship of the historical Jesus to the Mosaic Law is not that he abolished it, or weakened it, such as many of the traditional Christian scholars believe and such as liberal and dialectical theologians as well as most other types of Christian theology still agree on (cf. Banks 1975, 262). Nor is it the most important feature that Jesus continued the biblical prophets’ emphasis on the ethical commandments of the Mosaic Law compared to its cultic and ritual commandments. No, the most important feature of Jesus’ relationship to the Mosaic Law is that Jesus tightened, strengthened and intensified the Law of Moses partly by referring to the more original, authentic and stricter “law of the creation,” which he apparently regarded as superior to the Law of Moses, partly by referring to the stricter requirements which must be fulfilled by those who hope to be acquitted by the eschatological judgement and to be accepted into the kingdom of god.31 Finally we have to ask whether we may describe this historical Jesus as original? At first sight the answer might be a “yes” (cf. Banks 1975, 262), but this answer is probably due to the fact that the sources on the comparable Jewish figures are so meagre as, in fact, they are in this case (cf. ch. 5.3.2). If we look at John the Baptist, however, he seems to represent a position which is closely related to that of Jesus (cf. ch. 5.3.2.5). And if we look at the Teacher of Righteousness and the Qumran literature, which seems to be strongly connected to his name, the result appears to be the same cf. ch. 5.3.2.2). Therefore we do not need to involve the so-called “Zealots,” about whom we know much less than about the two other figures and their groups, before I conclude that, in terms of his attitude to the Mosaic Law, Jesus can hardly be claimed to have been original.32

4.5 The temple in Jerusalem33 If my conclusion about the historical Jesus’ positive attitude towards the Mosaic Law is valid, does it not follow, that Jesus in the same way must be 31 In continuation of my footnote 4,16 I regret to be forced to declare my disagreement with the great scholar E.P. Sanders, when he claims that it was a characteristic feature of the historical Jesus that he believed that those sinners who followed him would get a share of the kingdom of god, irrespective of their observance of the Law of Moses. On this issue I agree with John P. Meier (4, 2009, 657), where he summarises his view and emphasises the connection between Jesus’ eschatological preaching and his tightening of the demands of the Law of Moses. 32 The same view is held by John P. Meier who gives the first chapter in the fourth volume of his opus magnum about Jesus (A Marginal Jew) the heading “The Historical Jesus is the Halakic Jesus” (Meier, 4, 2009, 1). 33 For further reading I refer to Gärtner 1965; Juel 1977; Bilde 1984; E.P. Sanders 1985, 61 – 90;

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

146

A revised reconstruction of the eschatological project

supposed also to have related positively to the temple in Jerusalem, simply because large parts of the Mosaic Law and the entire Jewish Bible, directly or indirectly, deal with the cult of the Jewish god? A preliminary overview of the temple texts in the canonical gospels, however, points in both directions. Jesus’ predictions of the destruction of the temple (Matt. 23.38 (par.); 24.1 – 2 (par.); Lk. 19.41 – 44) seem to point towards a negative attitude: The temple should be destroyed and replaced by something else. The already quoted text in Matt. 9.17 (par., cf. ch. 3.1), that new wine must be poured into new bags, points in the same direction. And so does Jn. 4.23 – 24: (23) But the time is coming, indeed it is already here, when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. These are the worshippers the Father wants. (24) God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.

These seemingly temple critical texts may be claimed to be confirmed by Jesus’ prediction of a new temple in Matt. 26.60 – 61 (par.): “Finally two men alleged that he had said: ‘I can pull down the temple of God, and rebuild it in three days.”34 Against these temple critical texts, however, we have the story of the socalled temple cleansing (Matt. 21.12 – 17 (par.)), and this text is interpreted by some scholars as an expression of a desire by the historical Jesus to purify and reform a desecrated temple.35 This interpretation of the cleansing of the temple seems to be supported by a number of other texts: Matt. 8.1 – 4 (par.) tells a story about Jesus healing a leper. After the healing Jesus said to the healed: “’See that you tell nobody ; but go and show yourself to the priest, and make the offering laid down by Moses to certify the cure.” (v. 4). The mentioned commandment of Moses is described in detail in Lev. 14.1 – 32. Thus, as something quite obvious, Matt. 8.1 – 4 (par.) confirms both that Jesus respected the Law of Moses, and that he accepted the rules laid down there for cultic purification. Matt. 17.24 – 27 points in the same direction: This text is a piece of peculiar Matthaean material describing an episode in Capernaum: Peter met some people who went around to collect the temple tax. They asked Peter if Jesus used to pay the tax. Peter answered in the affirmative, and – with some reservations – Jesus confirms this position a little later (v. 27). Here the story ends in a legendary manner as it reports that Peter on Jesus’ commandment caught a fish with a statÞr, that is, a Greek silver coin, in its mouth, which Sweet 1991; Evans 1995, 319 – 406; Paesler 1999; ædna 2000; 2011; Bryan 2002, 189 – 235; Boyer 2005; Nicholas Perrin 2010; Pitre 2011, 32 – 37. 34 With a few variations this text appears also in Matt. 27.40 (par.); Jn. 2.18; Acts 6.14. 35 Cf. Bilde 2008a, 219 – 222. In contrast E.P. Sanders interprets the temple cleansing as a symbolic threat or destruction of the temple in Jerusalem (1985, 61 – 71). Similarly Nicholas Perrin 2010, 80 – 113.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

The temple in Jerusalem

147

exactly corresponded to the afore-mentioned statutory temple tax that Jesus here is told to respect. The same is true of the little story about the poor widow’s temple alms (Mk. 12.41 – 44 (par.)): It confirms that the historical Jesus responded to the demands of the temple in Jerusalem in the same way as his fellow countrymen. This attitude may finally be said to be confirmed by the truism with which Jesus in the gospels is told to participate in the Jewish pilgrimages to Jerusalem and the temple, and the naturalness with which he also teaches in the temple courts.36 The texts surveyed above thus point in two different directions. A simple solution to this ambivalence in the canonical gospels’ depiction of Jesus’ attitude to the temple in Jerusalem would be to declare the first group of temple critical texts to be secondary inventions, which were first constructed after Jesus’ death in order to legitimize that time’s Jesus-believers’ more and more distanced relationship to the temple in Jerusalem. In addition some of these texts can be argued to have been fabricated as late as after the year 70 CE when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and burned the temple down, and thus to reflect a time when the temple no longer existed. On the other hand, one could consider the last group of texts, marked by a positive attitude to the temple, as reliable and credible evidence about how the historical Jesus really acted towards the temple in Jerusalem. However, this “simple” solution is not entirely satisfactory because it fails to explain Jesus’ prediction of a new temple. The text of Matt. 26.61 (par.), quoted above, which corresponds closely to the version in Matt. 27.40 (par.), seems to speak metaphorically about Jesus’ death and resurrection, i. e., about his body, here designated a “temple.” Jn. 2.18 – 22 speaks even more clearly in the same way : (18) The Jews challenged Jesus: ‘What sign can you show to justify your action ?” (19) ‘Destroy this temple,’ Jesus replied, ‘and in three days I will raise it up again.’ (20) The Jews said, ‘It has taken 46 years to build this temple. Are you going to raise it up again in three days?’ (21) But the temple he was speaking of was his body. (22) After his resurrection his disciples recalled what he had said, and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

This Johannine version is unambiguously characterized by a later secondary, “Christian,” adaptation of the original statements. The Johannine version highlights that it was a (Jewish) mistake to interpret the temple that Jesus spoke about, as the physical temple of Herod the Great in Jerusalem. According to this text, the correct understanding is that here Jesus actually spoke metaphorically or allegorically about his impending death and resurrection. 36 Nicholas Perrin 2010 does not treat and analyse these texts indicating a positive attitude towards the temple because they contradict his main hypothesis that Jesus and his followers belonged to the Jewish counter-temple movement.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

148

A revised reconstruction of the eschatological project

Perhaps we can find some help to move forward in our analysis if we turn to the Gospel of Mark’s version of this text (14.58, but not in the parallel text in Mk. 15.29). Here the Gospel of Mark adds two explanations to Jesus’ two statements about the temple: “(‘We heard him say, ‘I will pull down this temple,) made with human hands, (and in three days I will build another,) not made with hands.” These two explanations might have been intended to clarify the meaning of Jesus’ original enigmatic statement: Jesus really spoke about two different temples, partly a physical one and partly a metaphorical one. Therefore it is possible that Mark 14.58 just wanted to clarify and explain the meaning of the text in the direction of Jn. 2.18 – 22. When I do not feel completely comfortable with this understanding it is due to the phrase “not made with hands.” This sentence reminds me of Dan. 2.34 and 2.45, where it is stressed that the stone, which smashed the statue that the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar had dreamed about, was thrown, but “by no human hand.” In the Book of Daniel it can hardly be doubted that the words “by no human hand” refers to the Jewish god who is the only one who controls history, and who “deposes kings and sets up kings” (Dan. 2.21). Against this background the temple “not made with hands” (Mk. 14.58) is not necessarily the resurrected body of Jesus. It may just as well, or even better, be interpreted as referring to an eschatological temple, which may correspond to the eschatological entity “The holy people of the most high” (Dan. 7.27).37 Therefore we have to ask whether such an idea existed in early Judaism? The answer is “yes,” for in the contemporary Jewish eschatological literature a renewal of the temple is included in the eschatological events.38 These texts interpret Exod. 15.17 and 2 Sam. 7.11 – 14, both of which emphasize that it is the Jewish god himself who will build the new temple. It should therefore be considered whether all of these scattered observations can be assembled into a hypothesis of a coherent eschatological complex. This interpretation has been rejected by Boyer (2005) who considers Jesus’ predictions about destruction of the temple as historical, while he regards the predictions about the construction of a new temple as secondary. The contemporary Jewish parallels mentioned above, however, suggest that all these traditions about Jesus and the temple should be interpreted in an eschatological context. Thus they can also be reconciled with Jesus’ general eschatological teaching. Therefore I tend to think that both groups of Jesus’ eschatological predictions about the temple are historical: The prediction of the destruction of the existing temple in Jerusalem should be interpreted in 37 Thus also ædna 2000, in particular pp. 142 – 153, while Paesler (1999) rejects this interpretation (pp. 220, 263). 38 This idea appears in such texts as 1 En. 53.6; 91.13; 93.7; 4Qflor. et al. In 1 En. 91.13, we read: “…at its completion , they shall acquire great things through heir righteousness. A House shall be built for the Great King in glory for evermore.” (Charlesworth, 1983, I, 73). Other examples are registered in E.P. Sanders 1985, 77 – 90; Paesler 1999, 150 – 166; ædna 2000, 25 – 89.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

The journey to Jerusalem

149

line with Jesus’ threatening predictions against the city of Jerusalem and other cities that had rejected Jesus’ eschatological message. And, as there will be a new eschatological city of Jerusalem, the old temple will also be replaced by a new and “clean” one, “not made with hands,” but built by the Jewish god himself or by the Messiah (cf. D. Hill 1979, 149 – 150). For Jesus’ followers the disappointment over the death of Jesus instead of his messianic enthronement in Jerusalem and over the non-arrival of the kingdom of god created a fundamental reinterpretation of the whole eschatology of the historical Jesus (cf. Bilde 2008b). In this context also the predictions of the old and the new temple were reinterpreted, namely to refer to Jesus’ coming death and resurrection. This reinterpretation emerges most clearly in Jn. 2.18 – 22; Matt. 26.61 (par.) and 27.40 (par.). Later these predictions were of course linked to the actual Roman destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem in August 70 CE. These later developments do not exclude the possibility that the historical Jesus actually predicted both the eschatological destruction of the existing temple and the imminent construction of a new eschatological one. It is, however, important to understand that this eschatological project does not contradict the hypothesis of the historical Jesus as being at the same time an observant Jew in relations to the Mosaic Law as well as to the existing temple in Jerusalem. The interpretations developed in this chapter imply that in his relationship to the temple in Jerusalem Jesus cannot be regarded as original.

4.6 The journey to Jerusalem39 In earlier studies of the Gospel of Luke it has often been noticed that Jesus at some point in his public career decided to travel to Jerusalem. Altogether the structure of the Gospel of Luke is dominated by the so-called “Lukan travelling report” (Lk. 9.51 – 19.11) which has no parallel in the other gospels. Against this background and in the light of the fact that Jesus, according to the Gospel of John, travelled to Jerusalem several times (cf. Jn. 2.13; 3.22; 5.1; 7.10 etc.), many scholars regard this Lukan structure to be a secondary, redactional structure, which has nothing to do with the historical Jesus. However against this interpretation we have other evidence indicating that Jesus at the end of his career travelled to Jerusalem. The Gospel of Mark, for example, tells in 10.1: “On leaving there he came into the regions of Judaea and Transjordan” (cf. Matt. 19.1). It is therefore likely that, after his baptism in Judea or Peraea, and after a 39 This chapter presupposes and develops Bilde 2008a, 31 – 32, 213 – 215. I refer also to Martin (1994) 1995, 51 – 57; Allison 2010, 65 – 67. 154.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

150

A revised reconstruction of the eschatological project

presumably short period of stay there (in Judaea?) with a group of followers of John, Jesus went back to his home region of Galilee, and here began his public activity.40 In addition it cannot be excluded that the Gospel of John is right in postulating that Jesus travelled from Galilee to Jerusalem several times. However, nor does this hypothesis exclude the assumption that (as according to the Gospel of John) Jesus’ last journey to Jerusalem had a special character. Therefore I suppose that Jesus at this time, probably one of the years between 27 and 33 CE, with a group of followers walked in the direction of Jerusalem on the occasion of the approaching Passover (pesach). Furthermore I assume that Jesus in advance attributed a particular eschatological significance to this pesach.41 This significance could be that Jesus in Jerusalem expected to be enthroned as the Messiah precisely during pesach, when the expectation of an eschatological repetition of Jewish people’s deliverance from Egypt was most intense.42 But this significance could also be transformed into an expectation that Jesus would there die a martyr’s death and into a belief that immediately after his martyr death the Jewish god would raise him from the dead and install and enthrone him as the Messiah in Jerusalem.43 In my opinion this eschatological interpretation of Jesus’ last journey to Jerusalem, which was first proposed by Albert Schweitzer ((1901) 1956, 8 – 13. 83 – 89), receives crucial support from Lk. 19.11 (which is enigmatic in its context): “While they were listening to this, he went on to tell them a parable, because he was now close to Jerusalem and they thought the kingdom of God might dawn at any moment.” In this text the author or the editor of the Gospel of Luke rejects the view ascribed to “they” in the beginning of the text (cf. ch. 1.5). According to the author/editor, it was a mistake to think that god’s kingdom “might dawn at any moment,” because Jesus was now near Jerusalem. Now we have to ask: Why was this belief a mistake? Inspired by A. Schweitzer I propose that the reason for this view was the fact that this expectation actually had been proved to be wrong. Furthermore we have to ask why the author/editor is so eager to correct this error? Again I propose that his 40 This modest sketch of a piece of geography and chronology in the life history of Jesus corresponds with Folker Siegert’s ambitious attempt at producing a completely new description of the (chronology of the) “life of Jesus” (Leben Jesu), cf. Siegert 2010. 41 The Jewish pesach combines in a unique manner past and present, history and eschatology, primeval times and end times (cf. Pitre 2011). During the week of this festival the Jews remember the fundamental salvation of the people in primeval times, and, at the same time, they interpret this salvation from the slavery in Egypt as a simile and a promise of the liberation that the people hope for at the present as well as in the eschatological future (cf. Pitre 2011, 22 – 25; ch. 5.3.2.7 – 8). 42 Similarly already Reimarus (1774 – 1778) 1831, II, § 4 (p. 85); A. Schweitzer (1901) 1956, 3, and later, e. g., E.P. Sanders 1985, 171; Hampel 1990, 105; Abrahamowitz 2002, 255 – 256; Bilde 2008a, 213 – 215. 43 Thus originally A. Schweitzer (1901) 1956; (1906) 1966, 402 – 450, and later, e. g., Schürmann in several writings, in particular 1973; (1975) 1976; 1983; 1994; Hampel 1990, 101 – 187. 371 – 372.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

The journey to Jerusalem

151

reason was that this expectation actually had been the historical and true expectation with which Jesus and his movement originally travelled to Jerusalem, but that this expectation later in fact turned out to be wrong. Therefore in Lk. 19.11 the author/editor of the text presents this crucial expectation as false because, in hindsight, it had proved to be erroneous (cf. also Dale Allison 2010, 65 – 67). In my opinion, this “Schweitzerian” interpretation of Lk. 19.11 is strongly supported by Lk. 21.24 and Acts 1.6, two texts which, like Lk. 19.11, are aiming at pointing at the fact that a certain interpretation had been experienced as erroneous.44 Lk. 24.21 belongs to the long story about the two Jesus-followers who, after Jesus’ death in Jerusalem, disappointed and downhearted, were walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus, a town west of the capital. During their journey the two travellers met a stranger, who had not heard about Jesus and the events in Jerusalem at pesach, and who later proved to be Jesus who had been revived from death. On the trip the two travellers told the “stranger” what had happened to Jesus in Jerusalem, and to this report they added: “But we had been hoping that he was to be the liberator of Israel…” (v. 21). This text makes it clear that these two Jesus followers – presumably along with several others – before the arrest and execution of Jesus had hoped that Jesus would prove to be the Jewish people’s eschatological, messianic liberator. But this text also makes it clear that this hope in fact, through their experience, had been proved to be both erroneous and illusory.45 This view is expressed even more clearly in the beginning of Acts. Here we are told that Jesus after his resurrection appeared to his followers. In Acts 1.6 they ask the same question to the resurrected Jesus, which lies behind Luke 24.21: “When they were all together, they asked him, ‘Lord, is this the time at which you are to restore sovereignty to Israel?’” But Jesus rejected the question and instead ordered his followers to remain in Jerusalem and there to wait for the holy spirit to come (cf. Acts 2.1 – 13), and thereafter they should “bear witness for me in Jerusalem, and throughout all Judaea and Samaria, and even in the farthest corners of the earth’” (Acts 1.8). Again this text states quite clearly that the traditional Jewish eschatological expectations and the questions of the followers of Jesus were due to a misunderstanding. According to the resurrected Jesus, they had something quite different in store than the Jewish people’s eschatological restoration, 44 These texts are analysed more thoroughly in Bilde 2008a, 31 – 34. 45 Interpreted in this way Lk. 24.21 has an interesting parallel in Bell. 6.312 – 613 which is quoted in ch. 5.3.2.4. According to Josephus’ text, before and during the revolt against Rome in 66 – 70 (74), many Jews had hoped that the Jewish god would send them a messiah who should lead them to victory over Rome. However, the sad experiences of the Jews during the tragic revolt had led them to recognize that they had been mistaken in their interpretation of the prophetic predictions – precisely like the Jesus movement that after Jesus’ defeat in Jerusalem had been forced to recognize that they had been mistaken in their eschatological expectations.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

152

A revised reconstruction of the eschatological project

namely, being equipped with divine spirit and, by virtue of this spirit, the initiation of a Jesus-believing mission throughout the whole world (cf. Matt. 28.18 – 20).46 These three texts, Lk. 19.11; 24.21 and Acts 1.6 – 8, together form a strong and, in my opinion, a convincing block of evidence indicating, first, that before Jesus’ death Jesus and his movement had had the expectation that, by the help of the Jewish god, Jesus would be enthroned as the Messiah in Jerusalem, and that he as such would be “the liberator of Israel,” would bring about the kingdom of god, and would restore the Jewish twelve tribes as the eschatological Israel.47 Second, these three texts indicate, that these expectations had not been fulfilled, because Jesus instead of being enthroned was arrested, tried, convicted and executed by the Romans. Third, these three texts inform us that, in the wake of this disappointment in the Jesus movement over that outcome of Jesus’ eschatological project, there followed not only flight and abandonment of the original project, but also a radical reinterpretation, as Reimarus and later Albert Schweitzer acknowledged. Based on the information of these three texts there can be little doubt that, at a certain time, namely the time immediately before pesach in one of the years 27 – 33 CE, the historical Jesus and his followers headed for Jerusalem, because they expected that during the upcoming Passover, by the force of the Jewish god himself, Jesus would be inaugurated and enthroned as the Messiah in power and glory in the holy city, perhaps at Mount Zion, and that he would then drive out the Romans, restore the twelve tribes of Israel, bring about the kingdom of god and build the new temple.48 Although Jerusalem plays a central role in many other early Jewish texts,49 we have no other text describing a scenario similar to that described above, and so far, Jesus may here be claimed to appear original.

46 In the Bultmann school and by many other scholars these three texts have been interpreted quite differently, namely, as late and secondary constructions by the Lukan editor with intention to reject the position of a Jewish Christian relapse from the original universalistic position of the historical Jesus, cf., e. g., Klostermann 1929, 236; Barrett 2002, 5 – 6. Against this understanding, however, militates the fact that it is difficult to substantiate the existence of such a Jewish Christian relapse around the time of 70 – 90 CE. 47 A similar interpretation of Lk. 19.11 and Acts 1.6 (but not Lk. 24.21) has been proposed by Dale Allison (2010, 65 – 67). However, Dale Allison does not mention the idea that Jesus and his movement went to Jerusalem expecting Jesus to be enthroned there. 48 With this interpretation I also have to distance myself from the idea that Jesus went to Jerusalem only in order to proclaim the destruction of the capital (thus Flusser 1980, 41). 49 Cf. the Books of Maccabees. In particular 1 Macc. 14.7; Ps. Sal. 17.22, but also the presentations of Philo and Josephus of Emperor Gaius Caligula’s plot against the Temple of Jerusalem in the year 39 – 40 (cf. Bilde 1983a; 1984; 2011b).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus’ possible predictions

153

4.7 Jesus’ possible predictions and interpretations of his impending death It is, however, not the three texts, discussed and interpreted above, that dominate the description of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem as described in the canonical gospels. These three texts are in fact only some of the remaining traces or remnants of the reality of the historical and the real Jesus.50 In the canonical (and apocryphal) gospels this reality has generally been rejected, ousted or pushed into the background, and replaced by a new, secondary, “constructed” reality which was created by a reinterpretation and a transformation of the original reality. This change was created by some of Jesus’ followers who very quickly after Jesus’ death in Jerusalem reinterpreted the goal of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem from being a messianic entry and enthronement to be the death of the chosen martyr, a death with atoning effects as a necessary precondition of the final eschatological resurrection and enthronement of Jesus as the victorious Messiah.51 This new interpretation is dominated by the idea of Jesus as the Messiah who suffered and died on behalf of other human beings in order to atone for their sins. The foundation for this new interpretation was the surprising and tough reality of Jesus’ reception in Jerusalem. In contrast to his own and his movement’s expectations, Jesus was met with rejection, accusations, arrest, trial, conviction and execution. Accordingly, the new interpretation, which, after Jesus’ death, was invented by some of his supporters, aimed at creating an acceptable “meaning” of this ordeal. Their aspiration reached its goal by presenting Jesus’ suffering and death as decided and planned by the Jewish 50 A scholar’s hypothetical reconstruction of the historical Jesus is based on precisely such traces or remnants (cf. ch. 1.5). The first step in this scholarly procedure is the following: Using such traces and remnants as fundamental building blocks and in the context of the hypothetically reconstructed contemporary world of Jewish Palestine and early Judaism the scholar constructs a hypothetical picture of the historical Jesus as well as of the history of the Jesus movement and its christology from the time of Jesus to about 100 CE, that is the time when the canonical gospels appeared. The second and last step in this scholarly procedure consists in the experiment of trying to fit this hypothetically reconstructed historical Jesus into the hypothetically reconstructed pictures of contemporary early Judaism and of early Christianity and its Christology. 51 Cf., e. g., Wellhausen 1905, 91 – 92. This reinterpretation and transformation seems to me to have been the most decisive turning point in the history of the Jesus movement, cf. Bilde (2001) 2006, 171 – 239; 2002; 2005c; 2008a, 235 – 278. Apparently Reimarus was the first scholar who saw this contradiction or ambiguity in the canonical gospels and who also made the first attempt to interpret it historically, namely by his hypothesis postulating that it was at that time that the most important change in the Jesus movement took place: The reinterpretation of Jesus from being the Jewish messianic liberator to be a universal and cosmic saviour deity ((1774 – 1778) 1835, I, §§ 30 – 33). After Reimarus, only a few scholars have recognized the truth of his explanation, and it has never obtained the general acceptance in international Jesus research that it deserved. Perhaps Oakman 2012 and my own book may signal a rehabilitation of Reimarus.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

154

A revised reconstruction of the eschatological project

god as a vicarious atoning death. This idea has been the fundamental idea in Christianity until the 20th century. Therefore it is not the historical Jesus’ hopeful expectations regarding his messianic enthronement in Jerusalem, but the real story of his actual suffering and death that govern and dominate the canonical gospels’ description of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem. It does so primarily by the means of the so-called suffering predictions, in particular in Mk. 8.31 – 33; 9.30 – 31 and 10.32 – 34, all with parallels. But this motive of suffering prediction also emerges in many other texts such as Lk 13.31 – 33, the story of the anointing of Jesus at Bethany (Matt. 26.6 – 13 (par.)) and the story of the Last Supper (Matt. 26.28 – 29 (par.)). The first prediction of Jesus’ suffering appears in Mk. 8.31: “… and he began to teach them that the Son of Man had to endure great suffering, and to be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes; to be put to death, and to rise again three days afterwards.” Modern critical gospel research has often interpreted these predictions as secondary constructions, vaticinia ex eventu, i. e., prophecies that were made after the event actually occurred (cf., e. g., Wellhausen, 1905, 91 – 92). This interpretation makes good sense if – as suggested in the previous section – we assume that the defeat in Jerusalem came as a surprise to the Jesus movement, which really had expected something quite different when they arrived in Jerusalem, that is, Jesus’ enthronement as the Messiah, the revival of the Jewish people, the realization of the kingdom of god and the construction of the eschatological temple. When these expectations were not fulfilled, and Jesus was instead arrested, convicted and executed, and when the Jesus movement, because of these events, was dispersed before it miraculously again was united by the means of a new and positive interpretation of this catastrophe, it makes good sense that such predictions of Jesus’ suffering and death ware later constructed, attributed to Jesus, and secondarily placed in the Jesus movement’s collective memory of the journey to Jerusalem. Therefore, in a way, I agree with this traditional view of the critical gospel research. However, in recent years it has been possible to observe the following astonishing breakthrough in Jesus research, that this hitherto classical critical interpretation of Jesus’ predictions of his suffering in the canonical gospels has been abandoned by more and more scholars, not only by evangelical apologists, but also by critical exegetes.52 An important reason for this new assessment of these texts is the fact that in contemporary Judaism we find a composed topos, i. e., a fixed concept, of “the (eschatological) prophet,” who because of his message and his righteousness 52 Thus, in particular, Weiss (1892) 1965, 103; A. Schweitzer (1901) 1956, VIII; (1906) 1966, 440; Schürmann 1973; 1983; 1994, 257 – 265; Oberlinner 1980; Bayer 1986; Hampel 1990, 246 – 342; Stuhlmacher 1992, 125 – 143; Wright (1992) 1993, 101 – 102; 1996, 574 – 576; Balla 2001; Evans 2006b; Casey 2010, 399; Zolondek 2010.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus’ possible predictions

155

is persecuted, suffers and dies.53 Against this background it is not inconceivable that the historical Jesus related himself to this figure and identified himself and his fate with him. In addition, we actually have texts in the canonical gospels suggesting that Jesus in the style of the biblical prophets may well have anticipated and predicted that the expected eschatological events in Jerusalem might include his own martyrdom. Lk. 13.31 – 33 is such a text: (31) At that time a number of Pharisees came and warned him, “Leave this place and be on your way ; Herod wants to kill you.” (32) He replied, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Listen, today and tomorrow I shall be driving out demons and working cures; on the third day I reach my goal.’ (33) However, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the next day, because it is unthinkable for a prophet to meet his death anywhere but in Jerusalem.’

This text belongs to the peculiar material in the Gospel of Luke, and there are several signs that it belongs to ancient and historically reliable tradition: 1) the Pharisees are here characterised as friendly to Jesus, and this attitude is contrary to the negative way in which they are otherwise portrayed in the gospels; 2) instead of the traditional tension between Jesus and the Pharisees this text suggests an enmity between Herod Antipas and Jesus, which we do not encounter elsewhere in the canonical gospels, but which corresponds to the conflict between John the Baptist and Antipas; 3) here Jesus refers to himself by means of the low christological title “prophet,” which the gospels otherwise put into the mouth of “outsiders.” For these three reasons Lk. 13.31 – 33 may be interpreted as an older and perhaps original testimony of the fact that the historical Jesus anticipated that his journey to Jerusalem could imply that he himself would have to suffer the death that prophets often suffered here as a result of their divinely inspired, but unpopular proclamations,54 just as it recently had been the case for John the Baptist, albeit not in Jerusalem. Therefore it cannot be excluded that Jesus at a specific time decided to make an important journey to Jerusalem, and that he there expected, not only the final messianic and eschatological breakthrough, but, before these events, perhaps also his own prophetic martyrdom,55 which he may also in advance have interpreted as an important part of the same eschatological breakthrough.56 53 Thus, e. g., Lohse (1955) 1963; Ruppert 1972; Berger 1976; de Jonge 1991, 39.41; Tan 1997, 57 – 80; Niemand 2007, 500; Bilde 2008a, 236 – 239. 54 Cf., e. g., Jer. 26.37 – 40; Matt. 23,29 – 39 (par.). 55 A text like Matt. 20.22 point in the same direction as Lk. 13.31 – 33: “Jesus turned to the brothers and said, ‘You do not understand what you are asking. Can you drink the cup that I am to drink?’.” (cf. Mk. 10.38). 56 Jesus may have done so by identifying himself either with the “Suffering Servant of the Lord” in Isa. 53, who is also suffering and dying substitutingly, or with the “Anointed One” in Dan. 9.25 – 27, who “will be removed” (cf. Bilde 2008a, 264 – 272).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

156

A revised reconstruction of the eschatological project

On this basis I provisionally conclude that the texts mentioned here seem to suggest that, at a particular moment in his public career, Jesus actually decided to go to Jerusalem with his followers because he expected that the kingdom of god would break through when he had reached this city. Here he may also have expected to be enthroned as the Messiah, though he might also have expected that he perhaps first would be rejected by his people and, before his triumph, had to suffer death as a genuine prophet sent by the Jewish god. Therefore it is not inconceivable that Jesus on his way from Galilee to Jerusalem with his followers could have predicted both. Therefore it can also be regarded as both natural and understandable that his supporters on their way to Jerusalem would have been “shaken” and “afraid” (Mk. 10.32), while, at the same time, they had been filled with joyful expectations (Lk. 19.11). Against this background it is not an impossible idea that the historical Jesus could have predicted his own death.57 It is, however, more doubtful whether he might have interpreted this death soteriologically as claimed by A. Schweitzer ((1901) 1956, 89). At first sight such an interpretation seems rather to come from the Jesus movement after the death of Jesus. However in these years more and more scholars also question this good old critical “truth.”58 To interpret the gospels’ emphasis, that Jesus also attributed to his coming death a soteriological significance, as “a prophecy after the event” is not the only option, although perhaps the most obvious one. For this idea as well has models and roots in other early Jewish texts. I have already mentioned, Isa. 53, where we find the following sentences: “Yet it was our afflictions he was bearing, our pain he endured,… But he was pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities….” (vv. 4 – 5).59 This idea, that a person’s suffering and death could appease and reconcile an angry deity, an idea which obviously also lies behind many bloody animal sacrifices in earlier and later times, reappears in 2 Macc. 7 describing the Jewish mother and her seven sons’ touching ordeal. Here one of the brothers is referred to have remarked: (37) I, like my brothers, surrender my body and my life for our ancestral laws. I appeal to God to show favour speedily to his people… (38) May the Almighty’s anger, which has justly fallen on all our race, end with me and my brothers (vv. 37 – 38).60

57 Thus, e. g., A. Schweitzer (1901) 1956; (1906) 1966, 402 – 450; Oberlinner 1980; Bayer 1986; Stuhlmacher 1992, 142 – 143; Balla 2001; Licona 2010. 58 Thus already Brun 1917, 467 – 491, and later, e. g., Dodd (1935) 1961, 40; Oberlinner 1980; Allison 1985, 115 – 141, esp. pp. 116 – 117; Bayer 1986; de Jonge 1991, 42 – 54. 79; Schürmann 1994, 168 – 240; Müller 1996, 177; Dunn 2003; Pitre 2005, 505; Keener 2009, 297 – 302. 59 Thus also, among many other scholars: A. Schweitzer (1901) 1956, 89 – 91; (1906) 1966, 443; Lohse (1955) 1963; de Jonge 1991; Schürmann 1994, 194 – 1998; Bellinger 1998. Against this interpretation is first and foremost Hooker 1959. 60 I refer to Lohse (1955) 1963, 9 – 110, in particular pp. 66 – 72; Schürmann 1994, 199 – 201.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus’ possible predictions

157

Michael O. Wise (1999) and Israel Knohl (2000) believe that, with a soteriological interpretation of his coming death Jesus may not only have relied on Isa. 53 and other biblical texts about “the suffering righteous one” and, moreover, on 2 Macc. 7.37 – 38, quoted above, but that he may also have had a well-known historical model in the person who wrote the so-called Thanksgiving Hymns from Qumran (Hodayot), which both these scholars identify with the Teacher of Righteousness (cf. ch. 5.3.2.2). Against this background, according to these two scholars, it is not inconceivable historically that Jesus may have been able to foresee his impending death, but also that he may have ascribed an atoning significance to his future suffering. I think that this atonement can best be understood and interpreted by the means of a comparison with the idea of conversion and penance in John the Baptist’s preaching. The precondition for both of these phenomena, conversion and atonement, is the fact that the Jewish people suffer under foreign domination, and that the chosen people hope that the prophetic promises of the coming of the Messiah and the kingdom of god will soon be fulfilled. However, it is a crucial prerequisite for the realization of these eschatological hopes that the Jewish people repent, do penance and begin living a righteous life according to the will of the Jewish god, that is, the Law of Moses (cf., e. g., A. Schweitzer (1901) 1956, 18 – 20). Accordingly, I interpret John the Baptist’s baptism as a symbolic rite which by the means of an external act, the immersion, the baptism, should demonstrate the sincerity of the repentance and conversion of the baptized Jew (cf. ch. 5.3.2.5). Jesus’ ideas of his own impending death as a death with an atoning effect, however, could at first have been intended to cover and atone for sins committed by the non-converted members of the Jewish people in order to accelerate the arrival of the kingdom of god. This interpretation finds some support in Matt. 26.28, where it is stated that Jesus’ blood is “(For this is my blood, the blood of the covenant,) shed for many for the forgiveness of sins” (cf. ch. 4.8). The interpretations put forward in this chapter are almost indistinguishable from uncritical conservative and evangelical fundamentalist scholars’ interpretations of the same texts, but nevertheless, they ought to be carefully considered. The same applies to the hypothesis that the texts discussed above perhaps might be interpreted as fragments of a sequence of two stages: The first group of texts – aiming at Jesus’ messianic enthronement in Jerusalem – might reflect the first and the oldest stage of the Jesus tradition, which is supposed to have been governed by Jesus and his movement’s optimistic vision of the near eschatological future, a vision that was centred on the expectation of an eschatological breakthrough in Jerusalem that did not involve any messianic suffering. The second group of texts is likely to reflect a second and later stage, which was pessimistic in the sense that it reflected the fact that Jesus had met with

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

158

A revised reconstruction of the eschatological project

resistance, rejection and disappointment, and that he therefore had become convinced that the eschatological breakthrough in Jerusalem demanded his own vicarious atoning death as a necessary precondition. It should finally be noted that both of the two presented interpretations of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem and of his related eschatological expectations bring Jesus into good agreement with visible trends in other parts of early Jewish eschatology. On the other hand, we have no parallel or analogy in other early Jewish sources describing a messianic pretender heading for Jerusalem in Passover with similar eschatological expectations. Therefore the two interpretations of the Jerusalem eschatology of Jesus mentioned above can be claimed to testify to the originality of Jesus.

4.8 The institution of a new covenant between the Jewish god and the Jewish people61 In the previous section I noticed in passing that the synoptic gospels connect Jesus’ impending death with the last meal (the Passover meal?) that Jesus and his twelve selected envoys ate just before his capture, interrogation, conviction and execution (Matt. 26.26 – 29 (par.)). This “eucharistic” text is symbolic on two levels. Firstly, the text interprets Jesus’ breaking of the bread and his outpouring of the wine as symbols of the impending shedding of his blood and torture of his body. Thus this act is interpreted as a “material” prediction of Jesus’ suffering and death. And therefore it can be interpreted in line with the other predictions of Jesus’ death surveyed in ch. 4.7. Second, this text interprets Jesus’ coming death as a vicarious atonement death: “…drink from it, all of you. For this is my blood, the blood of the covenant, shed for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matt. 26.27 – 28 (par.)), that is, an interpretation in agreement with Matt.20.28 (par.). However here we shall focus our attention on the phrase “the blood of the covenant.” This expression recalls Lk. 22.20 describing the wine cup as the “new covenant” which apparently was instituted “by,” that is, “by the means of” the shedding of Jesus’ blood.62 The Lukan phrase “the new covenant” has no strong support in the Greek manuscripts, and therefore might be 61 Cf. Jeppesen 1986; Holm¦n (1999) 2001a; Porter – de Roo 2003; Marshall 2009; Pitre 2011, 28 – 32. Humphreys 2011 is primarily interested in the chronology of Jesus’ last days in Jerusalem, and he does not analyse the idea of a new covenant and the eschatological perspectives of “the last supper.” 62 The OSB omits Lk. 22.20 because its support in the Greek and other ancient manuscripts is weak.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

The institution of a new covenant

159

understood as secondarily added by the editor who might have found it in 1 Cor. 11.25. For this Lukan wording also occurs in the Pauline version of the description of this meal: “… ‘this cup is the new covenant sealed by my blood…” (1 Cor. 11.25). The Gospel of Luke and Paul also agree in the emphasis that this act is the institution of a ritual, as they both contain the phrase: “Do this in memory of me.”63 These and other differences seem to indicate that the original text behind Matt. 26.26 – 29 (par.), and perhaps the oral traditions behind them, during their transmission history has undergone several understandings and interpretations. I think that, in its oldest form, this text seems to have told the story about the last meal Jesus ate with his chosen followers. Here Jesus appears to have interpreted this shared meal, which might have been identical with the Jewish Passover meal, as a sign of the imminent establishment of the kingdom of god: “I tell you, never again shall I drink from this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in the kingdom of my Father” (Matt. 26.29 (par.)). The Lukan version of this story in Lk. 22.14 – 20 is more than twice as long as that of the Gospel of Matthew. It repeats the statement of Matt. 26.29 in connection with the description of the beginning of the meal (v. 16). I contend that this part of the text represents the oldest version of this tradition which is thus dominated by the description of Jesus’ intense expectation of the imminent realization of the kingdom of god. This fragment of the original saying of Jesus thus expresses immediately Jesus’ expectation that god’s kingdom will be established “today.” At the same time, or perhaps at a slightly later stage, the emphasis in the text was removed from Jesus’ intense expectation of the imminence of the kingdom of god and placed on the symbolic interpretation of his breaking of the bread and his outpouring of the wine serving as graphic images of Jesus’ imminent death. This change seems to presuppose that the first interpretation had been given up and therefore pushed into the background, while it was replaced by an attempt at a soteriological interpretation of Jesus’ death. In my opinion, the third step in the development of this text is the ritual or cultic use as found already in Paul and the expanded version of the Gospel of Luke. Here the text has been transformed into a ritual which is ordered to be repeated. Our main problem, however, in the present context is the understanding and interpretation of the word “covenant” and the two words “new covenant.” As these words now figure in the texts, they seem to indicate that the impending outpouring of Jesus’ blood and the “breaking” of his body, i. e., Jesus’ impending death, lay the foundation of a new covenant, whether

63 For the same reasons as indicated in footnote 4,62 the OSB also omits Lk. 22.19b containing this phrase.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

160

A revised reconstruction of the eschatological project

described as “new” or not.64 We therefore need to investigate this phenomenon, “covenant,” more closely. What kind of covenant is this? We can get some help by recalling that the Jewish people are often described as the “people of the covenant.” The word “covenant” here refers to either the “covenant of the circumcision” between the Jewish god and Abraham (Gen. (12.1 – 2, 15,1 – 21) 17.1 – 27) or the “covenant of the Sinai legislation” between the Jewish deity and Moses on behalf of the people (Exod. 19 – 24). We can get additional help by seeing and realizing that the Rule of the Community (1QS) and the Damascus Document (CD) from Qumran, too, use the term, a “new covenant” as a designation of the Qumranitic community itself, which most scholars still believe to have existed behind these writings. In these texts the word “new” seems to refer to a renewal of the two abovementioned fundamental Jewish covenants. The most important help we can get, however, comes from the famous text on a new covenant in Jer. 31.31 – 34: (31) The days are coming, says the LORD, when I shall establish a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. (32) It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, a covenant they broke, though I was patient with them, says the LORD. (33) For this is the covenant I shall establish with the Israelites after those days, says the LORD: I shall set my law within them, writing it on their hearts; I shall be their God, and they will be my people. (34) No longer need they teach one another, neighbour or brother, to know the LORD; all of them, high and low alike, will know me, says the LORD, for I shall forgive their wrongdoing, and their sin I shall call to mind no more.

This text speaks about a future event, and at the time of Jesus, in Dead Sea Scrolls (CD and 1QS) as well as in the canonical gospels, the Jews interpreted this future event as the eschatological period, i. e., the time for the arrival of the kingdom of god, the coming of the Messiah, the resurrection of the dead, the eschatological judgment and the establishment of this prophesied new covenant. We also notice that the text is speaking of the “people of Israel and Judah,” i. e., the northern as well as southern kingdom, or the ten tribes of Israel as well as the two tribes of Judah thus referring to all the twelve tribes of the Jewish people. The main feature in the text, however, is its words about a “new” covenant. According to the text, a new covenant is needed because the Jewish people had broken the old one. This idea is fundamental in the OT, and it permeates 64 This crucial word appears in Paul (1 Cor. 11.25) and therefore must be regarded as old. But even if it should be regarded as secondary in Lk. 22.20, we still have the word “covenant” in all three synoptic gospels, and I think that it is difficult to interpret this covenant as the “old” Mosaic covenant.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

The institution of a new covenant

161

important parts of the Jewish Bible. Scholars describe this idea as a fundamental part of the so-called “Deuteronomistic” theology or ideology.65 The idea and content of Jer. 31.31 – 34 is the following: Because of the actual transgressions of the Law of Moses by the Jewish people, in the eschatological time the Jewish god will establish a new covenant with his people. And what is peculiar about this new covenant is that it will be written, not on two stone tablets or in five books, but in or on people’s “hearts” meaning that all Jews by themselves will know the Jewish deity and out of this inner knowledge faithfully will observe all the commandments of the new covenant. Finally the text ends by predicting that – at this eschatological moment – the Jewish god will forgive and remove the people’s guilt and sin. Apparently these words refer to the guilt and sin that the Jewish people had committed by breaking the first (and second) covenant(s). It is my belief that this text, Jer. 31.31 – 34, has had a fundamental importance for the (Essene?) society behind the Qumran literature as well as for the historical Jesus, the Jesus movement and the later Christianity.66 I am also convinced that Jer. 31.31 – 34 was a text of fundamental importance to John the Baptist and other Jewish eschatological prophets and messianic pretenders, but that part of my hypothesis shall not be developed here. The community behind the Dead Sea Scrolls apparently believed that the “new,” eschatological covenant, predicted in Jer. 31.31 – 34, had been introduced to them by their leader, the Teacher of Righteousness. The Damascus Document speaks of “the remnant” (e. g., CD 1.4, 2.11) as well as of the “covenant” (e. g., CD 2.2). That the word “covenant” here refers to the “new covenant,” appears from CD 6.19; 8.21; 20.12, and the context in column 6 suggests that the Teacher of Righteousness played a crucial role in the establishment of this new covenant. In my opinion Lk. 22.20; 1 Cor. 11.25 and Matt. 26.28 indicate that Jesus and the Jesus movement might have interpreted Jer. 31.31 – 34 in the same way as 65 The word “Deuteronomism” is constructed on the basis of the Greek expression deuteros nomos (the “second law”). A Latinized version of this word, Deuteronomium, was the old Latin name for the Fifth Book of Moses. Finally this word has been used as a designation for the theology or ideology that permeates not only the Fifth Book of Moses, but the whole group of writings from Deut. over Josh., Judg., 1 and 2 Sam. to 1 and 2 Kgs. Therefore this group of writings is also termed the “Deuteronomic Work of History.” Important ideas in this deuteronomistic ideology are, first, that a sacrificial cult of the Jewish god can only take place in the Temple of Jerusalem on Mount Zion, secondly, that the covenant between the Jewish god and the Jewish people demands obedience and faithful observance of the Law of Moses from the people, and, thirdly, that the Jewish people’s transgressions of the Law of Moses will be punished by the Jewish deity (cf., e. g., the relevant articles in RGG; Person 2002). 66 Cf. in particular Paul in 2 Cor. 3.1 – 18. With this interpretation I regrettably disagree fundamentally with Tom Holm¦n’s dissertation on Jesus and the Jewish covenant thinking, for it is his main conclusion, that Jesus did not share his contemporaries’ ideas about the covenant ((1999) 2001, 336). This might also be the reason why Holm¦n has omitted Mk. 14.24 (par.) from his investigation.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

162

A revised reconstruction of the eschatological project

the Teacher of Righteousness and the Qumranites. However it is not clear whether it is the historical Jesus or the Jesus-believers after the death of Jesus who is speaking in Matt. 26.28 (par.). This text can be interpreted as a statement by the historical Jesus, who at this particular time might have become convinced that the new covenant, and thus the kingdom of god and Jesus’ own inauguration as the Messiah presupposed his own martyrdom, or that these events actually would be launched by the means of his own vicarious death of atonement. The historical Jesus may thus have believed that his imminent death would inaugurate that new eschatological covenant, namely “by,” i. e., “through” or “by the means of” Jesus’ death, which would bring about the forgiveness of sins, that were the necessary prerequisite for the establishment of the new covenant.67 Matt. 26.28 (par.) can, however, also be interpreted as an early Christian text which after the death of Jesus interprets this death as the foundation of the new chosen people: the Jesus-believers and the later Christians. They, and not the other Jewish communities, were the “chosen” people of the new covenant. With this interpretation the term “new covenant” almost takes on the same meaning as the term the “new testament.” Accordingly, it cannot be determined with certainty whether it was the historical Jesus who spoke about the new covenant and connected it with his impending death, or whether it was the later Jesus movement after his death. I suspect however, that the first alternative represents the historical reality, and that Jesus, on the basis of this interpretation, greatly resembles the Teacher of Righteousness (cf. ch. 5.3.2.2). If this is true, Jesus with his words about the new covenant cannot be classified as original. If, however, I am right in assuming that Jesus linked the establishment of this new covenant with his impending death, which he himself interpreted as a martyr’s death with vicarious, atoning effects for the remaining sinners in the Jewish people, then Jesus could and should be called highly original.68

4.9 Jews and gentiles in Jesus’ eschatological project The starting point for a discussion of whether Jesus’ eschatological project was “particularistic,” i. e., exclusively applied to the Jewish people, or it was 67 Thus also Lohse (1955) 1963, 122 – 129, in particular p. 126; Tan 1997, 197 – 226; Dunn 2003, 816 – 817. I do not understand why Holm¦n in his dissertation on Jesus and Jewish covenant thinking (1999) 2001 does not examine this text. 68 If we accept the hypothesis of Wise 1999 and Knohl 2000, of course Jesus cannot be regarded as original in this respect.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jews and gentiles

163

“universalistic,” i. e., that it also concerned the gentile nations, is once more an ambiguity that in this respect characterizes the canonical gospels.69 On the one hand, we have Matt. 10.5 – 6: “These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: ‘Do not take the road to gentile lands, and do not enter any Samaritan town; but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel….’.” In contrast, we have the universal missionary commandment in Matt. 28:18 – 20: (18) … ‘Full authority in heaven and on earth has been committed to me. (19) Go therefore to all nations and make them my disciples; baptize them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, (20) and teach them to observe all that I have commanded you. I will be with you always, to the end of time.’

Both texts are peculiar Matthean material, presumably derived from Matthew’s special source (M). How can we interpret these two texts? On an immediate, critical assessment Matt. 10.5 – 6 appears to be older than Matt. 28.18 – 20, primarily because the last text much more clearly than the first one reflects the reality of the Jesus movement and a Christianity with a developed Christology after the death of Jesus. Matt. 28.18 – 20 presupposes not only a Christian practice of baptism, but even a baptism in the name of the divine trinity, a phenomenon which was developed and formulated later, during the 2nd-4th century CE. Furthermore Matt. 28.18 – 20 also presupposes a clarified christology, which describes Jesus as cosmocrator (cf. Phil. 2.9 – 11). Finally, Matt. 28.18 – 20 seems to look back on the controversy on, whether Jesus’ message was meant for Jews only, or it was also intended to be brought to all the gentile nations, which dominates the letters of Paul and Acts, as an issue of the past. I therefore conclude that Matt. 28.18 – 20 is a secondary and relatively late text while Matt. 10.5 – 6 may very well come from the historical Jesus. This conclusion receives confirmation from the general tendency in the third period of modern Jesus research to interpret Jesus as a Jew, and that his message of the imminence of the kingdom of god was only aimed at the Jewish people. A look at the history of modern Jesus-research on this question shows that traditional Christianity as well as liberal theologians without any hesitation regarded Jesus as a universalist. For liberal theologians it was an unyielding dogma that Jesus was a cosmopolitan, with whom modern Europe of the 19th century could easily identify itself. For this theology it was a major point that Jesus broke with all the “narrow” forms of “particularistic” Judaism, be it its restricted ethnicity, its exclusivity or its “casuistic” interpretation of the 69 Cf. J. Jeremias (1956) 1959; E.P. Sanders 1985, 212 – 221; Goodman 1994; Schnabel 1994; Bird 2006; 2010; Donaldson 2007. It surprises me that Reinbold 2000 and ædna – Kvalbein 2000 have nothing to say on this ambiguity.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

164

A revised reconstruction of the eschatological project

Jewish Bible. For liberal theologians it was a matter of course that Jesus sent his disciples to “all nations,” as it is called in Matt. 28.19.70 In the second and third periods of the history of modern Jesus research, however, it became increasingly clear that Jesus’ original project was the absolutely opposite one, i. e., an exclusively Jewish project. Jesus had no intention of founding a new religion. His supporters and envoys should therefore avoid the Samaritans and other gentiles and only focus on “the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” as it is stated in Matt. 10.5 – 6 (cf. Matt. 15.24). In the most recent research (especially Pitre 2005 and Bird 2006), however, there has been a new turn. These scholars call into question the abovementioned correction of traditional Christianity and liberal theology, albeit this correction was accurate at the time it was made. Again I can illustrate the matter by referring to a discussion about the authenticity of a certain word of Jesus that is Matt. 24.14 (par.): “And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the earth as a testimony to all nations; and then the end will come.” For a long time critical scholars regarded this statement of Jesus as a secondary and late construction, that had been put into the mouth of Jesus after his death. At the present moment, however, these two scholars, Pitre and Bird, hold – together with several others such as E.P. Sanders 1985 and Donaldson, 2007 – that early Judaism was in fact not without a will to gentile mission.71 On the basis of a number of texts in the biblical prophets (e. g., Isa. 2.2 – 5; 66.18 – 21), these scholars claim that a mission to the gentiles was perceived as an eschatological phenomenon.72 According to these scholars, such a universal mission should not be driven actively in the present fallen and sinful world, the so-called “evil” aeon, but first in the end times, when the “great distress” (or “tribulation”) (Matt. 24.9,21, 29 (par.)) would occur (cf. Pitre 2005), and the Messiah would come. Then and first then a Jewish mission to the gentiles should begin. Therefore, according to scholars like Bird and Pitre, the statement quoted in Matt. 24.14 applies precisely to this eschatological situation.73 If this interpretation is tenable, we have in Matt. 24.14 (par.) a saying of a unique character. Albeit we know of other Jewish texts speaking of a mission to the gentiles in the end time, we have no other early Jewish texts speaking as 70 The same fundamental pattern – universal mission without any eschatological perspective – characterizes the “evangelical” work: Köstenberger – O’Brien 2001, in particular pp. 263 – 264. 71 In contrast to, e. g., Hahn (1963) 1965; Goodman 1994; Köstenberger – O’Brien 2001, 55 – 71 and 254; Schnabel, 2004, 1, 95 – 173, in particular pp. 121 – 122 and 173. 72 Cf. in particular 1 En. 90.33 – 38; T.Naft. 8.3 – 4; 1QM 12.13; 19.6, and to these texts Schnabel 2004, 1, 122; Donaldson 2007, 499 – 505. 73 Tan 1997 shares this view though he emphasizes that a mission to the gentiles cannot begin until “Zion” has been “restored” (1997, 239 – 240). Against this point of view Bird claims that the gentile mission already began with Jesus because he and his followers meant that the end time had already been inaugurated (2006, 58 – 172). Other modern scholars such as Köstenberger – O’Brien 2001 do not share this “new” eschatological view of Jesus and the gentiles.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus and the Jewish ideas of the Messiah

165

abundantly on the matter as the NT. This example also graphically illustrates how difficult it is to present a clear answer to the question of Jesus’ originality.

4.10 Jesus and the Jewish ideas of the Messiah After several generations’ intensive work with the Jewish and Christian ideas of the Messiah,74 it seems today to be clear that in Judaism in general – and the same is true of early Judaism – we do not just find one, well defined concept of the Messiah, for example, the Davidic one of a great warrior and royal figure, who was supposed by the force of military power to liberate the Jewish people from their current enemies, to restore the Davidic kingdom and to get his people peace, prosperity, piety and righteousness. Nor do we find only two messianic concepts such as the royal Messiah and the Son of Man, who in Dan. 7 unequivocally refers to the Jewish people, but later, especially in the First Book of Enoch, the Book of Fourth Ezra, and the canonical gospels, was reinterpreted to refer to a heavenly messianic figure.75 No, in early Judaism, we find evidence of several Messiah-like figures,76 and the same is true in the NT, especially in the gospels. Here there is no doubt that Jesus holds a unique authority and therefore also is given a unique status (cf. ch. 3.9). According to Matt. 16.14 (par.), the disciples tell Jesus that people had various opinions about him: “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.” Jesus himself is reluctant to define his unquestionably high self-awareness by the means of a particular title or designation. It is against this background that we must interpret the “new” aspects that Jesus, according to the synoptic gospels, seems to have assigned to his own specific role and status. We have already touched upon the Moses aspect that seems to appear from the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew.77 But Jesus may also have 74 Cf. Bousset (1913) 1965; Volz (1934) 1966, 173 – 229; Mowinkel 1951; van der Woude 1957 (about Qumran); Hengel (1975) 1977; Dunn 1980; Laperrousaz 1982 (on Qumran); Karrer 1991, 214 – 313; Charlesworth 1992b; Gruenwald 1992; Oegema 1994; J.J. Collins 1995; Cohn-Sherbok 1997; Laato 1997; Horbury 1998; 2003; Mayer 1998; Lenowitz 1998; Zimmermann 1998 (on Qumran); Schäfer – Cohen 1998; Schreiber 2000; Bockmuehl – Paget (2007) 2009); Fitzmeyer 2007; Zetterholm 2007; A.Y. Collins – J.J. Collins 2008; Bird 2009, 31 – 62. Schreiber explicitly underlines the military and political aspects of the early Jewish ideas about the Davidic Messiah (2000, 542). 75 Cf. Mowinkel 1951; Müller 1972; 1984; 2008b; Casey 2007; J.J. Collins 2011. According to Bertalotto 2010, 117 – 153, the primarily Italian studies of the so-called “Enochian” Judaism have concluded that in this type of Judaism the Son of Man was a heavenly messianic figure, and that the historical Jesus had received his ideas about this figure from Enochian Judaism. 76 Cf. Schreiber 2000, 534. 541: “Es existierte keine fest umrisse, in ihren Motiven völlig einheitliche königliche Gesalbtenerwartung im Frühjudentum,” cf. also Bertalotto 2010, 16.. 77 Cf. ch. 3.5; 3.9 and Deut. 18.15 – 19, cf. Teeple 1957. On the other hand, Green 2002 does not contribute to the clarification of this question because his work only consists of selected sayings

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

166

A revised reconstruction of the eschatological project

taken a position on the idea of the recurring Elijah and perhaps identified himself with him.78 According to the Book of Jesus ben Sirach (Ecclesiaticus) 48.1 – 10, Elijah is one of the greatest prophets in the Jewish Bible, because he performed miracles, raised up the dead and ascended into heaven in a chariot of fire (cf. 1 Kgs. 16.29 – 2 Kgs. 2.12). At the end of Ecclus. 48,1 – 10 it is stated: “Scripture records that you are to come at the appointed time to allay the divine wrath before it erupts in fury, to reconcile father and son, and to restore the tribes of Jacob” (Ecclus. 48.10). What “scripture records” could be the Book of Malachi 4.5 – 6: “(5) Look, I shall send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes. (6) He will reconcile parents to their children and children to their parents, lest I come and put the land under a ban to destroy it.” Perhaps it is also the hope of the return of Elijah that lies behind Isa. 40.3: “A voice cries: ‘Clear a road through the wilderness for the LORD, prepare a highway across the desert for our God.” The synoptic gospels interpret these predictions about Elijah’s eschatological return about John the Baptist (Matt. 3.3 (par.); 17.10 – 13 (par.)), and they interpret the “lord,” for whom Elijah/John shall pave the way, about Jesus, and not the Jewish god, as in Isa. 40.3. According to Matt. 14.1 – 2 (par.), Herod Antipas once interpreted Jesus as the resurrected John the Baptist. Therefore it is an obvious idea, not only that many contemporaries interpreted the John the Baptist as Elijah, but also that others interpreted Jesus as the Elijah who should prepare the Jewish god’s own coming to judgement and salvation (cf. Matt. 16.14 (par.)).79 According to Lk. 13.33, Jesus described himself as a “prophet” (cf. Matt. 13.57 (par.)), and he said that this prophet had to die in Jerusalem.80 It is, however, not clear whether the word “prophet” here alludes to Moses or Elijah (cf. Caspi – Neu Sokol 2009, 1 – 63). Nor can this text be interpreted as referring unambiguously to the prophet Jeremiah, who probably was imprisoned in Jerusalem, but who is not recorded as having died here. In Isa. 53, the suffering and death of the “lord’s servant” is not located of Jesus against which Green has placed a number of closely parallel texts, not only from the five books of Moses, but from the entire Jewish Bible and the Talmudic literature. 78 Joel A. Weawer considered the Jewish as well as the Christian interpretations of Elijah (cf. 2007, 99 – 148), cf. also Öhler 1997; 1999. Caspi – Neu-Sokol 2009 presents the legends on Elijah in Judaism, Christianity as well as Islam, whereas Öhler 1997 only examines Elijah in the NT. John P. Meier seems to me to be the contemporary Jesus scholar who most energetically has insisted on the idea that the historical Jesus understood himself in the light of the early Jewish ideas about the returning Elijah (cf. Meier, 4, 2009, 656 – 657). 79 Öhler 1997 examines carefully these and many other texts on Jesus and Elijah (1997, 111 – 253), and on p. 248 – 249, he discusses and rejects the idea that Jesus could have regarded himself as the reappearing Elijah. 80 For a closer examination of Jesus interpreted as a prophetic figure, I refer to R. Meyer (1940) 1970; Bartsch 1970; Hooker 1997.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus and the Jewish ideas of the Messiah

167

geographically. Still, Lk. 13.33 might refer to this figure or to the “anointed one,” mentioned in Dan. 9.25 – 26. Consequently it was not just the anointed descendent of David and the Son of Man from Dan. 7.13 – 14, interpreted personally and messianically, that Jesus could relate himself to,81 but also the eschatological Moses, the returning Elijah or the lord’s servant in Isa. 53.82 Against this background, it is not surprising that an increasing number of contemporary Jesus scholars notice that Jesus, according to the synoptic gospels, spoke and acted with an extremely high degree of self-consciousness.83 Based on the examinations carried out in ch. 4.1 – 9 I can now confidently confirm this interpretation of the sources about Jesus. These studies have demonstrated that the historical Jesus, who in the texts studied interprets, acts in and creates the events described in the canonical gospels, is here described as standing in the middle of the eschatological events as a key person. Consequently, I think that we can exclude the interpretation of Jesus’ view of his own role and status that “only” determines him as an eschatological prophet. This category is simply too low. In my opinion, this exclusion includes the interpretations of Jesus as the returning Moses, Elijah or John the Baptist. The status and the roles that the reliable, older parts of the Jesus tradition assign to him simply surpass these four categories. We find this higher status and rank of the historical Jesus especially in the stories of his healings, according to which Jesus interprets his healings as a testimony to the fact that the kingdom of god has already dawned (cf. ch. 3.8). This superior status of Jesus is also reflected in the traditions about his predictions of his own future death and of his interpretation of this death as a vicarious death of atonement to the benefit of the Jewish people (cf. ch. 4.7). Jesus’ unusually high ranking is also reflected in the testimonies about his selection and institution of his twelve selected envoys as tribal chiefs and in the texts about his messianic journey to Jerusalem. Finally, Jesus’ prophecy, that he intended to build a new eschatological temple, indicates that he ascribes a messianic rank to himself. This last statement clearly indicates that Jesus was seen as a messianic figure, by others as well as by himself. The mere fact, that some of Jesus’ 81 According to Evans 1997, 226, Jesus claimed to be the Son of Man in Dan. 7,13 – 14: “This selfreference suggests that Jesus saw himself as God’s vice-regent.” Evans believes that Jesus regarded himself to be the Messiah (p. 226 – 227), cf., e. g., Freeman (2009) 2011, 28. 82 The thesis that Jesus identified himself with the “servant of the lord” in Isa. 53 has been rather popular in Jesus research although no text in the canonical gospels explicitly indicates that. Therefore this interpretation has been rejected by, e. g., Hooker 1959, 101 – 102; Flusser (1968) 1975, 95; Dunn 2003, 809 – 818. In contrast this popular hypothesis has been accepted by, e. g., Manson (1953) 1961; J. Jeremias (1954) 1966, 191 – 216; (1956) 1959, 45; Dodd 1970; Leivestad 1982, 179 – 183; de Jonge 1991, 48 – 50; Bird 2009, 98 – 104; Keener 2009, 391. 83 Cf. ch. 3.9 with references to Käsemann (1954) 1965, 1, 206 – 211; Stuhlmacher 1992, 124; Schweizer (1994) 1996; Kreplin 2011, 2508 – 2510.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

168

A revised reconstruction of the eschatological project

contemporaries were convinced that the Messiah had already arrived in the figure of Jesus, also provides the simplest explanation for the claim articulated in the traditions about Jesus, that the kingdom of god was already present in and with Jesus’ activity. To me, this insight provides the key to a proper contextual interpretation of the historical Jesus’ self-perception. This messianic interpretation should not, as it often happens, be ascribed to the evangelist or to the mediators of the oral and the written traditions before the written editions of the gospels alone. It can also be interpreted as reflecting the historical Jesus’ and his followers’ perception of him, though perhaps only from a certain moment in his public career. The surviving sources of Jesus, however, are reluctant to portray Jesus as a warrior messiah in the style of Judas the Galilean (cf. ch. 5.3.2.4) or Bar Kochba (cf. ch. 5.3.2.14). Almost nothing in the surviving sources suggests that Jesus and his followers regarded Jesus as a militant messiah in the style of these two contemporary Jewish messianic pretenders. However, this insight should be handled with caution. It does definitely not imply that Jesus did not have as his ultimately goal an eschatological restoration of the twelve Jewish tribes. He did so, and it was only with regard to the means, the “tactics,” if you will that Jesus differed from these two and several other militant Jewish messianic pretenders. For the historical Jesus the main tool should not be a new armed rebellion against the Romans, but it would be the “stone,” which, according to Dan. 2.34 and 2.45, were thrown, “by no human hand,” against King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream statue, i. e., the great empires, which this stone “shattered” in the dream. In other words, for the historical Jesus it was the Jewish god and this deity alone who should intervene, remove the Romans, install Jesus as Messiah and establish the kingdom of god. It is perhaps ironic that it is precisely the Gospel of John that most accurately describes this nature of Jesus’ “kingdom of god:” “Jesus replied, ‘My kingdom does not belong to this world. If it did, my followers would be fighting to save me from the clutches of the Jews. My kingdom belongs to elsewhere’” (Jn.18.36). In line with the prevailing interpretation of Matt. 22.15 – 22 (par.) Jn. 18.36 should not be interpreted as an indication that Jesus’ kingdom of god was a purely spiritual entity, because such an interpretation would bring these two texts in opposition to Matt. 19.28 and Lk. 22.30. No, as we have seen in ch. 3.8, Jesus was already “at war” with the spiritual enemies of the Jewish god, namely Satan and the demons. Both in the canonical gospels and in the Revelation of John 12 – 17 Rome belongs to the same side as Satan and his demons. This view is also expressed in Mk. 5.9, which is material peculiar to the Gospel of Mark: “Jesus asked him : ‘What is your name?’ ‘My name is Legion,’ he said, ‘there are so many of us.’” Therefore, because Rome is Satan’s tool, Rome as well must be fought with supernatural means. This view of the messianic war is significantly reflected in

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus and the Jewish ideas of the Messiah

169

the Dead Sea Scroll bearing the characteristic name, the War Scroll (1QM) which is also known as ”The war between the sons of light and the sons of darkness” (cf. Mart†nez (1992) 1994, 95 – 125). In this work the “sons of light” is an expression referring to the members of the elect, that is, members of the “new” covenant in the land of “Damascus,” presumably identical with the Qumran community, as well as the heavenly hosts of the Jewish god, led by the archangel and Israel’s “People’s Prince,” Michael (cf. 1QM 17.6 – 7), while the “sons of darkness” on their side are led by Belial, which is another term for Satan. In 1QM 1.10 – 11 we find a clear indication that the coming eschatological war on both sides includes heavenly as well as earthly forces: “On this (day), the assembly of the gods and the congregation of men shall confront each other for great destruction. The sons of light and the lot of darkness shall battle together for God’s might ….” (Martinez (1992) 1994, 95). In Dan. 12.1 too we meet with Michael as the heavenly “prince” of the chosen people: “At that time there will appear Michael, the great captain, who stands guarding your fellowcountrymen.” Finally it is the same view that underlies the famous text in Dan. 7.9 – 14. This text describes dramatically and graphically that the earthly empires will be destroyed by the heavenly decisions of “the Ancient in Years.” (vv. 9 – 12). Further it gives a description of “the holy people of the most High” (vv. 22 and 27) who, in the guise of “one like a human being” (the Son of Man), receives the position as ruler of the world (cf. vv. 13 – 14. 15 – 27). In an article in the Danish relio-historical periodical, Chaos (Bilde 2006a), I have examined what I call “the religious driving force in the first Jewish revolt against Rome in 66 – 70 (74).” On the basis of Josephus’ account in his Jewish War, despite Josephus’ well-known anti-seditious tendency, it is not difficult to show that the Jewish rebels had never dared to revolt against that time’s dominant superpower of the Mediterranean world, unless they had been convinced and assured that their Jewish god would fight together with them in the same way as he, according to the Jewish Bible, had done at the time of Moses, Joshua, David and the Hasmonean princes (cf. Bilde 2006a, 37 – 39). Even Josephus, who is so hostile to the rebels, is unable to hide this deep truth.84 In the present context I restrict myself to quoting one of these texts according to which Josephus quotes the following answer of some of the rebellious Jews to the later emperor Titus’ call to the rebels to surrender : “But, they added, it would yet be saved by Him who dwelt therein, and while they had Him for their ally they would deride all menaces unsupported by action; for the issue rested with God.”85 Josephus’ description of this attitude of the rebels besieged in Jerusalem was just the same as the attitude of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, criticized by 84 Cf. Bell. 5.459; 6.285 – 286; 6.312 – 313 (cf. Bilde 2006a, 37 – 39). 85 Bell. 5.459 (in H.St.J. Thackeray’s translation in the LCL, III, 343 – 345). I refer also to Bilde 1984.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

170

A revised reconstruction of the eschatological project

the prophet Jeremiah in Jer. 7. My intention by presenting these texts in Josephus and Jeremiah is, however, that I think that we find the same – fundamentally Jewish – attitude in the passion story as reflected in Matt. 26.52 – 53, that is material peculiar to the Gospel of Matthew: “But Jesus said to him , ‘Put up your sword. All who take the sword die by the sword. Do you suppose that I cannot appeal for help to my Father, and at once be sent more than twelve legions of angels?” Based on the texts presented and discussed above, a possible interpretation of Matt. 26.52 – 53 could be that this text reflects a situation in which the historical Jesus believed that the time was still not ripe for the final divine or heavenly destruction of Rome, but, on the other hand, that this moment was imminent. In this text, the word “twelve” could possibly refer to Matt. 19.28 (and Lk. 22.30), and Matt. 26.52 – 53 could then be interpreted as reflecting an expectation by the historical Jesus that each of the twelve tribes for the upcoming eschatological battle with Rome would be reinforced by as many legions of heavenly angels. With this interpretation Matt. 26.52 – 53 would then be closely related to the content of the War Scroll from Qumran (1QM). According to this interpretation, the historical Jesus, in the last phase of his activity, seems to have been certain that he was the Messiah, designated by the Jewish god, that he was chosen to die a vicarious sacrificial death in Jerusalem in order to atone for the sin and guilt of the non-converted Jews, but that he would be rehabilitated immediately after his death, i. e., raised from the dead and enthroned as Messiah in Jerusalem, and that not only Satan and his demons, but Rome as well would simultaneously be swept out of the holy country by the heavenly legions of the Jewish god.86 Although this concept clearly includes features which we find in other early Jewish texts, especially the Book of Daniel, the Qumranitic War Scroll (1QM) and passages in Josephus, I have not found a description of the Jewish Messiah in any other early Jewish text similar to the description of the historical Jesus, which I have here reconstructed. In any event, this historical Jesus has no parallels or analogies in the contemporary Jewish literature, and so far, this Jesus can be described as original.

4.11 Conclusions My main conclusion can be formulated with the opening words of S.M. Bryan’s book from 2002: 86 This means that, despite the numerous rejections of this idea, there is in fact a political dimension to the project of Jesus, cf. Theissen 2002; Allison 2010, 75, footnote 195. Douglas E. Oakman argues in favour of the same interpretation, but he rejects the eschatological context of Jesus’ project (cf. 2012, 70 – 78. 119 – 129).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Conclusions

171

This book is an attempt to make sense of Jesus as one whose intentions were decisively shaped not only by Jewish restoration eschatology but also by his own creative reworking of restorationist expectations (Bryan 2002, 2).87

The analyses undertaken here in ch. 4 hopefully demonstrate that a deeper insight into the eschatology and messianology of early Judaism can lead to solutions of some of the classical exegetical problems in the sources on Jesus, which have hitherto been regarded as insoluble, or which have hitherto been solved by the means of tradition historical hypotheses claiming that conflicting texts in these sources belong to different stages of the tradition history of the Jesus material. These problems, however, seem to me to be solvable in a much more simple and satisfactory way when Jesus scholars look deeper into the basic hypothesis that Jesus was an apocalyptically thinking eschatological messianic pretender whose main purpose was an eschatological restoration of the twelve tribes of the Jewish people. In an attempt to summarise the various elements of my revised reconstruction of the historical Jesus, carried out in ch. 4, I reconstruct Jesus’ public career as follows: As so many other contemporary Jews Jesus began his public career by accepting John the Baptist’s proclamation of the imminent eschaton and his call to conversion, penance and baptism against this background. In the following period, the length of which cannot be determined precisely, Jesus acted as a member of John’s movement (cf. Bilde 2008a, 109 – 122). At some time – perhaps when John was arrested and executed, perhaps because of Jesus’ disappointment over the fact that the eschatological judgment proclaimed by John did not arrive – Jesus lost his faith in John, broke out of his movement and started his own eschatological movement. Some time later Jesus seems to have become convinced that he was the designated Messiah who should reestablish the twelve tribes of Israel, that he should be inaugurated and enthroned in Jerusalem during the upcoming Passover, that he should then destroy the old temple and build a new one, and that the Jewish god would then finally send Michael with an army of heavenly legions who would then drive the Romans out of the holy land. Later Jesus met with growing opposition and rejection, and this reaction perhaps caused a new change in Jesus’ self-perception. Now he apparently became convinced that before his final messianic triumph in Jerusalem and 87 Bryan 2002, 2. I think that recent Jesus research has made much more progress than supposed in Baasland 2011. Here Baasland pleads for the view, that a new and fourth period of modern Jesus research should treat precisely the questions of Jesus’ intentions, project and ultimate goal, as if Baasland was not aware of the enormous growth of recent Jesus research on precisely these subjects which, by the way, has also been noticed and analysed in earlier Jesus research, cf. Reimarus (1774 – 1778) 1835, Weiss (1892) 1964; A. Schweitzer (1901) 1956; (1906) 1966, Ben F. Meyer (1979) and E.P. Sanders 1985.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

172

A revised reconstruction of the eschatological project

the following eschatological events he had to be rejected, convicted and executed as a martyr whose death would play an important role in establishing the just remnant of Israel. At the same time Jesus maintained his conviction that after his apparent failure and death he would immediately be resurrected by the Jewish god and enthroned in Jerusalem followed by the rest of the eschatological events. When these expectations were disappointed by the brutal facts that Jesus, immediately after his death, was not resurrected and enthroned in Jerusalem, the Jesus movement resorted to new corrections, reinterpretations and transformations of their Jesuanic eschatology, but this story belongs to the history of the Jesus movement after Jesus’ death, and not to the story of the historical Jesus.88 With this hypothesis we can return to the main question of this book: How original was the historical Jesus? Do the studies carried out in ch. 4 contribute to answering this question? They do so, very much indeed. First negatively : If the traditional Christian belief that the historical Jesus was original in the sense of the Christian creed had not already been shot to pieces, the studies in this chapter would give this idea its final blow: The historical Jesus did not break with Judaism and he had no intention of laying the foundation of a new Christian religion. Therefore these ideas must be characterized as a factual treason to Jesus. Jesus was a Jew, and he can be solidly positioned in the important – eschatological and apocalyptic – current of early Judaism, which, in line with earlier prophetic currents in Judaism, believed that the time had now finally come when the prophetic predictions in the Bible should be fulfilled. Jesus and the other members of his movement intended to contribute to this eschatological project by working on the restoration of the twelve tribes of the Jewish people, the eschatological Israel. Of course this critique also applies to the conservative, neoorthodox, more or less fundamentalist “evangelicalism,” which – with some understandable religious and apologetic necessity – today is spreading in the hitherto reputable New Testament exegesis, primarily in the USA, but also in Great Britain and other “Christian” countries. At the same time this interpretation of the historical Jesus pulls the carpet out from under the liberal theological ideas that Jesus was original in the sense that he brought religion and culture up to the last and highest level of human development, that he created the “Christian moral religion” or the “Christian religious morality.” This liberal theological interpretation is simply anachronistic in that it thoughtlessly and shamelessly transported the 19th century’s ideological basic blueprint, the idea of moral and cultural development toward higher and higher levels, back to ancient times and incorrectly attributed it to 88 For relevant discussions of this crucial issue I refer my readers to Reimarus (1774 – 1778) 1835; Bousset (1913) 1965; Casey 1991, particularly pp. 97 – 120; Theissen (2000) 2004, particularly pp. 71 – 83; Hurtado 2003, particularly pp. 27 – 78; Bilde 2008a, 256 – 258; 2008b.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Conclusions

173

Jesus. This critique obviously includes the modernistic liberal American theologians who gather in the Jesus Seminar, and it applies also to their ideas about Jesus as a social critical, Cynical itinerant philosopher. The interpretation of dialectical theology and especially Rudolf Bultmann of Jesus as a Heideggerian existential philosopher was and is just as anachronistic, despite Bultmann’s own admirable religio-historical competence and exegetical abilities. Turning finally to the main question of this book, the question of the originality of Jesus, my answer must be – as it is in ch. 3 – a “yes and no” or a “both – and.” In ch. 4.3 – 6 and 4.9 I concluded that in the areas and aspects studied in these chapters Jesus cannot be described as particularly original, but rather as a representative of some kind of mainstream early Judaism. However in ch. 4.7 – 8 and 4.10 I had to conclude that here, i. e., in the concatenation of Jesus’ institution of a new covenant with the interpretation of Jesus’ impending death as a vicarious martyrdom and in the peculiar “apocalyptic” character of Jesus’ messianic self-understanding, we have to admit the originality of Jesus in the sense that in the remaining early Jewish literature I have been unable to find anything similar. Gregory J. Riley is quite right in his assertion that it is pretty meaningless to say that Jesus was a Jew, because at his time there existed about a dozen different kinds of Judaism (Riley (1997) 2000, 8). Here in ch. 4 we have seen that Jesus was a Jew of a definite kind and nature. He was not a Sadducee, an Essene, a Pharisee or militant Pharisee (a “Zealot”), but rather a Jewish apocalyptically thinking, eschatological restoration prophet and messianic pretender. Finally with this eschatological restoration project the historical Jesus must be described as original in the sense that it is mainly thanks to the material about him that we can claim that one of the major currents in contemporary early Judaism was precisely the “restaurationist” efforts to restore the twelve tribes of the Jewish people, the eschatological Israel. In the following chapter I intend to carry out a comprehensive comparison between the historical Jesus, as I have here reconstructed him, and a significant number of the figures that scholars throughout history have compared him with. My aim being to use these comparisons to delve further into the question: How original was Jesus?

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

5. The comparative Jesus 5.1 Introduction In the preceding chapters I have carried out several comparisons between Jesus and related figures. For scholars working research-historically, religiohistorically and exegetically with the historical Jesus, such comparisons are simply unavoidable.1 That this really is the case appears also from the fact that many other scholars have made such comparisons, although it happens surprisingly seldom,2 perhaps because of many Christians scholars’ more or less preconceived ideas about Jesus’ unique character.3 Yet it has occasionally happened that Jesus has been compared with contemporary Jewish eschatological prophets,4 while he has only rarely been compared with the Teacher of Righteousness,5 Hillel6 and Sabbatai Zvi,7 and while I am not aware that Jesus has ever been compared with Simon Bar Kochba and other later Jewish messianic pretenders. Moreover, it is also only rarely that Jesus has been compared with Alexander the Great (cf. Amitay 2010, 133 – 153) and Socrates,8 not to mention all the other figures mentioned below.9 Finally in ch. 2.3 we

1 Eddy – Boyd (2007) 2008 represent a sceptical position regarding the value of religio-historical comparisons for the interpretation of the historical Jesus, cf. particularly pp. 132 – 162. 2 The most important comparative Jesus scholars are Rasmussen 1904; 1905; Festinger, Riecken & Schachter 1956; Braden 1957; Vermes 1973, 58 – 99; D. Hill 1979; Droogers 1980; E.P. Sanders 1985; Evans 1995; Charlesworth – Johns 1997; Goshen-Gottstein 1997; Allison 1998, 78 – 93; Ehrman 1999, 3 – 19; Wise 1999; Knohl 2000; Freedman & McClymond 2001; Kearney – Zeitz 2009. On the other hand, to my great surprise, the new comprehensive handbook in four thick volumes containing 111 different contributions to modern Jesus research, Holm¦n – Porter 2011, has no contribution at all on the comparative Jesus. 3 Similarly E.P. Sanders 1990, 5 – 7. 17. 22 – 23; Goshen-Gottstein 1997, 32 – 33. 4 Cf. D. Hill 1979; Hengel (1961) 1976; E.P. Sanders 1985, 171 – 172. 238 – 240; Gray 1993; Allison 2010, 82 – 85. 5 Cf. Dupont-Sommer 1959, 386 – 388; G. Jeremias 1963, 351 – 353; Braun 1966; Wise 1999; Knohl 2000. 6 Cf. Charlesworth – Johns 1997; Goshen-Gottstein 1997. 7 Cf. Festinger et al. (1956) 1964; Bugge 1980; Petzel 2005; Rutishausen 2006. 8 Cf. Harnack (1900) 2005, 9; Gooch 1996; Jacobi 2005. 9 Cf. Rasmusssen 1904; 1905; Droogers 1980; Butler (1948) 1993; R.A. Segal 2000; Braarvig 2001. In his preface, Don Cupitt compares Jesus with Buddha, Marx and Nietzsche (2009, XI). Harold Bloom even compares the historical Jesus both with the mythical Christ and the Jewish god Yahweh (2005) concluding that they are so different that they are almost incompatible 2010, 6).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Introduction

175

have seen that Jesus and his movement collectively have been compared with the Cynical itinerant philosophers.10 There are obviously a number of good reasons for this comparative restraint in the Jesus research. The most important of these I have presented and discussed in ch. 1.7. This discussion resulted in the recognition that the benefits of such comparisons are most pronounced when we limit ourselves to Jesus’ contemporaries, primarily in Jewish Palestine and secondarily in the Hellenistic-Roman world in the period from ca. 170 BCE to ca. 135 CE.11 When we move from this period and its cultures to other periods and cultures, the difficulties of comparisons grow, and we have to make so many reservations that the disadvantages outweigh the benefits.12 Finally I would like to emphasize that it is the historical person of Jesus I wish to compare with other related figures, and neither the interpretations of Christ in the NT nor the collective Jesus movement or early Christianity as such.13 The Jesus movement and early Christianity can be compared with other related chiliastic or millenaristic movements,14 and the Christ figures of the NT can be compared with other divinities, but this is different from comparing human beings. To compare individuals or individual figures and comparing movements, groups or whole religions, not to speak of divinities, are different projects which require different theories and concepts, which are related to various sets of literature.

10 Cf. ch. 2.3 (with footnotes 2,6; 2,28 and 2,40 – 42, additionally, Lang 2010, in particular pp. 135 – 149. 11 Kearney – Zeits 2009 limit the period that they designate the “Soterial Age” (2009, 167 – 366) to the years between 28 BCE and 132 CE. In this period they examine 27 saviour gods and messianic pretenders in the Roman Empire, nine Jewish and 18 Hellenistic Roman figures (2009, 377, cf. my footnotes 1,6; 1,50; 4,12; 4,27 and ch. 5.2.2). 12 In this respect, Kearney – Zeitz 2009 represent an exception because they, too, compare Jesus with related figures in the same historical period, but they extend the comparison from Jewish Palestine to the whole of the Roman Empire. They do so because they do not focus as sharply as I do on the historical Jesus, but let him imperceptibly amalgamate with the later Christian Christ figures of the NTand early Christianity. An additional difference is that Kearney – Zeitz first and foremost compare Jesus in his capacity of “saviour” with other saviour figures. 13 Cf. my footnote 1,2. Beside Kearney – Zeitz 2009 another good example of the difficulties of keeping these two categories, the historical and the mythical Jesus, apart can be found in Ory Amitay’ monograph From Alexander to Jesus (2010). This title does not suggest that Alexander and Jesus are ambiguous expressions because both them refer to the historical as well as the mythical figure. However in his book Amitay almost exclusively examines the two mythical figures, but never forgets that in both cases the myth also has some roots in history. 14 This has often been done, cf., e. g., Festinger et al. 1956; Allison 1998, 78 – 95; Ehrman 1999, 3 – 19.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

176

The comparative Jesus

5.2 A brief critical presentation of earlier comparative attempts As stated above the comparative Jesus research up to now must be characterized as surprisingly modest. Below, I divide it into four groups overlapping in time. First, the traditional dogmatic conception of Jesus as god’s only begotten son, that is, the traditional Christian view of Jesus as, by definition, the only legitimate and divine representative of the only true god, as the unique divine mediator between this god and the human world, and, therefore, as the exclusive divine saviour figure (cf. below in ch. 5.2.1). Second, I find a variant of the first view in Kearney – Zeitz (2009), who compared the Christ figures of the NT and early Christianity with 27 more or less randomly selected Hellenistic Roman figures – partly political, partly religious – and Jewish and Samaritan characters who can be defined as “saviours” (cf. 2009, 377).15 Third, I point at a group of scholars who make comparisons between Jesus and randomly selected figures across history as well as geography and culture.16 The fourth and last group consists of scholars who limit themselves to comparing the historical Jesus with contemporary Jewish figures such as the Teacher of Righteousness, Hillel, John the Baptist, the other Jewish eschatological prophets such as Judas the Galilean and Theudas.17

5.2.1 The traditional Christian interpretation of the originality of Jesus Traditionally Christianity has seen itself as an exclusive and, consequently, also as an intolerant religion. Traditional Christianity claims that none other than Jesus can speak legitimately on behalf of the one true god, and that none other than Jesus is able to “save” people, regardless of how this central Christian word “salvation” is defined. This point of view is clearly expressed in the NT, for example, in Jn. 14.6: “… Jesus replied, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except by me’” (cf. Jn. 3.13 – 18, 11.25 – 26). The same view is expressed in Acts 4.12: “There is no salvation through

15 Something similar applies to Richert’s book, Platon und Christus (2011), because this author does not compare Plato with the historical Jesus, but exclusively compares Plato with the Christ figures found in of Paul and John. 16 Cf., e. g., Amore 1978; Droogers 1980; Piereis 1987; Gooch 1996; Braarvig 2001; Jacobi 2005; Don Cupitt 2009. 17 Thus, in particular, Hengel (1961) 1976; D. Hill 1979; Gray 1993; Evans 1995; Charlesworth – Johns 1997.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Critical presentation of earlier comparative attempts

177

anyone else; in all the world no other name has been granted to mankind by which we can be saved.”18 This fundamental exclusivist position was maintained throughout the history of Christianity, and it is defended even today,19 although it is now being challenged by some “modernistic” Christian theologians.20 According to Paul Knitter, the “conservative evangelicals” and many other Protestant theologians insist on the thesis that Jesus is “exclusively unique” while the Roman Catholics generally claim an “inclusive uniqueness” (1985, 171). According to Knitter and other “ecumenical dialogue-oriented Christians,” however, this “exclusive” view is incompatible with the ordinary modern sense of “historical relativity” as well as with a sincere, open and genuine dialogue with other religions.21 Obviously this classic Christian position does not allow any genuine comparison between Jesus and other figures, since no one can claim to be really akin to the religiously defined unique Jesus.22 According to this view, Jesus merges imperceptibly together with Christ and Christianity, who both, individually as well as collectively, are claimed to be absolutely unique.

5.2.2 A comparative version of the traditional Christian interpretation In their extensive study of saviour gods and messianic figures in the Roman Empire in the period from 28 BC to 135 CE Milo Kearney and James Zeitz examine 27 selected characters. These figures, however, are not primarily compared with no. 28 (Jesus/Christ), but rather serve to illustrate precisely the yearning for a saviour figure precisely in the Hellenistic-Roman world in this specific period. Therefore these two authors also describe this period as The Soterial Age. This assessment is perhaps not entirely fair, but I think I can justify my judgement of Kearney – Zeitz (2009) by arguing for the thesis that this extensive work is not primarily a comparative work, but rather, in the spirit of 18 Other texts of the same kind can be found in 1 Cor. 15.21 – 22; 1Tim. 2.5; Heb. 9.12. 19 Cf. Paul Knitter’s exposition of this traditional Christian point of view (1985, 75 – 167); other contemporary representatives for this position are Braaten 1992; Cowdell 1996. 20 Cf., e. g., Knitter 1985, 169 – 231; Hick – Knitter 1987. 21 Knitter 1985, 171. Yet this author ends his book by suggesting that Jesus is, in some way or another, still „exclusively unique“ (1985, 230 – 231). For example, he writes: “Perhaps something has happened in the historical event of Jesus Christ that surprisingly surpasses all other events” (1985, 230). And somewhere else it is stated: “Perhaps Jesus the Nazarene will stand forth (without being imposed) as the unifying symbol, the universally fulfilling and normative expression of what God intends for all history” (1985, 231). Finally Knitter himself does not undertake any explicit comparison between the historical Jesus and related figures. 22 This point of view is, of course, “emic,” that is, seen and constructed from an insider, that is, a person belonging to the Christian universe. From an “etic” point of view, that is, the view of an outsider, this definition of Jesus Christ has many analogies and parallels (cf. ch. 5.4).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

178

The comparative Jesus

Eusebius,23 a piece of preparatio evangelica, i. e., an account of the (divine) preparation for the Christian gospel in the historical period before and at the time of Jesus. By this expression I allude to the “salvation historical” understanding of the period before and after Jesus’ birth as a divine preparation for the coming of Jesus. This view can also be found in the NT, most clearly in Gal. 4.4: “…but when the appointed time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman.…” On the basis of this text Eusebius and similar Christian authors interpreted the period prior to the birth of Jesus as a divinely organized preparation for this crucial salvation historical event. That this assessment of Kearney – Zeitz’s work is fair and reasonable appears partly from their many allusions to precisely Gal. 4.4 and to Eusebius’ work, and partly from the fact that in their book we find surprisingly few and surprisingly superficial comparisons between Jesus and – not all, but only a few of the other figures mentioned. The two authors very briefly compare Jesus with Simon Magus (2009, 209 – 210. 214 – 215), the Cynical philosophers (2009, 211 – 213), and Apollonius of Tyana (2009, 259 – 266. 293), while there is no systematic comparison between Jesus and the 24 other related figures presented in the book. On this basis I think I am justified in assessing Kearney – Zeitz’s work as a rather elementary and general survey of the entire period with its culture and religion that formed the background for the advent of Jesus and Christianity. Furthermore, when throughout the book it is presented as a presupposed “truth” that Jesus is the only true messiah and saviour among the presented 28 saviour gods and messianic figures, I suggest that this work actually should be classified as a piece of Christian apologetics representing the traditional Christian interpretation of Jesus’ uniqueness, while it by no means can be described as a truly comparative study of the historical Jesus.

5.2.3 Random comparisons between Jesus and related figures in various regions and periods This type of comparison presupposes explicitly or implicitly a concentration on one single aspect of Jesus’ personality, roles and/or functions. For example, among liberal theologians and also among theologians who today imitate and continue the ideas of classical liberal theology, who compare Jesus and Socrates, the focus is concentrated on the great personality and the 23 This first great Christian writer of the history of the Christian church, Eusebius from Caesarea (ca. 260 – ca. 340 CE.), wrote several important works. Besides his famous historia ecclesiastica, he wrote an apologetical treatise entitled preparatio evangelica, the purpose of which was to demonstrate that the only true father god, in the period before the incarnation of his son, Jesus, had prepared the Greco-Roman world for the coming of its saviour, for example, by letting pious gentiles such as Socrates appear, and by letting the Romans construct the good roads necessary for the future Christian mission.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Critical presentation of earlier comparative attempts

179

strong ethical teaching, which these two men both formulated in theory and practiced in their own lives. In a later period, for example, focus has often been concentrated on Jesus as the founder of a new religion, and as such Jesus can be compared with Buddha or Mohammed,24 or one could concentrate one’s focus on Jesus’ role as exorcist and healer (cf., in particular, M. Smith 1978). In 1980 A. Droogers compared Jesus with the following “religious and secular innovators:” Waldes, Booth, Kimbangu, Buddha, Mohammed and Marx. Such a comparison could appear to be quite accidental, and therefore relatively worthless. However this is not the case here, because Droogers focuses on one and only one aspect of these seven innovators’ life history, namely their “marginality” (cf. Meier, 1 – 4, 1991 – 2009). In focussing on this aspect of the seven innovators Droogers raised an interesting question about a possible connection between a creative person’s marginal or peripheral position in a society and the same individual’s religious or philosophical creativity. And he asked the important question of whether this creativity could be interpreted as a tool by which the person in question tried to overcome his own marginality.25 A final example is Jens Braarvig’s comparison between Jesus and Dionysus, which is also confined to quite specific aspects of these two figures’ roles and functions, for example, the conjuring up of an abundance of wine. In the same way you can compare Jesus and the Greek healing god, Asclepius, if you limit your focus to the healing cures of these two deities.

5.2.4 Conclusions Against the background of my reconstruction in ch. 4 of the historical Jesus as an early Jewish eschatological prophet of the restoration of the twelve tribes of Israel and as a messianic pretender, it is easy to see that with almost all the comparisons mentioned above we miss the most important aspect of Jesus: his Jewish eschatological project. Of course I cannot – and will not – deny that in certain contexts it may be of interest to concentrate on one aspect, function or role of the figure in question, and, on this basis, to compare Jesus with figures with the same characteristics. I just want to maintain that by this comparative procedure one only gets hold 24 Thus, e. g., classical religio-phenomenologist scholars such as Gerardus van der Leeuw (1933) 1956; Friedrich Heiler 1961; Eric Sharpe (1975) 1986; G. Lanczkowski 1978, whom I present in greater detail in Bilde 2005a. 25 In Bilde 1993a, I have published the results of a similar project on Jesus and Paul whom I compare with Martin Luther and other “marginal” figures. In this paper I focus on the tension between “centre” and “periphery” as a possible driving force in the religious creativity of these “marginal” figures.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

180

The comparative Jesus

of this single one aspect of Jesus, while missing the whole: Jesus’ eschatological program and his messianic perception of himself. If it is this whole we are after then we have to compare Jesus with related figures in contemporary Jewish Palestine. This is the main reason why, in the following, I shall mainly concentrate on Jewish figures in this geographical area in the period ca. 170 BCE to ca. 135 CE.

5.3 Jesus compared to related Jewish figures As stated in ch. 4 I interpret the historical Jesus as a Jewish eschatological prophet and as a messianic pretender who had devoted himself to contribute to the eschatological project of regenerating the twelve tribes of the Jewish people to its ancient Mosaic and Davidic glory and grandeur. Against this background it is most natural to compare Jesus with related Jewish figures.

5.3.1 Jesus compared with ancient (mythical) Jewish characters Of course it is problematic to compare Jesus with past literary and perhaps even mythical Jewish figures such as Enoch, Moses, David and Elijah, not to speak of the Jewish god himself (cf. Bloom 2005). In today’s biblical or OT research many scholars consider these figures to be purely fictional or mythical characters, which it is impossible to reconstruct historically.26 Therefore the status of these figures is similar to purely literary characters such as Lord’s Suffering Servant and the Son of Man. And with such characters a historical comparison cannot and should not be made. The relationship of the historical Jesus to these figures cannot be determined by a historical comparison, but rather in terms of a kind of imitation. During the lifetime of the historical Jesus these mythical figures and other biblical characters played an important role as sources or reservoirs for real, living human beings’ imagination, personal identification, ideal formation and hopes for the future. In the preceding ch. 4 we have seen that this also applied to Jesus, and I think that we may assume that something similar applied to the Teacher of Righteousness, Judas the Galilean, John the Baptist, Theudas and other contemporary active and creative Jews.

26 I refer in particular to the so-called Copenhagen School represented by Niels Peter Lemche 2008.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus compared to related Jewish figures

181

5.3.2 Jesus compared to contemporary Jewish figures27 We can classify Mattathiah from the Hasmonean priestly family and his sons, who, according to 1 and 2 Macc., around the year 167 BC took up arms to defend themselves against the assault of the “Syrian,” Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes on the Jews of Judea and their religion (cf. Harrington 1988), in the same group as Judas the Galilean and the Jewish rebels against Rome in 66 – 70 (74) and in 132 – 135 CE (cf. Farmer ((1956) 1973). According to the surviving sources, all these people had in common that they took up arms for religious or religio-political reasons, and therefore we can describe this group as militant worshippers of the Jewish god.28 Evidence suggests that these militant Jews among the biblical figures in particular identified themselves with figures such as Elijah, who according to 1 Kgs. 18, at Mount Carmel defeated 450 prophets of Baal and then slaughtered them, and with Phinehas the priest at the mythological time of Moses.29 Like these biblical heroes the Hasmonean rebels took up arms and acted violently when they believed that the commandments and the Mosaic law were violated. As it appears from the interpretation of the historical Jesus I have presented in ch. 4 Jesus did not belong to this type or category, but instead to the opposite non-militant or “quietistic” type, who awaited the liberation and the recovery of the Jewish people by an exclusive intervention of the Jewish god himself, the archangel Michael and the heavenly hosts (cf. ch. 4.10).

27 In the already presented work of Kearney – Zeitz 2009 (ch. 5.2.2) these two authors examine nine contemporary secular Jewish messianic pretenders: 1) Simon from Peraea, 2) Judas the Galilean, 3) Athronges, 4) Jakob and Simon, 5) Menachem, 6) John from Giskala, 7) Simon Bar Giora, 8) Lukius from Cyrenaica and 9) Simon Bar Kochba. From this group the two scholars separate 18 religious saviour pretenders, and 10 of these are Jewish or Samaritan: 1) John the Baptist, 2) Jesus, 3) the Samaritan Taheb, 4) Dositheus, 5) Simon the Sorcerer, 6) Herod Agrippa I, 7) Theudas, 8) The Egyptian Prophet, 9) the “Bedouin” and 10) Jonathan from Cyrenaica. If we compare these lists with the 14 selected figures in the present book Kearney – Zeits 2009 leaves out the Hasmonean priestly prince Simon, the Teacher of Righteousness, Rabbi Hillel, Jesus Barabbas, Jesus Son of Ananiah, Josephus, Rabbi Jochanan Ben Zakkai and Rabbi Akiba, that is nine of my 14 samples. This small statistical survey underlines the uncertainty of the actual selections of figures, both theirs and mine, with whom Jesus is compared. 28 Cf. Farmer (1956) 1973; Hengel (1961) 1976; Bilde 1979; 1983b, 2006a. 29 According to Num. 25 (and Josh. 22), Pinehas was driven by a militant religious “zeal” for the cause of the Jewish god: When an Israelite against the commandment of this god “married” a Midjanitic woman, Pinehas seized a lance and killed them both in the middle of their sexual act. By this act Pinehas became a militant religious ideal for later “zealous” Jews, cf. Hengel (1961) 1976, 152 – 181. This sort of religious “zeal” seems also to appear in Ps. 69.9 which is quoted in Jn. 2.17.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

182

The comparative Jesus

5.3.2.1 The Hasmonean Prince Simon30 According to 1 Macc. 2.3, Simon was the second of Mattathiah’s five sons, who with their father as the leader took up arms against the Seleucids. After the death of his father and his four brothers, in the year 143 BCE Simon took over the leadership of the Hasmonean revolt (1 Macc. 13.8 – 9), and in the year 142 BCE he succeeded in driving out the last Seleucid troops from Jerusalem. With the liberation of this city the Hasmoneans and the Judean Jews had gained the religious freedom and the political independence they had fought for since 167 BCE. According to the two first Books of Maccabees, Simon then turned the rebellion into a Judaic war of expansion with which he was rather successful until he was assassinated in 135 BCE. In the First and Second Books of Maccabees the author(s) look back at the years from 142 to 135 BCE as an ideal period, and in 1 Macc. 14.4 – 15 we find the following idealized portrayal of Simon’s reign: (4) As long as Simon ruled, Judaea was undisturbed. He sought his nation’s good, and they lived happily all through the glorious days of his reign. (5) Notable among his achievements was his capture of the port of Joppa to secure his communications overseas. (6) He extended his nation’s borders and made himself master of the land. (7) Many prisoners of war were repatriated. He gained control over Gazara and Bethsura and over the citadel , from which he removed all pollution. None could withstand him. (8) The people farmed the land in peace; it produced its crops and the trees in the plains their fruit. (9) Old men sat in the streets, talking together of their blessings; and the young men arrayed themselves in splendid military style. (10) Simon supplied the towns with food in plenty and equipped them with weapons for defence, so that his renown spread to the ends of the earth. (11) Peace was restored to the land, and throughout Israel there was great rejoicing. (12) Everyone sat under his own vine and fig tree, and there was none to cause alarm. (13) Those were the days when no enemy was seen in the land and every hostile king was crushed. (14) Simon gave his protection to the poor among the people; he fulfilled the demands of the law, and rid the country of renegades and evil men. (15) He enhanced the splendour of the temple and furnished it with a wealth of sacred vessels.

This text can be characterized as a piece of idealized pro-Hasmonean historiography. The text seems to be a combination of a piece of historical writing about Simon’s reign, on the one hand, and biblical and after-biblical predictions of a messianic era of the peace, abundance and justice, as we find them in, e. g., Isa. 9.1 – 6; 11.1 – 16; Mic. 4.4; Zech. 3.10 and Ps. Sol. 17, on the other hand. The quoted text thus bears testimony to the hypothesis that, at least in the pro-Hasmonean circles from which the First Book of Maccabees is 30 This section is a revised version of Bilde (2001) 2006), 73 – 74.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus compared to related Jewish figures

183

likely to come, the Hasmonean princes have been interpreted in eschatological and messianic colours.31 It is clear from even a superficial reading of this text that its image of Simon is very different from the canonical gospels’ pictures of Jesus. This is, of course, particularly obvious in the bellicose features of the text, while its descriptions of the abundance of the time of peace, of Simon’s assistance to the poor, of his purification of Jerusalem, of his concern for the temple, and of his care for the Law of Moses bring him much closer to my reconstruction of the historical Jesus. The eschatological texts from the time of Jesus fetched their ideas about the future ideal time of the Messiah from such idealized descriptions of the Jewish people’s glorious past as 1 Macc. 14.4 – 15. The eschatological goal was generally described as a sort of “restoration,” a reestablishment of these great periods in people’s past, especially those of Moses, David and the Hasmonean heyday. At the time of Jesus most Jews believed that the end time should be like the ideal primeval times (cf. ch. 5.3.2.7).

5.3.2.2 The Teacher of Righteousness32 The English phrase “Teacher of Righteousness” is a literal translation of the Hebrew expression ha-moreh ha-sedeq. In a number of the so-called Dead Sea Scrolls this expression is used to describe a person of crucial importance for the community in which many scholars still assume that these scriptures have been written.33 In the Damascus Document (CD 6.10 – 11) the Teacher of Righteousness is mentioned as the teacher who is expected in the end time: “… until there arises he who teaches justice at the end of the days.” Apparently it was his job to be the teacher for “… the converts of Israel, who left the land of Judah and lived in the land of Damascus” (CD 6.5). The “land of Damascus” is a cover name for a geographic location that is not so easy to identify. A little further in the text it is stated that these converted migrants “entered the new covenant in the land of Damascus” (CD 6.19). Finally, at the end of the document, it is 31 Cf. van Henten (2007) 2009, 20. It surprises me, however, that in this work van Henten does not comment on the messianic colours in 1 Macc. 14, particularly in 1 Macc. 14.4 – 15. 32 This chapter builds on Bilde (2001) 2006, 77 – 80; 2008a, 66 – 70. In the present context, however, these texts have been thoroughly revised and extended. In addition I refer the reader to DupontSommer 1959, 369 – 379; G. Jeremias 1963; Braun 1966; de Vaux 1973; Charlesworth 1992a, 140 – 175; Wise 1999; Knohl 2000; H.-W. Kuhn 2011, in particular pp.1278 – 1281. 33 In the early phase of the exploration of the Dead Sea Scrolls it was a widely accepted hypothesis that this community could be identified with the Essenes described by Philo and Josephus, and since then this hypothesis has proved to be rather tenable, cf. Dupont-Sommer 1959, 51 – 81; de Vaux 1973; H. Stegemann (1993) 1994; Bilde 1998d; Fitzmyer 2000, 249 – 260; Atkinson – Eshel – Magnes 2009.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

184

The comparative Jesus

written that these members of the new covenant “listen to the teacher’s voice” (CD 20.28), and that they “lend their ears to the voice of the Teacher of Righteousness” (CD 20.32). Elsewhere in the Damascus Document (CD 7.18 – 21) we can read: “And the star is the Interpreter of the law, who will come to Damascus, as is written: Num. 24.17 ‘A star moves out of Jacob…’”. Therefore it is obvious to consider whether this “Interpreter of the law,” to whom a messianic status is here attributed, can be identical to the Teacher of Righteousness. In 4QTest 5 – 7, we find the following text quoting Deut. 18.15 – 19, where the Jewish god promises Moses that in the future he will let a prophet like Moses appear among the people: “I would raise up for them a prophet from among their brothers, like you, and place my words in his mouth, and he would tell them all that I commanded them ….” (Mart†nez 1994, 137). To me it is an obvious possibility that, with this quote, the Qumran community had the Teacher of Righteousness in mind. These hints in the Damascus Document and in the so-called Testimonia suggest that the Teacher of Righteousness was the most important authority in the Qumran community regarding the study and interpretation of the Mosaic Law. This role is even more clearly expressed in 1QpHab. 7.1 – 14: (1) And God told Habakkuk to write what was going to happen to the last generation, but he did not let him know the end of the age. (2) … (3) And as for what he says: “so that the one who reads it may run.” (4) Its interpretation concerns the Teacher of Righteousness, to whom God has disclosed (5) all the mysteries of the words of his servants, the prophets. “For the vision has an appointed time, it will have an end and not fail.” (6) … (7) Its interpretation: the final age will be extended and go beyond all (8) that the prophets say, because the mysteries of God are wonderful. (9) : “Though it might delay, wait for it; it definitely has to come and will not (10) delay.” … Its interpretation concerns the men of truth, (11) those who observe the Law, whose hands will not desert the service (12) of truth when the final age is extended beyond them, because (13) all the ages of God will come at the right time, as he established (14) for them in the mysteries of his prudence… (Martinez 1994, 200).

In this important text the Teacher of Righteousness is described as the privileged “reader” and interpreter of the words of the “prophets” of the Jewish god. 1QpHab. thus assumes that the words of the prophets in the Jewish Bible are not immediately understandable, but filled with divine “mysteries” or secrets, the understanding and explanation of which require a special insight granted by the same Jewish god.34

34 This view of the biblical prophets is often designated as “apocalyptic,” a Greek word derived from the verb apokaluptein, meaning “to reveal.” The idea is that the “apocalytic” interpreter of the Bible, in the Dead Sea Scrolls the Teacher of Righteousness, and in the NT Jesus or Paul, is

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus compared to related Jewish figures

185

While the Teacher of Righteousness in these texts is identified as a privileged interpreter of the Scripture, especially the prophetic writings, it is stated in 1QpHab. 2.7 – 8 (and 4QpPs. (a) fragment 3.15), that the Teacher of Righteousness was also a priest, and this information can be argued to support the hypothesis proposed above that the “interpreter of the law” – whom I identify with the Teacher of Righteousness – is the same as the priestly Messiah. However, against this suggestion it may be noted that “the unique teacher” in CD 20.1 is clearly separated from “the Messiah of Aaron and Israel,” that is the priestly and the royal Messiah (cf. also 1QSa). If we identify the “unique teacher” with the Teacher of Righteousness, consequently, this person cannot be the same as the priestly Messiah. On the other hand, it is obvious that, in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Teacher of Righteousness is portrayed as a person with a unique authority, a priestlyprophetic figure who was divinely selected as an interpreter and communicator of an exclusive divine revelation, and who was accepted as the undisputed founder and leader of the community in which (some of) the Dead Sea Scrolls might have been written. We can end this examination of the Teacher of Righteousness in the Dead Sea Scrolls by concluding that these writings are dominated by a high degree of awareness, that the “end of the days” (CD 6.11; 1QpHab. 2.5 – 7) is near, or rather that this time had already arrived, that the divinely authorized teacher or prophet had already come, namely in the guise of the Teacher of Righteousness, that the eschatological war is imminent (cf. 1QM), and that the ultimate eschatological liberation of (the rest of) the Jewish people, therefore, was also thought to be imminent. This implies that the Qumranites, too, must have experienced a “delay of the parusia,” that is, the painful experience that, contrary to their belief and expectation, the end time and the kingdom of god did in fact not arrive. This experience is very clearly expressed in 1QpHab. 7.1 – 14, quoted above, and it must have forced the Qumranites to a reinterpretation and a revision of their eschatology similar to the one that both the disciples of John the Baptist and the Jesus movement were compelled to carry out when they were forced to accept that their masters’ proclamation of the imminence of the kingdom of god did not come true. In 1999 and 2000 two monographs were published in which their authors argue that the Teacher of Righteousness can and should be identified with a particular historical figure, who considered himself to be the Messiah. One of the two authors is the well-known American Qumran scholar Michael Wise, and his book is entitled: The First Messiah. Investigating the Saviour Before Christ. Here Wise argues that the Teacher of Righteousness may be identified with a Jewish priest named Judah (1999, 41), who lived at the assumed to possess a divinely revealed insight that allows him to lift the “veil” over the “mysteries” contained below the literal surface of the Bible.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

186

The comparative Jesus

beginning of the first century BCE and was associated with the Hasmonean King Alexander Jannaeus (103 – 76 BC). When this king died, he was succeeded by his queen, Alexandra (76 – 67 BC). According to Josephus, the Pharisaic party came to power in her reign (Bell. 1.110 – 114; Ant. 13.398 – 415), and this change of power brought the anti-Pharisaic priest Judah into conflict with both the Pharisees and the queen. This conflict ended with Judah’s defeat, and he and his followers, whom Wise identifies as the forerunners of the Qumran community, fled or emigrated to the “land of Damascus.” Here Judah wrote several works including the Thanksgiving Hymns (Hodayot (1QH)), which Wise considers to be autobiographical. Furthermore, Wise argues that his investigations of these hymns may lead to the hypothesis that the Teacher of Righteousness, whom, as mentioned above, Wise identifies with the priest Judah, in these texts, expresses his self-consciousness as the (priestly) Messiah. Moreover, in some of these hymns Judah refers to the persecution he suffered during the conflict in Jerusalem. In addition Wise claims that Judah with these hymns was the first Jew, who formulated the Jewish eschatological messianic idea, and that Judas was thus the first person in early Judaism who claimed to be the selected messianic liberator. Finally, Wise argues that this Judah also identified himself with the Lord’s Suffering Servant in Isa. 53 (1999, 91), and that, with this selfunderstanding, Judah became a model for the historical Jesus (1999, 253 – 277). The second of these two authors is the Israeli scholar Israel Knohl, who in the year 2000 published his book The Messiah before Jesus. The Suffering Servant of the Dead Sea Scrolls. In his preface Knohl writes that his manuscript was completed when he became acquainted with Wise’s work, which he therefore could not relate to it in his own (2000, XIII). He was, however, able to note that “my thesis is completely different from his” (p. XIII). So far as I can see, however, Knohl shares many of Wise’s insights and interpretations, primarily the important one that Knohl, too, believes that the author of the Thanksgiving Hymns – and also of the so-called “Messianic Hymns” (4Q491 fragment 11 and 4Qha fragment 7) – is the same person as the Teacher of Righteousness, and that this person regarded himself as the Messiah. Secondly Knohl, too, argues that this person can be identified with a historical figure, but someone else than Wise’s Judah. Knohl suggests an anonymous person who was killed in Jerusalem in the year 4 BCE, and that this Messiah, who also identified himself with the Lord’s Suffering Servant in Isa. 53, became a model for the historical Jesus, and that he presented Jesus with the fundamentally new idea of a suffering Messiah, who could foresee his own suffering, death and rehabilitation. It must be regarded as an interesting coincidence that Knohl, almost at the same time as Wise, argues in favour of almost the same basic hypothesis as Wise.35 In my opinion, however, it cannot be accepted that these two scholars 35 The French Qumran scholar, A. Dupont-Sommer (1959), argued at an early date in the history of Qumran research that the Teacher of Righteousness had been a model for the self-understanding

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus compared to related Jewish figures

187

can be claimed in a stricter sense to have proven their hypotheses. Certainly the Thanksgiving Hymns use the first person, a so-called writer-I, who repeatedly speaks in a highly specific manner and therefore may well refer to a particular human being under specific historical circumstances. But it can never be anything but an – admittedly quite obvious – hypothesis that this author can be identified with the Teacher of Righteousness. The same applies to the so-called Messianic Hymns. Finally it cannot be substantiated and definitely decided that the Teacher of Righteousness can be identified with an otherwise known historical person. However, these critical remarks are not intended to deny or question the obvious and rather well founded hypothesis that the Teacher of Righteousness of the Qumran literature wrote the Thanksgiving Hymns. Nor will I argue that the Teacher of Righteousness cannot be regarded as a figure whom it is fruitful to compare with the historical Jesus. Quite the contrary. It is immediately obvious that the Teacher of Righteousness as a character, type and role holder is much closer to the historical Jesus than the Hasmonean princes. Precisely like Jesus the Teacher of Righteousness is designated as a “prophet” as well as a “teacher,” perhaps as the new Moses, and perhaps he was really regarded as the Messiah. Moreover, these two figures are both described as founders of an – in regard to Jerusalem – oppositional Jewish movement or community, in which they were both regarded as divinely inspired revelators and teachers. Furthermore, they are both described to have designated their community as the “new covenant” (cf. ch. 4.8). Both are described as eschatological prophets who interpreted the biblical predictions eschatologically and in an actualizing manner, arguing that the biblical prophecies would come true in and with their own activity. In my opinion, however, the most important similarity between the Teacher of Righteousness and Jesus is that, in the surviving sources, they are both portrayed as unique mediators of divine revelation. This means that they both belong to the religio-phenomenological category “prophet” who should primarily be characterised as mediator and communicator of divine information to other human beings. Thus they can also be claimed to belong to the religio-phenomenological category “revealer figure,” a category which is closely related to the religio-phenomenological category “prophet.” Another important similarity between the Teacher of Righteousness and Jesus is their common eschatological “quietism” defined as non-militancy, that is that they both expected that the Jewish people’s eschatological of the historical Jesus (1959, 385 – 386). In contrast to these three scholars stands firmly the German scholar G. Jeremias 1963, who, in the spirit of the liberal and the dialectical theology, saw an insurmountable barrier between the Jewish Teacher of Righteousness and Jesus, the sharp critic of “late Judaism” 1963, 351 – 353). Nor does Heinz-Wolfgang Kuhn regard the similarities between the Teacher of Righteousness and Jesus as important (cf. 2011, 1278 – 1281).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

188

The comparative Jesus

reestablishment would be realized, not by an armed rebellion of the Jewish people against Rome, but exclusively through the divine intervention of the Jewish god and his heavenly forces. A further possible similarity is that it can be argued that both of them predicted their own imminent death. At the same time several differences can be observed between the Teacher of Righteousness and Jesus. One is that the phrase the “kingdom of god” or the “kingdom of heaven” does not appear in the Dead Sea Scrolls. However, perhaps this difference is of no major importance because the reality which the phrase “kingdom of god” refers to can be claimed to manifest itself in other expressions, for example in the designation of the Jewish god as “our king” (4QH fragment 7,1.15 and 2.14). The most important difference between Jesus and the Teacher of Righteousness, however, lies in the fact that Jesus clearly acted as eschatological exorcist and healer, a role or a function which is not documented in the sources about the Teacher of Righteousness. Furthermore, there is an important difference concerning the interpretation of their death. While Jesus’ death, perhaps by himself, and under all circumstances by his followers, was quickly interpreted as an event of extraordinary significance, despite Wise’s and Knohl’s hypotheses, the Teacher of Righteousnes’s understanding of his own future death and similarly his community’s understanding of the same phenomenon after his death are far from clear.36

5.3.2.3 Rabbi Hillel37 Hillel who lived and worked under Herod the Great ((40) 37 – 4 BCE), is considered to have been one of the founders and one of the main figures in the Pharisaic community. The existing sources on Hillel are the Mishnah from about 200 CE and the two great Talmudic works, the Jerusalemite (or Palestinian) Talmud (ca. 400 CE) and the Babylonian Talmud (ca. 500 – 600), while Hillel is not mentioned by Philo, Josephus or the NT. This means that the source material on Hillel is even later and thus even of lower quality than the sources on Jesus. Therefore we have to expect a considerable amount of 36 My interpretation of the relationship between the Teacher of Righteousness and Jesus is thus quite different from the traditional assessment which can be argued to be represented by G. Jeremias 1963 and W. Kuhn 2011. For reasons that in my opinion are theological or ideological, Jeremias greatly exaggerates the differences between these two figures and thus looses the possibility of registering the numerous and rich similarities between the two characters. 37 Cf. Schlatter (1925) 1972, 247 – 259; Moore (1927) 1970, I, 72 – 82; Klausner (1907) 1952, 301 – 305; Finkelstein (1970) 1972, 133 – 137; Schürer – Vermes, II, 1979, 357 – 369; Charlesworth 1997; Charlesworth – Johns 1997; Flusser 1997; Goshen-Gottstein 1997. It surprises me that John P. Meier in his four comprehensive volumes, in particular in vol. 3, has not (yet?) found an opportunity to compare Jesus and Hillel.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus compared to related Jewish figures

189

mythologizing and stereotyping in the sources on him (cf. Goshen-Gottstein 1997, 34 – 37). The oldest and the best, but not a particularly rich source, is the Mishnah. It portrays Hillel as the founder of a Torah school in the Pharisaic communities in Jewish Palestine, who interpreted the Mosaic Law more leniently for both Jews and proselytes than his contrast, Shammaj, who is portrayed as the founder of a stricter Pharisaic school. The fullest account of Hillel found in the Mishnah is the treaty Aboth (i. e., “Fathers”) 1.12 – 15 and 2.5.38 Here Hillel is described as the originator of the important command to love peace and to love all human beings (1.12). In Aboth 1.13 we find a statement that the person who makes his name great, will lose his name, that is, a request to humility, reminiscent of similar statements of Jesus (cf. Flusser 1997, 83). According to Schürer – Vermes, the most important qualities of Hillel were “kindness and gentleness” (vol. 2, 1979, 364 – 365). Hillel is also described as a systematic interpreter of the biblical scriptures and as the originator of the socalled rabbinical hermeneutics, i. e., the theories of the rabbinical exegetes on the interpretation of the holy scriptures.39 Finally, as we noticed in ch. 3.4, according to Mishnah and Talmud, Hillel is claimed to have formulated the socalled golden rule (cf. Matt. 7.12 (par.)), however, in a negative version. In my opinion the most important similarity between Hillel and Jesus is that they both acted as authoritative interpreters of the Jewish Bible of such a calibre that they established their own “schools.” That is, they both gathered a group of students or pupils around themselves that continued to exist even after their death. Another significant similarity is that they both extended the commandment to love one’s neighbour in Lev. 19.17 – 18 to include all human beings. David Flusser believes that Jesus was directly influenced by Hillel, and he emphasizes that they both “sought to render the Jewish message utterly humane” (1997, 71), as they both “preached a universal and unconditional love.”40 Flusser puts them both on the same footing as Socrates, when he emphasizes the similarities between these three men (1997, 74 – 75). Against these similarities, however, we find a number of important differences between Hillel and Jesus. The most important one is perhaps that Jesus not only can be, and ought to be, classified as a prophet, but as an eschatological prophet, and perhaps even as a messianic pretender while Hillel does not qualify as either.41 38 Aboth 1.1 – 18 is available in an English translation in Schürer – Vermes, II, 1979, 357 – 358. 39 The so-called seven rules of Hillel for the interpretation of the Jewish Bible are handed down in Tosefta Sanhedrin VI.11, and this text is available in a German translation in Stemberger (1979) 1997, 133. 40 Flusser 1997, 83. With this interpretation Flusser continues in the footsteps of Joseph Klausner (cf. (1907) 1952, 302). 41 As far as I know, Goshen-Gottstein is the only scholar who emphasizes that a proper comparison between two contemporary figures such as Hillel and Jesus presupposes that the two persons

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

190

The comparative Jesus

Furthermore in the sources on Hillel we find no evidence of his having been an exorcist, a healer and/or a miracle worker. In addition we have the important information that Hillel appears to have interpreted the Mosaic Law more leniently than his contemporaries, while, in my opinion, the opposite holds true for Jesus, who interpreted the law more strictly (cf. ch. 4.4 above and Klausner (1907) 1952, 303). In this context James H. Charlesworth points at two key differences between Jesus and Hillel, first that only Jesus extended the command to love one’s “neighbour” to also include one’s enemies, and secondly, that Jesus’ views on divorce are stricter than those of Hillel, who interprets the provisions on divorce in Deut. 24.1 in a very liberal manner (1997, 24 – 25). David Flusser rejects this interpretation, and instead he points out that Hillel and Jesus were significantly different in their views of themselves. While Hillel saw himself as a representative of humanity, Jesus regarded himself as a messianic spokesman for the Jewish god himself (1997, 101). Finally in the sources on Hillel we learn nothing indicating that he suffered a tragic death, or that he foresaw it, prophesied it, or that he attached a soteriological significance to it. For these reasons I have to conclude that the sources on Hillel and Jesus indicate very significant differences between these two Jewish figures. 5.3.2.4 Judas the Galilean42 In this section we turn to a source of a different kind than the Jewish Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the rabbinical literature, which we have used above. This source is Josephus’ writings. Here, of course, we cannot lose ourselves in the many problems and questions associated with this author, his life and writings.43 What is important to grasp is that Josephus was not primarily a Pharisee who wrote to the Pharisees. He was not primarily a Jewish priest who wrote to other priests, or a Jewish aristocrat who wrote to the other aristocrats. Finally Josephus was not primarily a Jewish apocalyptic prophet who wrote to the benefit of his peers. Josephus may indeed be claimed to have played and worked in all these roles, but in his writings he was first and last a Jewish historian who, with a clear pro-Jewish apologetic agenda, wrote about the Jewish people’s history compared belong to the same phenomenological type, category or class, but that such a presupposition is not necessary when the scholar considers the historical preconditions for a certain person, for example that of John the Baptist for Jesus (Goshen-Gottestein 199, 31 – 34). 42 This chapter presupposes Bilde 2008a, 70 – 74, that in the present context has been revised and supplemented. Furthermore, I refer to Kennard 1945 – 1946; Hengel (1961) 1976, 79 – 150; D. Hill 1979, 145 – 147; E.P. Sanders 1985; Kearney – Zeits 2009, 185; Förster 2012, 71 – 82. 43 For further information and discussion of these issues, I refer to Bilde 1983a; 1988; 1998c; 2006a; Mason 1992; 1998; 2009; 2011.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus compared to related Jewish figures

191

primarily for a Hellenistic-Roman audience. He thus had a rather different readership and may thus be presumed to have had completely different purposes with his work than the writings that we have worked with above. The all-determining foundation and background for Josephus’ works was the Jewish revolt against Rome in 66 – 70 (74) CE, which, as we know, ended with the Roman conquest of Jerusalem, the burning of the temple, the city’s destruction, tens of thousands of dead, wounded, invalids, and numerous Jewish prisoners of war sold into slavery – in my opinion one of the worst of the many great disasters of the Jewish people. In my works on Josephus I argue that the main purpose of his works, especially of the Jewish War (Bellum Judaicum), was to contribute to restoring the state prior to this Jewish uprising. In this work Josephus appears to be aiming at convincing both Romans, Greeks and Jews, that the Jewish rebellion was due to a fatal misconception, that it had been caused by a fanatical minority of the Jewish people, who had enticed or threatened the majority to join the uprising, and that all good forces in the Jewish people had in fact been against the rebellion and in favour of peace with Rome. Against this background it was Josephus’ main purpose to downplay those features in Judaism, which could draw the people in the direction of an armed uprising against Rome, and to marginalize those groups in the Jewish people who had been advocates of war, and who had been leading during the rebellion. Therefore it is a common feature of Josephus’ description of the uprising, that he reduces the significance of all the eschatological and messianic expectations and movements which actually had been the main driving forces in the movement of the Jewish people in the direction of armed resistance and rebellion against Rome (cf. Bilde 2006a, 29 – 31). At the same time, however, Josephus was a writer who was deeply interested in history and seriously preoccupied with data, details, causes and effects in the historical process. Therefore he could not completely exclude those factors that had actually played a significant role during the war, just as he – in flagrant contradiction to his own ideological program – still refers to a series of eschatological prophets and messianic pretenders, and the movements they set in motion. As a sort of heading for the following investigation I here present a famous text from the Jewish War, in which Josephus – almost involuntarily – admits that the main incentive in the Jewish insurrection had actually been the Jewish people’s messianic expectations: (312) But what more than all else incited them to the war was an ambiguous oracle, likewise found in their sacred scriptures, to the effect that at that time one from their country would become ruler of the world. (313) This they understood to mean someone of their own race, and many of their wise men went astray in their interpreting of it. The oracle, however, in reality signified the sovereignty of Vespasian, who was proclaimed

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

192

The comparative Jesus

Emperor on Jewish soil (Bell. 6.312 – 313, translated by H.St.J. Thackeray, LCL, III, (1928) 1968, 466 – 467).

According to Josephus, the actual sequence of events during the Jewish revolt had demonstrated that, after all, the Messiah did not arrive to rescue the Jewish people. Therefore in this text Josephus made an attempt at reinterpreting the prophecy, which, in fact, we are unable to identify precisely, but which may have been either Balaam’s prophecy in Num. 24.15 – 17 or one of Daniel’s prophecies in Dan. 2.44 – 45 and 7.13 – 14. The most interesting feature in this text in relation to our present context is, however, that Josephus here admits that the strongest driving force in the Jewish revolt against Rome really had been the deep conviction that the moment for the arrival of the Messiah had finally arrived, and that, precisely in year 66, he was about to come and lead the Jewish people to their liberation from the Roman occupation and to its eschatological restoration. Back to our main theme: It is debatable how early in the history of the Jewish people it is fruitful for the understanding and interpretation of Judas the Galilean to begin. It can also be discussed how many and precisely which accounts it is useful to include. In this context, however, I attach importance to the presence of clearly eschatological and messianic features in the texts from Josephus that I wish to refer to. For this reason I exclude Josephus’ accounts of the riots that followed in the wake of the death of Herod the Great in 4 BCE (cf. Bell. 2.4 – 65; Ant. 17.171 – 285). I do this despite the fact that Josephus here emphasizes that two of the leaders of these uprisings, one Simon, who appeared in Transjordan, and one Athronges, who was active in Judaea, claimed “royal dignity,” as stated in the Bell. 2.57, 60 – 62 and Ant. 17.273, 278, a feature, which can be interpreted as a demand for the recognition as the (royal) Messiah. I abstain from an examination of these two figures because I do not want to prolong too much the presuppositions for my interpretation of Judas the Galilean. But it should be kept in mind that Judas was not the first eschatological insurgent. Instead I begin with Josephus’ description of Judas of Galilee,44 who is also mentioned in Acts (5.37): (117) The territory of Archelaus was now reduced to a province, and Coponius, a Roman of the equestrian order, was sent out as procurator, entrusted by Augustus with full powers, including the infliction of capital punishment. (118) Under his administration, a Galilean, named Judas, incited his countrymen to revolt, upbraiding them as cowards for consenting to pay tribute to the Romans and tolerating human masters, after having God for their lord. This man

44 For further examination of this Judas I refer to Hengel (1961) 1976, 79 – 150; Rhoads (1976) 1979, 47 – 60; Jacobi 1978, 23 – 38; D. Hill 1979, 145 – 147; Bilde (2001) 2006, 80 – 94; 2008a, 70 – 74; Hyldahl (1993) 1999, 63 – 67; Evans 1995, 61 – 65; Udoh 2005.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus compared to related Jewish figures

193

was a sophist who founded a sect of his own, having nothing in common with the others (Bell. 2.117 – 118, LCL, II, (1927) 1967, 366 – 369).

In this text Josephus describes Judas as a Jewish “sophist,” a Greek term that here – as in Plato – is negatively charged, but which may also have a positive connotation and thus signify a learned person, perhaps something like “bookish.” This word should be interpreted in connection with Judas’ founding of his own “sect” of the same sort of the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the “Essenes.” All these parties were founded on the basis of a particular interpretation of the Mosaic Law, and therefore the word “sophist” ought to be interpreted as something like “biblical scholar” or “scribe.” By using the word “sophist” Josephus probably intends to describe Judas as a Jewish scribe with his own profile in relation to the other Jewish “sects,” he is describing in the immediately following sections (Bell. 2.119 – 166). The specified dating in this text indicates that Judas appeared in the year 6 CE, when the son of Herod the Great, Archelaus, who had been ruler of Judaea, Samaria and Idumaea in the years 4 BCE – 6 CE, was ousted and banished to exile in Gaul. At the same time the Romans changed the status of Archelaus’ territory from that of a Jewish client state with internal (Jewish) selfgovernment into a Roman province with direct Roman rule and taxation. The text quoted does not directly combine this fundamental political transformation of Archelaus’ territory and Judas’ revolt: “Under his administration, a Galilean …”. But the reason for Judas’ revolt as stated by Josephus demands this connection. It was this political transformation of the status of these three Jewish provinces that prompted Judas to urge his countrymen to revolt. For Judas justifies his call to revolt with the new obligation of the Jews to pay taxes directly to Rome. The true reason for Judas’ call to armed rebellion is hidden in the words “tolerating human masters.” These words indicate that the territory’s new status with the new fiscal obligation for the Palestinian Jews was identical with tolerating the Romans as the masters of the Jewish country and the Jewish people. According to Judas, this situation was obviously unacceptable. Why? Because it contradicted the Jewish belief that the promised land belonged to the Jewish god and him alone (cf. Ant. 18.23). The Jewish god had granted the promised land to his chosen Jewish people. Therefore the true king of this territory was obviously the Jewish god himself. It is this idea that lays behind the expression the “kingdom of god.” As the Jewish god was unable to rule directly in person, he had chosen as his mediator a Jewish king: David and his successors of the Davidic lineage. Like the high priest the legitimate Davidic king had to be anointed before his enthronement, and this is the reason why the hoped for king was called the “Messiah,” which means “the anointed one.” Therefore the country ought not to be taken over by foreign powers, just as it would be illegitimate to pay taxes to other rulers because such an act would

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

194

The comparative Jesus

imply the acknowledgment of someone else than the Jewish god and his anointed one as the legitimate master and ruler of the promised land. According to Josephus, Judas the Galilean thus maintained the fundamental (militant or “Zealotic”) Jewish thesis that the Jewish god alone is the rightful king of the Jewish people.45 If we interpret Bell. 2.117 – 118 and Ant. 18.23 in this way, we can claim that Judas the Galilean preached the indirect monarchy of the Jewish god, i. e., through the messianic king, and that this idea can be regarded as identical with “the kingdom of god” (he basileia tou theou). I think that most Jews would agree in this thesis, but what was peculiar in the “Zealotic” “theology” of Judas the Galilean was that he urged his countrymen to an armed struggle in order to realize this idea.46 In Ant. 17.271 – 272, too, there is a reference to a Judas. However here he is described as the “son of Hezekiah.” This Judas can be, but need not necessarily be, the same as Judas the Galilean. Josephus writes that this second Judas, when King Herod the Great died in 4 BCE raised a rebellion in Galilee, stormed the royal palace in Sepphoris in Galilee, looted it, and that he had an “ambition for royal rank.” If these two Judas’es are identical, then we may assume that Josephus’ two reports presuppose an older tradition about a certain Judas who was not only a prophetic rebel leader, but also a messianic pretender. Finally Judas the Galilean is mentioned in Acts, and the content of this text is probably dependent on the accounts in Josephus. In Acts 5.37 it is stated: “After him came Judas the Galilean at the time of the census; he induced some people to revolt under his leadership, but he too perished and his whole movement was broken up.” It is important to notice that, despite its chronological error in placing Judas after Theudas, Acts 5.37 supports my interpretation of the exact date of Judas’ rebellion because it relates Judas to the “census,” which most simply can be interpreted to the change of government in Idumaea, Judaea and Samaria in the year 6 CE. The details in Josephus’ accounts of Judas the Galilean are not entirely in agreement nor are they completely clear. But they seem to me to state that precisely at the time when the larger part of the Jewish territory in Palestine was transformed from its status of partial autonomy to a new status as a province under direct Roman administration, Judas started a religiously motivated uprising against Rome. This rebellion was launched under the watchword of a refusal to (register and to) pay taxes to Rome, and, most importantly, it appears to be a fact, that the program of this revolt was 45 Cf. Ant. 18.4 – 5, 23 – 25. In Ant. 18.1 – 10 and 23 – 25 which is probably an extended version of Bell. 2.117 – 118. Here the theology of Judas is described in greater detail, but basically this larger version corresponds well with Bell. 2.117 – 118. 46 A series of scholars, first and foremost Farmer (1956) 1973 and Hengel (1961) 1976, 158 – 229, have emphasized that with this theologoumenon Judas and his group placed themselves in an old Jewish tradition which in the Jewish Bible is represented in particular by Pinehas (Num. 25.7 – 13, cf. my footnote 5,29) and Elijah (1 Kgs. 18), cf. ch. 5.3.2.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus compared to related Jewish figures

195

dominated by the fundamental Jewish thesis of the Jewish god as the only legitimate master and king of the “holy land” and of the Jewish people. If we compare this interpretation of Judas the Galilean with my reconstruction of the historical Jesus I call attention to the following similarities and differences. Judas and Jesus resemble each other in several respects: They are both described as advocates of a “new” religious doctrine in Judaism. They both proclaimed this new doctrine with great authority and strength. On this basis they are both claimed to have founded a new Jewish school to which they both attracted a group of supporters and students. In my interpretation they can both be claimed to have believed and to have proclaimed that the “kingdom of god” was at hand, although they took different consequences from this belief. In my opinion Jesus’ proclamation of the imminence of the kingdom of god and his strong emphasis on the predominant role of the Jewish god is comparable to Josephus’ accentuation that to Judas, the Jewish god was the only legitimate king of the Jewish people and that therefore the Jews could not recognize the Roman Emperor as their master and had to reject paying taxes to Rome. Although the expression the “kingdom of god” (or the “kingdom of heavens,” as it is called in the Gospel of Matthew) does not occur in Josephus’ description of Judas, the substance of the term is present in Josephus, as I have already stated above. Josephus’ smooth and diplomatic phrase, “… and tolerating mortal masters, after having God for their lord,”47 says in my opinion the same as the expression in the gospels, namely that to the Jews all power ought to belong to the Jewish god. Both Judas and Jesus were eschatological prophets, and both of them proclaimed that the divinely appointed time for the fulfilment of the biblical promises about the recovery of Israel had finally arrived. It was on the basis of this fundamental belief that both Judas and Jesus were acting. Now to the differences between Judas the Galilean and Jesus from Nazareth. Most commentators think that, in contrast to Judas and in line with Paul in Rom. 13.6 – 7 (“… pay tax and levy …,” cf., e. g., Fitzmyer 1993, 661 – 676), Jesus allowed the Jews to pay taxes to Rome. However I have earlier made an attempt to argue that this is not as obvious as most commentators tend to think (cf. Bilde 2008a, 29 – 36). The traditional Christian interpretation of Mk. 12.13 – 17 (par.) is based on Paul, Augustine and Martin Luther’s concept of the two “regimes,” that of god, the “heavenly” or “spiritual” realm, and that of the “king” or the “emperor,” the “earthly” or the “worldly” realm (cf. Augustine). Traditional Christian interpretation of Mk. 12.13 – 17 seems to be unable to imagine that Jesus did

47 In the later and expanded parallel in Ant. 18.23 to Bell. 2.117 – 118 Josephus writes that the “fourth” philosophical school led by Judas is “convinced that God alone is their leader and master…,” and that they want to “avoid calling any man master” (LCL, IX, (1965) 1969, 20 – 23).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

196

The comparative Jesus

not agree with Paul, Augustine and Luther, and against this background it is rarely in doubt about the interpretation of the famous text in Mk. 12.13 – 17: (13) A number of Pharisees and men of Herod’s party were sent to trap him with a question. (14) They came and said, ‘Teacher, we know you are a sincere man and court no one’s favour, whoever he may be; you teach in all sincerity the way of life that God requires. Are we or are we not permitted to pay taxes to the Roman emperor? (15) Shall we pay or not?’ He saw through their duplicity, and said, ‘Why are you trying to catch me out? Fetch me a silver piece, and let me look at it.’ (16) They brought one, and he asked them, ‘Whose head is this, and whose inscription?’ ‘Caesar’s,’ they replied. (17) Then Jesus said, ‘Pay Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and God what belongs to God.’ His reply left them completely taken aback.

Most commentators think that, in contrast to Judas the Galilean, Jesus allowed the Jews to pay taxes to Rome (cf., e. g., Förster 2012, 6 – 9. 220 – 225). But what does this text actually say? The anonymous “number” is hostile to Jesus. His enemies send some messengers to Jesus to get him to make a mistake. With this purpose they ask him a question which was extremely dangerous in Roman occupied Palestine. It was Judas the Galilean’s crucial question that Jesus could not fail to stumble over. In the present Christian text, however, Jesus is unable to make mistakes. Of course, he “saw through their duplicity.” Of course, his second remark is so sharp that it reveals that his enemies are dubiously in possession of a Roman coin bearing Caesar’s image, a fact, which is contrary to the Law of Moses’ ban on images (cf. Exod. 20.4). Their possession of Roman coins with the emperor’s image demonstrates the enemy’s “duplicity,” and it demonstrates that they are in conflict with the Galilean Judas and his “fourth philosophy.” And of course Jesus ends the dialogue as the winner, while his adversaries were “completely taken aback.” But what about Jesus’ final answer? Is it not quite unambiguous? Does Jesus here not state clearly that Jews – and all other human beings – have to share their loyalty and obligations equally between the emperor and god, between the secular regime and the spiritual one, between politics and religion? No, this is not an adequate interpretation of Jesus’ final answer. This interpretation is only a thoughtless and mechanical reproduction of the habitual Pauline, Augustinian and Lutheran ideology. The text itself takes no position at all, but leaves it to listeners to decide, and this is why the text ends with the words: “His reply left them completely taken back” (cf. van Jersel 1998, 372). But are we unable to get hold of Jesus’ own position? What did he mean by his final answer? Even though the text does not indicate a clear answer, I am pretty sure that Jesus’ proclamation of the imminence of the kingdom of god unequivocally indicates that to Jesus, the Jewish god and his kingdom was the all dominating reality (similarly Förster 2012, 6 – 9. 220 – 225). Therefore I

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus compared to related Jewish figures

197

suggest to interpret Jesus’ final answer as follows: Give nothing to the emperor and everything to god! That this interpretation is correct may be confirmed by Lk. 23.2, which belongs to Luke’s peculiar material: “They opened the case against him by saying, ‘We found this man subverting our nation, opposing the payment of taxes to Caesar, and claiming to be Messiah, a king’.” First, I note that this text does not say or suggest that the accusation against Jesus, that he sought to prevent his countrymen from paying taxes to Rome, should be false. Second, since there is no reason to doubt that the first and the last of the three charges against Jesus are seriously meant, why should we doubt the seriousness of the second one? Third, when the last accusation in fact led Pilate to sentence Jesus to death because of activities dangerous to the state, it cannot be ruled out that the second accusation too was not only honestly meant from the side of the prosecutors, but that it also may have played a role in Pilate’s preparation of his sentence. In conclusion I argue that Jesus’ answer in Mk. 12.17 (par.) does not reveal Jesus’ own attitude, that his preaching of the imminence of the kingdom of god supports the interpretation that Jesus himself believed that the Jews had to give everything to the god and nothing to the emperor, and that this interpretation is supported by Lk. 23.2. Therefore the comparison between Judas the Galilean and Jesus cannot be dismissed by a dogmatic insistence on the categorical difference between them. The interpretation of Mk. 12.17 (par.) cannot be decided by a traditional Christian references to Paul, Augustine and Martin Luther. If we interpret Mk. 12.17 in the context of Jewish Palestine at the time of Jesus, we have to acknowledge several important similarities between Judas and Jesus, although they do not abrogate the difference between the militant Judas and the nonmilitant Jesus (cf. ch. 4.10). Accordingly, first, I do not doubt that Judas and Jesus agreed on the fundamental thesis: “nothing” to the Roman emperor and “everything” to the Jewish god, and second, that both of them expected an imminent destruction of the Romans. Based on this interpretation I think we can to conclude that the Galilean Judas and Jesus of Galilee shared the fundamental Jewish doctrine of the absolute supremacy of their Jewish god, just as they both interpreted this dogma politically. Since they are also described as authoritative religious teachers, who both dared to proclaim a “new” doctrine on the basis of which they both established new Jewish schools, these two have much more in common than usually assumed. In addition, perhaps both of them claimed to be the Messiah, although this interpretation does not emerge unequivocally from the traditional sources.48 48 I am unable to comprehend that Kearney – Zeits (2009, 185) can fob off Judas the Galilean with half a page without one word about his religio-political program. I guess that this neglect is due

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

198

The comparative Jesus

Of course, these similarities do not abrogate the existing differences. An important difference is that Judas is not reported to have driven out demons, healed the sick and exercised other wonders. Another one is that Josephus does not produce any evidence that Judas has ever acted as a future predictive prophet. Neither does Josephus tell us that Judas foretold his own death or that he ascribed a soteriological significance to this future death. However, the most important difference between Judas the Galilean and Jesus of Galilee is the contradiction between Judas’ militancy and Jesus’ nonmilitant “quietism.” The militant Judas urged his compatriots to participate in his armed revolt against Rome, while the non-militant Jesus refrained from instigating an armed rebellion. He did so because he was convinced that when the divinely pre-determined moment came, the Jewish god himself would intervene and send Michael, the guardian angel of the Jewish people, at the head of the heavenly armies to expel the Romans from the “holy” land (cf. Theissen 2002). 5.3.2.5 John the Baptist49 5.3.2.5.1 Introduction Paul and Tacitus do not mention John the Baptist. In contrast the four canonical gospels and the Acts of the Apostles all report that John first appeared alone without any connection with Jesus. But at one time or another, according to the three synoptic gospels, like so many other people, Jesus went out to John in the wilderness to be baptized by him. And only then, that is, at a later time, Jesus began his own public career. We are so fortunate that, just as we have external, non-Christian sources (Josephus and Tacitus) confirming that Jesus was executed by Pilate, so we have a non-Christian source describing John the Baptist without connecting him with Jesus. This source is Josephus, who even expresses himself in more detail about John (Ant. 18.116 – 119) than he elsewhere expresses himself about Jesus (Ant. 18.63 – 64; 20.197 – 203). When all the New Testament material about John the Baptist is collected and seen together, it is quite extensive. We shall see that it is also more heterogeneous than one might think at first glance. to the fact that, from the beginning, they have wrongly interpreted Judas as a purely secular and military messianic pretender as if such an idea was thinkable at all at a time and in a culture when politics and religion were so intimately connected (cf. Bilde 1983b). 49 This chapter on John the Baptist presupposes and continues my previous studies on John the Baptist: Bilde 1996a; 1996b; (2001) 2006, 96 – 122; 2008a, 87 – 107. In addition I refer to Webb 1991; Hyldahl (1993) 1997, 75 – 86; H. Stegemann (1993) 1994, 292 – 313; Meier, 2, 1994, 19 – 99; Theissen – Merz 1996, 184 – 193; Taylor 1997; Allison 1998, 102 – 113; 2010, 204 – 220; Abrahamowitz 2002, 31 – 47; Dunn 2003, 348 – 378; Catchpole 2006, 1 – 52; Hengel – Schwemer 2007, 297 – 319; Allison 2010, 82 – 85; Casey 2010, 171 – 198; Backhaus 2011.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus compared to related Jewish figures

199

As to methodology, here again, I approach the sources by moving from more secure to less secure information, that is, from the clear, almost stereotypical images of John, that characterize the surface of the New Testament material, to the less clear ideas about him which can be sensed and tracked under this surface, and which are likely to point back to older written or oral traditions, which might contain possible historical memories of John. The first task in this chapter should therefore be to clarify the reports and interpretations of John found in the canonical gospels and Acts (ch. 5.3.2.5.2). On this basis I will ask some critical questions: Does the material in the NT represent several different views of John the Baptist? Do we find any “cracks” or contradictions in the NT’s overall picture of John? (ch. 5.3.2.5.3). Then we turn to the one important source for John the Baptist that we have outside the NT, namely, Josephus’ narrative. In some respects the information in this source resembles and confirms the image(s) in the NT, but in other respects it differs significantly, first and foremost through the fact that Josephus does not connect the Baptist with Jesus (ch. 5.3.2.5.4). When it comes to an interpretation and a historical reconstruction of John the Baptist, we are moreover so fortunate that in the Qumran literature and in the OT we can find some material that seems to be able to shed more light on John and his activity as baptizer. In ch. 5.3.2.5.5 – 6 I include this material and examine it in order to clarify its possible contribution to further illuminating John. On the basis of the divergences in the Christian sources about the relationship between John and Jesus (ch. 5.3.2.5.3), Josephus’ text (ch. 5.3.2.5.4) and the other Jewish material mentioned above (ch. 5.3.2.5.5 – 6) I can then begin to construct a picture of the historical John the Baptist. The first question to be asked concerns John’s baptizing activity: Why did John baptize? And what did his baptism mean (ch. 5.3.2.5.7)? The next questions concerns John’s understanding of himself and his surroundings’ interpretation of him: What sort of figure was John the Baptist – in his own and in other people’s eyes? What did he intend with his baptism? Did his costume (clothes of camel’s hair and a leather belt), his diet (locusts and wild honey) and the geographical place of his activity (the desert) signify anything (ch. 5.3.2.5.8)? I conclude ch. 5.3.2.5 with a reconstruction of the historical John (5.3.2.5.9) and a comparison between John and Jesus (5.3.2.5.10). 5.3.2.5.2 The prevailing picture of John the Baptist in the New Testament In Matt. 3.1 – 17 (par.) we find the following description of the public emergence of John the Baptist, of his baptism in general and of his baptism of Jesus: (1) In the course of time John the Baptist appeared in the Judean wilderness, proclaiming this message: (2) “Repent for the kingdom of Heaven is upon you!’ (3) It was of him that the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said, “A voice cries in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord; clear a straight path for him.’” (4) John’s

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

200

The comparative Jesus

clothing was a rough coat of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. (5) Everyone flocked to him from Jerusalem, Judaea and the Jordan valley, (6) and was baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. (7) When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism he said to them: ‘Vipers’ brood! Who warned you to escape from the wrath that is to come? (8) Prove your repentance by the fruit you bear ; (9) and do not imagine you can say, ‘We have Abraham for our father.’ I tell you, that God can make children for Abraham out of these stones. (10) The axe lies ready at the roots of the trees; every tree that fails to produce good fruit is cut down and thrown on the fire. (11) I baptize you with water, for repentance; but the one who comes after me is mightier than I am, whose sandals I am not worthy to remove. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. (12) His winnowing-shovel is ready in his hand, and he will clear his threshing-floor; he will gather the wheat into his granary, but the chaff he will burn on a fire that can never be put out. (13) Then Jesus arrived at the Jordan from Galilee, and came to John to be baptized by him. (14) John tried to dissuade him. ‘Do you come to me?’ he said. ‘It is I who need to be baptized by you.’ (15) Jesus replied, ‘Let it be so for the present; it is right for us to do all that God requires.’ Then John allowed him to come. (16) No sooner had Jesus been baptized and come out of the water than the heavens were opened and he saw the spirit of God descending like a dove to alight on him. (17) And there came a voice from heaven saying, ‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I take delight.’

In the canonical gospels and Acts a very peculiar picture of John the Baptist is dominating. In this picture John is in all respects subordinate to Jesus. In these texts John is painted as a forerunner of Jesus, and his main task is to point towards Jesus as the major figure. We can call this image the “Christianized,” stereotypical picture of John. This image is also dominant in Matt. 3.1 – 17. The “Lord,” spoken of in v. 3’s rewriting of Isa. 40.3, is no longer the Jewish god, as in Isaiah, but in the Matthean context he is unambiguously determined to be Jesus. Similarly the “mightier” one in Matt. 3.11 – 12 does not refer to the Jewish god, but to Jesus (cf. also Matt. 11.10; Lk. 1.76). This is also the reason why John, according to Matt. 3.14, is unwilling to baptize Jesus. As the future “mightier” one and as the “Lord” Jesus does not need repentance, purification and baptism. Therefore the Matthean text also reinterprets and transforms the story of the baptism of Jesus from a rite of transition or initiation to a scene of vocation, nomination or adoption. Jesus’ submergence in the river Jordan is not a visible symbol of his repentance and moral purity, as it is the case with the other baptismal candidates, but an act of vocation or adoption in which Jesus is called to his unique mission. This reinterpretation appears clearly from the heavenly voice (that is, the voice of the Jewish god) after Jesus’ baptism, designating him as “my beloved Son” meaning that Jesus is now the exclusive representative and spokesman of the Jewish god.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus compared to related Jewish figures

201

Furthermore this stereotypical image of the relationship between John and Jesus dominates Lk. 1.39 – 45, where the unborn John, in the womb of his mother Elizabeth, jumps for joy at the sight of Jesus’ mother Mary. When Elizabeth saw Mary, she welcomed her with the words: “Who am I, that the mother of my Lord should visit me?” (Lk. 1.43). Here, too, Elizabeth’s “Lord” does not refer to the Jewish god, but to Jesus. This stereotypical, Christianized picture of the relationship between the Baptist and Jesus also characterizes the Gospel of John: “The next day he saw Jesus coming towards him. ‘There is the Lamb of God,’ he said, ‘who takes away the sin of the world’” (Jn. 1.29). This characteristic of Jesus is consistent with the fact that John the Baptist in Jn. 1.6 – 8; 1.19 – 23 and 3.28 strongly rejects to being described as the “light,” or the Messiah, or one of the great Jewish prophets of the past who should now, in the eschatological time, that is, the time of the fulfilment of the biblical promises, have returned to the Jewish people. In the Gospel of John it is the Baptist’s only task to point at Jesus as the central and decisive figure. Perhaps this idea finds its strongest expression in Jh. 3.30, where John says: “He must grow greater; I must become less.” The logical consequence of these statements about, and by, John the Baptist would be that, after having baptized Jesus, he and his disciples would bring his own business to an end and instead join Jesus. According to our sources, however, this did not happen. 5.3.2.5.3 Cracks in this picture My interpretation of this tranche of material about John the Baptist as both biased and secondary is supported by another tranche of material pointing in other directions than the first group. This applies for example to Matt. 9.14 (par.): “Then John’s disciples came to him with the question: ‘Why is it that we and the Pharisees fast but your disciples do not?’” This text obviously presupposes a situation in Jewish Palestine at the time of Jesus, when John, even after his baptism of Jesus, acted simultaneously with and independently of Jesus. This text also suggests that the Baptist after his baptism of Jesus still had his own circle of disciples, and that his group and the Jesus movement to some extent had each their own religious practices. If we turn to the Gospel of Luke we encounter the same tension in the material: On the one hand, we find the stereotype, Christianized picture of John the Baptist as in Lk. 1.39 – 45 and 3.1 – 22. On the other hand, we find a text like Lk. 1.5 – 25 and 67 – 80, representing John as an independent eschatological figure. This interpretation is confirmed by Lk. 11.1: “At one place after Jesus had been praying, one of his disciples said, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples’.” This text points in the same direction as Matt. 9.14 (par.), and it indicates that Lk. 11.1 together with Lk. 1.5 – 25 and

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

202

The comparative Jesus

57 – 80 presupposes a circle of disciples of John, who worked independently of the Jesus movement. When a scholar appreciates this undercurrent in the canonical gospels, that opposes the stereotypical, Christianized surface of the same texts, he is able to discover this trend in several other texts. It can for example also be detected in the famous scene described in Matt. 11.1 – 6 (19) (par.): John is in prison, but he has retained contacts with his disciples. In prison John is reported to have heard about Jesus’ activity. He therefore sends some of his disciples to Jesus to ask: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to expect someone else?” (v. 3). Well, what’s the point? Did not the same John earlier point Jesus out as the Messiah? Again it is obvious that John and his group had not joined Jesus but rather continued their own business side by side with Jesus and his group (cf. Matt 14.12 (par.)). We find the same duality in the Gospel of John. On the one hand, the Baptist is here characterized as the “witness” who points at Jesus as the Messiah (Jn. 1.6 – 8. 23. 29 – 36; 3.27 – 36; 5.31 – 36). On the other hand, John 3.22 – 4.3 presupposes that the Baptist’s group and the Jesus movement not only worked separately, but even competed over who could win and baptize the greatest number of new adherents (3.26; 4.1 – 3). At the same time, other texts such as Jn. 3.30 try to blur this fact by letting the Baptist say : “He must grow greater ; I must become less.” Finally, we find a strong testimony of this duality in Acts 18.24 – 19.7, a frankly unbelievable story presupposing that, as late as around the year 50 CE, disciples of John the Baptist still existed and operated in the Greek city of Ephesus on the west coast of Asia Minor. And alongside this amazing story also in Acts we find the well-known stereotypical, Christianized picture of John: (37) I need not tell you what has happened lately all over the land of the Jews, starting from Galilee after the baptism proclaimed by John. (38) You know how God anointed Jesus from Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power (Acts 10.37 – 38, cf. Acts 1.5. 22; 11.16; 13.24 to 25).

The texts surveyed and discussed above suggest that it is this – much more complex and blurred – situation (which, according to the prevailing stereotypical picture of the Baptist in the NT, we should not expect), that is the most common in the gospels and Acts. In other words, the texts presented above emphasize the surprising fact that John, after having baptized Jesus and pointed him out as the Messiah, still did not join him, but, contrary to his own testimony, continued as if nothing had happened. The same was apparently done by John’s disciples both before and after the execution of the Baptist. Actually it is not difficult to determine how this material is to be understood and explained: The writers of the gospels seem to have had access to a considerable amount of non-Christianized traditions about John the Baptist, and, for various reasons, they wanted to include this material in their works. Therefore they supplied this material with a more or less superficial

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus compared to related Jewish figures

203

Christianization consisting of John’s salvation historical subordination under Jesus as his forerunner and witness, while, at the same time, they accepted that many of the same texts were marked by quite different understandings of the relationship between John and Jesus. Provisionally I can thus conclude that in the NT we have an impressive amount of clearly pre-NT and pre-Christian material about John the Baptist. Furthermore it is, of course, first and foremost this material that we (together with Josephus’ text and the indirect material from contemporary Judaism, especially from the Qumran literature) must include in the draft of a reconstruction of the historical John, which is the main purpose of this chapter. At the same time I notice an important insight into the evangelists’ editorial treatment of their source material: The texts studied above suggest that these writers or editors did not produce what we might call a total ideological transformation and unification of the older traditions which they intended to collect and edit in the writings we now call the canonical gospels. Apparently they had such great respect for the traditions about the Baptist and Jesus, that they limited themselves to providing the traditions they had chosen to include in their writings with a relatively superficial “Jesuanic” or “Christian” editing.50 5.3.2.5.4 Josephus’ representation of John the Baptist in Ant. 18.116 – 119 While in his Jewish War Josephus does not mention John the Baptist, in his Antiquities of the Jews we find a relatively rich report on him.51 It appears in the context of a more comprehensive presentation of Herod Antipas as a regional ruler over the regions of Galilee and Peraea.52 In the closer context (Ant. 18.109 – 126) Josephus reports on Herod Antipas focusing on his conflict with the Nabataean King Aretas IV. At an earlier time Antipas had married Aretas’ daughter, and later he fell in love with another princess, Herodias, who was already married to Antipas’ half brother, Philip (18.109 – 110). When Aretas’ daughter got wind of this she fled to her father and complained to him about her troubles (18.111 – 112). For this and other reasons king Aretas launched a war against Antipas, who was quickly defeated (18.113 – 114). Antipas then sent an account of these events to Emperor Tiberius, who ordered the Roman governor of the province of Syria, Vitellius, 50 The same is true about the treatment and editing in the canonical gospels of the older oral and/or written traditions about Jesus that they wished to include in their writings. The evangelists did not carry out a deeper transformation and uniformation of the older traditions, and this is the reason why it is not always difficult to sort out the older traditions from the gospels. Therefore I tend to follow the so-called form critical school and to be rather sceptical towards the so-called redaction critical school which, in my opinion, tends to exaggerate the creative contributions of the evangelists. 51 In Bilde 1996a I have presented a more extensive investigation of Ant. 18.116 – 119. 52 Cf. Ant. 18.109 – 142, which belongs in the larger context in Ant. 17.188 – 18.256.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

204

The comparative Jesus

to move against Aretas and, by the force of arms, to punish him for having waged an unauthorized war (18.115). At this point follows the story of John the Baptist and Herod Antipas (18.116 – 119). After this story Josephus returns to the main strand of his description of the history of Antipas, and tells about Vitellius’ preparations for war and his march towards Nabataea. After negotiations with Jewish leaders Vitellius changed his original plan to let the army move through Jewish residential areas. Instead he sent the army through the “great plain” (either the plain of Jisreel or the Jordan Valley), while he himself, in the company of the Jewish leaders, went to Jerusalem to celebrate a Jewish feast, probably the Passover (18.120 – 122). During Vitellius’ stay in Jerusalem the news arrived of Tiberius’ death (March 16 in the year of 37 CE), and this event caused Vitellius to cancel the planned campaign against Aretas (18.123 – 126). Here follows Ant. 18.116 – 119: (116) But to some of the Jews the destruction of Herod’s army seemed to be divine vengeance, and certainly a just vengeance, for his treatment of John surnamed the Baptist. (117) For Herod had put him to death, though he was a good man and had exhorted the Jews to lead righteous lives, to practise justice towards their fellows and piety towards God, and so doing to join in baptism. In his view this was a necessary preliminary if baptism was to be acceptable to God. They must not employ it to gain pardon for whatever sins they committed, but as a consecration of the body implying that the soul was already thoroughly cleansed by right behaviour. (118) When others too joined the crowds about him, because they were aroused to the highest degree by his sermons, Herod became alarmed. Eloquence that had so great an effect on mankind might lead to some kind of sedition, for it looked as if they would be guided by John in everything that they did. Herod decided therefore that it would be much better to strike first and to be rid of him before his work led to an uprising, than to wait for an upheaval, get involved in a difficult situation and see his mistake. (119) Though John, because of Herod’s suspicions, was brought in chains to Machaerus, the stronghold that we have previously mentioned, and there put to death, yet the verdict of the Jews was that the destruction visited on Herod’s army was a vindication of John, since God saw fit to inflict such a blow on Herod (Ant. 18.116 – 119, translated by L.H. Feldman, LCL, IX, (1965) 1969, 80 – 85).

In this text Josephus tells a story about a good and pious man, John, who – obviously before the war between Antipas and Aretas – had admonished his Jewish countrymen to live justly with one another and in piety towards the Jewish god.53 The peculiarity of John, the feature that gave him his famous nickname, was that he baptized those Jews who had accepted his preaching and put it into 53 What Josephus here writes in a somewhat intricate Hellenistic manner corresponds in its substance to Jesus’ teaching in the so-called double commandment to love god and one’s neighbour (cf. Matt. 22.34 – 40 (par.) and ch. 3.4 above).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus compared to related Jewish figures

205

practice by living a new, just and pious, life. Josephus emphasizes strongly that the conversion and the new life preceded the act of baptism. In the text the baptism is interpreted as a secondary and symbolic act, which in an external and figurative way marked the purification of the “soul” which had already taken place in their preceding repentance and in their conversion resulting in a changed and better lifestyle. Moreover Josephus says that many others also joined John, a fact that made Antipas upset because he was afraid that John’s considerable powers of persuasion should lead to social and political riots and disturbances. Therefore Antipas intervened, had John arrested and sent him to the fortress Machaerus (east of the Dead Sea), where he had him executed. At the beginning and in the conclusion of the text Josephus underlines the point that some contemporary Jews regarded Herod’s act to be unjust, and therefore assessed Antipas’ defeat by Aretas as a just divine intervention to punish Antipas because of his wrongful execution of John. Josephus’ account of John the Baptist is thus clearly marked by sympathy for John and a critical attitude to Antipas. That is to say that Josephus himself seems to have shared the above-mentioned contemporary Jews’ critical assessment of Antipas’ execution of John. Thus the picture of Antipas in this text corresponds well with the portrait of this prince that Josephus is presenting in Ant. 18.147 – 150 and, especially, in 18.240 – 256. However in modern Josephus research it is well-known that Josephus generally disliked Jewish religious figures who, for one reason or another, caused popular assembly and turmoil because such groups might cause disunity among the Jews, create antipathy towards Rome and, consequently, dangerous clashes with the Romans. On the other hand, we should not generalize too hastily on this basis, for in several other cases Josephus describes religious protests in positive terms, however only when they were peaceful. Good examples are the story of Pilate’s atrocities against the Jews (Bell. 2.167 – 177; Ant. 18.55 – 62) and the extensive account of the Roman emperor Gaius Caligula’s attempt to profane the Jewish temple by erecting a statue of himself there (Bell. 2.184 – 203; Ant. 18.257 – 309). In these cases Josephus does not reproach the Jewish resistance against the Romans. Finally it is possible that, in the description of John the Baptist, Josephus overemphasizes his positive picture of John, simply because he generally describes Antipas critically. It therefore appears that in Josephus’ account of John the Baptist we face a figure whom Josephus, as opposed to Antipas, did not regard as politically dangerous, but first and foremost interpreted and presented as a good and pious man, that is, a purely religious figure. A related case is perhaps Josephus’ description of Jesus the Son of Ananiah (Bell. 6.300 – 307, cf. ch. 5.3.2.10). This Jesus Josephus describes as an unlearned and simple man, but, at the same time, as a pious prophet, who was a genuine instrument in the hands of the Jewish god. A third example of this type in the works of Josephus is his positive

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

206

The comparative Jesus

image of the Essenes (cf. Bell. 2.119 – 161). In Josephus’ works this type of individual and group plays an apologetic and an agitating role (cf. Bilde 1983a, 34 – 147; 1988, 173 – 182). In the total of Josephus’ writings these figures play a role as witnesses and proofs of the true piety, virtue and peacefulness of the Jewish people as a whole. At the same time Josephus presents these figures as examples to be imitated by Josephus’ Jewish (and non-Jewish) readers. With this interpretation it is hardly surprising that Josephus gives his portrayal of these figures a positive and – for the sake of his Greek-speaking readers – a Hellenistic flair. In his account of the Baptist this is evident in Josephus’ representation of John’s ethical preaching: “… he was a good man and had exhorted the Jews to lead righteous lives…”. (18.117). This Hellenistic trend is perhaps also reflected in the text’s dualistic distinction between the baptism (“consecration”) of the body and the “cleansing” of the soul through the new way of life. With this observation of Josephus’ “Hellenistic” touch we finally arrive at the important point, that precisely through his intention to soften the social and political potential of John the Baptist (and other similar prophets) and to Hellenize his account of John, Josephus has been led to weaken or completely remove the eschatological features in his sources’ description of the contemporary Jewish prophets and messianic pretenders, because they had dangerous anti-Roman undertones. If we compare Josephus’ portrayal of the Essenes with the Dead Sea Scrolls, it is obvious that Josephus has almost completely removed the eschatological, apocalyptic and messianic features of Essenes (cf. Bilde 1998d). It is clear that he has done the same in his presentation of the militant Jewish rebels, known as the Fourth Philosophy (Ant. 18.9. 23), that is, the militant Jewish party to which the so-called “Zealots” as well as the Sicarians apparently belonged (cf. ch. 5.3.2.9). Josephus has simply ignored the religious – eschatological, apocalyptic and messianic – dimensions of these groups’ militant theology. He did so because – for political and theological-apologetic reasons – he wanted to remove these dangerous dimensions from Judaism and the Jewish people, when he – after the disastrous defeat to Rome in 70 – in his writings worked so hard to rehabilitate his people in the eyes of Rome and the Hellenistic-Roman world (cf. Bilde 1988, 61 – 122) Against the background of this general interpretation of Josephus’ literary and political intentions I feel that I am justified in assuming that, in his text about John the Baptist, too, Josephus has removed possible original eschatological, apocalyptic and perhaps also messianic dimensions from his sources’ description of John. Therefore I propose that in this text Josephus makes an effort to present the Baptist episode as a conflict between a righteous, religious and apolitical preacher, John, who had the Jewish god on his side, and an unjust ruler, Antipas, who finally received his just punishment from the same Jewish god. Josephus describes John as a good man who urged

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus compared to related Jewish figures

207

his countrymen to repent and prove their repentance in action (cf. Matt. 3.8 (par.); Lk. 3.10 – 14). When this happened, John baptized the converts as an outward sign that they had purified themselves in mind and deed. In Josephus, accordingly, there is no question that baptism imparted a divine forgiveness for sins committed in the past. The individual who wished to be baptized had in advance to turn away from his wicked and sinful life, and in advance he had to prove his conversion by leading a new ethical life. However even Josephus’ depoliticizing text reveals that John did not limit himself to this strict ethical-religious admonition and the symbolic baptism associated with it. For we are told that the listeners should “join to baptism” (Ant. 18.117). That this is really a social process, is also apparent from the opening words of Ant. 18.118: “When others too joined the crowds about him, because they were aroused to the highest degree by his sermons …”. With “others” Josephus seems to refer to a group that was different from the one mentioned above: apparently other Jewish listeners who initially had not repented and had not been baptized, but who were later seized by the words of the Baptist. Obviously it was this phenomenon that caused Antipas to become “alarmed.” The text thus suggests that John’s activity in a first phase led to the repentance of some Jews, who began a new life, were baptized and then joined together in a kind of community (John’s disciples or the Baptist movement). In a second phase a number of “others” were attracted by John’s sermons. They “were aroused to the highest degree” by John’s message and therefore “joined the crowds about him,” that is, the Baptist movement. This gathering disturbed Antipas so much that he intervened, arrested John and had him executed. In Josephus’ text Antipas thus did not intervene because of the Baptist’s critique of his unlawful marriage with Herodias, as told in the synoptic gospels (cf. Matt. 14.3 – 4 (par.)). Nor did he intervene because of John’s religio-ethical proclamation and admonitions, but he did so because of the social consequences of John’s preaching and baptism. It was these social consequences that Antipas apparently interpreted as politically dangerous. When we interpret Josephus’ text in this manner, the whole piece appears coherent and meaningful. We also understand that, faithful to his habit towards peaceful eschatological figures, Josephus has weakened the Baptist’s eschatological preaching and political role, and, instead, in a Hellenizing manner, highlighted the religious and moral aspects of John’s activity. However we know from similar cases in Josephus, that prophetic and eschatological figures gave rise to popular expectations and attracted popular support when they proclaimed that the realizations of the promises of salvation in the biblical prophets were at hand. In ch. 5.3.2.4 we saw that Judas of Galilee had many followers. We have also seen that, according to Josephus, the Roman governors used to respond quickly and effectively to the movements of such eschatological prophets. They regarded them as dangerous because they made people believe that the Messiah and the messianic liberation with the subsequent

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

208

The comparative Jesus

justice and happiness were at hand. Therefore the Romans took immediate action and destroyed these prophets and their followers. Josephus’ account of Jesus the Son of Ananiah (Bell. 6.300 – 307, cf. ch. 5.3.210) and the canonical gospels’ description of Jesus’ last days in Judea and Jerusalem demonstrate the same Roman response pattern (cf. Lk. 23.2 – 3; Jn. 11.47 – 53). As far as I can judge, it was precisely this phenomenon that Antipas feared when people in large numbers gathered around John the Baptist. Therefore it is interesting that Josephus, in this case looks at this feature in a way that differs radically from that which otherwise dominates his works. During the analysis of Ant. 18.116 – 119 it was not difficult to identify Josephus’ Hellenizing de-eschatologization of John partly because this attitude is reminiscent of Josephus’ ideological camouflage of the other related Jewish eschatological prophets he is describing. By collecting and using this material in Josephus it is relatively easy to remove Josephus’ political apologetics and ideological Hellenization. As a result of this analyses an image of John the Baptist emerges, which we may describe as genuinely eschatological. Therefore, on the basis of Josephus’ representation alone, I hope that I am justified in concluding that the historical John the Baptist seems to have been an eschatological prophet who demanded the repentance and the religioethical renewal which, according to, e. g., Mal. 3.1; 4.5 – 6; Ps. Sol. 17.26 – 27, should precede the last judgment and the messianic salvation. The unique feature in John’s activity was that, in relation to this moral repentance and renewal, he practiced a purification of water, the baptism, to which we will return below. Besides this peculiar baptism Josephus’ text reveals his knowledge of a Johannine group formation apparently closely related to the conversion and the ethical renewal demanded and practiced by John. I suggest that we call this group the “movement of John the Baptist.” According to Josephus, John’s activity led to many conversions and generally to so much unrest that (similar to what Josephus describes in a number of related cases of the Roman prefects and procurators) Antipas felt compelled to intervene and to arrest and execute John. On the basis of Josephus’ account alone the historical John the Baptist and his movement can thus be characterized as a typical eschatological phenomenon in Jewish Palestine in the first century CE. They constitute a religio-political social phenomenon of a type that can be compared with Josephus’ other eschatological figures, with the Qumran Essenes and with the Jesus movement. 5.3.2.5.5 John the Baptist and the Qumran literature In this section it is my intention to ask whether the source material in the Dead Sea Scrolls can shed further light on the historical John the Baptist whom I am here trying to trace in our sources.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus compared to related Jewish figures

209

In any case the Dead Sea Scrolls and the community they presumably represent, the “Qumran community” or the “Qumranites,” can be interpreted as a significant parallel to the Baptist and his movement (cf. ch. 5.3.2.2). This interpretation does not need to surprise us as we are talking about contemporary Jewish phenomena in roughly the same geographical area: the Judean desert. Therefore I suggest that we take a look at some texts from The Rule of the Community (1 QS) in order to find more help in understanding and interpreting the Baptist: (18) … God, in the mysteries of his knowledge and in the wisdom of his glory, has determined an end to the existence of injustice and on the occasion (19) of his visitation he will obliterate it forever. Meanwhile, truth shall rise up forever in the world which has been defiled in paths of wickedness during the dominion of injustice until (20) the time appointed for judgment. Meanwhile, God will refine, with his truth, all man’s deeds, and will purify for himself the configuration of man, ripping out all spirit of injustice from the innermost part (21) of his flesh, and cleansing him with the spirit of holiness from every irreverent deed. He will sprinkle over him the spirit of truth like lustral water (in order to cleanse him) from all the abhorrences of deceit and from the defilement (22) of the unclean spirit… (1QS 4.18 – 22 translated by Florentino Garzia Mart†nez, 1994, 7).

In a typical apocalyptic manner this text begins by describing the eschatological judgment that will occur at the time that the Jewish god in his wisdom has determined in advance (cf., in particular, Dan. 2.19 – 28). The text continues by highlighting that at a time that is not clearly specified in relation to the eschatological judgment the Jewish god will select a group of people, who will belong to him. He will rid these people of injustice by cleaning them with holy spirit and water (cf. 1 QS 3.6 – 9; 5.13 – 14). In the quoted text we find the characteristic apocalyptic Qumran ideology indicating that, in the final days before the eschatological judgment, the Jewish god will choose a “remnant” (cf. ch. 4.3). This “remnant” refers to the Qumranites, whom the Jewish god will clean and make holy in order to enter into a kind of “new covenant” with them (cf. 1 QS 1.8. 16 – 18; 5.8 – 10, cf. ch. 4.8), thus rescuing them from the last judgment and eschatological punishment and destruction. In its substance this apocalyptic ideology is amazingly close to what we have seen above about John the Baptist in the NTand in Josephus. The crucial point in John’s message was precisely his proclamation of the imminent eschatological judgment and the repentance, the conversion and the moral renewal, all symbolized in the baptism, first in water and since by the holy spirit, aiming at saving the “remnant” who had thus been “cleansed” and “purified,” and in this way rescued from the upcoming eschatological judgment. A little further on in The Rule of the Community (1QS) we read the following:

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

210

The comparative Jesus

(7) … These are the regulations of behaviour concerning all these decrees when they are enrolled in the Community. Whoever enters the council of the Community (8) enters the covenant of God in the presence of all who freely volunteer. He shall swear with a binding oath to revert to the Law of Moses with that it decrees, with whole (9) heart and whole soul, in compliance with all that that has been revealed concerning it to the sons of Zadok, the priests who keep the covenant and interpret his will and to the multitude of the men of their covenant (10) who freely volunteer together for this truth and to walk according to his will. He should swear by the covenant to be segregated from all the men of sin who walk (11) along paths of irreverence (1QS 5.7 – 11 translated by Florentino Garzia Mart†nez, 1994, 8).

This text goes into the details of what was mentioned above about the Jewish god’s eschatological choice of a holy “remnant.” 1QS 5.7 – 11 speaks about the conditions for those who wish to join “the covenant of God,” that is the assembly of the Qumranites, also known as the “brotherhood.” The crucial point of this text lies in the words: “… to revert to the Law of Moses,” that is, in the interpretation of the Sadokidic priests, presumably led by the Teacher of Righteousness. I suggest that this idea of returning to the Mosaic Law should be identified with the idea of “repentance” as well as the idea of segregation from “all the men of sin.” Again we are dealing with important Qumranitic material, and again the parallels to John the Baptist’s activities are striking. First and foremost we here find the crucial themes of conversion and return to the Law of Moses which is also fundamental in John’s preaching. Moreover in 1QS 5.7 – 11 we can find useful help in imagining what happened to the people who had converted and who had been baptized. After his baptism the baptized individual probably “segregated” himself “from all the men of sin.” This feature is evident in Josephus, Ant. 18.117: “… and so doing to join in baptism,” and Ant. 18.118: “When others too joined the crowd.“ However, it figures also in the NT. In Acts 18.24 – 19.7 we find the disciples of John the Baptist in Ephesus and Corinth as late as about 25 years after the execution of John. Apparently they had been members of John’s movement understood as an “eschatological community,” a “remnant of Israel,” a “new covenant” or a “new Israel,” just as it appears to have been the case with the Qumranites and later in the Jesus movement. All these groups seem to have built on Isaiah’s idea about the “remnant” of Israel, who is chosen, and who abide by the covenant with the Jewish god, or enter into a “new covenant” with him (cf. Jer. 31.31 – 34 and ch. 4.8). In continuation of the previous biblical prophets all these groups are talking about the need to “repent” and to “return” to the god of Israel. All of them talk about the need to “separate” themselves from the majority of Jews who did not belong to the “remnant.” Socially we have the same basic structure in Isaiah, Jeremiah, the Qumranites, the Pharisees, the movement of John the Baptist and the Jesus movement. Finally the text from the Commentary on Habakkuk (1QpHab 7.1 – 14) on

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus compared to related Jewish figures

211

the Teacher of Righteousness, quoted in ch. 5.3.2.2, serve to throw the figure of John the Baptist to relief. This text presents the Teacher of Righteousness as the key figure in the development of a distinctive eschatological and actualizing interpretation of the biblical writings. Probably the Qumranites firmly believed that their teacher had received the only correct interpretation of the holy Jewish scriptures from the Jewish god (cf. 1QpHab 2.1 – 10). At the same time 1QpHab 7.1 – 14 is clearly apocalyptic with its assumption that the Jewish god, in advance, and in secret, had fixed a date for the eschatological events, “the end of the age” (1QpHab. 7.1, cf. Gal. 4.4). A characteristic apocalyptic idea also appears in the text’s words about “all the mysteries of the words of his servants, the prophets” (1QpHab. 7.5). In this text we finally meet the phenomenon of the “delay of the parusia” so familiar and so important in the Jesus movement and the NT. The Qumranites, too, believed that they lived in the fulfilment of time. They shared the fundamental early Jewish belief that the promises of the restoration of Israel in messianic glory were about to be realized. Therefore the Qumran community was hit as hard as the later movements of John the Baptist and Jesus when they realized that the eschatological events actually did not occur. Perhaps it was this painful experience that led to a weakening of the faith in the Teacher of Righteousness mentioned in 1QpHab. 2.1 – 8. Concerning all these crucial points there are obvious parallels to John the Baptist. His eschatological preaching presupposes an actualizing interpretation of the prophetic predictions about Israel’s eschatological restoration. Therefore we may allow ourselves to assume that John, too, appeared in the role of a wise “scribe,” that is, as an authoritative interpreter of the biblical texts and promises. Finally it cannot be excluded that Jesus’ break with John was caused by the problems which precisely the non-fulfilment of John’s eschatological preaching created in the circle of John’s adherents. Regarding all these critical points we find remarkable parallels and analogies in the Dead Sea Scrolls to the traditions relating to John the Baptist and his circle (and to the traditions of the Jesus movement).54 5.3.2.5.6 A possible biblical inspiration? Like the Teacher of Righteousness, Jesus and Paul I think that John, too, was convinced that his activity was based on key statements in the holy Jewish scriptures. Therefore we may ask whether we can find in the Jewish Bible a source or a model for John’s water baptism. I think that the following text from the prophet Ezek. 36.24 – 28 is a good guess: (24) I shall take you from among the nations, and gather you from every land, and bring you to your homeland. (25) I shall sprinkle pure water over you, and you will be 54 Cf. Webb 1991, 133 – 162; H. Stegemann (1993) 1994, 292 – 313; Taylor 1997, 15 – 154.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

212

The comparative Jesus

purified from everything that defiles you; I shall purify you from the taint of all your idols. (26) I shall give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I shall remove the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh. (27) I shall put my spirit within you and make you conform to my statutes; you will observe my laws faithfully. (28) Then you will live in the land I gave to your forefathers; you will be my people, and I shall be your God.55

This text is a typical eschatological text predicting and promising the Jewish god’s future salvation of the Jewish people. The reason for the connection between purifying water and the divine spirit can be found in the ancient Israelite and early Jewish rites of purification. According to Mosaic Law (Lev. 11 – 15), Jews who, for one reason or another (touching of dead bodies, sexual intercourse, menstruation, etc.), had become unclean, were obliged to purify themselves in water in a specific, ritualistic manner. In a characteristic “prophetical” way Ezek. 36.17 – 32 extends this idea of corporal ritual impurity to include all forms of injustice and crime, that is, a spiritualized ethical reinterpretation of the old purity rules that were understood physically. This idea is then combined with Joel 2.28 – 29 where the Jewish god promises that in the eschaton he will pour his spirit over his people. Furthermore under inspiration of Jer. 31.31 – 34 (cf. ch. 4.8) Ezek. 26.24 – 28 is saying that in the eschatological age it will no longer be the Jews themselves, who are responsible for carrying out the necessary purification rites, but that it then will be the Jewish god himself who “will sprinkle pure water over” the people and thus purify it from sin and impurity. Interpreted this way Ezekiel 36.24 – 28 is closely related to 1QS 4.20 – 21, just as it is closely associated with Joel 2.28 – 29 and Jer. 31.31 – 34 stating that at the eschaton the Jewish god himself will cleanse and forgive the people and that he will then place his law in his people’s hearts (cf. ch. 4.8). 5.3.2.5.7 John’s baptism With the two preceding chapters we have identified some of the biblical preconditions for and some contemporary analogies to the testimony of our sources about John the Baptist’s ideas of an eschatological, divine purification and forgiveness of the Jewish people and about John’s actual practice corresponding to these ideas. In the present context it is not possible for me to carry out a thorough discussion about the religio-historical prerequisites for and parallels to John’s baptism in early Judaism, especially the Jewish baptism of proselytes and other Jewish ritual purification baths, especially in Qumran.56 Instead I focus on the question of the importance of John’s baptism in connection with his 55 Related texts can be found in Isa. 1.16 – 18; 4.4; 12.3; Jer. 31.31 – 34; Zech. 13.1; Ps. 51.9, and the texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls mentioned above. 56 For such a discussion, I refer to Webb 1991, 95 – 161; Hengel – Schwemer 2007, 312 – 319.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus compared to related Jewish figures

213

eschatological preaching. The key to an adequate interpretation of this phenomenon seems to be the recognition that the necessary precondition for the Jewish god’s fulfilment of his promises in the sacred writings about the eschatological liberation and recovery of the Jewish people was the same people’s conversion, repentance, penance, cleansing and practical “justice,” that is, its full observance of the people’s covenant with the Jewish god, which is equivalent to its keeping of all commandments in the Mosaic Law. With this observation I think that I have established two essential prerequisites for a proper understanding of the activity of the historical John the Baptist: First, the eschatological expectation of Israel’s reestablishment, and second, the corresponding hope for the Jewish god’s forgiving, cleansing and healing intervention which, by many Jews, was believed to be a necessary condition for the recovery of the Jewish people, because this recovery presupposed a guilt-free, pure and righteous people. On the basis of this assumption I suppose, that the original meaning of John’s baptism was that it should be an eschatological rite of penance and initiation for a renewed Israel in a renewed covenant with its god (cf. Hyldahl (1993) 1997, 85). This rite thus marked the transition from a sinful, non-pure status, which at the imminent eschatological judgment would necessarily lead to rejection and destruction, into a sinless and pure status, which at the eschatological judgment would lead to acquittal and deliverance. Therefore confession of sin, repentance, baptism in water, and a sinless practice belong together in one unit. Thus I understand the actual baptism as a rite of transition or initiation that symbolically marks and provides the transition from one status to another that is from the pre-eschatological to the eschatological status. If we interpret John’s baptism in this way, the difference between the perception of the baptism in the gospels and in Josephus seems to dwindle. Josephus defines John’s baptism as a rite that does not communicate absolution, but only symbolically marks that change of the minds and acts of the baptized individuals which had taken place before the act of baptism. Thus Josephus puts the whole emphasis on the conversion and the ethical practice of the baptismal candidates before their baptism. The gospels do not seem to deny this or to ignore the “fruit” of the “repentance” of the baptized individuals (cf. Matt. 3.8 (par.)), but they seem to emphasize that all the elements in the afore-mentioned process were one coherent whole. In the older material behind Matt. 3.1 – 17 (par.) there seems to be no doubt that it is the Jewish god himself who is the decisive eschatological agent. It is the “kingdom of heaven” – in other texts often described as the “kingdom of god,” that is, the imminent realization of the power and domination of the Jewish god – which is about to arrive. Nor is there any doubt in the traditions behind Matt. 3.1 – 17 (par.) that the coming eschatological judge is the Jewish god himself. The “wrath that is to come” in v. 7 is the divine eschatological wrath (cf. Mal. 2.17 – 4.3). The hidden subject of the passive verbal acts “is cut

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

214

The comparative Jesus

down and thrown on the fire” (v. 10) can only be the Jewish god. Therefore the one who “is mightier than I am” in vv. 11 – 12 originally must also have referred to the saving and judging Jewish god. Finally this implies that also “the Lord” in v. 3 originally must have been the Jewish god, and not Jesus, precisely as it is the case in Isa. 40.3, where “the Lord” alternates with “our God” (cf. again Mal. 3.1). 5.3.2.5.8 John’s own role Here we shall briefly look at John’s own role in this sketch of his eschatological activity and context. John’s clothing (Matt. 3.4 (par.)) corresponds with the description of Elijah in 2 Kgs. 1.8. Thus in Matt. 3.4 (par.) John is probably presented as the returned Elijah (cf. ch. 3.9; 4.10). According to Mal. 3.1; 4.5 – 6, it is Elijah whom the Jewish god will send to Israel, “before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes,” and his task will be to “reconcile parents to their children and children to their parents, lest I come and put the land under a ban to destroy it” (cf. Ecclus. 48, in particular 48.10; Lk.1.17). Matt. 3.4 (par.) thus outlines John as the returned Elijah who proclaims “the day of the Lord” and exhorts the Jews to the “turn” around or to convert in order to avoid the “day of the Lord” turning out to be a condemnation. If for a moment we disregard this dominant eschatological perspective, the account of John’s message and activity in Matt. 3.1 – 17 (par.) corresponds to an astonishingly high degree to the one found in Josephus. In both texts we find a strong exhortation to the Jews to return to a new, righteous life and to accept an act of baptism understood as an outward ritual symbol of this inward ethical purification, but this understanding of John’s baptism is less clear in Mk. 1.4 and Lk. 3.3 than in Matt. 3.1 – 12. However, of course, we cannot disregard the eschatological perspective mentioned above. It is a crucial feature and must be regarded as historical. This means that my previously expressed suspicion that Josephus, for political-apologetic reasons, omitted this feature, can be regarded as confirmed. Therefore I conclude that the historical John the Baptist really was an eschatological figure, who perhaps regarded himself as Elijah who had returned in the end time. This view implies that John saw himself as the forerunner, not of the Messiah or Jesus, but of the Jewish god who should prepare the road for this god’s eschatological coming to judgement and salvation of his people. In this role John emphasized that the imminence of the Jewish god required conversion, confession of sins, repentance and a new righteous life followed by the symbolic baptism. Finally in nearly all the sources on John it is evident that (some of) those who had been baptized by John stayed with him as his followers, adherents or disciples. This group probably regarded themselves as the “remnant” of the chosen Jewish people

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus compared to related Jewish figures

215

who would be saved at the eschatological judgment of the Jewish god (cf. ch. 4.8). Jn. 1.6 – 8. 19 – 23 and 3.28 reflect contemporary discussions of John’s role and status: Was the Baptist the Messiah, the returned Elijah or the eschatological prophet predicted in Deut. 18 (the returned or second Moses)? These texts indicate that at least some of John’s contemporaries regarded him as the Messiah. These and related texts such as Matt. 16.13 – 16 (par.) demonstrate that some Jews at that time eagerly considered and discussed both John’s and Jesus’ eschatological roles and status. 5.3.2.5.9 A historical reconstruction of John the Baptist The main result of the preceding examinations can now be formulated as follows: By encircling and determining the leading editorial interests and trends concerning the Baptist in the NT as well as in Josephus we have acquired the tools necessary to identify the older traditions about John. In a following step I have used these traditions as the foundation for historical reconstructions.57 It should be emphasized that in this older material we cannot expect to find “pure” and neutral material leading us directly back to the real John. Also in these older layers we must expect to find “secondary” interpretations of the Baptist, and these interpretations, too, might be determined by peculiar “editorial” interests. I will describe these older interpretations as “traditional,” and they may come either from the older members of the Jesus movement or even from Baptist circles. Based on this traditional material and the simultaneous use of Josephus and the indirect sources from the OT and the Qumran literature I think that we are justified in determining John the Baptist as an independent eschatological prophet of apocalyptic character who appeared in Peraea (and possibly Judaea and Galilee) during the years ca. 25 – 30 (35 (?)) CE. Apparently he proclaimed that the eschatological judgment on Israel (and the world) and the salvation of the “pure” “remnant” of Israel, which was predicted in the Jewish Bible, was now imminent. And against this background John exhorted his audience to repentance, penance, conversion and a new righteous life. It is likely, but it can hardly be proved, that John the Baptist himself and his followers identified John with the singular eschatological prophet, either the returning Moses (cf. Deut. 18.15 – 20) or, as seems more likely, the returning Elijah (cf. Mal. 3.1; 4.5 – 6). Niels Hyldahl and other scholars have proposed that we should interpret John as “the priestly Messiah,” known from the Dead

57 I am amazed by the fact that Kearney – Zeits 2009 in their massive monograph on messianic and saviour pretenders in the Roman Empire, to which group they also include John the Baptist, in their treatment of John (2009, 191 – 195) can be content with a three pages summary of some of the sources about and a modest part of the scholarly literature on John.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

216

The comparative Jesus

Sea Scrolls (Hyldahl (1993) 1997, 90 – 94), but apart from Lk. 1 – 2 this hypothesis is difficult to justify. The Jews, who responded positively to the call of the Baptist, repented, converted, began a new righteous life, and thus “cleansed” themselves both in their “soul” and their “body.” After their conversion they were “baptized” by a distinctive eschatological rite of transition. By the means of this rite the Jews who had already repented, converted and changed their daily life were symbolically cleansed of the “impurity” of their past misdeeds by an immersion in water. Therefore this baptism could be interpreted as a sign of the Jewish god’s “purifying” forgiveness of the past sins of the converted and baptized individual. Presumably John’s baptism at the same time functioned as a rite of initiation that gave access to a “new Israel,” or “God’s Israel” (cf. Paul in Gal. 6.16, cf. Rom. 9.6 – 13; Gal. 4.21 – 31), that is, the holy “remnant,” who, according to the prophetic predictions (e. g., Isa. 10.20 – 21, cf. ch. 4.3), would be the only part of the Jewish people, who would be saved through the eschatological judgment. This idea was fundamental in early Judaism, and we find it in the Qumran literature as well as in the texts on John the Baptist and Jesus. John’s activity led to many conversions and generally to so much social disturbance that Herod Antipas feared popular, social and political unrest. Therefore he intervened, arrested and executed the Baptist before the critical situation came completely out of his control. By this reaction Antipas acted precisely as the Roman governors did in a number of similar cases (cf. ch. 5.3.2.6 – 9). Thus John and his movement can and ought to be described as a characteristic religious, social and political phenomenon in Jewish Palestine in the first century CE. It was a religious phenomenon of a type that – to varying degrees – looks like Josephus’ various eschatological figures with their followers as well the Qumranites and the Jesus movement. 5.3.2.5.10 A comparison between John and Jesus When we compare my two historical reconstructions of Jesus (ch. 4) and John (ch. 5.3.2.5.9) the similarities are immediately apparent. Each of these two figures can be described as an eschatological prophet, possibly as the eschatological prophet, whether this figure was interpreted as the new Moses or as the returned Elijah. Both saw themselves, and they were perceived as such by their followers, as the chosen spokesman of the Jewish god who had authorized them to proclaim the eagerly anticipated eschatological message, that the moment had finally arrived when all the promises in the Jewish Bible should be fulfilled, that is, that the Jewish people should be liberated and restored to its former power and greatness. However it was not the people as a whole, but only its righteous

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus compared to related Jewish figures

217

“remnant” who repented, converted, did penance, let itself be purified and started a new righteous life. This eschatological prophet – the Teacher of Righteousness, Judas the Galilean, John the Baptist, Jesus or any of the others, as discussed below – should therefore also be regarded as an apocalyptic figure to which the Jewish god had entrusted his secrets. Therefore this eschatological prophet was also the privileged and authorized interpreter of the sacred Jewish writings. It is also worth noting that both John and Jesus – like several others – were arrested and executed by the ruling political power, and for that reason both of them can also be described as religio-political martyrs. This means that the basic structure of the ideology and practice of the movement of John the Baptist, as I have reconstructed it here, looks like that of the Qumran community as well as that of the Jesus movement. However we can also observe important differences between John and Jesus. Many scholars have noted that in the material on John, the main emphasis is placed on the imminent eschatological judgment and the preparations of the believers for this event, while in the traditions on Jesus the emphasis is put on the approaching kingdom of god and the salvation of the “remnant,” although the motif of the eschatological judgment is by no means absent from the message of Jesus. We find another important difference in the fact that, in the traditions of John, we have no parallel to the exorcisms, the healings and the other miracles that fill so much in the sources of Jesus. A third important difference can be found in the importance of the “present” tense in the traditions of the two eschatological prophets: John is proclaiming that the kingdom of god/the final judgment is imminent. Jesus does the same, but the canonical gospels add to this phenomenon that, apparently, Jesus was at the same time convinced that the eschatological salvation had already arrived and begun “now,” that is, with Jesus’ healings and other miracles. Other interpreters have pointed to the fact that, in our sources, John is described as an ascetic, while Jesus in the same sources, is described as a fond of eating and drinking (cf. Matt. 3.4 (par.); 9.14 – 15 (par.); 11.18 – 19 (par.)). Maybe we should put this feature in connection with the differences between John and Jesus mentioned above? For good reasons the traditions about John are much more limited than those about Jesus. Still it is perhaps worth noticing that while Jesus’ death seems very quickly to have been exposed to intense attempts at interpretation (cf. Bilde 2008a, 235 – 258), there is no trace of anything similar in the material on the Baptist. Finally it is worth observing that, chronologically, John appeared first, that Jesus was baptized by John and that he probably belonged to the Baptist movement in a period that cannot be precisely defined (cf. also Backhaus 2011, 1782).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

218

The comparative Jesus

It is equally interesting to note that some material suggests that Jesus at some point broke out of John’s circle, started his own public activity with an eschatological project that greatly resembled that of the Baptist, and that Jesus, for a limited period, even seems to have operated in open competition with John the Baptist (cf. Jn. 3.22 – 23; 4.1 – 2). This move could indicate that, at one time, Jesus came to disagree with John or perhaps became disappointed with the Baptist’s project. Personally I am inclined to the view that Jesus’ rupture with John was the result of an experience of a “delay of the parusia:” The eschatological judgment proclaimed by John did in fact not arrive – and so what? Is it not possible that Jesus broke with John’s movement because of an important disagreement with John about the interpretation of this “delay of the parusia?” However that may be Jesus and his followers broke out of John’s group and started their own independent eschatological activity. And, as it appears from Acts 18.24 – 19.7, for a long time these two groups continued to exist side by side, and if the Mandeans58 are correct in their claim that they have grown out of the original circle around John the Baptist, not only Jesus but also John the Baptist caused the rise of a new religion.

5.3.2.6 Jesus Barabbas According to a number of good manuscripts to Matt. 27.16, Jesus Barabbas is the name of the prisoner, whom Pilate released during the trial of Jesus because the Jewish crowd demanded it. The other three canonical gospels – and a number of other manuscripts to Matt. 27.16 – give only the name of Barabbas, which in Aramaic means “son of the father.” Many scholars have rejected this little story about a particular episode during the Roman trial of Jesus as an unhistorical myth that was invented and intended to substantiate an important trend in the whole passion story, namely, that it was the Jewish people and not the Romans and Pilate, who were responsible for the execution of Jesus (cf. Bilde 2008a, 23 – 41). The odd name, too, could point in the same direction if we interpret the story as a secondary construction intending to illustrate that the same “guilty” Jews preferred a false “son of the father” instead of the genuine “son of god.” However it seems to me that the uncertainty about the strange name entitles us to look a little closer at the relevant texts: First Matt. 27.15 – 18: 58 The Mandaeans represent a gnostic religion of baptism, and they claim that their origin lies in John the Baptist. Since antiquity the Mandaeans have survived in the Middle East. Today, there still exists a small Mandaean community in Iraq and a modest Mandean diaspora in Europe and the USA (cf. Webb 1991, 44 – 45).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus compared to related Jewish figures

219

(15) At the festival season it was customary for the governor to release one prisoner chosen by the people. (16) There was then in custody a man of some notoriety, called Jesus Barabbas. (17) When the people assembled Pilate said to them, ‘Which would you like me release to you – Jesus Barabbas, or Jesus called the Messiah?’ (18) For he knew it was out of malice that Jesus had been handed over to him.

Then Mk. 15.6 – 10: (6) At the festival season the governor used to release one prisoner requested by the people. (7) As it happened, a man known as Barabbas was then in custody with the rebels who had committed murder in the rising. (8) When the crowd appeared and began asking for the usual favour, (9) Pilate replied, ‘Would you like me to release the king of the Jews?’ (10) For he knew it was out of malice that Jesus had been handed over to him.

In Lk. 23.18 – 19 we find a text shorter than the previous two: “But there was a general outcry. ‘Away with him! Set Barabbas free!’ Now Barabbas had been put in prison for his part in rising the city and for murder.” (cf. Lk. 23.25). Finally, the same applies to Jn. 18.39 – 40: “… ‘But you have a custom that I release one prisoner for you at Passover. Would you like me to release the king of the Jews?’ At this they shouted back: ‘Not him; we want Barabbas!’ Barabbas was a bandit.” These four variants of the tradition, that the Jewish people preferred the release of Barabbas instead of Jesus, clearly demonstrate the complexity of the connecting links between the four canonical gospels. This problem will not be discussed here where I content myself with the consideration of the statements about Barabbas in the four texts. Matt. 27.16 writes that Barabbas was “a man of some notoriety.” Mk. 15.7 and Lk. 22.19 add the reason for Barabbas’ captivity, namely, that he had participated in a riot in the city and that he was now charged with murder. Jn. 18.40 is the only text to say that Barabbas “was a bandit.” Josephus can tell us something about the possible content of the word “bandit” at this particular time. First, we note that the same word is used also by the first two gospels about the two “criminals” who were crucified together with Jesus (Matt. 27.38, Mk. 15.27). Josephus writes that the word “bandit,” in Greek: lÞstÞs, which is often translated as “robber,” was one of the derogatory designations the Romans and their allies in the Jewish upper class used for the messianic Jewish rebels.59 If we assume that Jn. 18.40 is using this “Roman” terminology we may conclude that the Gospel of John confirms the information in Mk. 15.7 and Lk. 22.19. 59 In Josephus’ writings this word has the same ring as our modern word “terrorist.” Today the Israelis consequently use this designation about the Palestinian guerrillas or freedom fighters, and the Americans (and many others) use it similarly about the Muslims who fight against the Americans (and the Western Europeans), e. g., the “Taliban” in Afghanistan (cf. Bilde 1988, 74, 77; 2006a).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

220

The comparative Jesus

If we to these fragmentary informations add the Roman accusation against Jesus that he claimed to be the Jewish “king,” the information about Barabbas mentioned above suddenly brings us back to a harsh reality that characterized the eschatological Jewish rebels fighting against the Romans. If the interpretation of Barabbas presented here is convincing, with him and the two “bandits” who were crucified together with Jesus we are confronted with persons who may be closely related to Jesus and his movement. In this case it makes sense to consider Jesus Barabbas as a presumably messianic rebel leader who had been accused of a “crime” that resembled the “crime” Jesus from Nazareth was accused of. Against the background of this interpretation we much better understand Pilate’s offer to the Jewish crowd that it might choose one of these two “rebel leader” to be released. If the interpretation of Barabbas presented here is convincing, I conclude that he belonged to the same type of religious, messianic rebel leaders as Judas the Galilean and Simon Bar Kochba. This implies that Jesus Barabbas differed from Jesus from Nazareth mainly regarding the means they used to get rid of the Romans. Jesus was not a militant, armed rebel against Rome. He belonged to the non-militant, “quietistic,” “apocalyptic” school, who expected the Jewish god to send Michael and his heavenly hosts to throw the Romans out of the “holy” land (cf. ch. 4.10).60

5.3.2.7 Theudas61 According to the combined testimonies of Josephus and the NT, both John the Baptist (ch. 5.3.2.5) and Jesus (ch. 4) appeared in the period between Judas the Galilean (6 CE) and Theudas, whom Josephus places in the period when Cuspius Fadus was procurator or prefect of Judaea (44 – 46/48 CE). Theudas is also referred to in Acts 5, where it is stated that the apostles in Jerusalem on one occasion were arrested, jailed and accused in front of the Jewish council, the Synedrion or the Sanhedrin. Here a Pharisee named Gamaliel62 is said to have given a short speech in which he – admittedly in chronological disorder – referred to Theudas and Judas the Galilean as leaders of movements that resembled the Jesus movement: “Some time ago Theudas came forward, making claims for himself, and a number of our people, about 60 The Swedish author Pär Lagerkvist published his novel Barabbas in 1950. Here Lagerkvist expanded on the enigmatic figure of Barabbas and transformed him to a lonely doubter who in the rest of his lifetime was haunted by the Jesus who saved his life. 61 This chapter presupposes Bilde 2008a, 74 – 76, a text which in the present context has been revised and expanded. To the interpretation of Theudas I also refer to Hengel (1961) 1976, 235 – 239; D. Hill 1979, 147 – 148; E.P. Sanders 1985, 138 – 140. 170 – 171. 238 – 240 etc.; Gray 1993, 114 – 116; Evans 1995, 74 – 75; Allison 2010, 84 – 85. 62 Probably the Elder Gamaliel with whom Paul had studied in Jerusalem according to Acts 22.3 (cf. ch. 5.3.2.8).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus compared to related Jewish figures

221

four hundred, joined him. But he was killed and his whole movement was destroyed and came to nothing” (Acts 5.36). In this text it is Gamaliel’s point that after the execution of Jesus his followers would certainly suffer the same destiny as the adherents of Theudas. In Josephus, who is probably the source of Acts 5.36, we can read the following, a little more detailed and informative, report on Theudas (Ant. 20.97 – 98): (97) During the period when Fadus was procurator of Judaea, a certain impostor named Theudas persuaded the majority of the masses to take up their possessions and to follow him to the Jordan River. He stated that he was a prophet and that at his command the river would be parted and would provide them an easy passage. (98) With this talk he deceived many. Fadus, however, did not permit them to reap the fruit of their folly, but sent against him a squadron of cavalry. These fell upon them unexpectedly, slew many of them and took many prisoners. Theudas himself was captured, whereupon they cut off his head and brought it to Jerusalem (Translation by Louis H. Feldman, LCL, IX, (1965) 1969, 440 – 443).

As connoisseurs of Josephus would expect Josephus’ attitude to Theudas is unambiguously negative. Josephus describes Theudas as an “impostor,”63 and he writes that Theudas “deceived many.” Finally he describes Theudas’ supporters as dominated by “folly.” At the same time however, Josephus provides us with the important information that Theudas claimed to be a “prophet.” However this prophet is hardly an ordinary future-predicting prophet, but rather the very specific prophet who is mentioned in Deut. 18.15 – 19 (cf. ch. 3.9 and 4.10). Probably Theudas claimed to be precisely this eschatological prophet because the quoted text compares Theudas with Moses or Joshua. Presumably the text contains fragments of the historical Theudas’ claim to operate with an authority and a mission that could be compared with those of Moses. I thus suggests that Theudas appeared with the intention of saving the Jewish people from the Roman oppression in a way that resembled and repeated Moses’ liberation of the Jews from their suppression in Egypt (cf. my footnote 4,41). This mythical miracle from primeval times, when Moses led the Israelites through the Red Sea, a marvel that was repeated and continued when Joshua led the people across the Jordan River into the “promised land,” would now be eschatologically repeated in the end time.64 63 The Greek word (goÞs) can also be translated as “magician” or “sorcerer.” 64 Cf. E.P. Sanders 1985, 171. Without referring to Josephus’ description of Theudas and the Egyptian Prophet also Reimarus formulates this idea of the end time as a wonderful repetition of the primeval times when he explains that the Jewish Messiah should be a duplicate of their early saviours: “Der andere Erlöser, welchen die Juden erwarteten, sollte dem ersten Erlöser aus der Ägyptischen Dienstbarkeit, Moses, darin ähnlich seyn, dass er ein grosser Prophete wäre, und hierrnächst viele und grosse Wunder thäthe” (Reimarus (1774 – 1778) 1835, II, §4 (s. 88)).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

222

The comparative Jesus

I suggest that Josephus’ description of Theudas as one who would lead the Jews across the Jordan and that the river on his bidding would divide should be interpreted as a fragmentary “rest” of the historical Theudas’ own understanding of his project. According to this interpretation, the meaning of Josephus’ distorted description is that Theudas would lead his followers into the promised land where the Jewish god himself would crush the Romans in the same manner as, in primeval times, he had crushed first the Egyptians and then the Canaanites. This magnificent eschatological message, that the Jewish god in the end time would repeat the wonders of primeval times by the means of a prophet of the same format as Moses, has for several reasons in the abbreviated and distorted account of Josephus been reduced to the sentence: “He stated that he was a prophet and that at his command the river would be parted and would provide them an easy passage.” But by reading Josephus’ texts critically and methodically, that is, in the same way as I in ch. 5.3.2.5.4 read his description of John the Baptist, i. e., in light of the already unearthed political and theological trends that characterize the entire work of Josephus, it is, in my opinion, possible, in a non-subjective and non-arbitrary way, to bring to light a well-founded portrait of the historical Theudas.65 To appreciate the wide perspectives in Josephus’ account of Theudas it probably ought to be read as I have done above, that is, both as a report of Josephus, who is critical of these kinds of eschatological “crooks,” and as a text which also reflects the author’s “professional” historical interest in the past. If my perhaps somewhat daring interpretation of Theudas is able to withstand a searching criticism, then we are allowed to believe that in Theudas we meet a Jewish eschatological prophet who appeared 15 – 20 years after Jesus from Nazareth, and who seems to resemble Jesus in several important respects (cf. E.P. Sanders 1985.138). The most important one is the firm belief, that these two figures shared with all the other eschatological prophets, that they were convinced that it was “now,” in their own living time, that the moment had finally arrived for the fulfilment of all the prophetic predictions of the Jewish god’s final judgment and salvation of the Jewish people. This “expectation of the parusia” Theudas and Jesus had in common just like they both had this expectation in common with the Teacher of Righteousness, John the Baptist and many others. Common to all these eschatological prophets is also their belief that each of 65 Even in Steve Mason’s outstanding presentation of the importance of Josephus’ writings for the study of the NT there is a tendency to limit this importance to the historical informations that are important for the study of the NT (cf. in particular 1992, 230 – 235). In other words: Mason does not grasp and emphasize the greatest importance of Josephus for the study of the historical Jesus, that is, Josephus’ indirect informations about the colossal role that the eschatological expectations played in early Judaism, in particular as driving forces in the first great Jewish rebellion against Rome (cf. Bilde 1988, 206 – 234;1998c). See also ch. 1.8.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus compared to related Jewish figures

223

them was convinced that they were precisely the predicted, chosen prophet, that is, the ultimate spokesman of the Jewish god, who with his authority and competence called the people to stand up, repent and accept their leadership. Theudas and Jesus also shared the important scheme of primeval times – end times, that is, that they both interpreted the saving acts of the Jewish god in primeval times as a model that would be repeated now in the end time. Furthermore Jesus and Theudas probably also shared the non-militant idea that it was the Jewish god himself who, by the hands of Michael and the heavenly legions of angels, would crush the Romans. Moreover it is very important to note that Jesus as well as Theudas is described as miracle-workers. Finally I refer to the fact that they were both executed by the Romans. Of course we can also observe differences between Theudas and Jesus from Nazareth: First and foremost it is only Jesus who is described as an exorcist and a healer, although Theudas, as mentioned above by Josephus, is also described as a worker of miracles. Although both them are described as having been executed by the Romans, Josephus and Acts do not indicate that Theudas’ followers after his death interpreted his death soteriologically.

5.3.2.8 Paul66 If some of my readers are surprised to find Paul in this chapter’s examination of Jewish figures in Hellenistic-Roman times, who can be compared with Jesus, I ask them to consider whether Paul was not a Jew, and whether he was not a key figure in the development of the Palestinian Jesus movement from being a Jewish sect to be a new Hellenistic-Roman religion independent of Judaism. Like John the Baptist and Jesus, Paul – or Saul, as he is claimed originally to have been called in the Acts of the Apostles (cf. Acts 7.58 – 13.9) – was a Jew, however, not a Palestinian Jew, but a Jew from the diaspora, if we can believe Acts 22.3 where Paul identifies himself as born in Tarsus in Cilicia, that is, in the eastern part of present-day Turkey (cf. Hyldahl 2009, 75 – 106). According to the same source, Paul had studied under Gamaliel the Elder (ca. 0 – approximately 70) in Jerusalem. In Acts 22.3 Paul is also described as always having “been ardent in God’s service,” and in Gal. 1.14, he writes that “I outstripped most of my Jewish contemporaries by my boundless devotion to the traditions of my ancestors.” In both texts the Greek word zÞlotÞs is important. It can also be translated by “burning with zeal,” that is, driven by the same force as the militant Jewish “Zealots.” They and Paul stood in the 66 This chapter presupposes Bilde 1993a; 1993c; 1993d; (2001) 2006, 357 – 384. In addition I refer particularly to E.P. Sanders 1977; Räisinen (1983) 1987.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

224

The comparative Jesus

tradition from Phinehas over Elijah to the Hasidaeans, the Hasmoneans and the “Zealotic” rebels against Rome in the first and the second centuries. According to Phil. 3.5 – 6, Paul was in his “(5) …practice of the law a Pharisee, (6) in zeal for religion a persecutor of the church.” Both Paul himself (Gal. 1.12 – 16) and the Acts of the Apostles (9.1 – 30; 22.3 – 21; 26.9 – 20) relate that once, probably around the year 35 CE, when Paul travelled from Jerusalem to Damascus, he had seen the resurrected Jesus, who had stopped him in his current activities in Judaism, and instead had called Paul to serve him. After this event Paul acknowledged the resurrected Jesus as the Messiah. In the present context it is not necessary that I discuss at length the activities of Paul which he himself describes fragmentarily in his letters, and which are more fully and continually described in the book of the Acts of the Apostles, in particular Acts 13 – 28. According to this piece of Paul-admiring historiography, Paul soon came to play a key role in the Jesus movement, in particular outside Jewish Palestine. His activities here focused mainly on the work of the Jesus-movement in the diaspora in spreading the message of Jesus beyond the ethnic group of the Jews to cover and include the non-Jewish peoples (cf. ch. 4.9). During these activities Paul ran into conflicts with Peter and other Palestinian Jewish leaders of the Jesus movement in Jerusalem (cf., in particular, Gal. 1.13 – 2.21; Acts 15; 21 – 22; 28). Finally Phil. 1.12 – 26 and Acts 20.23 suggest that Paul ended his life as a martyr for Jesus, a suggestion which later Christian legends have transformed into the “fact” that Paul was martyred in Rome in the early 60’ties under Emperor Nero, perhaps after Rome’s fire in 64 CE. If we compare Paul with Jesus I will highlight the following similarities and differences between them:67 First, to Paul as well as to Jesus the Jewish Bible contained the absolute truth revealed by the Jewish god to Moses and the other true prophets. Jesus as well as Paul possessed a thorough and deep knowledge of the Jewish Bible, and both of them can thus be regarded as “scribes” or privileged interpreters of the Bible, although we have only an explicit testimony about that for Paul. Moreover both of them interpreted the eschatological promises in the Bible as referring precisely, perhaps even exclusively, to their own time, to their own work and to their own community. Like the Teacher of Righteousness and John the Baptist, 67 The following comparison between Paul and Jesus differs from the attempts at a substantial approximation that characterizes a number of Christian theological comparisons from Jüngel (1962) 1967 to Wenham 1995, as well as from the attempt of the Jewish scholar Barrie Wilson (and many others) to interpret Paul’s “Christ movement” as a completely new religion meant to replace the original religion and movement of the historical Jesus” (B. Wilson 2008, 1 – 4. 109 – 149). This implies that my own attempt also differs from the numerous Christian and nonChristian attempts to reconstruct Paul as the true founder of Christianity, cf., e. g., O’Grady 2012.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus compared to related Jewish figures

225

both Jesus and Paul obtained an exclusive status in their community who regarded each of them as authoritative biblical interpreters, who were able to assemble a growing crowd of followers around their exegesis of the sacred Jewish writings and around their personal preaching on this basis. In this capacity they can both be described as founders of new Jewish “schools.” Second, both Paul and Jesus shared the Jewish apocalyptic eschatology, which I have described and explained elsewhere.68 They also seem to have shared the intense expectation that the end of the current state of things was near, and that the present evil time very soon would be replaced by the kingdom of god.69 On closer examination, however, it is easy to discover that Paul’s intense eschatological expectation, too, gradually relaxed, as time passed on.70 This eschatological disappointment is most clearly expressed in Phil. 1 and 3 (and perhaps in 2 Cor. 5.1 – 10). A very important difference between Paul and Jesus appears in the interesting fact that Paul no longer speaks of the kingdom of god in the same manner as Jesus. To Paul, the kingdom of god is no longer the messianic restoration of the twelve tribes of Israel to the power and greatness it had in the mythical accounts in the Jewish Bible about the times of Moses and David, but rather an eternal being together with the resurrected Jesus “in the air,” as it is stated in 1 Thess. 4.16 – 17: “(16) … first the Christian dead will rise, (17) then we who are still alive shall join them, caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Thus we shall always be with the Lord.” This difference is of fundamental significance since it unambiguously refers to the transformation (first suggested by Reimarus) of Jesus’ proclamation of the Jewish kingdom of god into a universal message for all peoples about “salvation,” which over time was understood in ever more spiritual afterlife categories. With this observation we have arrived at the significant differences between Paul and Jesus. Another major difference is the one which we find in our comparisons between Jesus and almost all other Jewish comparable figures, that is, that Paul in his letters has little to say about himself as an exorcist, a healer of other diseases and a worker of other wonders.71 On the other hand, 68 Cf. Bilde (2001) 2006, 63 – 95; 2008a, 43 – 85; 2011, 141 – 190, cf. recently Beyerle 2012. 69 In the writings of Paul this concept tends to be transformed to “the kingdom of Christ” (cf. 1 Cor. 15.24 – 28; Col. 1.13; Eph. 5.5). This feature does also appear in the gospels (cf. Matt. 13.41; 16.31; 20.21; Lk. 1.33; 22.29. 42; Jn. 18.36), and it can be explained either as a remnant of Jesus having spoken of the kingdom of god as well as the kingdom of the Messias (the Son of Man) or as a later and secondary development. 70 This implies that Paul had to experience the same painful disappointment as the Teacher of Righteousness, John the Baptist and Jesus had earlier experienced, and as it has been the case for numerous later Jewish and Christian eschatological prophets from Montanus in the 2nd century CE to Menachem Mendel Schneersohn in the 20th century (cf. ch. 5.3.3). 71 In 2 Cor. 12.12 Paul writes: “The signs of an apostle were there in the work I did among you,

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

226

The comparative Jesus

Acts states that Paul performed several miracles.72 However, I suggest that the eventual miracles of Paul do not play the same role in his letters that the wonders of Jesus do in the gospels. Moreover I suggest, that the stories of Paul’s miracles in Acts are constructed on the basis of Matt. 10.8 (par.): “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons” (cf. Mk. 16.17 – 18). The literary development from Paul’s own letters via Matt. 10.8 and Mk. 16.17 – 18 to the book of Acts may thus be regarded as an expression of a process of legendarizing of the same nature as that which can be observed in the sources about Jesus, especially the development that can be observed from the Gospel of Mark over the Gospels of Matthew and Luke to the Gospel of John and the later apocryphal gospels. However I find the most important difference between Paul and Jesus in the fact that while Jesus in the canonical gospels is portrayed as an eschatological prophetic proclaimer of the imminence of the kingdom of god, and as the very messianic founder of this kingdom, both Paul himself and the text of the Acts of the Apostles describe Paul as the organizer of the Jesus movement in the Jewish diaspora and, in particular, among the non-Jewish peoples in the Hellenistic-Roman world. Thus Paul was neither a messiah nor an eschatological prophet proclaiming the imminence of the kingdom of god, but rather an eschatological prophet claiming that the Messiah had already arrived on his first mission, and now was about to return on his second and final mission. In between the Jesus movement existed in a sort of eschatological interim or provisional meantime.

5.3.2.9 The Egyptian Prophet73 The next eschatological figure about whom Josephus talks after his description of Theudas is the so-called “Egyptian Prophet,” who appeared when the Roman procurator Felix administered Palestine in the years 52 – 60 CE. This prophet, too, is mentioned briefly in Acts: When Paul, after Jewish riots because of Paul’s presence in the outer temple court in Jerusalem, had been arrested by Roman soldiers, he asked a present Roman officer in Greek for permission to speak: “(37) The commandant said, ‘so you speak Greek?’ marked by unfailing endurance, by signs, portents, and miracles” (cf. the parallel in Rom. 15.19). 72 Thus, for example, Acts 13.9 – 12, reporting that Paul on Cyprus punished the sorcerer Elymas by making him blind; 14.8 – 13, describing Paul as healing “a cripple lame from birth” (v. 8), a miracle that caused the inhabitants in the city of Lystra to believe that Paul and Barnabas were actually Zeus and Hermes in human shapes to whom they therefore wished to sacrifice; 20.7 – 12, describing that Paul in the city of Troas resuscitated a certain Eutychus from death (cf. 28.1 – 6). 73 This chapter presupposes Bilde 2008a, 76 – 78, which is here revised and expanded. In addition I refer to Hengel (1961) 1976, 236 – 238; Gray 1993, 116 – 118; Evans 1995, 75 – 76.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus compared to related Jewish figures

227

(38) Then you are not the Egyptian who started a revolt some time ago and led a force of four thousand terrorists out into the desert?” (Acts 21.37 – 38). It is not easy to analyse this thin, frail and confused text with a view to a historical reconstruction. It is therefore fortunate that Josephus is able to help us with more information: (261) A still worse blow was dealt at the Jews by the Egyptian false prophet. A charlatan, who had gained for himself the reputation of a prophet, this man appeared in the country, collected a following of about thirty thousand dupes, (262) and led them by a circuitous route from the desert to the mount called the Mount of Olives. From there he proposed to force an entrance into Jerusalem and, after overpowering the Roman garrison, to set himself up as tyrant of the people, employing those who poured in with him as his bodyguard. (263) His attack was anticipated by Felix who went to meet him with the Roman heavy infantry, the whole population joining him in the defence. The outcome of the ensuing engagement was that the Egyptian escaped with a few of his followers; most of his force were killed or taken prisoners. The remainder dispersed and stealthily escaped to their several homes (Bell. 2.261 – 263 translated by H.St.J. Thackeray, LCL, II, (1927) 1967, 424 – 425).

Prior to the story about the Egyptian prophet Josephus relates that Felix immediately after his appointment had to spend time and troops to curb other disturbing groups. First, it was the “brigand chief” Eleazar, who with his gang had ravaged the country for 20 years (Bell. 2.253). Then came the so-called sikarioi, in Latin: sicarii, that is “knife” or “sword men.” They were active during the great religious feasts in Jerusalem where they hid in the crowds with their weapons hidden in their clothes, and suddenly they would attack and assassinate their enemies, primarily Jewish collaborators with Rome, e. g., the high priest Jonathan (Bell. 2.254 – 257). It is a great help to the historical analysis of these texts that Josephus’ own attitude to the Egyptian and the Sicarians also here appears so clearly. Josephus describes all the groups mentioned above as negative elements that harmed the Jewish people as a whole. Therefore Josephus stresses in Bell. 2.263, that “the whole population” helped Felix to defeat the Egyptian. Although the described resistance groups were different Josephus did not like any of them. And in those cases where the group in question is clearly inspired by religious motives, Josephus describes this religious aspect as “false” and “deceitful.” The characters in Bell. 2.258 – 259 are termed “villains” and “deceivers and impostors.” In the same way Josephus designates the Egyptian as a “false prophet.” It is a great help for the interpretation of this text that we can take our starting point in the analysis of Josephus’ portrayal of Theudas. But even without this help it is obvious that both texts are describing people who by the use of religious arguments try to stimulate action and resistance against the Romans. Of these traits the brief mention in Acts 21.37 – 38 has only kept this one,

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

228

The comparative Jesus

that the Egyptian “led a force of four thousand terrorists out into the desert.” This sentence can easily be interpreted as a superficial representation of the entire piece in Bell. 2.261 – 263. Yet it is not difficult to see through Josephus’ hostile description of the Egyptian “charlatan.” Behind Josephus’ negative presentation we can clearly discern a prophetic and eschatological movement driven by a belief, strengthened by the prophet’s proclamation that the biblical promises were now to be fulfilled. It seems to me also to be clear that this fulfilment would take place according to the basic model described in ch. 5.3.2.7 and hinted at here in Bell. 2.261 – 262, that the primeval times indicate the structure of the end times, and that the end times in a way will repeat the basic structure of primeval times. In Josephus’ story about the Egyptian prophet, this model seems also to be active. The Egyptian prophet, whose name has not survived, was apparently convinced that he was the eschatological prophet (Deut. 18.15. 18 – 19), that is, the new Moses or Joshua, who would conquer the Roman-ruled Jerusalem in the same way as Joshua in primeval times had taken Jericho (Josh. 6). When we compare the Egyptian prophet with Jesus from Nazareth, therefore, we find the same similarities and differences between these two figures, as we noticed in ch. 5.3.2.7 regarding Theudas and Jesus. All three figures belong to the kind of eschatological prophet I have presented above in ch. 3.9 and, especially, in ch. 4.10, namely the returning Moses. However, even though all three are told to perform miracles, Jesus is the only one to perform exorcisms, other healings and resurrections, just as he is the only one who is predicting his own death and who interprets his death in the soteriological in light of Isa. 53.

5.3.2.10 Jesus Son of Ananiah74 This Jesus is mentioned by Josephus in the sixth book of his Jewish War in the context of his description of a series of supernatural events, which, according to Josephus, announced Jerusalem’s impending destruction: (301) … But a further portent was even more alarming. Four years before the war, when the city was enjoying profound peace and prosperity, there came to the feast at which it is the custom of all the Jews to erect tabernacles to God, one Jesus, son of Ananiah, a rude peasant, who, standing in the temple, suddenly began to cry out, “A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds; a voice against Jerusalem and the sanctuary, a voice against the bridegroom and the bride, a voice against all the people.” Day and night he went about all the alleys with this cry on his 74 This chapter presupposes Bilde (2001) 2006, 89 – 91. I refer also to Flusser (1968) 1975, 115 – 135; Noack 1975; Gray 1993, 158 – 163; Dunn 2003, 165 – 167.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus compared to related Jewish figures

229

lips. (302) Some of the leading citizens incensed at these ill-omened words, arrested the fellow and severely chastised him. But he, without a word of his own behalf or for the private ear of those who smote him, only continued his cries as before. (303) Thereupon, the magistrates, supposing, as was indeed the case, that the man was under some supernatural impulse, brought him before the Roman governor ; (304) there, although flayed to the bone with scourges, he neither sued for mercy nor shed a tear, but, merely introducing the most mournful of variations into his ejaculation, responded to each stroke with “Woe to Jerusalem!” (305) When Albinus, the governor , asked him who and whence he was and why he uttered these cries, he answered him never a word, but unceasingly reiterated his dirge over the city, until Albinus pronounced him a maniac and led him go. (306) During the whole period up to the outbreak of war he neither approached nor was seen talking to any of the citizens, but daily, like a prayer that he had conned, repeated his lament, “Woe to Jerusalem!” (Bell. 6.301 – 306, translated by H.St.J. Thackeray, LCL, III, (1928) 1968, 462 – 465).

Apparently Josephus interpreted this Jesus as a true prophet sent by the Jewish god who heralded the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in the war which actually began four years later. What is important in the present context is the interesting relationship between this text and the narratives of the canonical gospels about the passion story of Jesus from Nazareth (cf. Noack 1975). First the similarities: The first one is the prophet’s ominous prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple and the possible link between this prophecy and the leading Jerusalemites’ action against the prophet. It is, in fact, some of the city’s esteemed citizens who take the initiative to close the mouth of this prophet of doom. It is the authorities, that is, the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem, who take the initiative to arrest the prophet, to punish him, and, later, when Jesus Son of Ananiah continued just as before, brought him to the Roman governor. Another similarity is the silence of the prophet when he had been caught. When he was punished by the Jewish leaders, he did not utter a word, and when he was interrogated by the Roman governor the prophet did not answer the accusations raised against him, even though he was flogged. In our present context, however, the most important element in Josephus’ story of Jesus Son of Ananiah is the cooperation between the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem and the Roman governor, for it corresponds completely to the account in the canonical gospels (cf., e. g., Blinzler (1951) 1955, 25). I therefore believe that this text of Josephus can help us to make the canonical gospels’ accounts of the cooperation between the Jewish leaders and the Roman governor more likely.75 75 In Ant. 20.197 – 203 Josephus tells a story of yet another case where the Jewish leaders and the Roman governor were involved in a similar manner. This case is Josephus’ story about the

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

230

The comparative Jesus

But there are also important differences between the two stories: First, Jesus Son of Ananiah was not sentenced to death and executed. Second, in his case the reason for the intervention of the Jewish leaders was not an eschatological message of liberation and restoration of the Jewish people, but only a dark – and perhaps an eschatological – message of judgement and destruction of Jerusalem and the temple (cf. Noack 1975, 100 – 102). Likewise, there is no sign in the text of Josephus that Jesus Son of Ananiah predicted the building of a new temple (cf. ch. 4.5). Other texts in Josephus’ Jewish War, in particular in Bell. 5.459 (cf. ch. 5.3.2.4), suggest that the Jewish rebels – like the leaders in Jerusalem at the time of the prophet Jeremiah – were convinced that the very existence of the temple of the Jewish god in Jerusalem was an “automatic” guarantee for the city’s survival and for the victory of the Jews over the Romans. Therefore the prophecy of Jesus Son of Ananiah about the destruction of the temple can be interpreted as a piece of “Jeremiah’ian,” an anti-militant or “anti-Zealotic,” pronouncement, which rejected the fundamental theological dogmatics of the militant Jewish rebels. If this interpretation holds water it means that Josephus constructed Jesus Son of Ananiah to proclaim Josephus’ own conviction. And this conviction seems to me to be completely in line with John the Baptist and Jesus, who likewise denied that the outward signs of the covenant between the Jewish god and the Jewish people, such as the selection, the circumcision, and the temple, could be regarded as automatic divine guarantees for the survival and victory of the Jewish people. On the basis of this interpretation of the dooming prophecy of Jesus Son of Ananiah against Jerusalem and its temple this Jesus becomes a figure who resembles both Jeremiah and Jesus from Nazareth.

5.3.2.11 Josephus I can easily imagine that, at this point, several of my readers will be surprised and ask whether I really seriously think that the eschatological prophet and designated Messiah, Jesus from Nazareth, can be compared with Josephus (cf. ch. 5.3.2.4), who was a distinguished Jewish priest and politician from execution of James, the brother of Jesus. In the year 62 CE the Jewish high priest Ananus (Hannas) summoned the Jewish council (the Synedrion or the Sanhedrin) in Jerusalem and here accused James of an offense against the Law of Moses. Ananus convinced the council of the fault of James, and Ananus succeeded in having him convicted to be stoned. However, this procedure was only possible because the former Roman governor, Festus, had recently departed, while his follower, Albinus, had not yet arrived in Judaea. In this interim of a power vacuum Ananus made an attempt to increase his own power. However, when Albinus finally arrived, Ananus was removed from his office. In my present context the point is that in all these important cases the Roman governor and the Jewish leaders cooperated (cf. Bilde 2005b).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus compared to related Jewish figures

231

Jerusalem, who in year 66 – 67 CE in Galilee took a leading part in the first great Jewish revolt against Rome, who in July 67 was defeated and captured by the later emperor Vespasian, who during the winter of 68 – 69 was released by Vespasian, who after the Jewish defeat during the summer of 70 followed the later emperor Titus to Rome, where the Flavian imperial family gave Josephus Vespasian’s former villa as his Roman residence and, in addition, a “pension” that allowed Josephus to work, preparing and writing his two major works (The Jewish War (Bell.) and The Jewish Antiquities (Ant.)) and his two minor writings (Against Apion (Ap.) and his Autobiography (Vita)) on the history of the Jewish people and on his own life.76 Yes, I really think so, primarily because Josephus himself claims to be both a divinely privileged interpreter of the sacred Jewish writings and a genuine and truthful prophet of the Jewish god.77 Both claims are clearly expressed in the third book of the Jewish War where Josephus describes the Jewish revolt against Rome in Galilee. For Josephus personally the war against Rome culminated in the future emperor Vespasian’s siege of the fortified city Jotapata (in Hebrew: Jodfat) in Western Galilee, where, as the commander, Josephus in nearly two months successfully defended the city, before the Roman troops, on the 20th of July, succeeded in breaking through the city walls, penetrating into the city and defeating its Jewish defenders. When this happened Josephus – “aided by some divine providence” (Bell. 3.341) – succeeded in hiding in an underground cave, where a large group of defenders had already sought refuge. Here they agreed that in order to avoid being captured alive they should kill each other according to a plan of drawing lots. When Josephus and one other soldier were left after all the others had killed each other, “should one say by fortune or by the providence of God?” (Bell. 3.391), Josephus succeeded in persuading his companion that they should surrender to the Romans. So they did, and Josephus was brought before Vespasian. During this meeting Josephus predicted that Vespasian would become Roman Emperor, which actually happened about two and a half years later. After his meeting with the emperor Josephus was chained as a Roman prisoner of war. His captivity lasted until December 69, when Vespasian had won the Roman civil war that erupted after Emperor Nero’s suicide in June 68. Below I reproduce a text in English translation of an important part of Josephus’ description of these events. In Bell. 3.349 Josephus has described how the group in the cave had been discovered by the Romans, who urged them to surrender. In Bell. 3.350 Josephus relates that an envoy from Vespasian, the officer Nikanor, at this point suggested to Josephus that he and

76 I have analysed and described Josephus’ autobiography and writings more closely in Bilde 1988, 27 – 122. 77 I have made an attempt to substantiate this hypothesis in Bilde 1988, 47 – 52; Bilde 1998c.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

232

The comparative Jesus

the whole group should voluntarily come up from the cave and surrender to the Romans. Josephus first refused this suggestion and then continued: (351) But as Nicanor was urgently pressing his proposals and Josephus overheard the threads of the hostile crowd , suddenly there came back into his mind those nightly dreams, in which God had foretold to him the impending fate of the Jews and the destinies of the Roman sovereigns. (352) He was an interpreter of dreams and skilled in divining the meaning of ambiguous utterances of the Deity ; a priest himself and of priestly descent, he was not ignorant of the prophecies in the sacred books. (353) At that hour he was inspired to read their meaning, and, recalling the dreadful images of his recent dreams, he offered up a silent prayer to God. (354) “Since it pleases thee,” so it ran, “who didst create the Jewish nation, to break thy work, since fortune has wholly passed to the Romans, and since thou hast made choice of my spirit to announce the things that are to come, I willingly surrender to the Romans and consent to live; but I take thee to witness that I go, not as a traitor, but as thy minister” (Bell. 3.351 – 354, translated by H.St.J. Thackeray, LCL, II, (1928) 1967, 674 – 677).

After this quote Josephus continues by describing his talks in the cave with his countrymen, which ended up the way I have described above. Josephus and his companion surrendered, and the army commander Josephus was brought to the quarters of the Roman commander, Vespasian. Here Josephus asked for a personal meeting with Vespasian, Titus and two of their closest “friends,” and to them Josephus proclaimed: (400) You imagine, Vespasian, that in the person of Josephus you have taken a mere captive; but I come to you as a messenger of greater destinies. Had I not been sent on this errand by God, I knew the law of the Jews and how it becomes a general to die. (401) To Nero do you send me? Why then? Think you that Nero and those who before your accession succeed him will continue? You will be Caesar, Vespasian, you will be emperor, you and your son here . (402) Bind me then yet more securely in chains and keep me for yourself; for you, Caesar, are master not of me only, but of land and sea and the whole human race. For myself, I ask to be punished by stricter custody, if I have dared to trifle with the words of God” (Bell. 3.400 – 402, translated by H.St.J. Thackeray, LCL, II, (1928) 1967, 688 – 689).

In Bell. 6.312 – 313, quoted above in ch. 5.3.2.4, Josephus writes that what most spurred the Jewish people to its first major revolt against Rome in 66 – 70 (74) CE “was an ambiguous oracle likewise found in their sacred scriptures to the effect that at that time one from their country would become ruler of the world.” This prophecy, which cannot be definitely located, was interpreted by the Jewish rebels to refer to the immediate arrival of a Jewish messianic figure, while Josephus in Bell. 6.313 writes that this interpretation was wrong: “The oracle, however, in reality signified the sovereignty of Vespasian, who was proclaimed Emperor on Jewish soil.” The two Roman writers, Suetonius (in Vespasian 5.7) and Dio Cassius (in

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus compared to related Jewish figures

233

Hist. 66.1.4) affirm that Josephus after his capture predicted the imperial dignity of Vespasian. In traditional Josephus-research, which is highly critical of Josephus,78 his description of his own role in the rebellion and especially of his surrender and his subsequent prophecy to Vespasian and Titus is interpreted as false and as driven only by Josephus’ vain hope of presenting himself to his readers in the most favourable light. In my works of Josephus (in particular 1983a, 1988, 1998c) I have argued for a different interpretation of Josephus and his writings. I assume that we should try to take Josephus at his word. It means that I interpret Josephus as an upper classJew, who, only reluctantly and with no religious, eschatological or messianic faith in the matter, joined the Jewish revolt with the intention together with other leaders from the Jewish upper class to take the leadership of the revolt and hence to control it with the further intention, at a suitable time, to begin negotiations with the Romans about a peaceful conclusion of the rebellion. I believe that Josephus did so because he, again in agreement with many other upper class Jews, believed that the revolt otherwise would be crushed by the Romans with a catastrophe for the Palestinian Jews as a consequence. According to this interpretation, Josephus at no time shared the religious beliefs of the Jewish rebels, that in the year 66 CE the time of fulfilment of the biblical prophecies about the coming of the Messiah, the liberation and restoration of Jewish people and the establishment of the kingdom of god were at hand. Therefore I also interpret the statements of Josephus quoted above as sincere statements. This implies that Josephus shared the belief that at least one of the biblical prophecies of a new ruler of the world would come true “now,” but, unlike the Jewish rebels, Josephus believed that this prophecy referred to Vespasian and not to the Jewish Messiah. This position of Josephus, however, does not mean that Josephus did not share the general Jewish eschatological expectation that the Messiah and the kingdom of god were imminent. This belief is witnessed by Josephus’ retelling of the Book of Daniel (Ant. 10.186 – 281, especially 10.210) and by such texts in the Jewish War as Bell. 5.19b: “… Yet might there be hopes for an amelioration of thy lot, if ever thou wouldst propitiate that God who devastated thee.”79 Thus I argue that we should interpret Josephus as a sincerely believing Jew, who had accepted another eschatology, messianology and soteriology than the Jewish rebels such as the “Zealots” and the Sicarians. Moreover I interpret Josephus as understanding himself as a prophet of the Jewish god who was as “genuine” as John the Baptist and Jesus Son of Ananiah. This interpretation thus describes Josephus’ self-understanding, which of course can be – and 78 I have described and analysed traditional Josephus research in Bilde 1983a, 20 – 61; 1988, 123 – 171. 79 Translated by H.St.J. Thackeray, LCL, III, (1928) 1968, 206 – 207, cf. Bilde 1988, 187 – 188.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

234

The comparative Jesus

probably was – different from other people’s view of him. However this is also true about Jesus from Nazareth and the other prophets mentioned in this book. Therefore I must conclude that it is legitimate to compare Jesus from Nazareth with Josephus. Accordingly Josephus did look at himself as a priest and a prophet of the Jewish god. By virtue of his innate dignity as a priest and by virtue of his education as such (cf. Vita 7 – 9) Josephus thought that he was particularly well qualified to read, understand and interpret the sacred Jewish writings (cf. Bell. 3.352 – 353). At the same time Josephus understood himself as a genuine prophet chosen by the Jewish god to receive divine revelations in nightly dreams, precisely as the prophet Daniel (cf. Bell. 3.551 – 352). By virtue of his priestly education Josephus believed that he was particularly qualified to perform the proper interpretation of the Jewish Bible and the messianic prophecies, and by virtue of his selection to be a prophet he was convinced that he had received from the Jewish god revelations indicating that the Jewish people during the ongoing revolt were doomed to defeat and tragedy. In his own self-understanding Josephus thus regarded himself as a prophet of doom of the same type as Jeremiah, Jesus Son of Ananiah and Jesus from Nazareth. At the same time Josephus resembles Jesus from Nazareth, the Teacher of Righteousness, Judas the Galilean, Theudas, the Egyptian Prophet and Simon Bar Kochba in the fact that he, like them, was convinced that the messianic and eschatological prophecies in Daniel stood before their immediate fulfilment. Finally Josephus looked at himself as a chosen and well equipped interpreter of the Jewish Bible, and in this respect he also resembles the Teacher of Righteousness and Jesus from Nazareth. In other respects Josephus differs from Jesus from Nazareth: First and foremost did he not claim any messianic role for himself in the impending eschatological process, nor did he act as an exorcist, healer and worker of other miracles. Finally we know nothing about Josephus’ death or about his possible prediction and interpretation of it.

5.3.2.12 Rabbi Jochanan Ben-Zakkai80 Jochanan Ben Zakkai is one of the best known interpreters of the Jewish Bible and the Mosaic Law in the first century CE.81 We do not know the years of his birth and death. However several rabbinical sources state about Jochanan that 80 For further reading and other interpretations of Jochanan Ben Zakkai I refer to Moore, (1927) 1970, I, 83 – 86; Neusner (1962) 1970; Maier (1978) 1992, 92 – 95; Schürer – Vermes, II, 1979, 369 – 370. 81 Some of the others are Philo, Josephus, Jesus from Nazareth, Paul and the anonymous authors of the canonical gospels.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus compared to related Jewish figures

235

during the Roman siege of Jerusalem (69 – 70 CE) he received Roman permission to leave Jerusalem; that he – like Josephus – predicted that Vespasian later would become Roman Emperor, and that he, after leaving Jerusalem, from Vespasian received permission to establish a Pharisaic law school in the city Jamnia on Palestine’s coastal plain. Therefore with some uncertainty we can date his activities to the period ca. 50 – ca. 80 CE.82 As it is the case with Hillel (cf. ch. 5.3.2.3), our knowledge of Jochanan Ben Zakkai is based on a few sources in the Mishnah and the two Talmuds, that is, sources that were first committed to writing in the beginning of the 3rd and in the 5th-6th century CE. Well-informed scholars such as Jacob Neusner judge almost all the information presented in these sources to be legendary (cf. the title of Neusner’s book on Jochanan). Some of these sources claim that with the establishment of the school in Jamnia Jochanan can be said to have created a sort of parallel or alternative to the Great Council of Jerusalem (the Synedrion or the Sanhedrin), and that he and the other members of this council formulated authoritative verdicts on the interpretation of ambiguous or controversial wordings in the Law of Moses.83 If we compare this limited and uncertain information about Jochanan Ben Zakkai with my reconstruction of the historical Jesus in ch. 4, with some caution I dare to point out the following similarities and differences:84 They were both considered authoritative interpreters of the Law of Moses and other sacred Jewish writings. Therefore both of them are claimed to have attracted students or disciples, and both of them can thus be said to have founded a Jewish “school.” Finally in the sources both of them are said to have pronounced prophetic predictions of historical events. In contrast there seems to be several differences between these two figures: First, in the sources on Jochanan we find no trace of any intense eschatological expectation and likewise nothing about the kingdom of god and the Messiah. These facts may be due to the few and flimsy sources we have about Jochanan, but it may also be due to the fact that Jochanan personally – like Josephus – had experienced the tragic collapse of the Jewish eschatological expectations during the summer of 70 CE. Second, in these sources we find no trace that Jochanan should have assigned any eschatological importance to his own person or to his future death. Third, there is no sign in the sources on Jochanan that he acted as an exorcist or a healer of the sick (cf. Neusner (1962) 1970, 49). 82 Jacob Neusner dates Jochanan’s lifetime to ca. 1 – 80 CE. 83 Neusner suggests that a person by the name of “Zakkaeus,” who appears in the apocryphal Gospel of the Childhood of Thomas, ch. 6 – 7, might be identical to Jochanan Ben Zakkai ((1962) 1970, 53 – 56). However against the background of the two facts, that this episode took place in the time of Jesus’ childhood, ca. 5-ca. 15 CE, and that this texts describes Zakkaeus as an “old man,” it is not easy to accept Neusner’s suggestion. 84 In his monograph Neusner refers several times to Jesus from Nazareth, but he does not carry out any systematic comparison between Jesus and Jochanan.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

236

The comparative Jesus

On this slender basis I must conclude that the differences between Jesus from Nazareth and Jochanan Ben Zakkai carry greater weight than the similarities. In addition these differences may largely be due to the markedly different historical contexts in which these two persons lived and worked.

5.3.2.13 Rabbi Akiba85 In all probability the rabbinical scholar Akiba Ben Joseph lived in the first half of the second century CE, since several rabbinical sources connect him with Simon Bar Kochba’s revolt against Rome in 132 – 135 CE.86 All the preserved sources on Akiba belong to the rabbinical literature, and therefore a historical reconstruction of Akiba’s life and activity is marked by the same uncertainty as that mentioned in connection with Hillel (ch. 5.3.2.3) and Jochanan Ben Zakkai (ch. 5.3.2.12). Most of the rabbinical stories on Akiba belong to the literary genres of “anecdote” and “legend,” and therefore I can only hope for accuracy when I reconstruct the important features of Rabbi Akiba’s life story as follows: We know nothing of the year of Akiba’s birth, but we may perhaps guess at 90 – 100 CE. On the other hand, several sources claim that Akiba suffered his death as a Jewish martyr during Bar Kochba’s revolt against Rome (cf. the Babylonian Talmud, the Treaty Berakhot (Blessings) 61b). Like Hillel Akiba was a scribal expert in reading and interpreting the Mosaic Law. Like Jochanan Ben Zakkai Akiba belonged to the Torah School in Jamnia, and the rabbinical literature characterizes Akiba as one of the most important precursors of the “Prince” (ha-nasi) Judas, who around the year 200 CE committed the rabbinical interpretations of Mosaic Law, which until this time had only been transmitted orally, to writing in the Mishnah (cf. ch. 5.3.3.1). Rabbi Akiba is most famous for his appointment of Simon Bar Kochba as the Messiah promised in the sacred Jewish writings.87 The main source is the Treaty Ta’anith in the Jerusalem Talmud 4.8.68d, which I reproduce in Peter Schaefer’s German translation: R. Shimon b. Yohai lehrte: Mein Lehrer Aqiva legte : Ein Stern tritt hervor aus Jakob (Num 24.17) aus: Kozeba (kokhba) tritt hervor aus Jakob! R. Aqiva sagte , als er den Bar Kozeba (kokhba) sah: Dieser ist der König Messias! (Schäfer (1981) 2003, 55). 85 For further reading I refer to Moore (1927) 1970, 1, 87 – 92; Finkelstein (1936) 1979; Maier (1978) 1992, 95 – 98; Schürer – Vermes 1973, I, 534 – 557; Schäfer (1981) 2003, 51 – 59. 146 – 149. 200 – 203. 86 The Roman (Cassius Dio’s Hist. 69.12) and Christian sources (particularly Eusebius’ History of the Church 4.6) do not mention Rabbi Akiba. The same is the case in Bar Kochba’s own letters that were found in the desert of Judea in 1960 – 1961 (cf. Yadin 1971). 87 In his monograph on the Bar Kochba Revolt, which is the most important work on this rebellion, Peter Schäfer enumerates and analyses all the existing sources ((1981) 2003, 51 – 77).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus compared to related Jewish figures

237

Although the Christian church father and church historian Eusebius from Caesarea does not mention Akiba, I interpret the following text from Eusebius’ Church History (HE) as a remembrance of the fact that Bar Kochba was considered to be the Messiah by influential Jews: The Jews were at that time led by a certain Bar Chochebas, which means “star,” a man who was murderous and a bandit, but relied on his name, as if dealing with slaves, and claimed to be a luminary who had come down to them from heaven and was magically enlightening those who were in misery (HE IV.6, translated by Kirsopp Lake, LCL, I, (1926) 1975, 310 – 313).

In my opinion there cannot be any justifiable doubt that both Rabbi Akiba, Bar Kochba himself and a significant number, not to say the overwhelming majority of the Jewish community in Palestine, actually acknowledged Simon Bar Kochba as the Messiah predicted and promised in the Jewish Bible (Num. 24.17). When we then compare Rabbi Akiba with Jesus from Nazareth I can point out the following interesting similarities and differences: The similarities are the most surprising and, in addition, the hitherto most overlooked: Both Jesus and Akiba understood themselves as especially equipped readers and interpreters of the sacred Jewish writings, and this is one of the reasons why both of them were able to gather a following of adherents around themselves. Another notable similarity is that both of them, according to the traditional sources, died as martyrs for the Jewish people. I find a third similarity in the fact that both them seem to have acted with prophetic authority, Jesus in his predictions of the destruction of Jerusalem and other Jewish cities and Akiba in his nomination of Bar Kochba as the Messiah. The most important similarity between these two, however, is that in my opinion both seem to have been convinced that “the appointed time” (Gal. 4.4) had arrived, that is, that the time had finally come when the biblical promises would come true by virtue of divine decision and power. In other words that Jesus and Akiba agreed that the kingdom of god was imminent and that the Messiah had already arrived. Of course there are also significant differences between Jesus and Akiba. The most important is the one I mentioned in the comparison between Judas the Galilean and Jesus, namely, that Judas, Bar Kochba and Akiba were militant “Zealots,” who in imitation of Phinehas, Elijah and the Hasmonean family took up arms in order, with expected divine help, to chase the gentiles out of the “holy” land, while Jesus was a non-militant, “quietistic” apocalyptic, who, like the Qumranites and maybe Theudas, left this eschatological confrontation with Rome to the Jewish god, the archangel Michael and their heavenly hosts. In addition, apparently, Akiba did not drive out demons, nor did he

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

238

The comparative Jesus

perform healings or other wonders. And in the sources we find no trace that Akiba talked about a new covenant and a new temple just as there is no explicit mention that Akiba expected the Jewish people’s eschatological restoration. That does not mean that the historical Rabbi Akiba did not talk about these entities. It only implies that the few surviving and very poor sources do not contain any information about them.

5.3.2.14 Simon Bar Kochba88 Compared to the first great Jewish revolt against Rome in Palestine (66 – 70 (74) CE) the source material on Bar Kochba and the second great Jewish revolt against Rome in Palestine (132 – 135 CE) is very limited.89 On the other hand, there can be no doubt that this uprising, which might have been even more comprehensive than the first one, was led by one undisputed leader who seems to have been considered to be the Messiah, both by himself and by his followers (cf. ch. 5.3.2.13). As we have seen in ch. 5.3.2.13, the rabbinical literature preserves a recollection of the important event, that the contemporary, great Rabbi Akiba let himself be carried away by the messianic enthusiasm generated in the Jewish people by Simon’s first victories over the Romans. As we saw in the previous chapter, in several of these sources we can read that Akiba publicly identified Simon with the “star” in Num. 24.17: When Rabbi Akiba saw Bar Kochba he said: “This man is the King Messiah!” (The Jerusalemite Talmud, the Treaty Ta’anith 4.8.68 d). This authoritative messianic identification changed Simon’s name from the original Ben (Bar?) Koseba to the honourable name Bar Kochba which in Aramaic means “star” or “son of the star,” a name Rabbi Akiba had from Num. 24.17, a text, which he and many others at the time interpreted as a prophetic eschatological and messianic promise. On the other hand, it ought to be noted that the very titles “messiah” and “king” do not appear on the many coins that Simon had minted during his 3 – 4-years reign,90 nor in the letters from Simon’s own hand which in 1960 – 1961 were found in Nahal Hever in the Judean desert (cf. Yadin 1971). On some of the coins of the revolutionary government Simon is designated as nasi, meaning “prince” or “ruler,” a title, however, which might be argued to point to the royal title. In this context it should not be forgotten either that some of Simon’s coins bear the image of the “messianic” star (see below). One of the few non-rabbinical literary sources for this uprising is the 88 This chapter presupposes, revises and elaborates Bilde (2001) 2006, 93 – 94; 2008a, 82 – 84. For further reading I refer to Meshorer 1967; Yadin 1971; Schäfer (1981) 2003; Mildenberg 1984; Evans 1995, 70 – 73. 183 – 211. 89 All existing sources are enumerated and discussed in Schäfer (1981) 2003, 51 – 77. 90 Cf. Meshorer 1967, 92 – 101; Mildenberg 1984, 29 – 31.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus compared to related Jewish figures

239

Christian church historian, Eusebius. Referring to an earlier historian named Ariston of Pella (about 150 CE), Eusebius writes in his church history (HE 4.6) the text quoted above in ch. 5.3.2.13. As it clearly appears in this text, Eusebius has the same negative attitude to Bar Kochba and his rebellion, as Josephus in his works demonstrated in relation to the Jewish rebels in 66 to 70 (74). Like Josephus Eusebius describes Bar Kochba as a “murderer” and a “bandit.” At the same time the underlying positive Jewish interpretation of Bar Kochba is just as visible in Eusebius as it is in Josephus. Accordingly Bar Kochba was regarded by his own people as the “star” sent by the Jewish god and mentioned in Num. 24.17 (cf. the star over Bethlehem in Matt. 2.1 – 12.) In addition it appears from Eusebius’ text that by his adherents Bar Kochba was regarded as the heavenly light that would shine in the darkness of the miserable Jewish people (cf. Isa. 9.1; 60.1 – 3; Matt. 4.16 (par.)). Although Jesus from Nazareth and Simon Bar Kochba are the two most obvious Jewish messianic pretenders in the period from 170 BCE to 135 CE, it is surprising how rarely they have been compared in modern Jesus research (cf., e. g., Schäfer 1981). As it is the case with the Teacher of Righteousness, Judas the Galilean and the other Jewish figures in this period, which have been compared with Jesus, most Jesus scholars focus on the differences between Jesus and Simon. These are also easy to spot and, of course, the most important one is that Simon chose an activist, militant strategy in his struggle for the temple and Jerusalem, whereas Jesus chose a non-militant, quietistic and apocalyptic course. In this respect Simon’s position corresponds entirely to that which previously had been taken by the Hasmonean family, Judas the Galilean, the Egyptian Prophet and the Jewish rebels during the first great revolt against Rome (66 – 70 (74)). In addition, of course, there are other differences, especially the fact that nowhere in the sources about Bar Kochba it is mentioned that Simon cast out demons, healed the sick and performed other miracles. Furthermore in these sources there is no indication that Simon himself was an interpreter of the Mosaic Law who gathered students around him, or that he had foretold his own death, or that he has interpreted this death in a soteriological manner. Nevertheless in my assessment we have the following similarities between Jesus and Simon, and they are even more important than the differences: First, Simon Bar Kochba must have shared the eschatological expectation that the Messiah and the kingdom of god were imminent. This must have been the case because of the fact that Simon apparently accepted that Rabbi Akiba appointed him to be the Messiah predicted in Num. 24.17. But if the Messiah had actually arrived, then all the other eschatological promises were likewise to be fulfilled : The Romans would be driven out of the country, the Messiah would build a new temple, and god’s kingdom would be established.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

240

The comparative Jesus

Second, as was the case in the first major revolt against Rome (66 – 70 (74)) and in the Hasmonean uprising against the Seleucids in 167 – 142 BCE, in Simon Bar Kochba’s situation a revolt against Rome would only make sense in an eschatological context. Without the “participation” and “co-fighting” of the Jewish god such an uprising would in advance be doomed to defeat – as it actually occurred in year 70 in Jerusalem as well as in the year 135 in Beitar, approximately 20 km southwest of Jerusalem, which was Simon’s last stronghold. Third, according to the rabbinical sources, Simon was publicly identified as the Messiah by a leading Rabbi, Akiba, in a way reminding us of the canonical gospels’ description of John the Baptist’s nomination of Jesus as the decisive eschatological figure. In the sources from the Hellenistic-Roman period these two incidents are the only cases where such an appointment takes place, and, as far as I know, we need to move all the way to the Jewish messianic pretender Sabbatai Zvi in the 17 th century, before we find a third example of this type. The sources on Sabbatai Zvi inform us that Rabbi Nathan of Gaza designated him in a similar manner as the Messiah (cf. ch. 5.3.3.2). Fourth, the messianic star from Num 24,17 plays an important role in the two sets of sources for Jesus (Matt. 2.1 – 12) and Bar Kochba. Fifth, the temple in Jerusalem plays a crucial role for both Jesus and Simon. As we saw in ch. 4.5, Jesus predicts not only the destruction of the temple, but also that he himself would immediately build a new one. At the time of Simon the temple had lain in ruins since the Romans had burned it in August 70 CE, and there is evidence that the main reason for the Jewish rebellion is to be found in precisely this situation: According to one of the rabbinical sources to Simon’s uprising, Midrash Genesis Rabbah (64.10), before Simon’s rebellion, the Roman Emperor Hadrian (117 – 138) had given his permission to the Jews to rebuild the destroyed temple in Jerusalem. However this permission is recorded to have led to protests from the Samaritans, and their protests seem to have moved the emperor to withdraw his permission. Another of our sources, Dio Cassius (Hist. 59.12.1 – 2), reports that Hadrian wanted to found a new city named Aelia Capitolina on the ruins of the destroyed Jerusalem, and that he on the very temple mount, Mount Zion, would construct a Roman temple dedicated to Jupiter. According to Dio, it was these imperial plans that triggered Simon’s rebellion. It was probably Emperor Hadrian’s withdrawal of his original permission to the Jews to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem and his later plans to replace the ruins of the sanctuary of the Jewish god on Mount Zion with a Roman temple of Jupiter that represented the main causes of the revolt. This hypothesis is supported by a third source, the best of them all, namely some of the Jewish coins that Simon minted during his reign. Some of these coins carry the Hebrew inscription le cheruth Jerusalaim, which can be translated: “for the

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus compared to related Jewish figures

241

freedom/liberty of Jerusalem,” while others have the inscription le geulath Israel (“for the redemption of Israel”).91 Other coins have a stylized image of a temple facade with a star placed above the temple.92 It is natural to interpret this star as referring to Simon’s messianic star from Num. 24.17. Moreover, on the basis of Midrash Genesis Rabba 64.10, the temple facade might refer to the rebuilding of the Jewish god’s temple in Jerusalem originally permitted by Hadrian, but later cancelled. I propose to interpret the temple facade with the star above it as suggesting Bar Kochba’s plan to rebuild the temple in his capacity as the Messiah. I therefore interpret the material referred to above as evidence that Simon’s revolt was understood by Rabbi Akiba, Simon himself and his adherents as an eschatological, messianic project. Moreover that the eschatological goal of this project was that Simon – as in the time of the Hasmoneans – as the chosen and anointed Messiah should liberate Jerusalem, expel the pagans from the “holy” city and the “holy” land, and build a new temple on Zion’s holy hill. If this analysis and interpretation of Bar Kochba’s revolt against Rome is capable of convincing others than myself, it follows as a consequence that Jesus and Simon seem to resemble each other much more than has hitherto been assumed by other scholars.

5.3.3 Jesus compared with related Jewish figures in later times It seems to me that the next group of figures to be considered after those examined above must be the later Jewish messianic pretenders between Simon Bar Kochba and our own time. They have been enumerated and analysed in Lenowitz 1998 who describes 14 examples, and in the present context the two most important are Sabbatai Zvi (1626 – 1676) and Menachem Mendel Schneersohn (1902 – 1994).

5.3.3.1 Jehudah ha-nasi It is possible to add other figures to Lenowitz’ list, for example Jehuda, the socalled “prince” (ha-nasi), who lived at the end of the second and in the beginning of the third century CE. According to Jewish religious tradition, Jehudah was the main responsible for having collected and written down the oral rabbinical interpretations of the Law of Moses, namely in the Mishnah, which is usually dated to around the year 200 CE.93 91 Cf. Meshorer 1967, 94 – 95; Mildenberg 1984, 29 – 31 92 Cf. Meshorer 1967, figs. 180 and 199; Mildenberg 1984, 32, and the illustration on the front page of Bilde 2008a. 93 Cf. Moore, I, (1927), 1970, 94 – 96. 150 – 155; Schürer – Vermes, I, 1973, 76 – 78.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

242

The comparative Jesus

However to compare Jehudah with Jesus from Nazareth would be a mistake, first because, according to the traditional rabbinical sources, Jehudah did not claim to be either an eschatological prophet or a messianic pretender, and secondly because the same sources do not even associate him with the proclamation of the kingdom of god that was characteristic of Jesus from Nazareth. Quite the contrary, Jehudah should rather be interpreted as representing important evidence for the hypothesis that the early Jewish acute eschatology came to an end with Simon Bar-Kochba’s defeat to the Romans 135 CE. This defeat – and all the previous Jewish defeats to the Romans in the preceding 200 years from Pompeius in 63 BCE to Bar Kochba in 135 CE – quite simply killed this characteristic type of early Jewish acute and militant eschatology. Jehudah represents an alternative to the militant Jewish eschatology through his – Pharisaic – insisting focus on the meticulous observation of the Law of Moses in the daily life of the Jews and by his return to the non-militant, apocalyptic Jewish eschatology known from the Teacher of Righteousness, John the Baptist, Jesus from Nazareth and others. Just like the priestly dominated Jewish group, the Sadducees, who disappeared from the history of Judaism with the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 70 (and possibly 135) CE, so did the militant, “Zealotic” eschatology because of the same defeats. When the Essenes, too, at about the same time slipped out of Judaism, only the Pharisaic, Rabbinical party remained, and from the time of Jochanan Ben Zakkai these Pharisees invested all their interest and energy in the interpretation of the Mosaic Law. This is particularly true for the “prince,” Jehudah, and therefore, in my view, Jehudah is not a figure who in any meaningful way can be compared with the historical Jesus. 5.3.3.2 Sabbatai Zvi This is, however, the case with Sabbatai Zvi about whom we also have a major monograph (Scholem (1957) 1973).94 Sabbatai was a young learned, charming and charismatic rabbi from Smyrna, who, among other subjects, had studied the so-called “Lurian Kabbalah.”95 Already in 1648, that is, in the age of 22, Sabbatai presented his claim to be the promised Jewish Messiah. While many other rabbis rejected this claim, Sabbatai found his “Akiba” or his “John the Baptist” in the Jewish rabbi Nathan from Gaza, who, even before his personal meeting with Sabbatai, had predicted his being the Messiah. 94 In addition I refer my readers to Bugge 1980; Petzel 2005; Rutishausen 2006; Eddy – Boyd (2007) 2008, 154 – 156. 95 Literally, this expression “Lurian Kabbalah” refers to the mystical tradition “received” by the learned Jewish mystic Isak Luria, who lived in Safed (Sepphoris) in Galilee in 1534 – 1572 and who primarily studied the ancient Jewish mystical traditions.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus compared to related Jewish figures

243

From that time Nathan undertook to agitate and work for his Messiah. In 1648 – 1649 a series of terrible pogroms in Poland provoked a strong eschatological mood among the Jews in Europe. This atmosphere contributed to the belief in Sabbatai as the Messiah spreading like wildfire. Across the whole of Europe Jews sold their properties and went on their way to the Holy Land, where Sabbatai would create his Messianic kingdom. In 1665 Sabbatai returned to Smyrna in triumph, and from Smyrna he went on to the Ottoman capital of Constantinople, where he also received a hero’s welcome. These receptions provoked the Turkish sultan who had Sabbatai arrested. In 1666 the sultan presented the imprisoned Sabbatai with the choice between a death sentence and conversion to Islam. Sabbatai chose to convert, an act which strangely enough did not diminish his crowds of supporters. Scholem explains Sabbatai’s act and his followers’ loyalty, partly with reference to important features of the Lurian Kabbalah, partly with reference to the actual existence of numerous marranos, which is a Spanish term for Jews who had been forcibly converted to Christianity, but who secretly maintained their Judaism. On the basis of their own miserable situation these and other Jews were able to interpret Sabbatai as a messiah, who had now shared their debasement until the lowest point, a pro forma conversion to Christianity or Islam. In any case the “Sabbatian” movement continued to exist even after Sabbatai’s death in 1676. Later, it flared up again with Jakob Frank who, with similar arguments, pro forma had converted into Catholic Christianity. In the city of Salonica in Greece various groups of Sabbatians persisted until the early 20th century. If we now compare Sabbatai (and Frank) with Jesus from Nazareth, we can identify the following similarities: First, they are both described as authorities in the interpretation of the Mosaic Law and other holy Jewish scriptures. Second, in both cases a story is told about a prophetic nomination (John the Baptist and Nathan from Gaza) of the person in question (Jesus and Sabbatai) as the Messiah. Third, both were able to create a messianic stir, a strong eschatological expectation of an immediate redemption of the Jewish people and an impressive popular messianic movement. Fourth, there is a certain kinship between these two cases of an otherwise unknown idea in Judaism, that is, about a suffering messiah. In the canonical gospels Jesus is presented as proving or demonstrating his messianic dignity by his acceptance of his conviction, suffering and death. In a similar way Sabbatai can be claimed to prove his messianic dignity precisely by descending down to the bottom of a messianic degradation. Fifth, the most important similarity between the two messianic pretenders and the two messianic movements seems to me to be the fact that they both survived despite an apparent defeat and an apparent failure (cf. Acts 5.34 – 39).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

244

The comparative Jesus

However there are also some important differences between Jesus from Nazareth and Sabbatai Zvi: First, we can note one crucial difference between the Christian belief in Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, interpreted as a divine confirmation of his messianic dignity, and Sabbatianism which does not contain a parallel to this phenomenon. Second, Sabbatai is not described as a worker of miracles. Third, Sabbatai is not recorded as having addressed his message particularly to the poor or otherwise marginalized Jews. Fourth, it seems that Jerusalem did not play any special role in the ideas of Sabbatai and Nathan. Fifth, there is no evidence indicating that Sabbatai foretold his own death or that he ascribed a soteriological significance to his death.

5.3.3.3 Menachem Mendel Schneersohn Menachem Mendel Schneersohn (1902 – 1994) was the seventh leader of the so-called Chasidic Chabad-movement from Ljubawitz in Ukraine.96 Schneersohn grew up in his Ukrainian hometown, but received his education in Paris and Berlin. In 1950 he was appointed zadik, meaning “righteous,” a honorary title in the East European Chasidic movement. At an early date Schneersohn moved his school and the centre of his movement from Ukraine to Brooklyn, New York, which today is still the movement’s headquarters. He managed to expand and organize his movement, and it presently includes a large number of synagogues, schools and socalled Chabad houses throughout the Jewish world. In the 1980’s the belief that Schneersohn was the long-awaited Messiah emerged and began to spread rapidly. In the 1990’s an intense belief erupted, that the eschatological deliverance of the Jewish people was near. After Schneersohn’s death in 1994 his movement split: While some gave up the belief that Schneersohn was the Messiah, others adhered to the promise that he would rise from the dead and return to save the Jewish people. If we compare Schneersohn with the historical Jesus we can note the similarity that, at a fairly late stage in their lives, they both became convinced that they were the Messiah and were recognized as such by their supporters. The two movements also resemble each other in the point that both of them expect their dead Messiah to return in order to save their believers on earth. Against these similarities, however, we may observe the following differences: The most important one is the (failing) eschatological context. While Jesus from Nazareth grew up and developed in a religio-political context of 96 Chabad ist an artificial word constructed from the Hebrew initials of the following three words: chokhmah (wisdom), binah (understanding) and daat (knowledge).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus compared with Hellenistic-Roman figures

245

intense eschatological expectation, Schneersohn grew up as a seventhgeneration head of an already existing movement and organisation. Therefore Schneersohn resembles the previous zadikim in the Eastern Chassidic movement much more than he resembles the Teacher of Righteousness, John the Baptist, Jesus from Nazareth and Simon Bar Kochba. In addition there are a number of other differences which I will not go into. 5.3.3.4 Conclusions We found that the differences between Judah ha-nasi and Jesus from Nazareth outnumber the few similarities to such a degree that a comparison between the two becomes problematic. As for Sabbatai and Schneerson it is my general conclusion, that despite the considerable distance in time and culture, Sabbatai and Schneersohn can be claimed to resemble Jesus in a few, but rather important respects: For Sabbatai the two most important resemblances are the idea of the suffering messiah and the fact that the two movements retained their belief in their messiah despite his failure and defeat. For Schneersohn the most important resemblance is the point that both messianic movements after the death of their Messiah expected his return to his believers. However it is impossible to overlook the possibility that both messianic pretenders and both messianic movements may have been influenced by Christianity and its stories about Jesus and the Jesus movement and later Christianity. This possibility, however, does not exist in the 14 cases surveyed in ch. 5.3.2., and for this reason alone, these 14 cases are much more interesting than those reviewed in ch. 5.3.3 (and 5.4 – 7).

5.4 Jesus compared with contemporary related Hellenistic-Roman figures97 There have been very few attempts to compare Jesus with related figures from the Graeco-Roman literature.98 These include basically two different types of 97 To this group of “religious” saviour-pretenders Kearney – Zeitz 2009 count eight HellenisticRoman (as different from Jewish) figures: 1) Augustus, 2) Caligula, 3) Nero, 4) the “Galatian Nero,” 5) Terentius Maximus’ Nero, 6) the “Parthian Nero,” 7) Apollonius of Tyana and 8) Antinous. Hans Dieter Betz (1968) does not carry out any comparison between Jesus as a “divine man” (theios anÞr/anthrúpos) and other examples of this category. Nor do Moses Hadas and Morton Smith (1965) in their examination of a number of Greek “aretologies” or “biographies” of “heroes and gods”. Beavis 2006 compares Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom of god with other “utopias” in Greek, Hellenistic, Roman and Hellenistic-Jewish literature, but she does not

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

246

The comparative Jesus

figures, the first type concerns mythical figures such as Dionysus, Orpheus, Heracles and Asclepius,99 and the second type concerns historical figures such as Socrates,100 Alexander the Great (cf. Amitay 2010), Caesar, Apollonius of Tyana,101 Simon Magus,102 Alexander from Abonuteichos and Pelegrinus. At first sight one could easily sweep the first type off the table arguing that, in contrast to these mythical figures, Jesus is a historical person. On reflection, however, for several reasons, I will abstain from such a rejection. First, we have a whole raft of monographs on Jesus, the authors of which deny that Jesus ever existed as a historical figure (cf. ch. 2.3). Second, it is obvious that Jesus is not only a historical figure. From a very early date he, too, underwent a process of mythologization. This process is already evident in our oldest sources, the Pauline letters, where the figure of Jesus is clearly and unambiguously deified (cf. Phil. 2.6 – 11; Bilde 2008b, 14 – 17). In the canonical gospels, too, this process can be observed, first and foremost in the legends of the birth of Jesus in Matt. 1 – 2 and Lk. 1 – 2, the traditions of the resurrection of Jesus in Matt. 28.1 – 20 (par.), the myths of Jesus’ ascension in Lk. 24.50 – 53 and Acts 1.9 – 11, and the ideas of Jesus’ preexistence in the letters of Paul and the Gospel of John. In addition to me there can be little doubt that some of the traditions about Jesus’ miracles also from an early stage began to undergo a similar process of legendarization and mythologization. Third, the Greek myths claim that Dionysus, Orpheus, Heracles and Asclepius are not purely mythical, divine figures, but that they are “heroes,” that is, half gods and half humans. This implies that they belong to exactly the same category as Jesus, according to the NT, in particular according to the legends of the conception and birth of Jesus, and according to the stories of his resurrection, ascension and deification in the NT and the Christian creeds.103

98 99

100 101

102 103

compare Jesus with related figures. The same is true of Gatz 1967; Günther – Müller 1988; Reiser 1995. Thus first and foremost Betz 1961; 1968; Gooch 1996; Braarvig 2001; Jacobi 2005; Evans 1995; Kearney – Zeits 2009. Thus Braarvig 2001; Eddy – Boyd (2007) 2008, 151 – 154; Kearney – Zeits 2009, 81 – 110. 223 – 283. In this group I also place Riley (1997) 2000, who focuses partly on Jesus compared with the Greek heroes generally, partly on selected heroes as Achilles, Asclepius, Heracles and Dionysus specifically. Cf. Priestley 1803; Gooch 1996; Jacobi 2005. Cf. Baur (1876) 1966; C.L.Nielsen 1879 (without any comparison with Jesus); Mead (1901) 1966 (without any comparison with Jesus); Bernard 1977; M. Smith 1978; Dzielska 1986 (without any comparison with Jesus); Koskenniemi (1992) 1994 (research history); Meier, 2, 1994, 576 – 581; Evans 1995, 245 – 250; Kearney – Zeitz 2009, 260 – 268. Simon Magus cannot with any kind of certainty be located in a Jewish-Palestinian or a Hellenistic-Roman tradition, cf. Kearney – Zeits 2009, 203 – 208. I refer in particular to Riley (1997) 2000, who sticks to Hesiod’s definition of a “hero” as a “halfgod,” whereas R.A. Segal 2000 works with a much broader and, consequently, a much more vague notion of a “hero,” whom Segal presents as the “great hero” across time, place and culture.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus compared with Hellenistic-Roman figures

247

In the Hellenistic-Roman world, moreover, the divine rulers from Alexander the Great over the Hellenistic kings and Caesar to the Roman emperors also belonged to this category.104 Against this background the argument, that Jesus is a historical figure who cannot be compared with mythological figures of the Hellenistic-Roman world, loses its power, since the pictures of the figure of Jesus in the traditional Christian sources cannot objectively be defined as referring to a historical person, but – even from the very beginning – at the same time as reflecting a mythical figure. Therefore it must be recognized that it is justified to compare the Jesus figures in the sources of the NT with the representations of the superhuman figures of the Hellenistic-Roman literature, mentioned above. The Jesus figures in the NT sources are thus unambiguously mythological, but my historical reconstruction of the real Jesus is not. This figure is a human being, regardless of what he himself and his surroundings gradually came to believe about him. Opposite this historical Jesus we have the Greek heroes such as Dionysus, Orpheus, Heracles and Asclepius whom we cannot reconstruct historically, and for this reason alone they have to be omitted as figures that are comparable with the historical Jesus. In other words, these and other Greek heroes can and should be compared with the Christ figures in the NTand with the gradual development of early Christian christology in the period between the NTand the creed of Nicaea from 325 CE. In fact, this has been done by Riley (1997) 2000, who does not include the historical Jesus (cf., in particular, Riley (1997) 2000, 114 – 128). We still have to consider, however, whether what has been said above about the Greek heroes is also true regarding the “historical gods” such as Lysander (cf., e. g., Bilde 1998a, 51), Alexander the Great (cf. Bilde 1998a, 49 – 51), Demetrius Poliorcetes (cf. Bilde 1998a, 52 – 53), Caesar,105 and all the other deified Hellenistic and Roman rulers. In my opinion these deified rulers belong to exactly the same religio-phenomenological category as Jesus Christ of the NT, namely a historical person who, at some time before or after his death, was deified and mythologized by his adherents.106 Even such historical figures as Homer, Socrates, Plato and Epicurus can be interpreted as belonging to this category. For the fundamental quality of divinity in the Graeco-Roman world was “immortality,” and therefore divinity 104 Cf. Bilde 1998a, 49 – 62; Gradel 2002, 27 – 53. Ory Amitay underlines that he is comparing the mythical Alexander with the mythical Jesus (Christ), not the historical reconstructions of Alexander and Jesus (2010, 7). 105 Cf. Bilde 1998a, 49 – 62; Gradel 2002, 27 – 53. 106 Amitay 2010 argues that “Alexander was a unique role model for Jesus” (p. 7). I interpret this sentence as referring both to the historical Jesus, who in a way, consciously or unconsciously, might have known the myths of Heracles and Alexander, and to the Jesuanic and protoChristian interpreters of Jesus after his death, who might have modelled their ideas of Jesus Christ in the moulds of Herakles and Alexander.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

248

The comparative Jesus

also included those human beings who exceeded the possibilities of a normal human existence whether this happened on the battlefield, in politics, in sports or in philosophy and literature.107 In my opinion this is the reason why, in the Greek and Roman literature, these human beings could accurately be described as “immortal,” that is, “divine.”108 To this group belonged not only the Greek heroes, the Hellenistic and Roman rulers, the great “divine” men like Homer, Socrates and Plato, but also less impressive religious entrepreneurs such as Apollonius of Tyana, Alexander of Abonuteichos, Simon Magus and Pelegrinus (cf. Betz 1961; 1968). The adherents of these personalities regarded them as “divine men,”109 and their adherents were able to tell amazing myths about this group of “professional” inventors of religion: That they had been conceived and born in a marvellous manner, that they had performed miracles, and that they eventually ascended to heaven.110 When we compare the religiously interpreted (Christianized), “mythologized” Jesus of the NT with these contemporary mythologized historical figures, I believe that at this point they do belong to the same category. One of several reasons why Jesus was deified so quickly could well have been that he, too, in the eyes of his followers, spoke and acted in a way that exceeded the ordinary human limits (cf. Bilde 2008b, 28 – 30): He was able to drive out demons, heal the sick and perform other miracles. In the context of the Hellenistic-Roman world sketched out above, therefore, Jesus had to be divine. Because of his extraordinary words and activities – like the other “divine men” – he had to be of divine origin, and after he had left his life on earth, he had to return to the divine world just like, for example, the deified Roman Emperor. Viewed and interpreted in this way the Jesus of the NT can be claimed to have been a child of his Hellenistic-Roman world. When we look at every single one of these various Hellenistic-Roman “divine men,”111 we can identify specific features that either marks the similarities or the differences between the figure in question and the images of Jesus in the NT. In the case of Asclepius, of course, it is the healing stories. In Epidaurus in the northeastern part of Peloponnese, a number of large stones 107 Ory Amitay argues that Alexander was the fundamental model for all the later cases of divinisation of human beings (2010, 124). 108 Cf. Betz 1961, 101. Against H.D. Betz and the so-called “Religio-Historical School” believing that in the Roman Imperial period there existed a well-defined notion of a “divine man” (theios anthrúpos), David S. du Toit argues in a comprehensive piece of research from 1997 that this hypothesis lacks a solid basis. In my opinion, however, du Toit’s criticism does not dispute or weaken my argument presented above. 109 Cf. Bieler (1935) 1967; Betz 1961, 100 – 143; du Toit 1997. 110 Cf. Betz 1961; 1968; Bilde 1998, 100 – 143. For this information we rely in particular on the Hellenistic critic of religion: Lucian from Samosata. 111 Erkki Koskinniemi (1992) has critically examined the discussion about the “divine man” in earlier research, and he concludes – in my view unjustly – that this notion was created as late as in the second half of the 2nd century CE (1992, 64 – 166).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus compared with Hellenistic-Roman figures

249

have been unearthed with an impressive number of healing stories inscribed in Greek (cf. Bilde 1998a, 91 – 99). If we compare these with the stories in the canonical and apocryphal gospels about Jesus’ exorcisms and other healings, it is easy to see that these two groups of stories are structured in the same way and are also similar in several other respects (cf. Bilde 1998a, 100 – 101). Philostratus tells a story about a resurrection performed by Apollonius of Tyana that looks like the two stories of the same type found in the gospels (Lk. 7.11 – 17; 8.49 – 56).112 In addition we find in Philostratus’ biography a description of Apollonius’ ascension, which is comparable to the two stories in Lk. 24.50 – 51 and Acts 1.9 – 11 (cf. Mark 16.19) about the ascension of Jesus (cf. Bilde 1998a, 108 – 112). If we compare Jesus with Simon Magus,113 it is clear that the source material is so heterogeneous and, in the case of Simon, so late, that it is almost impossible to reconstruct a historical Simon. One of the serious problems in this material is that, to some extent, it seems to have been modelled on the basis of the Jesus-traditions in the NT. It is quite clear, however, that, in the traditions about Simon, despite his Palestinian (Samaritan) origin, we cannot find any Jewish eschatological elements that can be compared with what we find in the sources on Jesus. Therefore one can hardly move further than to note that, according to the existing sources, Jesus and Simon both had followers who continued to exist after their death, and that the two were deified by these supporters. In the present context, however, it is my purpose to compare, not the images of the historical Jesus as interpreted through the lenses of the faith of the NT, but the historical Jesus, whom I have reconstructed in ch. 4. Therefore I have likewise omitted “collective” comparisons between the Jesus movement and other movements.114 112 Cf. Bilde 1998a, 100 – 103. Bernard 1977, 128 – 137, 261 – 268, argues unconvincingly that Jesus never existed, but should be regarded as a Christian “invention” from the second century CE, created, among other things, on the basis of the traditions of Apollonius of Tyana existing at that time, traditions which were later used by Philostratus as sources for his biography of Apollonius from the beginning of the 3rd century. 113 Kearney – Zeits 2009 contains a relatively extensive chapter on Simon Magus (2009, 203 – 209) in which they describe the sources at our disposal. They continue with a relatively thorough comparison between Jesus and Simon (2009, 209 – 216). Such a comparison they only carry out in this case and in the case of Apollonius of Tyana (2009, 260 – 268). The two authors place Simon in the category of “religious” saviour pretenders in Palestine (cf. p. 377). However their comparison is uncritical, vague and without a clear focus, probably because they do not distinguish between the historical reconstructions of the two persons in question and the interpretations of the same persons in the sources. 114 For this reason I have omitted from the present ch. 5 possible comparisons between the Jesus movement and, for one thing, the contemporary Jewish movements of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and for another, the Cynical itinerant philosophers. I have made an exception for Socrates and the Teacher of Righteousness because they are individual teachers who can be historically reconstructed and meaningfully compared with the historical Jesus.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

250

The comparative Jesus

When we compare the historical Jesus with Socrates, it is first and foremost in terms of their ethical teachings and of the two religio-political processes against them that they are similar.115 There are, however, also important differences, for example, that Socrates’ “maieutic” (birth-helping) art of dialogue with his “students” has no parallel in the material on Jesus. Altogether, according to the traditional sources, the conversations that the two carry out, are of a fundamentally different nature: Jesus either interprets the Law of Moses or quarrels with his opponents on its interpretation, while Socrates in his constructive dialogues pursues a problem for its solution. The same differences exist regarding the idea of the character of the human soul, its pre-existence and its return to the divine world after the death of the person in question. We find this idea in Plato’s presentation of Socrates’ dialogues, but not at all in the canonical gospels’ accounts of Jesus. Furthermore the two religio-political processes are different: Socrates defends himself, while Jesus mostly remains silent. Finally the two descriptions of their executions are different, and likewise the two presentations of the death of the hero are different, since there is no sign in Plato or in other sources on Socrates that he interpreted his death soteriologically. Such comparisons demonstrate that in several respects the historical Jesus differs from the Hellenistic-Roman gods, heroes, deified rulers and other great men. He does this primarily by his Jewish eschatological-apocalyptic world view, to which – unlike Beavis 2006 – I have not been able to find any Hellenistic-Roman analogies. Of course it is possible to talk about eschatology in the Hellenistic-Roman world, too. Not only do we have ideas about the human destiny after death. We also find ideas about a golden age, which historically has been lost, but which human beings hope to regain.116 But in the Graeco-Roman literature as a whole, we find no analogies to the eschatological and messianic prophecies in the Jewish Bible. Nor do we find any parallel or analogy to the characteristic expectations of the Jewish eschatological prophets and the Jewish messianic pretenders that the predicted hour for the fulfilments of these prophecies has arrived “today,” and not tomorrow. Thus there may be found numerous analogies and parallels between the deified Christ-figures of the NTand the gods, heroes deified rulers and “divine men” in the Hellenistic-Roman world, but only very few when we focus on the historical Jesus from Nazareth.

115 Cf. Priestley 1803; Gooch 1996; Jacobi 2005. 116 Cf. Hesiod, Works and Days 116 – 201; Virgil’s 4th Eclogue; Horaces’ 15th Epode; The Dream of Scipio found in Cicero, De re publica 6, cf. Gatz 1967; Günther – Müller 1988; Beavis 2006.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus compared with later related Christian figures

251

5.5 Jesus compared with later related Christian figures It is obvious, almost self-evident, that a large number of later Christian figures look like Jesus, especially in terms of a single role, function or religiophenomenological type, in particular the charismatic founder. This applies to Paul (cf. ch. 5.3.2.8), Montanus (second century CE), Francis of Assisi, Waldes, Jan Hus, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Thomas Müntzer, Count Zinsendorff, N.F.S. Grundtvig, William Beck, William Booth, Charles Taze Russell, Sun Myung Moon and many others. It is equally obvious, however, that all these people – and many others – look like Jesus because they wanted to imitate and follow him, and precisely this feature makes a comparison between Jesus and every one of his Christian successors problematic, if not impossible. Yet we cannot ignore the fact that some of these Christian figures really look like Jesus in terms of some individual roles, functions or aspects. There can be little doubt that Jesus in regard to the role and function of the “charismatic founder” of a new movement or “school” looks like Paul, Montanus, Francis of Assisi, Luther, Calvin, Müntzer, Zinsendorff, Grundtvig, Beck, Booth and Russell, as well as many others. The claim of this similarity, however, requires the following comment: Regarding precisely this role and function there is no end to how many characters Jesus can be compared to, both in the wide range of religions,117 and in politics and culture. Therefore we have to ask whether there are other roles, functions and features in regard to which Jesus looks like some of the figures mentioned above? Another role and function is that of the healer and miracle worker. In ch. 5.3.2.8 we have already seen that Paul – like others of Jesus’ followers – in one part of the tradition (Acts) is described as a healer and miracle worker. Does this observation apply to other Christian figures as well? The answer is “yes,” followed by the comment that precisely the charismatic founder very quickly uses to be legendarized or mythologized, and that the role and function as miracle worker is a rather fundamental and general element in this process. A third role and function is that of the future-predicting prophet, and, according to the sources, several of the characters mentioned above have acted in this role and function. This applies to Paul, Montanus, Francis of Assisi, Thomas Müntzer, Grundtvig and Charles Taze Russell. A particular type of the future-predicting prophet is the eschatological prophet, who, to a wide extent, was realized and actualized by Jesus from Nazareth (cf. ch. 3.9; 4.6 – 10) and likewise by a number of other contemporary Jewish prophets (cf. e. g. ch. 5.3.2.2 – 14). This type of future predicting117 Regarding this role and function Jesus can without difficulties be compared with Buddha, Mani, Mohammed and Ron Hubbard (cf. ch. 5.6).

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

252

The comparative Jesus

prophet has also appeared in Christianity after Jesus, first and foremost in the figures of Paul, Montanus and Charles Taze Russell. It is widely known that Russell first prophesized that Jesus would return in 1884, and later, that Armageddon and the millennium would appear in 1914. These Christian eschatological prophets, however, ought to be classified as imitators of Jesus rather than genuine independent analogies or parallels. On the other hand, none of the figures mentioned here have claimed to be the Messiah or the returned Christ himself, and none of them have been deified by their followers. Apparently there seems to be one exception to this assessment, namely, Sun Myung Moon, the founder of the Unification Church or the Moon movement. Moon’s followers regard him as a “divine man” whom god, the father has selected and chosen to continue and complete the divine project, which god himself began with the creation of the world, and which was later continued by his sending of Jesus. On the other hand, precisely this central feature demonstrates the difficulty in comparing Jesus and Reverend Moon, because Moon can only be understood in the light of Jesus. In this group of later Christian figures who can be claimed to be akin to Jesus, to be similar to him, and to have imitated him, I have thus found no genuine parallels or analogies to the historical Jesus.

5.6 Jesus compared to other related religio-historical figures Jesus has been compared to Zarathustra,118 Siddhartha Gautama Buddha119 and Mohammed,120 while he rarely has been compared with figures such as Confucius (551 – 479 BC), Mani, Joseph Smith, Simon Kimbangu (1888 – 1951), Ron Hubbard and Sathya Sai Babba. The similarities between Jesus and these figures primarily relate to the role and function of founder of a new religio-social community and a new religion. 118 Cf. Allison 2010, 157, and, particularly Afnan 1960, who compares Moses, Zarathustra and Jesus. According to Afnan, all the three of them brought “revelations” about the message of the “eternal religion” on “spirituality” and “universalism.” When the Persians after Zarathustra and the Jews after Moses fell back on “formalism” and “particularity,” the eternal god needed to send Jesus. According to Afnan, the challenge of the human beings today is to return to the message of this eternal religion. 119 Cf. Amore 1978; Piereis 1987; Klatt 1990; Thundy 1993; Luz – Michaels 2002. Amore and other skilled authors have demonstrated a great number of similarities between the teachings and life stories of Buddha and Jesus. These similarities are so impressive that Amore and other authors consider the possible existence of a direct Buddhist influence on Jesus, or on some of his adherents, or on the canonical gospels, in particular the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Of course these comparisons are relevant for the question of the originality of Jesus, but because of my own lack of professional competence in the Buddhist sources, I have to abstain from an independent examination of the historical relationship between Buddha and Jesus. 120 Cf., e. g., Droogers 1980; Gabriel (2004) 2006, esp. 237 – 246; Gnilka 2011.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Jesus compared with related “secular prophets”

253

This clearly applies to Buddha, Mani, Mohammed, Kimbangu, Ron Hubbard and Sai Babba. Other similarities emerge in the stories in the traditional sources about the miraculous birth of the founder (Buddha), his childhood, manhood, healings and other miracles (e. g. Kimbangu). In addition we have the role as an authoritative interpreter of the Bible including the creation of new interpretations (cf., e. g., Mani, Joseph Smith, Ron Hubbard). Finally the sources tell us that Buddha as well as Sai Babba were deified by their followers, Sai Babba even before his death. On the other hand, there are very few in this group who have taught anything that reminds us of Jesus’ Jewish apocalyptic eschatology. The only exception is Mani, who with the help of Paul and the Gospel of John seems to have reformulated and reinterpreted the Jewish eschatology he received from Jesus and, partly, from Paul, and further to have given it a new Gnostic character and thereby transformed the Jewish eschatology (cf. Bilde 1993c; 1993d), a transformation which was just as fundamental as the transformation which the early Jesus movement carried out after the death of Jesus (cf. Bilde (2001) 2006, 434 – 464; 2005c; 2008b). Accordingly it is my main conclusion that I have found no other figure in the history of religions that represents a close parallel or analogy to the historical Jesus as I have reconstructed him in ch. 4. The few similarities referred to above are of such a general character that their enunciating power is very weak, and the apparent analogies can in some cases be interpreted and explained as influenced by Christianity.

5.7 Jesus compared with related “secular prophets” in modern times Finally Jesus has sometimes been compared with a number of figures whom I here describe as modern “secular prophets.” This group includes historical figures such as Karl Marx, Georg Brandes, Vladimir Lenin, Lev Trotsky, Rudolf Steiner, Adolf Hitler, Wilhelm Grønbech, Mahatma Gandhi (cf. Ryme 2008), Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela (cf. Droogers 1980).121 As it appears from the list, the word “prophet” is here used with a somewhat extended meaning. The meaning of the word has been moved from “prediction about the future” and “revelation of divine mysteries” to the 121 Of course it can be discussed whether all these personalities can be regarded as “secular prophets.” Some of them, e. g., Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Hitler, Gandhi, King and Mandela, can be classified as founders of political ideologies, while figures like Brandes, Steiner and Grønbech can be defined as founders of a new philosophy or ideology.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

254

The comparative Jesus

idea of “important teaching,” and the “eschatological” content of the word which it had at the time of Jesus has been secularized. Some of these secular prophets, in particular Marx, Lenin, Hitler, Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, may at the same time be classified as national and international heroes in the sense that they have been of crucial importance for the liberation or emancipation of a nation or a social group.122 Once again the comparisons between Jesus and the members of this group apply first and foremost to Jesus in his role of the charismatic founder. Jesus founded his group of close adherents, the Jesus- movement, and a great deal of the importance of each one of the groups mentioned above is likewise attached primarily to the specific person’s founding of a national, political, ideological og social group. Jesus’ role as a founder was dependent on his authority as a – charismatic – interpreter of the holy Jewish scriptures and of his capacity as a miracle worker. Apart from Martin Luther King the figures and groups mentioned above are secular personalities, and the authority of these founding figures is attached to other entities and capacities: For Marx, Lenin and Trotsky their authority is attached to their capacity for interpreting “history ;” for Georg Brandes his authority consists in his capacity for interpreting and criticizing culture and “literature;” for Rudolf Steiner it is his capacity for interpreting the “world,” the “life of human beings” and their upbringing and teaching; for Wilhelm Grønbech it is his capacity for interpreting the world of religions, in particular the personality of Jesus as expressions of the “life” of human beings; for Hitler it was his capacity of being able to combine the ideas of “race” and “nation” and use them in his political project; for Gandhi, King and Mandela it was their capacities for gathering and leading their “nations.” On the other hand, however, we may observe quite significant differences between the historical Jesus and these figures: Once again, the most important difference concerns Jesus’ Jewish eschatological-apocalyptic-messianic world view, which determines Jesus’ public activity, because none of the characters mentioned above can be claimed to share this view.123 122 In the year 2000 Robert A. Segal published an anthology entitled Hero Myths. A Reader, containing 22 central texts with introductions and notes. Among these 22 figures we find Eve, Job, Sisyphus, Oedipus, Jean d’Arc, Columbus and George Washington. When we compare the members of this group with the Greek heroes and the “divine men” in the Hellenistic-Roman culture, it become clear that Segal’s definition of a “hero” is rather vague. 123 During the last century several historians of philosophy have argued that Marx in his philosophy of history carried out a sort of secular demythologizing of the biblical Jewish-Christian fundamental interpretations of human history as a movement from creation and paradise (primeval communism) to man’s fall (the division of labour, the establishment of classes, the construction of the state as an instrument of the ruling class and capitalism) to the eschatological reestablishment of the originally created world (the classless communist community). When we compare these structural similarities with the fundamental differences between early Jewish eschatology and Marxism, however, these similarities are too general, too wide and too banal, and, therefore, their enunciative power is weak.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Conclusions

255

In addition, as far as I know, none of the sources on the contemporary figures mentioned above report that any of them ever practiced healing and other miracles. Finally none of these figures seem to have anticipated their own death or to have ascribed a vicarious, atoning meaning to it. Accordingly, in ch. 5.7, too, my main conclusion has to be that I have found no obvious and genuine parallels or analogies to the historical Jesus among this group of modern secularized prophets.

5.8 Conclusions 5.8.1 Main Conclusion The most important conclusion that can be drawn from the comparative examinations carried out in ch. 5 is the insight that we have to be extremely cautious in drawing any conclusions at all, primarily because of the extraordinarily sparse and disparate source material. With the exception of the Qumran literature and the material from Josephus, the volume of material about Jesus is many times more extensive than the existing fragments about other contemporary Jewish figures comparable to Jesus. For this reason alone it is not possible to draw any clear and sharp conclusions at all. The second most important conclusion to be drawn is the recognition that the most fruitful comparisons that can be made with the historical Jesus as reconstructed in ch. 4 are those with the closely related figures in Jewish Palestine in the period of Jesus, more precisely the period between ca. 170 BCE and ca. 135 CE (cf. ch. 5.3.2). The closer we come to such comparable figures in Jesus’ own time and context, the more meaningful and rewarding it is to compare Jesus with them. And the farther we are removed from Jesus’ time and context, the less productive are the conducted comparisons. Therefore I have to state that comparisons between the historical Jesus and modern “secular prophets” (ch. 5.7) may be meaningful regarding a few and well-defined characteristics, roles or functions, but generally and as a whole such comparisons produce no informative results. The same applies to comparisons between the historical Jesus and comparable figures in other religions (ch. 5.6). It is almost obvious a priori that by the means of such comparisons we can easily find and talk about shared roles and functions, especially those of the charismatic founder of a new religion, movement or “school,” of the prophet predicting the future and of the healer and worker of other miracles. However such similarities have only a limited power of enunciation regarding a more accurate interpretation of the historical Jesus and his project as a whole. And even more important: As for the role of the founder of a new religion, we have seen that the historical

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

256

The comparative Jesus

Jesus cannot be classified as such. He can only be regarded as a founder of a new movement or “school.” When it comes to comparisons between Jesus and related figures from Christianity’s own history (ch. 5.5), I tend to draw a similar conclusion. In addition we have to recognize the important limiting factor, that all such figures consciously or unconsciously can be assumed to have wished to imitate and follow Jesus. Basically, therefore, I will describe comparisons of this type as the least valuable of all the comparisons carried out in ch. 5.5 – 7, simply because here we are not comparing two independent figures. Moreover, for these three types of comparisons I have not been able to find one single figure that really looks like the historical Jesus as he has been reconstructed in ch. 4. When we turn to the comparisons carried out between the historical Jesus and the Jewish prophets and messianic pretenders in the time after Bar Kochba (ch. 5.3.3), they can generally be regarded as more fruitful than the three mentioned above quite simply because we are here confronted with a Jewish universe. The Jewish universe, however, is also comprehensive and leaves room for more than one idea of a prophet and messianic pretender. Here too, therefore, the most productive comparisons are those between figures in comparable historical contexts. It is against the background of such considerations that scholars have repeatedly turned to the case of Sabbatai Zvi (ch. 5.3.3.2). For Sabbatai appeared as a messianic pretender in a historical situation which, because of the massive pogroms in Poland in 1648 – 1649 and the previous disasters for the Jews in Spain (1492) and Portugal (1497), had induced an eschatological mood in a considerable part of the Jewish people living in the European and Mediterranean Diaspora. Many Jews interpreted these persecutions and sufferings as the “tribulation” of the end time and as the “messianic woes,” and they believed that these would necessarily cause the Jewish god to intervene and send his messianic liberator. In addition to this we have the striking similarity in what may be described as the “success of the failed Messiah.” In both cases the designated Messiah suffered a painful defeat, and in both cases the adherents of the failed Messiah interpreted his defeat as being a true “victory,” and this interpretation gave them hope and power to maintain and sustain their faith. Against this background it must be accepted that the comparison between the historical Jesus and Sabbatai Zvi in several respects is far more fruitful and rewarding than all the others mentioned in ch. 5.5 – 7.124 On the other hand, we ought not overlook the existence of important historical differences between Roman ruled Jewish Palestine in the first century CE and the Ottoman Turkish Empire in the Middle East in the 17th 124 This interpretation can also be found in Scholem (1957) 1973; Bugge 1980.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Conclusions

257

century. Another important difference is the fact that Sabbatai’s followers did not interpret his capture, conversion and death as having an atoning importance. A third one is the fact that the traditions about Sabbatai do not claim that he performed healings and other miracles. Something similar ought to be said about the comparison between the historical Jesus and the arguably related characters in the non-Jewish Hellenistic-Roman world (ch. 5.4). For the Jesus movement (and Early Christianity) and these characters and their believers had several ideas in common: First, the idea of the possible ascension and deification (apotheosis) of an important human being. They also shared the conviction that such a divine human being was able to perform miracles, and finally they shared the idea of an utopian golden age, which they hoped would soon be reestablished. On the other hand, we have also observed important differences between them, because the idea of a limited ethnic group’s recovery to its former greatness as well as the idea of the significance of the atoning martyrdom of the founding prophet/messianic pretender as a decisive precondition for the recovery of the group in question only occurs in early Jewish eschatology and messianology. Even more important is the fact that the similarities mentioned above between the Hellenistic-Roman figures and Jesus relate to the Christ figures of the NT, and not to the historical Jesus. The most rewarding comparisons must therefore be said to be those conducted between characters in comparative historical contexts (ch. 5.3.2).

5.8.2 Jesus compared to contemporary Jewish figures 5.8.2.1 Similarities It is thus the comparisons between the historical Jesus, as I have reconstructed him in ch. 4, and the Jewish figures – eschatological prophets, messianic pretenders and teachers of the Mosaic Law – who were more or less contemporary with Jesus, and who are somewhat related to him, that are the most fruitful in helping us to determine the possible originality of Jesus.125 First, these comparisons have helped to demonstrate that the historical Jesus and most other reconstructed, comparable contemporary Jewish figures lived in a time and in an environment of intense eschatological and messianic expectations.126 125 In his important book about the “one” Jesus who became the “many” Christs Gregory J. Riley emphasizes that it is not very informative to state that Jesus was a Jew because, at the time of Jesus, there existed so many different variants of Judaism, “yet he himself fit precisely in none of them” ((1997) 2000, 8). The truth of this quotation, however, depends on closer examinations like those I have conducted in ch. 4 and 5.3.2. 126 This statement, however, cannot be substantiated in the cases of the Hasmonean Prince Simon, Rabbi Hillel, Jesus Barabbas and Rabbi Jochanan Ben Zakkai.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

258

The comparative Jesus

Second, I believe that my examination of the sources for those contemporary Jewish eschatological prophets reinforces one of the main theses of this book: It is not just John the Baptist and Jesus from Nazareth who look alike and can be claimed to belong to the same religio-phenomenological type and category, namely “the Jewish eschatological prophet.” In many respects these two are also similar to the other contemporary Jewish eschatological prophets presented in ch. 5.3.2: 1. All of them seem to interpret the sacred Jewish writings in the same eschatological and actualizing manner. 2. All of them seem to proclaim that the eschatological judgement and the messianic salvation were imminent and would arrive immediately. 3. All of them seem to imagine the eschatological salvation as a sort of repetition of the fundamental divine salvation of the Jewish people in primeval times. 4. Because of their eschatological proclamation many of these eschatological prophets were executed by the Romans or by Rome’s Jewish client kings. Third, several of these figures understood themselves as the Messiah, or were pointed out by others as the designated Messiah. Apart from Jesus from Nazareth we know first and foremost Simon Bar Kochba, but the Hasmonean Prince Simon, the Teacher of Righteousness, Judas the Galilean, Theudas, The Egyptian Prophet and several others cannot be excluded as messianic pretenders either. These three characteristics, which I believe played a fundamental role in early Judaism at the time of Jesus in Jewish Palestine were shared among the historical Jesus and the other eschatological prophets and messianic pretenders mentioned here. 5.8.2.2. Differences The comparisons conducted in ch. 5.3.2 have also shown that these comparable Jewish figures did not constitute a homogeneous group but that they apparently belonged to several different movements: In early Judaism in the centuries around the beginning of our era the most eye-catching current was characterized by a militant eschatology and messianism. This trend is represented by the Hasmoneans, Judas the Galilean, (Jesus Barabbas?), the Egyptian Prophet, significant groups such as the “Zealots” and the Sicarians during the first great Jewish revolt against Rome (66 – 70 (74) CE) and Bar Kochba and his movement in 132 – 135 CE. The Teacher of Righteousness, John the Baptist and Jesus from Nazareth, however, do not seem to belong to this current.127 This does not mean that 127 Perhaps Theudas and Jesus Son of Ananiah should also be counted as belonging to this group.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Conclusions

259

these three figures did not share the first current’s eschatological hope for the restoration of Israel. It means that they were convinced that this restoration would be an exclusive act of the Jewish god, and that he, in the “fullness of time,” would intervene and send his heavenly legions to throw the Romans out of the “holy” land, precisely as he, in primeval times, had destroyed the Pharaoh’s army in the waters of the Red Sea and thus liberated the Jewish people from their slavery in Egypt (cf. Exod. 1 – 14), and as he had later crushed the Assyrian army before the walls of Jerusalem in 701 BCE (cf. 2 Kgs. 18 – 19). I also describe this group as “apocalyptic” because it obviously shared the apocalyptic view of the holy Jewish scriptures and of the course of history, and I describe it as “non-militant” or “quietistic” because it did not actively take up arms against the Romans. There were obviously other currents in early Judaism: The Jewish upper class, the Herodians and the Sadducees, who cooperated with the Romans, and still others, but they are not important in the present context. The comparisons made in ch. 5.3.2 have also revealed a number of other striking differences which can help us to more accurately determine the originality of Jesus: As previously mentioned it was common to almost all of the figures described in ch. 5.3.2 that they proclaimed that the time “now” had come for the fulfilment of biblical promises to the Jewish people. But it is very few of them who, like Jesus from Nazareth, are told to have driven out evil spirits, healed the sick, revived dead people and performed other miracles. At the same time it is only Jesus who is said to have connected these activities with his eschatological preaching of the imminence of the kingdom of god in the way that he interpreted his healings and other miracles as tangible signs that this kingdom was so close to becoming an actual reality that its power already operated in Jesus’ miracles. Jesus’ relationship to the Mosaic Law appears to be equally peculiar and original (cf. ch. 4.4). First, Jesus did not reject, but generally accepted the Law of Moses; second, like the Sadducees Jesus rejected the oral interpretations of the Law of Moses represented by the Pharisees; third, in some cases Jesus preferred the ethical requirements of the written law rather than its cultic regulations, and thus he continued an obvious trend in the biblical prophetic tradition; fourth, in some cases Jesus interpreted the Mosaic Law more strictly than the Pharisees, partly because of the imminent eschatological judgement that demanded “perfection,” partly because he referred to a prior and higher “Law of Creation.” This attitude to the Mosaic Law manifests itself in Jesus’ uncompromising rejection of divorce and oaths. In none of the comparable figures surveyed in ch. 5.3.2 have we found anything similar to this complex and rather unique attitude to the Mosaic Law. Likewise it is not recorded about any other comparable figure than Jesus from Nazareth that he was sent to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt. 10.6; 15.24). Probably this phrase can be interpreted as referring to the

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

260

The comparative Jesus

poor, starving, indebted, outcast, diseased and otherwise marginalized Jews (cf. the title of Meier’s magnum opus 1999 – 2009). Jesus thus stated that he was “called” to turn to the marginalized sinners of the Jewish people in order to encourage them to repent and convert and thus to receive and to enter into the coming kingdom of god. Many of the contemporary, comparable Jewish figures surveyed in ch. 5.3.2 died because of their message and activities, but we do not know of anyone other than Jesus from Nazareth and perhaps the Teacher of Righteousness in the Dead Sea Scrolls, who envisaged and predicted their own death. If we follow Michael O. Wise and Israel Knohl in assuming, that the Thanksgiving Hymns from Qumran were written by the Teacher of Righteousness, and that their contents are largely autobiographical and includes predictions of the death of the teacher, we can conclude that these two figures both predicted their future sufferings and perhaps their future death, and that perhaps both of them also mirrored themselves in the image of the Lord’s Suffering Servant as described in Isa. 53. But it still appears that only Jesus from Nazareth seems to have attributed an atoning and redeeming significance to his impending death.128 Finally we know of no other messianic pretender than Jesus from Nazareth who designated twelve of his followers as leaders of the future restored Israel.

128 Of course the historical Jesus, too, can have found inspiration to his soteriological interpretation of his impending death in Isa. 53.4 – 12, a text that circles around a similar interpretation of the death of the servant.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

6. Conclusions 6.1 Introduction With ch. 5.8 I have completed the studies and examinations outlined in the preface and the first chapter of this book. It only remains to summarize the results of ch. 1 – 5 and to formulate my overall conclusions of the completed studies. I begin with a brief summary of the results of the studies carried out in ch. 1 – 5, followed by some critical reflections on the two fundamental concepts of “originality” and “comparison,” a summary of my revised reconstruction of the historical Jesus and – more sketchy – the reconstructions of the contemporary Palestinian Jewish figures related to Jesus. I conclude ch. 6 with a reformulation of my answer to the book’s main question: How original was Jesus?

6.2 Summary In ch. 1 I emphasize the difficulties associated with preparing and answering the question of the originality of Jesus. In particular I discuss the problems and difficulties associated with the two fundamental concepts of “originality” and “comparison.” In ch. 2 I present a relatively brief description and evaluation of the history of the international Jesus research from 1770 to 2012, followed by a critical overview of Danish Jesus research from Georg Brandes (1925) to Mogens Müller (2008a), and an outline of a selection of unorthodox and popular presentations of Jesus in modern non-scientific literature and film. Chapter 3 is devoted to a detailed and unprecedented presentation of a representative selection of the numerous attempts in earlier research to determine the originality of Jesus. This applies first and foremost to the attempts at finding the originality of Jesus in the strict ethical requirements that our sources attach to Jesus. These attempts, however, must be described as unsuccessful because neither the double commandment of love nor the commandment to love one’s enemies can be defined as unique, original or innovative in an absolute sense. It is true that Jesus tightened up and intensified the ethical commandments of the Law of Moses, but this was done in a close connection with the conversion of the Jews to a new, righteous life that Jesus demanded in conjunction with his proclamation of the imminence of the kingdom of god. This feature is also common for Jesus, John the Baptist, some texts from Qumran and other contemporary Jewish texts.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

262

Conclusions

On the other hand, against the background of the comparative studies conducted in ch. 5 it must be recognized that several of the attempts examined in ch. 3 have addressed important aspects of the historical Jesus and his activities, and that these aspects can be described as “characteristic,” “peculiar” or even “original.” This applies to the following features: First, Jesus’ exorcisms, healings and other miracles; second, Jesus’ emphasis on the close relationship between these miracles and his preaching of the imminence of the kingdom of god; third, the peculiar limitation of the groups within the Jewish people to whom Jesus primarily addressed his message: “The lost sheep of the House of Israel;” fourth, perhaps the emphasis on the significance of forgiveness and the importance of good deeds in the teaching of Jesus as pointed out by Hannah Arendt; fifth, Jesus’ strict attitude to the issues of divorce and oaths which are unique; sixth, Jesus’ predictions of his death in Jerusalem and his emphasis on the atoning significance of this death. In ch. 4 I develop a revised version of my own previous reconstruction of the project of the historical Jesus (Bilde 2008a). This revision is based on some of the most important hypotheses of recent research. The result is that all of Jesus’ activities appear to have been intended to make a decisive contribution to the eschatological restoration of the twelve tribes of the Jewish people. In ch. 5 I carry out the most comprehensive comparative study of the historical Jesus so far, and in ch. 6 I present my final attempt to answer the present book’s basic question about the originality of Jesus.

6.3 The concept of “originality” On the basis of my critical reflections on the concept of “originality” presented in ch. 1 I wish to repeat and emphasize that it is impossible to talk about “originality” in any absolute sense either in the history of religions in general or in connection with a reconstruction of the historical Jesus and his project. When I still dare to use this word and the closely related terms of “characteristic,” “peculiar,” “new,” “innovative” and “unique,” I do so in full awareness, both of the randomness that characterizes the preservation and the transmission of the source material to early Judaism in Palestine (and in the diaspora) in particular and to the Hellenistic-Roman world in general, and of the fact (as I consider it to be) that in the history of religions something absolutely new never occurs, but that everything that seems to be new is better defined as new interpretations of traditional features, new accents, new preferences and new combinations of traditional and conventional phenomena.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Modern Jesus research

263

6.4 The term “comparison” The term “comparison” is less complicated and less mischievous than the concept “originality,” and the main danger of comparison is the familiar one that one should beware of “comparing” a high tower and a thunderclap. For example a comparison between the historical Jesus and, e. g., Ron Hubbard or Reverend Moon is associated with so many pitfalls and reservations that such a comparison can hardly avoid leading to either obvious or trivial results. These difficulties represent the main reason why, in my comparative studies of Jesus, I find the related Jewish figures in the geographical area of Jewish Palestine in the period between ca. 170 BCE to ca. 135 CE the most meaningful and fruitful to compare with the historical Jesus. In addition this period is further reduced by the fact, that most of the figures with which I compare Jesus from Nazareth actually lived in the first century CE.

6.5 Modern Jesus research The most important result of my general account and assessment of the history of modern Jesus research is the hypothesis that I find it justified to talk about two, maybe even three “objective” steps forward in this history of research: The first one is Reimarus’ “revolutionary” discovery of a historical Jesus, and this means primarily a Jewish and an eschatological approach to and interpretation of Jesus. The second one is Johannes Weiss’ and Albert Schweitzer’s (re)discovery of the fact that the historical Jesus was indeed an eschatological and an apocalyptic figure.1 The third, more dubious one, is the discovery that the aim of this eschatological and apocalyptic Jesus was the recovery or the “restoration” of Israel (cf. ch. 4), a discovery and an interpretation which was first clearly formulated and substantiated in the last three to four decades, more precisely since Ben F. Meyer 1979 and E.P. Sanders 1985. This interpretation of the history of modern Jesus research implies that I have to reject two of the three main schools dominating Jesus research today as being erroneous. One of these two is the school of liberal theology including the American 1 I have added the “re” because Reimarus had already discovered the importance of the eschatological Jesus, and I have added the brackets because Reimarus did not study the subject of Jewish eschatology and apocalyptics in depth. This was first done by Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

264

Conclusions

Jesus Seminar interpreting Jesus as a sage in the style of Socrates or the Cynical itinerant philosophers. This means an interpretation of the teaching of Jesus as a message of timeless ethical and political nature. The second one is the traditional Christian, conservative, evangelical but not necessarily fundamentalist, school’s understanding of the historical Jesus as more or less identical to the (mythological) Jesus found in the NT, especially in the synoptic gospels. As the first one this interpretation implies an image of Jesus as a figure with a weakened Jewish background and, in particular, a Jesus with a weakened eschatology and a weakened apocalyptic profile. The main failure of this position, however, is its actual abandonment of the search for the historical Jesus. Against the background of this interpretation of modern Jesus research the following can today be regarded as objective historical facts: 1) that the historical Jesus was a Jew, 2) that he had a Jewish project, 3) that he did not intend to found or to contribute to any other religion than Judaism, 4) that his Jewish project was eschatological and apocalyptical, and 5) that it concerned an eschatological restoration of the twelve tribes of the ideal Jewish people to its “original” og primeval power and greatness. In my opinion this interpretation lies in a direct continuation of the contributions of Reimarus, Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer. In the period of 1900 – 1970 these insights were repressed, played down or even forgotten. In the period of 1970 – 1985 the insights of these three giants were rediscovered and further elaborated by Geza Vermes, Ben F. Meyer, E.P. Sanders and Martin Hengel, and today these insights and interpretations have been generally accepted by a growing number of critical scholars, especially Dale Allison, James H. Charlesworth, Sean Freyne, Bart Ehrman, Maurice Casey, John P. Meier, and Gerd Theissen.

6.6 A Summary sketch of the historical Jesus My own reconstruction of the historical Jesus belongs without reservation to this third, Jewish eschatological-apocalyptical school. Accordingly I interpret Jesus as the best known representative of a religio-phenomenological type and category familiar in early Palestinian Judaism, not least in the period of the Roman occupation of Jewish Palestine, namely the “eschatological” prophet. This figure generally interpreted the numerous biblical predictions about the future liberation of the Jewish people and the restoration of the twelve tribes of Israel to its former and ideal power and glory as standing immediately before their eschatological, that is, their final and ultimate, realization. Jesus thus belongs to the same category as the Teacher of Righteousness, Judas the Galilean, John the Baptist, Theudas, Paul, the Egyptian Prophet, Josephus and Rabbi Akiba. They all belong to the category of the

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

A Summary sketch of the historical Jesus

265

“eschatological prophet,” who was often identified with the returned Moses, predicted in Deut. 18.14 – 19, or the returned Elijah, mentioned in Mal. 4.5 – 6. This means a figure that should and would repeat the primeval liberations of Israel by the hand of Moses in Egypt and the Sinai Desert, and by the hand of Joshua in the land of Canaan. Thus the task of this figure was eschatologically to restore the Jewish people to the greatness, power, glory, piety and justice that they believed had existed in the times of their “fathers:” Moses, Aaron, Joshua, Elijah and David. In the first period of Jesus’ public career he seems to have joined the movement of John the Baptist and to have shared John’s concentration on his divinely inspired eschatological call to penance, conversion and baptism, which was provoked by the belief that the final judgement of the Jewish god and his “day of wrath” was imminent. When this eschatological event did not appear, but was delayed, John, Jesus and their like-minded followers experienced their first “delay of the parusia,” an experience other Jews seem already to have had, as it appears from the important texts of Dan. 9.25 – 27 and 1QpHab. 7.1 – 14. Perhaps it was this experience (and/or the experience of John the Baptist’s imprisonment and martyrdom) that resulted in the fact that, at a specific time, Jesus left the established group of Baptist-followers and started his own independent eschatological project and the formation of his own “school” with a group of followers. These events led to the second period of Jesus’ public career. In this period, according to the canonical gospels, the centre of gravity in Jesus’ eschatological activities seems to have moved from John’s focus on the imminent eschatological judgment to the imminent kingdom of god, which Jesus claimed was already partly present in his exorcisms, healings and miraculous meals. In this period Jesus’ ideas about his own role and status seem to have grown, and he appears gradually to have become convinced that, in the approaching Passover, he would be divinely enthroned as the Messiah in Jerusalem. In a third period of Jesus’ public career this hope seems to have been replaced by a vision of a much darker near future. Perhaps it was the growing opposition Jesus experienced in the last part of his public career in Jerusalem that forced him to transform his belief in his imminent visible revelation as the Messiah in Jerusalem to the idea of a necessary transient period of suffering and of the death as a Jewish martyr. The opposition Jesus experienced may have caused the formation of this new idea that, before his final messianic enthronement in Jerusalem, he had to suffer martyrdom. Perhaps he also interpreted this coming martyrdom in the light of the Book of Isaiah ch. 53 that is, as a vicarious atonement for the sins of the Jews who had not yet accepted his message and therefore had not yet repented, converted and joined him. At this moment Jesus and his adherents apparently believed that immediately after his atoning martyr death Jesus would be resurrected, rehabilitated and enthroned as the Messiah in Jerusalem.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

266

Conclusions

As it appears in the canonical gospels, however, in Jerusalem Jesus and his followers experienced a new disappointment of these two sets of eschatological expectations. Jesus was executed, and the Jewish god did not immediately resurrect and enthrone him. Obviously this disappointment provoked new reinterpretations of Jesus’ eschatological message and new transformations of the disappointed eschatological beliefs among the adherents of Jesus. A major element in this new belief was the idea that, after his humiliating crucifixion Jesus had in fact been resurrected by the Jewish god on the third day after his death despite the fact that he had been seen by nobody apart from a few of his own adherents. Three other important elements in this reinterpretation were, first, the idea, that the Jesus movement in continuation of Jesus’ own interpretation of his coming death, began to understand Jesus’ death by the means of a number of reinterpretations. Secondly, the Jesus movement formulated the new idea that Jesus had in fact already been enthroned, certainly not here on the earth and in Jerusalem, but in the heavenly world and at the right side of the heavenly Jewish god himself, a “fact” that was much more important than an earthly enthronement in Jerusalem. Thirdly, that Jesus would return to earth very soon in order to establish his power and kingdom here, too. Thus, these reinterpretations and transformations gradually led to what became a new Jewish current, the Jesus movement which in the course of time gradually separated itself from its mother religion, Judaism, and eventually and gradually was transformed into a new and independent religion, Christianity.2 According to this reconstruction of the life and death of the historical Jesus, during his public activity Jesus himself and his followers seem gradually to have attached more and more significance to the person and status of Jesus ending by giving him a unique and decisive position in the eschatological salvation historical sequence. As far as I know this series of reinterpretations and transformations have no obvious parallel or analogy in ancient Judaism or in the Hellenistic-Roman world. We know of nothing similar in the cases of the comparable figures, primarily the Teacher of Righteousness, John the Baptist and Simon Bar Kochba, and secondarily regarding figures like Apollonius from Tyana, Simon Magus or any ancient political ruler. If this hypothesis is correct, the process of the divinisation of Jesus and the process of the establishment of Christianity seem to be unique. In principle, however, the historical Jesus as reconstructed here does not seem to have been absolutely unique, but this problem will be further discussed below.

2 I have described this process in more detail in Bilde 2008a, 235 – 272; 2008b.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

How original was Jesus?

267

6.7 How original was Jesus? It follows from the fundamental categories and concepts used in the present work: “reconstruction,” “originality” and “comparison,” that the historical Jesus as reconstructed here cannot be classified as original in an absolute sense. On the contrary, this Jesus should rather be described as the best known and most characteristic example of the religio-phenomenological type or category of the “eschatological prophet,” who appears to have been a rather common figure in early Palestinian Judaism in the period examined here. The fact of the matter is that this early Jewish eschatological prophet, whom we otherwise only find with rather vague and fragmentary features in Josephus’ works, the Dead Sea Scrolls and other early Jewish sources, thanks to the canonical gospels, can now be portrayed with much clearer and much more distinctive features. The comparisons conducted in ch. 5, however, have not only helped to clarify the overall picture of this religio-phenomenological type. They have also revealed a number of peculiar characteristics of the historical Jesus, that is, features that he only shares with a few, one or none of the other figures I have compared him with. First, a feature that Jesus apparently shares with some of the other figures: I refer to what I have called Jesus’ “apocalyptical quietism.” Unlike the Hasmoneans, Judas the Galilean, Jesus Barabbas, the so-called “Zealots” and the Sicarians in 66 to 70 (74) CE, and Simon Bar Kochba, Jesus from Nazareth did not belong to the militant eschatological Jewish messianic movement, but to the non-militant, quietistic strand which declined to take up arms perhaps in order to hasten a divine intervention. This quietistic messianism was apocalyptical, that is, that it expected the eschatological deliverance of the Jewish people as a result of an exclusively divine intervention (cf. ch. 3.9, 4.10; 5.3.2.1 – 14). Jesus was not alone in this position, however, and therefore here he cannot be described as “original” in the strict sense of the word. For Jesus shared this position with John the Baptist, and probably, also with the Teacher of Righteousness, Theudas and maybe a few others. Another feature which Jesus may also have shared with the Teacher of Righteousness is the anticipation and the prediction of his own death. Perhaps both of them understood and interpreted their feelings of their coming death in the light of Isa. 53 about the suffering Servant of the Lord. The interpretation of Jesus’ death – either his own interpretation (what I believe) or that of his adherents – as a vicarious atoning sacrificial death can have been taken over from Isa. 53 and perhaps also from 2 Macc. 7 (cf. ch. 4.7). The combination, however, of this idea with the conviction that he was the designated Messiah, which of course theoretically could have been made in the time before Jesus, for example by the Teacher of Righteousness, must still be

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

268

Conclusions

assessed to be original, if you, my readers, like me, do not accept the arguments presented by Michael Wise and Israel Knohl (cf. ch. 5.3.3.2).3 We move closer to the idea of absolute originality when we turn to Jesus’ combination of his expectation of the kingdom of god with his activity as an exorcist, healer and worker of miracles in general. This combination is not known in the cases of any other of the figures whom I have compared with Jesus. It thus seems to be an authentic, original feature, that Jesus interpreted his miracles as a testimony that the imminent kingdom of god was already partly present. In addition Jesus’ relationship to Mosaic Law appears to have been rather unique (cf. ch. 4.4). We saw that three of the four aspects of Jesus’ attitudes to the Law of Moses were shared with other contemporary Jewish groups: 1) Jesus’ rejection of (part of) the so-called oral part of the Law of Moses, claimed by the Pharisees, was shared by the Sadducees and the Samaritans; 2) Jesus’ tightening of parts the Mosaic Law, especially on divorce and oaths, was shared with the Essenes of the Qumran community, some of the Pharisees and perhaps also by the so-called “Zealots;” 3) Jesus’ preference for the ethical commandments of the Law of Moses over the cultic commandments was shared with the biblical prophets. 4) In contrast, however, Jesus’ reference to a pre-Mosaic Law of a higher rank, the “Law of Creation,” appears to be his original innovation. There are a few other features that also seem to be unique, partly the strong testimony of our sources that Jesus went only to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt. 10.6; 15.24), which with some confidence can be interpreted as pointing to the poor, diseased, outcast, and otherwise marginalized Jews, partly the unambiguous reference to the Jewish twelve tribes (Matt. 19.28). If we finally include the few original features found in ch. 3: Jesus’ emphasis on the importance of forgiveness and good deeds and (some of) his stories, parables and proverbs, I think we have completed our list of original features documented for the historical Jesus. On this basis I feel that I am forced to conclude that Jesus is not only the best documented early Jewish eschatological prophet and messianic pretender but that his project and his teaching to the extent defined above must be described as original.

3 If we now return to one of my arguments for a renewed examination of the question of the originality of Jesus, presented in ch. 1.2., namely, argument no. 4: the question of continuity or discontinuity between Jesus and his movement before his death and the Jesus movement and early Christianity after his death, it appears to me that my reconstruction of the historical Jesus and his originality, presented above, makes it easier to understand the historical development from the historical Jesus to the beginnings of Christianity in the Jesus movement after his death.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Bibliography Abrahamowitz 2002 – F. Abrahamowitz: Jesus. En biografi, København. Ackroyd 1968 – P.R.: Ackroyd: Exile and Restoration. A Study of Hebrew Thought of the Sixth Century BC, London. Afnan 1960 – E.M. Afnan: The Great Prophets Moses – Zarathustra – Jesus, New York. Akers 2000 – K. Akers: The Lost Religion of Jesus: Simple Living and Non Violence in Early Christianity, New York. Aldridge 2011 – RE. Aldridge: The First Gospel. The Aramaic Gospel before Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Bloomington. Alexander (1997) 2005 – P.S. Alexander : “Jesus and the Golden Rule,” in: Charlesworth – Johns 1997, 363 – 388 (= Dunn – McKnight 2005, 489 – 508). Allison 1985 – D.C. Allison: The End of Ages Has Come, Philadelphia. Allison 1998 – D.C. Allison: Jesus of Nazareth. Millenarian Prophet, Minneapolis. Allison 2005 – D.C. Allison: Resurrecting Jesus. The Earliest Christian Tradition and its Interpreters, New York – London. Allison 2009 – D. Allison: The Historical Christ and the Theological Jesus, Grand Rapids – Cambridge. Allison 2010 – D.C. Allison: Constructing Jesus. Memory, Imagination, and History, Grand Rapids – London. Allison 2011 – D.C. Allison: “How to Marginalize the Traditional Criteria of Authenticity,” HSHJ, 1, 3 – 30. Altizer 1997 – Th. J.J. Altizer : The Contemporary Jesus, Albany. Amer 2009 – P.J. Amer : The Five Commandments of Jesus. A New Approach to Christianity, New York – Bloomington. Amaladoss 2006 – M. Amaladoss: The Arian Jesus, Maryknoll. Amitay 2010 – O. Amitay : From Alexander to Jesus, Berkeley etc. Amore 1978 – R.C. Amore: Two Masters. One Message. The Lives and Teachings of Gautama and Jesus, Nashville. Anderson 2006 – P.N. Anderson: The Fourth Gospel and the Quest for Jesus. Modern Foundations Reconsidered, London – New York. Arendt (1958) 2005 – H. Arendt: Meneskets vilk”r, København. Armstrong 2006 – K. Armstrong: The Great Transformation. The Beginnings of our Religious Tradition, New York. Aron 1962 – R. Aron: Die verborgenen Jahre Jesu, Frankfurt/M. Atkinson – Eshel – Magnes 2009 – K. Atkinson, H. Eshel and J. Magnes: “Do Josephus’ Writings Support the ‘Essene Hypothesis’?,” BAR, 35, 56 – 89. Augias-Pesce (2006) 2008 – C. Augias e M. Pesce: Inchiesta su Gesffl. Chi era l’uomo che a cambiato il mondo, Milano.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

270

Bibliography

Augstein (1972) 1999 – R. Augstein: Jesus Menschensohn, München – Gütersloh – Wien. Auken-Pedersen 2008 – I. Auken og B.T. Pedersen: Jesus g”r til filmen, Frederiksberg. Aul¦n (1974) 1976 – G. Aul¦n: Jesus in Contemporary Historical Research, London. Aune 1997 – D.E. Aune: “Jesus and the Cynics in First Century Palestine: Some Critical Considerations,” in: Charlesworth – Johns 1997, 176 – 192. Aune – Stewart 2001 – D.E. Aune with E. Stewart: “From the Idealized Past to the Imaginary Future. Eschatological Restoration in Jewish Apocalyptical Literature,” in: J.M. Scott 2001, 147 – 177. Avalos 1999 – H. Avalos: Health Care and the Rise of Christianity, Peabody. Avalos 2007 – H. Avalos: The End of Biblical Studies, Amherst. Back 2011 – S.-O. Back: “Jesus of Nazareth and the Christ of Faith: Approaches to the Question in Historical Jesus Research,” HSHJ, 2, 1021 – 1054. Backhaus 2011 – K. Backhaus: “Echoes from the Wilderness: The Historical John the Baptist,” HSHJ, 2, 2011, 1747 – 1785. Baigent 2006 – M. Baigent: The Jesus Papers. Exploring the Greatest Cover-Up in History, San Francisco – London. Baigent – Leigh 1991 – M. Baigent and Richard Leigh: The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception, London Baird 1992 – W. Baird: History of the New Testament Research. Vol. One. From Deism to Tübingen, Minneapolis. Baird 2003 – W. Baird: History of the New Testament Research. Vol. Two. From Jonathan Edwards to Rudolf Bultmann, Minneapolis. Balla 2001 – P. Balla: “What Did Jesus Think about his Approaching Death?” in: Labahn – Schmidt, 239 – 258. Bammel (1984) 1985 – E. Bammel: “The revolution theory from Reimarus to Brandon,” in: Bammel – Moule, 11 – 68. Bammel – Moule (1984) 1985 – E. Bammel and C.F.D. Moule (Eds.): Jesus and the Politics of His Day, Cambridge. Banks 1975 – R. Banks: Jesus and the Law in the Synoptic Tradition, Cambridge. Bardet 2002 – S. Bardet: Le Testimonium Flavianum. Examen historique, considerations historiographiques, Paris. Barnett 2009 – P. Barnett: Finding the Historical Christ. After Jesus, Volume 3, Grand Rapids – Cambridge. Barrett 1967 – C.K. Barrett: Jesus and the Gospel Tradition, London. Barrett 2002 – C.K Barrett: The Acts of the Apostles. A Shorter Commentary, London – New York. Bartsch 1970 – H.-W. Bartsch: Jesus, Prophet und Messias aus Galiläa, Frankfurt/M. Bauckham 2006 – R. Bauckham: Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony, Grand Rapids – Cambridge. Bauckham 2011 – R. Bauckham: Jesus. AVery Short Introduction, Oxford. Bauer 1927 – W. Bauer : “Jesus der Galiläer”, in: Festgabe für Adolf Jülicher, Tübingen, 16 – 34.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Bibliography

271

Baumbach 1971 – G. Baumbach: Jesus von Nazareth im Lichte der jüdischen Gruppenbildungen, Berlin. Baur (1876) 1966 – F.C. Baur : Apollonius von Tyana und Christus. Ein Beitrag zur Religionsgeschichte der ersten Jahrhunderte nach Christus, Hildesheim. Bayer 1986 – H.F. Bayer: Jesus’ Predictions of Vindication and Resurrection. The Provenance, Meaning and Correlation of the Synoptic Predictions, Tübingen. Beasley-Murray 1986 – G.R. Beasley-Murray : Jesus and the Kingdom, Grand Rapids. Beasley-Murray 1993 – G.R. Beasley-Murray : Jesus and the Last Days. The Interpretation of the Olivet Discourse, Peabody. Beavis 2006 – M.A. Beavis: Jesus & Utopia. Looking for the Kingdom of God in the Roman World, Minneapolis. Becker (1995) 1996 – J. Becker : Jesus von Nazareth, Berlin. Bejlby – Eddy 2010 – J.K. Bejlby and P.R. Eddy : The Historical Jesus. Five Views, Downers Grove. Bell 2007 – R.H. Bell: Deliver Us from Evil. Interpreting the Redemption from the Power of Satan in the New Testament, Tübingen. Bellinger – Farmer 1998 – W.H. Bellinger and W.R. Farmer (Eds.): Jesus and the Suffering Servant. Isaiah 53 and Christian Origins, Harrisburg. Ben-Chorin (1967) 1972 – S. Ben-Chorin: Bruder Jesus. Der Nazarener in jüdischer Sicht, München. Berger 1970 – K. Berger : Die Amen-Worte Jesu. Eine Untersuchung zum Problem der Legitimation in apokalyptische Rede, Berlin. Berger 1976 – K. Berger : Die Auferstehung des Propheten und die Erhöhung des Menschensohnes Traditionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zur Deutung des Geschickes Jesu in frühchristlichen Texten, Göttingen. Berger (2004) 2007 – K. Berger : Jesus, München. Berger 2010 – K. Berger : Der Wundertäter. Die Wahrheit über Jesus, Freiburg – Basel – Wien. Bernard 1977 – J.-L. Bernard: Apollonius de Tyane et J¦sus, Paris. Bertalotto 2010 – P. Bertalotto: Il Gesffl storico, Roma. Best – Wilson 1979 – E. Best and McL. Wilson: Text and Interpretation, FS M. Black, Cambridge. Betz 1961 – H.D. Betz: Lukian von Samosata und das Neue Testament. Religionsgeschichtliche und paränetische Parallelen, Berlin. Betz 1968 – H.D. Betz: “Jesus as Divine Man”, in: FS E.C. Colwell, Ed. F. Thomas Trotter, Philadelphia, 114 – 133. Betz 1994 – H.D. Betz: “Jesus and the Cynics: Survey and Analysis of a Hypothesis,” Journal of Religion, 74, 453 – 476. Beyerle 2012 – S. Beyerle: “Von Henoch bis Baruch. Neue Tendenzen der Apokalyptikforschung,” ThL, 137, 2012, 606 – 618. Bieler (1935) 1967 – L. Bieler : Theios AnÞr. Das Bild des “göttlichen Menschen” in Spätantike und Früdchristentum, Darmstadt. Bilde 1978 – P. Bilde: “Den nyere evangelieforsknings metoder og spørgsm”let om den historiske Jesus,” DTT, 41, 217 – 143.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

272

Bibliography

Bilde 1979 – P. Bilde: “Religion og politik i Jesusbevægelsen,” DTT, 42, 1 – 19. Bilde 1980 – P. Bilde: “Galilæa og galilæerne p” Jesu tid,” DTT, 43, 113 – 135. Bilde 1981 – P. Bilde: “Josefus’ beretning om Jesus,” DTT, 44, 99 – 135. Bilde 1983a – P. Bilde: Josefus som historieskriver. En undersøgelse af Josefus’ fremstilling af Gaius Caligulas konflikt med jøderne i Palæstina (Bell 2,184 – 203 og Ant 18,261 – 309) med særligt henblik p” forfatterens tendens og historiske p”lidelighed, København. Bilde 1983b – P. Bilde: “Religion og politik i antik jødedom og tidlig kristendom,” RvT, 3, 23 – 49. Bilde 1984 – P. Bilde: “Templets betydning i jødedommen p” Jesu tid,” RvT, 4, 41 – 68. Bilde 1988 – P. Bilde: Flavius Josephus between Jerusalem and Rome. His Life, his Works, and their Importance, Sheffield. Bilde 1993a – P. Bilde: “Jesus and Paul: A Methodological Essay on Two Cases of Religious Innovation in the Context of Centre Periphery Relations,” in: P. Bilde, T. Engberg- Pedersen, L. Hannestad and J. Zahle (Eds.): Centre and Periphery in the Hellenistic World, Aarhus, 316 – 338. Bilde 1993b – P. Bilde: Review of Sørensen 1992 i RvT, 22, 109 – 116. Bilde 1993c – P. Bilde: “2 Cor. 4: The View of Satan and the Created World in Paul,” in: P. Bilde et al. (Eds.): Apocryphon Severini Presented to Søren Giversen, Aarhus, 29 – 41. Bilde 1993d – P. Bilde: “Deifications and Ethics: A Comparative Religio-Historical Investigation of Paul on the Aim and Methods of the Salvation in Christ,” Temenos, 29, 9 – 36. Bilde 1994 – P. Bilde: Review of Niels Hyldahl: Den ældste kristendoms historie (1993) (The History of Early Chistianity (1997)), RvT, 24, 109 – 117. Bilde 1996a – P. Bilde: “Johannes Døber ifølge Josefus,” in: Fatum – Müller 1996, 9 – 22. Bilde 1996b – P. Bilde: “Johannes Døber – et bidrag til en historisk rekonstruktion,” DTT, 59, 125 – 150. Bilde 1998a – P. Bilde (Ed.): Den hellenistisk-romerske verden. Religiøse tekster, København. Bilde 1998b – P. Bilde: “Den nyere Jesus-forskning. Træk af den nyere internationale og danske Jesus-forskning med hovedvægt p” ‘Det Amerikanske Jesus-seminar’,” Chaos, 30, 131 – 147. Bilde 1998c – P. Bilde: “Josephus and Jewish Apocalypticism,” in: Mason 1998, 35 – 61. Bilde 1998d – P. Bilde: “The Essenes in Philo and Josephus,” in: F.C. Cryer and Th.L. Thompson (Eds.): Qumran between the Old and New Testaments, 32 – 68. Bilde (2001) 2006 – P. Bilde: En religion bliver til. En undersøgelse af kristendommens forudsætninger og tilblivelse indtil ”r 110; København. Bilde 2002 – P. Bilde: “Religion og forst”else,” RvT, 41, 37 – 50. Bilde 2005a – P. Bilde: “Tilløb til overvejelser over komparative undersøgelser af Jesus – et bidrag til den teoretiske drøftelse af relationerne mellem komparation og

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Bibliography

273

faglig terminologi,” in: Religionsvidenskabens komparative udfordring, redigeret af Joel Haviv m. fl., København, 37 – 54. Bilde 2005b – P. Bilde: “Josefus om henrettelsen af Jakob (Ant 20,197 – 203). Et bidrag til at drøfte og illustrere problemstillingen ‘historie og konstruktion’,” in: Historie og konstruktion. FS til Niels Peter Lemche i anledning af 60 ”rs fødselsdagen den 6. september 2005, red. M. Müller og Th.L. Thompson, København, 42 – 59. Bilde 2005c – P. Bilde: “Kognitive Dissonanzreduktion in der Jesusbewegung. Ein sozialpsychologischer Beitrag zum Verständnis neutestamentlicher Texte,” Evangelische Theologie, 65, 118 – 135. Bilde 2006a – P. Bilde: “Den religiøse drivkraft i det første jødiske oprør mod Rom i 66 – 70 (74),” Chaos, 45, 23 – 43. Bilde 2006b – P. Bilde: Review of Finn Jacobi: Sokrates og Jesus. Essays om to processer, Rvt, 48, 2006, 81 – 85. Bilde 2008a – P. Bilde: Den historiske Jesus, København. Bilde 2008b – P. Bilde: “Guddommeliggørelsen af Jesus: Hvad g”r den ud p”? Og hvorn”r og hvorfor fandt den sted? – et oplæg til debat,” Chaos, 50, 7 – 37. Bilde 2011a – P. Bilde: Hvor original var Jesus? København. Bilde 2011b – P. Bilde: “Der Konflikt zwischen Gaius Caligula und den Juden über die Aufstellung einer Kaiserstatue im Tempel von Jerusalem”, in: Kult und Macht. Religion und Herrschaft im Syro-Palästinischen Raum. Studien zu ihrer Wechselbeziehung in hellenistisch-römischer Zeit, Tübingen, 9 – 48. Bird 2006 – M.E. Bird: Jesus and the Origins of the Gentile Mission, London – New York. Bird 2009 – M.E. Bird: Are You the One Who is to Come? The Historical Jesus and the Messianic Question, Grand Rapids. Bird 2010 – M.E. Bird: Crossing Over Sea and Land. Jewish Missionary Activity in the Second Temple Period, Peabody. Blank (1972) 1977 – J. Blank: Jesus von Nazareth. Geschichte und Relevanz, Freiburg – Basel – Wien. Blinzler (1951) 1955 – J. Blinzler : Der Prozess Jesu. Das jüdische und das römische Gerichtsverfahen gegen Jesus Christus auf Grund der ältesten Zeugnisse dargestelt und beurteilt von J.B., Regensburg. Blomberg (1987) 2008 – C.L. Blomberg: The Historical Reliability of the Gospels, Downers Grove. Blomberg 2001 – C.L. Blomberg: “The Historical Reliability of John: Rushing in where Angels fear to Tread,” in: Fortna – Thatcher, 71 – 82. Bloom 2005 – H. Bloom: Jesus and Yahweh. The Names Divine, New York. Bock 2002a – D.L. Bock: Studying the Historical Jesus. A Guide to Sources and Methods, Grand Rapids. Bock 2002b – D.L. Bock: Jesus according to Scripture. Restoring the Portrait from the Gospels, Grand Rapids. Bock 2011 – D. Bock: “Jesus, Satan, and Company,” HSHJ, 3, 2855 – 2875. Bock – Wallace 2007 – D.L. Bock and D.B. Wallace: Dethroning Jesus. Exposing Popular Culture’s Quest to Unseat the Biblical Christ, Nashville.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

274

Bibliography

Bock – Webb 2009: D.L. Bock and R.L. Webb (Eds.): Key Events in the Life of the Historical Jesus. A Collaborative Exploration of Context and Coherence, Tübingen. Bockmuehl 1994 – M. Bockmuehl: This Jesus. Martyr, Lord, Messiah, Edinburgh. Bockmuehl – Paget 2007 – M. Bockmuehl and J.C. Paget: Redemption and Resistance. The Messianic Hopes of Jews and Christians in Antiquity, London – New York. Bolyki 1998 – J. Bolyki: Jesu Tischgemeinschaften, Tübingen. Bond 2012 – H.K. Bond: The Historical Jesus, London – New York. Borchert 2011 – G.L. Borchert: Jesus of Nazareth. Background, Witnesses, And Significance, Macon, GA. Borg (1984) 1998 – M.J. Borg: Conflict, Holyness & Politics in the Teachings of Jesus, New York – Toronto. Borg (1989) 2008 – M.J. Borg: Jesus. Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary, New York. Borg 1994a – M.J. Borg: Jesus in Contemporary Research, Valley Forge. Borg 1994b – M.J. Borg: Meeting Jesus again for the First Time. The Historical Jesus & the Heart of Contemporary Faith, New York. Borg 1994c – M.J. Borg: “Jesus and Eschatology : A Reassessment,” in: Charlesworth – Weaver 42 – 67. Borg 2000 – M.J. Borg (Ed.): Jesus at 2000, Boulder. Bornkamm (1956) 1960 – G. Bornkamm: Jesus von Nazareth, Stuttgart. Boucher 1981 – M.J. Boucher: The Parables, Wilmington. Bousset 1892 – W. Bousset: Jesu Predigt in ihrem Gegensatz zum Judentum. Ein religionsgeschichtlicher Vergleich, Göttingen. Bousset 1904 – W. Bousset: Jesus, Halle. Bousset (1913) 1965 – W. Bousset: Kyrios Christos. Geschichte des Christusglaubens von den Anfängen des Christentums bis Irenäus, Göttingen. Boyer 2005 – C. Boyer: J¦sus contre le temple? Analyse historico-critique des textes, Saint Laurent. Braden 1957 – C.S. Braden: Jesus Compared. A Study of Jesus and Other Great Founders of Religions, Englewood Cliffs. Brandes (1925) 1989 – G. Brandes: Sagnet om Jesus, København. Brandon 1967 – S.G.F. Brandon: Jesus and the Zealots, London. Braun 1966 – H. Braun: “Jesus und der qumranischen Lehrer”, in: Qumran und das Neue Testament, Bd. 2, 54 – 74. Braun (1969) 1972 – H. Braun: Jesus. Der Mann aus Nazareth und seine Zeit, Stuttgart – Berlin. Breengaard 2002 – C. Breengaard: Review of Bilde (2001) 2006, RvT, 41, 104 – 110. Breengaard 2007 – C. Breengaard: Paradis-sekten. Frelseshistorie og kristen identitet, København. Broadhead 2011 – E.K. Broahhead: “Implicit Christology and the Historical Jesus,” HSHJ, 2, 2011, 1171 – 1182. Broer 1992 – I. Broer (Hrsg.): Jesus und das jüdische Gesetzt, Stuttgart – Berlin – Köln. C. Brown 2011 – C. Brown: “The Quest of the Unhistorical Jesus and the Quest of the Historical Jesus,” HSHJ, 2, 2011, 855 – 886.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Bibliography

275

D. Brown 2003 – D. Brown: The Da Vinci Code, San Francisco. R.E. Brown 1997 – R.E. Brown: An Introduction to the New Testament, New York – London – Toronto – Sidney – Auckland. Brun 1917 – L. Brun: Jesu Evangelium. En historisk fremstilling av Jesu forkyndelse, Kristiania. Bryan 2002 – S.M. Bryan: Jesus and Israel’s Traditions of Judgement and Restoration, New York – Cambridge, UK. Braarvig 2001 – J. Braarvig: “Jesus og Dionysos,” in: Engberg-Pedersen – Gilhus 2001, 38 – 49. Braaten 1992 – C.E. Braaten: No Other Gospel! Christianity among the World’s Religions, Minneapolis. Buber 1950 – M. Buber : Zwei Glaubensweisen, Zürich. Bugge 1980 – Th. Bugge: “Sabbatianismen – evangeliet om det messianske paradoks,” Religion, 1, 33 – 55. Bultmann (1921) 1961 – R. Bultmann: Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, Göttingen. Bultmann (1926) 1970 – R. Bultmann: Jesus, München – Hamburg. Bultmann (1941) 1962 – R. Bultmann: Das Evangelium des Johannes, Göttingen. Bultmann (1958) 1961 – R. Bultmann: Theologie des Neuen Testaments, Tübingen. Bultmann (1960) 1965 – R. Bultmann: Das Verhältnis der urchristlichen Christusbotschaft zum historischen Jesus, Heidelberg. Burkett 2002 – D. Burkett: An Introduction to the New Testament and the Origins of Christianity, Cambridge. Burkett 2004 – D. Burkett: Rethinking the Gospel Sources. From Proto-Mark to Mark, New York – London. Burkett 2010 – D. Burkett (Ed.): The Blackwell Companion to Jesus, Oxford. Burns 2007 – P.C. Burns: Jesus in Twentieth-Century Literature, Arts, and Movies, London – New York. Burridge (1994) 2005 – R.A. Burridge: Four Gospels, One Jesus? A Symbolic Reading, London. Butler (1948) 1993 – E.M. Butler : The Myth of the Magus, Cambridge. Byrskog 2011 – S. Byrskog: “The Historicity of Jesus. How do we Know that Jesus Existed?” HSHJ, 3, 2183 – 2211. Baasland 2011 – E. Baasland: “Fourth Quest? What did Jesus really want?” HSHJ, 1, 31 – 56. Cadbury (1937) 1962 – H.J. Cadbury : The Peril of Modernizing Jesus, New York. Caird 1965 – G.B. Caird: Jesus and the Jewish Nation, London. Calimani 1990 – R. Calimani: Gesffl ebreo, Milano. Campbell 2009 – S. Campbell: Dating Jesus. A Story of Fundamentalism, Feminism, and the American Girl, Boston. Camponovo 1984 – O. Camponovo: Königtum, Königsherrschaft und Reich Gottes in den frühjüdischen Schriften, Göttingen. Capps 2000 – D. Capps: Jesus. A Psychological Biography, St. Louis. Capps 2008 – D. Capps: Jesus the Village Psychiatrist, Louisville.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

276

Bibliography

Carey 2009 – G. Carey : Sinners. Jesus and His Earliest Followers, Waco. Carroll 2007 – J. Carroll: The Existental Jesus, Berkeley. Carotta (1999) 2005 – F. Carotta: Jesus Was Caesar. On the Julian Origin of Christianity. An Investigation Report, Svesterberg. Carpenter 1980 – H. Carpenter : Jesus, Oxford. Carver (1982) 2004 – S.S. Carver: The UnGospel. The Life and Teaching of the Historical Jesus, Eugene. Case 1927 – S.J. Case: Jesus. A New Biography, Chicago. Casey 1991 – M. Casey : From Jewish Prophet to Gentile God. The Origins and Development of New Testament Christology, Cambridge – Louisville. Casey 2007 – M. Casey : The Solution to the ‘Son of Man’ Problem, London – New York. Casey 2010 – M. Casey : Jesus of Nazareth. An Independent Historian’s Account of His Life and Teaching, London – New York. Caspi – Neu-Sokol 2009 – M.M. Caspi and G. Neu-Sokol: The Legend of Eliah in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Literature. A Study in Comparative Religion, Lewiston. Catchpole 2006 – D. Catchpole: Jesus People. The Historical Jesus and the Beginnings of Community, Grand Rapids. Chancey 2002 – M.A. Chancey : The Myth of a Gentile Galilee. The Population of Galilee and New Testament Studies, Cambridge. Chancey 2005 – M.A. Chancey : Greco-Roman Culture and the Galilee of Jesus, Cambridge. Charlesworth 1983 and 1985 – J.H. Charlesworth (Ed.): The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Vol. I: Apocalyptic Literature and Testaments, Vol 2: Expansions of the “Old Testament” and Legends, Widom and Philosophical Literature, Prayers, Psalms, and Odes, Fragments of Hellenistic Works, New York – London – Toronto – Sydney – Auckland. Charlesworth (1988) 1989 – J.H. Charlesworth: Jesus within Judaism. New Light from Existing Archaeological Discoveries, London. Charlesworth 1991 – J.H. Charlesworth (Ed.): Jesus’ Jewishness. Exploring the Place of Jesus within Early Judaism, New York. Charlesworth 1992a – J.H. Charlesworth (Ed.): Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls, New York. Charlesworth 1992b – J.H. Charlesworth (Ed.): The Messiah. Developments in Earliest Judaism and Christianity. The First Princeton Symposion on Judaism and Christian Origins, Minneapolis. Charlesworth 1994 – J.H. Charlesworth: “Jesus-Research Expands with Chaotic Creativity,” in: Charlesworth – Weaver 1994, 1 – 41. Charlesworth 1997 – J.H. Charlesworth: “Hillel and Jesus: Why Comparisons Are Important,” in: Charlesworth – Johns, 3 – 30. Charlesworth 2008 – J.H. Charlesworth: The Historical Jesus. An Essential Guide, Nashville. Charlesworth 2010 – J.H. Charlesworth: “The Historical Jesus in the Fourth Gospel: A Paradigm Shift?” JSHJ, 8, 3 – 46.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Bibliography

277

Charlesworth – Weaver 1994 – J.H. Charlesworth and W.P. Weaver (Eds.): Images of Jesus Today, Valley Forge. Charlesworth – Johns 1997 – J.H. Charlesworth and L.L. Johns (Eds.): Hillel and Jesus. Comparative Studies of Two Major Religious Leaders, Minneapolis. Chilton 1994 – B. Chilton: “The Kingdom of God in Recent Discussion,” in: Chilton – Evans, 255 – 280. Chilton (2000) 2002 – B. Chilton: Rabbi Jesus. An Intimate Biography. The Jewish Life and Teaching That Inspired Christianity, New York – London. Chilton 2005 – B. Chilton: “Altruism in Christianity,” in: Neusner – Chilton, 53 – 66. Chilton 2010 – B. Chilton: The Way of Jesus. To repair and Renew the World, Nashville. Chilton – Evans 1994 – B. Chilton and C.A. Evans (Eds.): Studying the Historical Jesus. Evaluations of Current Research, Leiden. Chilton – Evans 1997 – B. Chilton and C.A. Evans (Eds.): Jesus in Context. Temple, Purity, and Restoration, Leiden. Christensen 1937 – A.D. Christensen: Forbryderen og Oprøreren fra Galilæa, København. Clausen – Frey 2008 – C. Clausen und J. Frey (Hrsg.): Jesus und die Archäologie Galiläas, Neukirchen – Vluyn. Clements 1998 – R.E. Clements: “Isaia 53 and the Restoration of Israel”, in: Bellinger – Farmer, 39 – 54. Cohn – Sherbok 1997 – D. Cohn-Sherbok: The Jewish Messiah, Edinburgh. A.Y. Collins – J.J. Collins 2008 – A.Y. Collins and J.J. Collins: King and Messiah as Son of God. Divine, Human, and Angelic Messianic Figures in Biblical and Related Literature, Grand Rapids. J.J. Collins 1995 – J.J. Collins: The Scepter and the Star: The Messiahs of the Dead Sea Scrolls and other Ancient Literature, New York. J.J. Collins 2011 – J.J. Collins: “The Son of Man in Ancient Judaism,” HSHJ, 2, 1545 – 1568. Collins – Harlow 2011 – J.J. Collins and D.C. Harlow (Eds.): Dictionary of Early Judaism, Grand Rapids – Cambridge, UK. Conzelmann (1954) 1962 – H. Conzelmann: Die Mitte der Zeit. Studien zur Theologi des Lukas, Tübingen. Cotter 1999 – W. Cotter : Miracles in Greco-Roman Antiquity, London – New York. Cotter 2006 – W. Cotter : “Miracle Stories: The God Asclepius, the Pythagorean Philosophers, and The Roman Rulers,” in: Levine – Allison – Crossan, 166 – 178. Cotter 2010 – W. Cotter : The Christ of the Miracle Stories. Portrait through Encounter, Grand Rapids. Cowdell 1996 – S. Cowdell: Is Jesus Unique? A Study of Recent Christology, New York. Craffert 2008 – P. Craffert: The Life of a Galilean Shaman. Jesus of Nazareth in Antropological Perspective, Eugene. Crane 2008 – A.S. Crane: Israel’s Restoration. A Textual-Comparative Exploration of Ezekiel 36 – 39, Leiden – Boston. Crossan (1991) 1993 – J.D. Crossan: The Historical Jesus. The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant, Edinburgh.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

278

Bibliography

Crossan 1994 – J.D. Crossan: Jesus. A Revolutionary Biography, San Francisco. Crossan 2010 – J.D. Crossan: “Jesus and the Challenge of Colloborative Eschatology,” in: Beilby – Eddy, 105 – 132. Crossley 2006 – J.G. Crossley : Why Christianity Happened. A Sociohistorical Account of Christian Origins (26 – 50 CE), Louisville – London. Cullmann (1957) 1963 – O. Cullmann: Die Christologie des Neuen Testaments, Tübingen. Cullmann 1970 – O. Cullmann: Jesus und die Revlutionären seiner Zeit, Tübingen. Cupitt 2009 – D. Cupitt: Jesus and Philosophy, London. Dahl (1960) 1962 – N.A. Dahl: “Der gekreuzigte Messias,” in: Ristow – Matthiae, 149 – 168. Dahl 1991 – N.A. Dahl: Jesus the Christ. The Historical Origins of Christological Doctrine, Ed. D.H. Juel, Minneapolis. D’Angelo 1992 – M.R. D’Angelo: “Abba and ‘Father’: Imperial Theology and the Traditions about Jesus,” JBL, 111, 611 – 630. D’Angelo 2006 – M.R. D’Angelo: “Abba and Father : Imperial Theology in the Context of Jesus and the Gospels,” in: Levine – Allison – Crossan, 64 – 78. Danz – Murmann-Kahl (2010) 2011 – C. Danz und M. Murmann-Kahl: Zwischen historischem Jesus und dogmatischem Christus, Tübingen. Davies 1995 – S.L. Davies: Jesus the Healer. Possession, Trance, and the Origins of Christianity, London. Davis 2005 – J.F. Davis: Lex Talionis in Early Judaism and the Exhortation of Jesus in Mattthew 5:38 – 42, London – New York. de Jonge 1991 – M. de Jonge: Jesus, the Servant-Messiah, New Haven – London. Dennis 2006 – J.A. Dennis: Jesus’ Death and the Gathering of the True Israel. The Johannine Appropriation of Restoration Theology in the Light of John 11:47 – 52, Tübingen. Destro – Pesce (2008) 2012 – A. Destro and M. Pesce: Encounters with Jesus. The Man in His Place and Time, Minneapolis. de Vaux 1973 – R. de Vaux: Archaeology and the Dead Sea Scrolls, London. Dibelius (1918) 1961 – M. Dibelius: Die Formgeshichte des Evangeliums, Tübingen. Diderichsen 1962 – B. Diderichsen: Den historiske Jesus, København. Dihle 1962 – A. Dihle: Der ,Goldene Regel’. Eine Einführung in die Geschichte der antiken und frühchristlichen Vulgärethik, Göttingen. Dochorn 2010 – J. Dochhorn: Schriftgelehrte Prophetie. Der eschatologische Teufelsfall im Apc Joh 12 und seine Bedeutung für das Verständnis der Johannesoffenbarung. Tübingen. Dodd (1935) 1961 – C.H. Dodd: The Parables of the Kingdom, Digswell Place. Dodd 1963 – C.H. Dodd: Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel, Cambridge. Dodd 1970 – C.H. Dodd: The Founder of Christianity, London. Doherty (1999) 2000 – E. Doherty : The Jesus Puzzle. Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ? Ottawa. Donaldson 2007 – T.L. Donaldson: Judaism and the Gentiles. Jewish Patterns of Universalism (to 135 CE), Waco.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Bibliography

279

Dormeyer 2010 – D. Dormeyer : Einführung in die Theologie des Neuen Testaments, Darmstadt. Downing 1988 – F.G. Downing: Christ and the Cynics. Jesus and other Radical Preachers in First Century Tradition, Sheffield. Downing 1992 – F.G. Downing: Cynics and Christian Origins, Edinburgh. Downing 2011 – F.G. Downing: “Jesus and Cynism,” HSHJ,2, 1105 – 1136. Drews (1911) 1924 – A. Drews: Die Christusmythe, Jena. Droogers 1980 – A. Droogers: “Symbols of Marginality in the Biographies of Religious and Secular Innovators,” Numen, 27, 105 – 121. Dungan 2011 – D.L. Dungan: “Dispencing with the Priority of Mark,” HSHJ, 2, 1313 – 1342. Dunn 1980 – J.D.G. Dunn: Christology in the Making. A New Testament Inquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation, London. Dunn 2003 – J.D.G. Dunn: Christianity in the Making, Vol. 1: Jesus Remembered, Grand Rapids – Cambridge. Dunn 2005 – J.D.G. Dunn: A New Perspective on Jesus. What the Quest for the Historical Jesus Missed, Grand Rapids. Dunn 2010 – J.D.G. Dunn: “Remembering Jesus. How the Quest of the Historical Jesus Lost Its Way,” in: Bejlby – Eddy 2010, 199 – 225. Dunn 2011a – J.D.G. Dunn: “Remembering Jesus: How the Quest of the Historical Jesus lost its Way,” HSHJ, 1, 183 – 205. Dunn 2011b – J.D.G. Dunn: Jesus, Paul, and the Gospels, Grand Rapids. Dunn – McKnight 2005 – J.D.G. Dunn and S. Mcknight (Eds.): The Historical Jesus in Recent Research, Winona Lake. Dupont-Sommer 1959 – A. Dupont-Sommer : Les ¦crits ess¦niens decouverts prÀs de la Mer Morte, Paris. du Toit 1997 – D.S. du Toit: Theios Antropos. Zur Verwendung von theios anthrúpos und sinnverwandte Ausdrucken in der Literatur der Kaiserzeit, Tübingen. Dzielska 1986 – M. Dzielska: Apollonius of Tyana in Legend and History, Roma. Eagleton 2007 – T. Eagleton: The Gospels. Jesus Christ. Introduction by Terry Eagleton. Texts Selected and Annotated by Giles Fraser, London – New York. Ebner (2004) 2007 – M. Ebner : Jesus von Nazaret. Was wir von ihm wirklich wissen, Stuttgart. Eddy – Boyd (2007) 2008 – P.R. Eddy and G.A. Boyd: The Jesus Legend. A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition, Grand Rapids, MI. Ehrman 1999 – B.D. Ehrman: Jesus. Apocalyptic prophet of the new millenium, Oxford. Ehrman 2009 – B.D. Ehrman: Jesus Interrupted, New York. Eisenman 1983 – R. Eisenman: Maccabees, Zadokites, Christians and Qumran. A New Hypothesis of Qumran Origins, Leiden. Eisenman 1986 – R. Eisenman: James the Just in the Habakkuk Pesher, Leiden. Eisenman 1996 – R. Eisenman: The Dead Sea Scrolls and the First Christians. Essays and Translations, Shaftesbury, UK – Rockport, MA. Eisler 1929 – 1930 – R. Eisler : Jesous basileus ou basileusas, Heidelberg.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

280

Bibliography

Elleg”rd 1992 – A. Elleg”rd: Myten om Jesus. Den tidigaste kristendomen i nytt ljus, Uddevalla. Elliott 2007 – J.H. Elliott: “Jesus the Israelite was neither a ‘Jew’ nor a ‘Christian’: On Correcting Misleading Nomenclature,” JSHJ, 5, 119 – 154. Engberg-Pedersen 1998 – T. Engberg Pedersen (red.): Den historiske Jesus og hans betydning, udvalgt, redigeret og med indledning af T.E.-P., København. Engels (1895) 1970 – F. Engels: “Über die Geschichte des Urchristentums,” Berlin. Enslin 1961 – M.S. Enslin: The Prophet from Nazareth, New York. Ensor 1996 – P.W. Ensor : Jesus and His Works. The Johannine Sayings in Historical Perspective, Tübingen. Eusebius (1926) 1975 – Eusebius: The Ecclesiastical History with an English Translation by Kirsopp Lake, LCL, Vol. 1 – 2, Cambridge, MA – London. Evans (1989) 1996 – C.A. Evans: Life of Jesus Research: An Annotated Bibliography, Leiden. Evans 1995 – C.A. Evans (Ed.): Jesus and his Contemporaries. Comparative Studies, Leiden. Evans 1997 – C.A. Evans: “Aspects of Exile and Restoration in the Proclamation of Jesus and the Gospels,” in: Chilton – C.A. Evans 1997, 263 – 293. Evans 2003 – C.A. Evans: “Defeating Satan and Liberating Israel: Jesus and Daniel’s Visions,” JSHJ, 1, 161 – 170. Evans 2006a – C.A. Evans: Fabricating Jesus. How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels, Downers Grove. Evans 2006b – C.A. Evans: “Asserting Progress in the Third Quest of the Historical Jesus,” JSHJ, 4, 2006, 35 – 54. Evans 2008 – C.A. Evans (Ed.): Encyclopedia of the Historical Jesus, London – New York. Evans 2009 – C.A. Evans: “Exorcisms and the Kingdom: Inaugurating the Kingdom of God and Defeating the Kingdom of Satan,” in: Bock – Webb, 151 – 179. Evans 2011 – C.A. Evens: “Prophet, Sage, Healer, Messiah, and Martyr,” HSHJ, 2, 1217 – 1243. Eve 2002 – E. Eve: The Jewish Context of Jesus’ Miracles, Sheffield. Eve 2009 – E. Eve: The healer from Nazareth: Jesus’ miracles in historical context, London. Farmer (1956) 1973 – W.R. Farmer : Maccabees, Zealots, and Josephus. An Inquiry into Jewish Nationalism in the Greco-Roman Period, New York. Farmer 1964 – W.R. Farmer : The Synoptic Problem. A Critical Analysis, New York – London. Fatum 1996 – L. Fatum: “Jesus, Kristus og metodernes mangfoldighed. Om eksegese som Teologisk discipling,” in: Fatum – Müller 1996, 89 – 106. Fatum – Müller 1996 – L. Farum og M. Müller (red.): Tro og historie. Festskrift til Niels Hyldahl i anledning af 65 ”rs fødselsdagen den 30. december 1995, København. Fenske 2005 – W. Fenske: Wie Jesus zum “Arier” wurde. Auswirkungen der Entjudaisierung Christi im 19. und zu Begin des 20. Jahrhunderts, Darmstadt. Ferguson 1975 – J. Ferguson: Utopias of the Classical World, London.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Bibliography

281

Festinger – Riecken – Schachter 1956 – L. Festinger, H.W. Riecken and S. Schachter : When Prophecy Fails, Minneapolis. Fiebig (1904) 1982 – P. Fiebig: Altjüdische Gleichnisse und die Gleichnisse Jesu, Tübingen – Leipzig. Fiensy 2007 – D.A. Fiensy : Jesus the Galilean. Soundings in a First Century Life, Piscataway. Finkelstein (1936) 1970 – L. Finkelstein: Akiba. Scholar, Saint and Martyr, New York. Finkelstein (1970) 1972 – L. Finkelstein: The Jews. Their History, New York. Fiorenza 2011 – E.S. Fiorenza: “Critical Feminist Historical-Jesus Research,” HSHJ, 1, 509 – 548. Fitzmyer 1993 – J.A. Fitzmyer: Romans. A New Translation with Introduction and Commantary, New York – London – Toronto – Sidney – Auckland. Fitzmyer 2000 – J.A. Fitzmeyer : The Dead Sea Scrolls and Christian Origins, Grand Rapids – Cambridge, UK. Fitzmyer 2007 – J.A. Fitzmyer: The One Who Is to Come, Grand Rapids – Cambridge. Fletcher-Louis 2011 – C. Fletcher-Louis: “Jewish Apocalyptic and Apocalypticism,” HSHJ, 2, 1569 – 1607. Flores d’Arcias 2011 – P. Flores d’Arcias: Gesffl. L’invenzione del Dio cristiano, Torino. Flusser (1968) 1975 – D. Flusser: Jesus in Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten, Hamburg. Flusser 1980 – D. Flusser: Die letzten Tage Jesu in Jerusalem. Das Passionsgeschehen aus jüdischer Sicht. Bericht über neueste Forschungsergebnisse, Stuttgart. Flusser 1981 – D. Flusser : Die rabbinischen Gleichnisse und der Gleichniserzählung Jesu. 1. Teil: Das Wesen der Gleichnisse, Bern – Frankfurt/M – Las Vegas. Flusser 1991 – D. Flusser: “Jesus, His Ancestry, and the Commendment of Love”, in: Charlesworth, 153 – 176. Flusser 1997 – D. Flusser: “Hillel and Jesus: Two Ways of Self-Awareness,” in: Charlesworth – Johns, 71 – 107. Flusser (1997) 2007 – D. Flusser: Jesus. In Collaboration with R. Steven Notley, Jerusalem. Förster 2012 – N. Förster : Jesus und die Steuerfrage. Die Zinsgrosschenperikope auf dem religiösen und politischen Hintergrund ihrer Zeit mit einer Edition von Pseudo-Hieronimus: De haeretibus Judaeorum, Tübingen. Fortna – Thatcher 2001 – R.T. Fortna and T. Thatcher (Eds.): Jesus in the Johannine Tradition, Louisville – London. Frederiksen (1988) 2000 – P. Frederiksen: From Jesus to Christ. The Origins of the New Testament Images of Jesus, New Haven – London. Frederiksen (1999) 2000 – P. Frederiksen: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. A Jewish Life and the Emergence of Christianity, London. Freedman – McClymond 2001 – D.N. Freedman and M. McClymond (Eds.): The Rivers of Paradise: Moses, Buddha, Confucius, Jesus, and Muhammed as Religious Founders, Grand Rapids. Freeman (2009) 2011 – C. Freeman: A New History of Early Christianity, New Heaven – London.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

282

Bibliography

Freeman 2010 – C. Freeman: Post-Metaphysics and the Paradoxical Teachings of Jesus. The Structure of the Real, New York – Bern. Freke – Gandy 1999 – T. Freke and P. Gandy : The Jesus Mysteries, San Francisco. Frend (1984) 1986 – W.H.C. Frend: The Rise of Christianity, London. Frey-Schröter 2010 – J. Frey und J. Schröter (Hrsg.): Jesus in den apokryphen Evangelienüberlieferungen aus verschiedenen Sprach- und Kulturtraditionen, Tübingen. Freyne (1980) 1981 – S. Freyne: Galilee from Alexander the Great to Hadrian, 323 B.C.E. to 135 C.E. A Study of Second Temple Judaism, Leiden. Freyne 2000 – S. Freyne: Galilee and Gospel. Collected Essays, Tübingen. Freyne 2001 – S. Freyne: “A Galilean Messiah?”, StTh, 55, 198 – 218. Freyne 2004 – S. Freyne: Jesus. A Jewish Galilean. A New Reading of the Jesus-Story, London – New York. Freyne – 2007 – S. Freyne: “Jesus and the ‘Servant’ Community in Zion: Continuity in Context,” in: Holm¦n 2007a, 109 – 124. Funk (1993) 1997 – R.W. Funk, R.W. Hoover and the Jesus-Seminar : The Five Gospels. The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus. New Translation and Commentary by…, San Francisco. Funk 1998 – R.W. Funk and the Jesus Seminar : The Acts of Jesus. The Search for the Authentic Deeds of Jesus, San Francisco. Funk 2002 – R.W. Funk: A Credible Jesus. Fragments of a Vision, Santa Rosa. Gabriel (2004) 2006 – M.A. Gabriel: Jesus und Mohammed. Erstaunliche Unterschiede und überraschende Ähnlichkeiten, Gräfeling (Translated from English). Gärtner 1965 – B. Gärtner : The Temple and the Community in Qumran and the New Testament, Cambridge. Gardner 2006 – J. Gardner : Jesus Who? Myth vs. Reality in the Search for the Historical Jesus, USA (printed by the author). Gatz 1967 – B. Gatz: Weltalter, goldene Zeit und sinnverwandte Vorstellungen, Hildesheim. Georgi 1992 – D. Georgi: “The Interest in Life of Jesus Theology as a Paradigm for the Social History of Biblical Criticism,” HTR, 85, 51 – 83. Gerhardsson (1961) 1964 – B. Gerhardsson: Memory and Manuscript. Oral Tradition and Written Transmission in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity, Uppsala. Gerhardsson (1977) 1978 – B. Gerhardsson: Evangeliernes forhistorie, ærhus. Gerhardsson 1999 – B. Gerhardsson: Jesu liknelser. En genomlysning, Lund. Gerhardsson 2001 – The Reliability of the Gospel Tradition, Peabody. Gnilka 2011 – J. Gnilka: Wer Waren Jesus und Muhammad? Ihr Leben in Vergleich, Freiburg – Basel – Wien. Goguel (1932) 1950 – M. Goguel: J¦sus et les origines du christianisme, I. La vie de J¦sus, Paris. Gooch 1996 – P.W. Gooch: Jesus and Socrates. Word and Silence, New Haven. Goodacre 2001 – M. Goodacre: The Synoptic Problem. A Way Through the Maze, London – New York.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Bibliography

283

Goodman 1994 – M. Goodman: Mission and Conversion. Proselytizing in the Religious History of the Roman Empire, Oxford. Goshen-Gottstein 1997 – A. Goschen-Gottstein: “Hillel and Jesus: Are Comparisons Possible?,” in: Charlesworth – Johns, 31 – 55. Goss 1993 – R. Goss: Jesus Acted Up. A Gay and Lesbian Manifesto, San Francisco. Goulder 2011 – M. Goulder : “Jesus without Q,” HSHJ, 2, 1287 – 1311. Gowler 2007 – D.B. Gowler : What Are They Saying about the Historical Jesus, Mahwah. Gradel 2002 – I. Gradel: Emperor Worship and Roman Religion, Oxford. Grässer (1957) 1960 – E. Grässer : Das Problem der Parusieverzögerung in den synoptischen Evangelien und in der Apostelgeschichte, Berlin. Grässer 1973 – E. Grässer : Die Naherwartung Jesu, Stuttgart. Graham 2010 – S.L. Graham: The Flesh was Made Word. A Metahistorical Critique of the Contemporary Quest for the Historical Jesus, Sheffield. Grant (1977) 1992 – M. Grant: Jesus. An Historian’s Review of the Gospels, New York. Graves (1976) 1994 – R. Graves: Kong Jesus, Lynge. Gray 1993 – R. Gray : Prophetic Figures in Late Second Temple Jewish Palestine. The Evidence from Josephus, New York-Oxford. Green 2002 – J.B. Green: Jesus and Moses. The Parallel Sayings, Berkeley. Green – Turner 1994 – J.B. Green and M.Turner (Eds.): Jesus of Nazareth. Lord and Christ. Essays nn the Historical Jesus and New Testament Christology, Grand Rapids. Grindheim 2011 – S. Grindheim: God’s Equal. What Can We Know about Jesus’ SelfUnderstanding, London – New York. Grindheim 2012 – S. Grindheim: Christology in the Synoptic Gospels. God or God’s Servant? London – New York. Gruenwald 1992 – I. Gruenwald et al. (Eds.): Messiah and Christos. Studies in the Jewish Origins of Christianity, Tübingen. Grundmann 1941 – W. Grundmann: Jesus der Galiläer und das Judenthum, Leipzig. Grønbech 1935 – V. Grønbech: Jesus Menneskesønnen, København. Gudmand-Høyer 1997 – E. Gudmand-Høyer: Jesus, Kristus og kirken. Et sagligt korstog mod hellige køer, København. Günther – Müller 1988 – R. Günther/Reimar Müller : Das goldene Zeitalter. Utopien der hellenistisch – römischen Antike, Stuttgart. Hadas – Smith 1965 – M. Hadas and Morton Smith: Heroes and Gods. Spiritual Biographies in Antiquity, London. Hägglund 1956 – B. Hägglund: Teologiens historia. En dogmehistorisk översikt, Lund. Hahn (1963) 1966 – F. Hahn: Christologische Hoheitstitel. Ihre Geschichte im frühen Christentum, Göttingen. Hahn (2002) 2005 – F. Hahn: Theologie des Neuen Testaments, Bd 1, Die Vielfalt des Neuen Testaments. Theologiegschichte des Urchistentums; Bd 2, Die Einheit des Neuen Testaments. Tematische Darstellung, Tübingen. Hallbäck 1998a – G. Hallbäck: “Den historiske Jesus som teologisk projekt – en kritisk betragtning,” in: Engberg-Pedersen 1998, 159 – 177.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

284

Bibliography

Hallbäck 1998b – G. Hallbäck: “Jesus” in GBL. Hammer 2009 – O. Hammer (Ed.): Alternative Christs, Cambridge. Hampel 1990 – V. Hampel: Menschensohn und historischer Jesus. Ein Rätzelwort als Schlüssel zum messianischen Selbtverständnis Jesu, Neukirchen – Vluyn. Hansen 1983 – K. Hansen: Forargelsen. Senjødedommen og Jesu forkyndelse, København. Harnack (1900) 2005 – A. von Harnack: Das Wesen des Christentums, Tübingen. Harrington 1988 – D.J. Harrington: The Maccabean Revolt. Anatomy of a Biblical Revolution, Wilmington, DE. Harrington 2010 – D.J. Harrington: Historical Dictionary of Jesus, Lanham – Toronto – Plymouth. Harvey 1982 – A.E. Harvey : Jesus and the Constraints of History. The Bampton Lectures 1980, London. Hedrick 1994 – Ch.W. Hedrick: Parables as Poetic Fictions. The Creative Voice of Jesus, Peabody. Heiler 1961 – F. Heiler : Erscheinungsformen und Wesen der Religion, Stuttgart. Heiligenthal (1997) 1999 – R. Heiligenthal: Der verfälschte Jesus. Eine Kritik moderner Jesusbilder, Darmstadt. Hellerman 2007 – J.H. Hellerman: Jesus and the People of God. Reconfiguering Ethnic Identity, Sheffield. Helms 1927 – P. Helms: Jesus og Nutiden, København. Hendriks 2006 – O.M. Hendriks: The Politics of Jesus. Rediscovering the True Revolutionary Nature of Jesus’ Teaching and How They have Been Corrupted, New York. Hengel (1961) 1976 – M. Hengel: Die Zeloten. Untersuchungen zur jüdischen Freiheitsbewegung in der Zeit von Herodes I. bis 70 N. Chr., Leiden – Köln. Hengel 1968 – M. Hengel: Nachfolge und Charisma. Eine Exegetisch-religionsgeschichtliche Studie zu Mt 8,21 f. und Jesu Ruf in die Nachfolge, Berlin. Hengel 1970 – M. Hengel: War Jesus Revolutionär? Stuttgart. Hengel (1975) 1977 – M. Hengel: Der Sohn Gottes. Die Entstehung der Christologie und die jüdisch-hellenistische Religionsgeschichte, Tübingen. Hengel – Schwemer 2007 – M. Hengel und Anna Maria Schwemer : Jesus und das Judentum. Geschichte des frühen Christentums, Bd. 1, Tübingen. Herbst 1979 – K. Herbst: Was wollte Jesus selbst? Vorkirchlichen Jesusworten in den Evangelien, Bd. 1, Düsseldorf. Herbst 1981 – K. Herbst: Was wollte Jesus selbst? Vorkirchlichen Jesusworten in den Evangelien, Bd. 2, Düsseldorf. Herrenbrück 1990 – F. Herrenbrück: Jesus und die Zöllner. Historische und neutestamentlich- exegetische Untersuchungen, Tübingen. R. Herzog 1931 – R. Herzog: Die Wunderheilungen von Epidauros. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Medizin und der Religion, Leipzig. W.R. Herzog 2000 – W.R. Herzog II: Jesus, Justice, and the Reign of God. A Ministry of Liberation, Louisville.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Bibliography

285

W.R. Herzog 2005 – W.R. Herzog II: Prophet and Teacher. An Introduction to the Historical Jesus, Louisville. Heschel 2007 – S. Heschel: The Aryan Jesus. Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany, Princeton. Hick – Knitter 1987 – J. Hick and Paul Knitter : The Myth of Christian uniqueness?, Maryknoll – London. Hidal 1986 – S. Hidal: Judendom och kristendom under de förste ”rhundradena, Tromsjø. C.E. Hill (1992) 2001 – C.E. Hill: Regnum Coelorum. Patterns of Future Hope in Early Christianity, Oxford. D. Hill 1979 – D. Hill: “Jesus and Josephus’ ‘Messianic Prophets,” in: Best – Wilson, 143 – 154. Hinneberg 1909 – P. Hinneberg (Hrsg.): Die Kultur der Gegenwart. Ihre Entwickelung und ihre Ziele, Berlin – Leipzig. Hirschberg 2004 – P. Hirschberg: Jesus von Nazareth. Eine historische Spurensuche, Darmstadt. Hoffman 2007 – M. Hoffman: From Rebel to Rabbi. Reclaiming Jesus and the Making of Modern Jewish Culture, Stanford. Holm¦n (1999) 2001a – T. Holm¦n: Jesus and the Jewish Covenant Thinking, Vol. 1, Leiden. Holm¦n 2001b – T.Holm¦n: “A Theologically Disinterested Quest? On the Origins of the ‘Third Quest’ for the Historical Jesus,” StTh, 55, 175 – 197. Holm¦n 2007a – T. Holm¦n (Ed.): Jesus from Judaism to Christianity. Continuum Approaches to the Historical Jesus, London – New York. Holm¦n 2007b – T. Holm¦n: “An Introduction to the Continuum Approach,” in: Holm¦n 2007a, 1 – 16. Holm¦n 2012 – T. Holm¦n: Jesus in Continuum, Tübingen. Holm¦n – Porter 2011 – T. Holm¦n and Stanley E. Porter (Eds.): Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus (HSHJ), Vol. 1 – 4, Leiden – Boston. Holtzmann 1911 – H.J. Holtzmann: Lehrbuch der neutestamentlichen Theologie in zwei Bänden, Tübingen. Hooker 1959 – M.D. Hooker : Jesus and the Servant. The Influence of the Servant Concept of Deutero-Isaiah in the New Testament, London. Hooker 1997 – M. Hooker : The Signs of a Prophet. The Prophetic Acts of Jesus, London. Horbury 1998 – W. Horbury : Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ, London. Horbury 2003 – W. Horbury : Messianism among Jews and Christians. Twelve Biblical Historical Studies, London – New York. Horman 2011 – J. Horman: A Common Written Greek Source for Mark and Thomas, Waterloo. Horsley (1987) 1993 – R.A. Horsley : Jesus and the Spiral of Violence. Popular Jewish Resistance in Roman Palestine, San Francisco. Horseley 1994 – R.A. Horsley : “Jesus Itinerant-Cynic or Israelite Prophet?” in: Charlesworth – Weaver, 69 – 97.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

286

Bibliography

Horsley 1995 – R.A. Horsley : Galilee. History, Politics, People, Valley Forge. Horsley 1996 – R.A. Horsley : Archaeology, History, and Society in Galilee. The Social Context of Jesus and the Rabbis, Valley Forge. Horsley 2003 – R.A. Horsley : Jesus and Empire. The Kingdom of God and the New World Disorder, Minneapolis. Horsley 2008a – R.A. Horsley (Ed.): In the Shadow of Empire. Reclaiming the Bible as a History of Faithful Resistence, Louisville – London. Horsley 2008b – R.A. Horsley : “Jesus and Empire,” in: Horsley 2008a, 75 – 96. Horsley 2008c – R.A. Horsley : Jesus in Context. Power, People, & Performance, Minneapolis. Horsley 2010a – R.A. Horsley : Jesus and the Powers. Conflict, Covenant, and the Hope of the Poor, Minneapolis. Horsley 2010b – R.A. Horsley : “Jesus and the Politics of Roman Palestine,” JSHJ, 8, 99 – 145. Horsley 2012 – R.A. Horsley : The Prophet Jesus and the Renewal of Israel. Moving Beyond a Diversionary Debate, Grand Rapids, MI – Cambridge, UK. Horsley – Silberman (1997) 2002 – R.A. Horsley and N.A. Silberman: The Message and the, Kingdom. How Jesus and Paul Ignited a Revolution and Transformed the Ancient World, New York. Hultgren 2011 – A.J. Hultgren: “The Message of Jesus II: Parables,” HSHJ, 3, 2549 – 2571. Humphreys 2011 – C.J. Humphreys: The Mystery of the Last Supper. Reconstructing the Final Days of Jesus, Cambridge. Hurtado 2003 – L.W. Hurtado: Lord Jesus Christ. Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity, Grand Rapids. Hyldahl (1993) 1997 – N. Hyldahl: Den ældste kristendoms historie, Eng. Translation: The History of Early Christianity, Frankfurt/M – Berlin – New York – Paris – Wien. Jacobi 1978 – F. Jacobi: Jesu død og opstandelse. Læsninger i Det nye Testamente, København. Jacobi 2005 – F. Jacobi: Sokrates & Jesus. Essays om to processer, ærhus. Jaff¦ 2009 – D. Jaff¦: J¦sus sous la plume des historiens juifs du XX’e siÀcle. Approche historique, perspectives historiographiques, analyses m¦thologiques, Paris. Janowski – Stuhlmacher 1996 – B. Janowski und P. Stuhlmacher (Hrsg.): Der leidende Gottesknecht. Jesaja 53 und seine Wirkungsgeschichte, mit einer Bibliographie, Tübingen. Jensen 2006 – M.H. Jensen: Herod Antipas in Galilee. The Literary and Archaeological Sources on the Reign of Herod Antipas and its Socio-Economic Impact on Galilee, Tübingen. Jensen 2007 – M.H. Jensen: “Herod Antipas in Galilee: Friend or Foe of the Historical Jesus,” JSHJ, 5, 7 – 32. Jensen 2008 – M.H. Jensen: “Galilæa, jord og den historiske Jesus,” DTT, 71, 114 – 135. Jeppesen 1986 – K. Jeppesen: “Den nye pagt i Det Gamle Testamente og den antike jødedom,” in: Hidal, 68 – 84.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Bibliography

287

Jepsen 2005 – B.K. Jepsen: Jesus ville henrettes. Jesus s” sit offentlige virke som et opgør med det patriarkalske menneskesyn i b”de religion og samfund. En teori om den historiske Jesus, Sabro. G. Jeremias 1963 – G. Jeremias: Der Lehrer der Gerechtigkeit, Göttingen. J. Jeremias (1947) 1958 – J. Jeremias: Die Gleichnisse Jesu, Göttingen. J. Jeremias (1949) 1966 – J. Jeremias: “Der Gedanke des ‘Heiligen Restes’ im Spätjudentum und in der Verkündigung Jesu”, in: Jeremias 1966, 121 – 132. J. Jeremias (1954) 1966 – J. Jeremias: “Kennzeichnen der ipsissima vox Jesu,” in: 1966, 145 – 152. J. Jeremias (1956) 1959 – J. Jeremias: Jesu Verheissung für die Völker, Stuttgart. J. Jeremias 1966 – J. Jeremias: Abba. Studien zur neutestamentlichen Theologie und Zeitgeschichte, Göttingen. J. Jeremias 1971 – J. Jeremias: Neutestamentliche Theologie. Erster Teil: Die Verkündigung Jesu, Gütersloh. Jervell 1962 – J. Jervell: Den historiske Jesus, Oslo. Johnson (1996) 1997 – L.T. Johnson: The Real Jesus. The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels, New York. Johnson 2010 – L.T. Johnson: “Learning the Human Christ. Historical Criticism and Literary Criticism,” in: Bejlby – Eddy, 153 – 187. Josephus 1926 – 1965 – Josephus: Josephus with an English Translation by H.St.J. Thackeray (et al.) in nine Volumes, LCL, vol. I – IX, London – Cambridge, MA. Juel 1977 – D. Juel: Messiah and Temple. The Trial of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark, Missoula. Jülicher 1909 – A. Jülicher : “Die Religion Jesu und die Anfänge des Christentums bis zum Nicaenum,” in: Hinneberg, 42 – 131. Jülicher (1910) 1969 – A. Jülicher : Die Gleichnisreden Jesu. Zwei Teile in einem Band, Darmstadt. Jüngel (1962) 1972 – E. Jüngel: Paulus und Jesus, Tübingen. Kähler (1892) 1956 – M. Kähler : Der sogenannte historische Jesus und der geschichtliche, biblische Christus, München. Käsemann (1954) 1965 – E. Käsemann: “Das Problem des historischen Jesus”, ZThK, 51, 125 – 153 (= Exegetische Versuche und Besinnungen, Vol. 1 – 2, Göttingen, 1, 187 – 214). Karrer 1991 – M. Karrer : Der Gesalbte. Die Grundlagen des Christustitels, Göttingen. Karrer 1998 – M. Karrer: Jesus Kristus im Neuen Testament, Göttingen. Kautsky 1908 – K. Kautsky : Der Ursprung des Christentums. Eine historische Untersuchung, Stuttgart Kazen 2002 – T. Kazen: Jesus and Purity Halakha. Was Jesus Indifferent to Impurity? Stockholm. Kearney – Zeitz 2009 – M. Kearny and J. Zeitz: World Saviors and Messiahs in the Roman Empire, 28 BCE – 135 CE. The Soterial Age, Lewyston – Quenston – Lampeter. Keck (1972) 1981 – L.E. Keck: A Future for the Historical Jesus. The Place of Jesus in Preaching and Theology, Philadelphia.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

288

Bibliography

Keck 2000 – L.E. Keck: Who Is Jesus? History in the Perfect Tense, Columbia. Kee (1970) 1996 – H.C. Kee: Jesus in History. An Approach to the Study of the Gospels, Philadelphia. Kee 1983 – H.C. Kee: Miracle in the Early Christian World. A Study in Sociohistorical Method, New Haven – London. Kee (1986) 1990 – H.C. Kee: Medicine, Miracle and Magic in New Testament Times, Cambridge. Kee (1990) 1991 – H.C. Kee: What Can We Know About Jesus? Cambridge. Keener 2009 – C.S. Keener : The Historical Jesus of the Gospels, Grand Rapids – Cambridge. Kelly 1994 – J.L. Kelly : Conscientious Objections. Toward a Reconstruction of the Social and Political Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth, Lewyston. Kennard 1945 – 1946 – J.S. Kennard: “Judas of Galilee and his Clan”, JQR, 36, 281 – 286. Kirk (1950) 1972 – H. Kirk: Vredens søn, København. Kjærgaard 1986 – M.S. Kjærgaard: Metaphor and Parable. A Systematic Analysis of the Specific Structure and Cognitive Function of the Synoptic Similes and Parables qua Metaphors, Leiden. Klassen 1984 – W. Klassen: Love of Enemies. The Kea to Peace, Philadelphia. Klatt 1990 – N. Klatt: Jesu und Buddhas Wasserwandel, Göttingen. Klausner (1907) 1952 – J. Klausner : Jesus von Nazareth. Seine Zeit, sein Leben und seine Lehre, Jerusalem. (Originally in Hebrew (1907, English translation 1928). Klein 1961 – G. Klein: Die zwölf Apostel. Ursprung und Gestalt einer Idee, Göttingen. Kloppenborg (1987) 1999 – J.S. Kloppenborg: The Formation of Q. Trajectories in Ancient Wisdom Collections, Harrisburg, PA. Kloppenborg 1994 – J.S. Kloppenborg: The Shape of Q. Signal Essays on the Sayings Gospel, Mineaplis, MN. Kloppenborg 2000 – J.S. Kloppenborg: Excavating Q. The History of the Sayings Gospel, Edinburg. Kloppenborg 2008 – J.S. Kloppenborg: Q, the Earliest Gospel. An Introduction to the Original Stories and Sayings of Jesus, Louisville, KY – London. Klostermann 1929 – E. Klostermann: Das Matthäusevangelium, Tübingen. Knitter 1985 – P.F. Knitter : No Other Name? A Critical Survey of Christian Attitudes toward World Religions, London. Knitter 1997 – P.F. Knitter: “Five Theses on the Uniqueness of Jesus,” in: Swidler – Mojzes, 3 – 16. Knohl 2000 – I. Knohl: The Messiah Before Jesus. The Suffering Servant of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Berkeley – Los Angeles – London. Knoppers 2009 – G.N. Knoppers et al. (Eds.): Exile and Restoration Revisited. Essays on the Babylonian and Persian Periods in Memory of Peter R. Ackroyd, London – New York. Köstenberger – O’Brian 2001 – A.J. Köstenberger and P.T. O’Brian: Salvation to the Ends of the Earth. A Biblical Theology of Mission, Downers Grove.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Bibliography

289

Koester (1997) 2007 – H. Koester : “The Historical Jesus and His Sayings”, in: H. Koester : From Jesus to the Gospels. Interpreting the New Testament, Minneapolis, 264 – 284. Kollmann 2011 – B. Kollmann: “Jesus and Magic: The Question of Miracles,” HSHJ, 4, 3057 – 3085. Komoszewski – Sawyer – Wallace 2006 – J.E. Komoszewaki, M.J. Sawyer and D.B. Wallace: Reinventing Jesus, Grand Rapids. Konstan 2010 – D. Konstan: Before Forgiveness. The Origins of a Moral Idea, Cambridge. Koskenniemi (1992) 1994 – E. Koskenniemi: Apollonios von Tyana in der neutestamentliche Exegese. Forschungsbericht und Weiterführung der Diskussion, Tübingen. Kreplin 2001 – M. Kreplin: Das Selbstverständnis Jesu. Hermeneutische und Christologische Reflexion. Historisch-kritische Analyse, Tübingen. Kreplin 2011 – M. Kreplin: “The Self-Understanding of Jesus,” HSHJ, 3, 2473 – 2516. Kümmel (1945) 1956 – W.G. Kümmel: Verheissung und Erfüllung. Untersuchungen zur eschatologischen Verkündigung Jesu, Basel. Kümmel (1958) 1970 – W.G. Kümmel: Das Neue Testament. Geschichte seiner Probleme, Freiburg – München. Kümmel 1970 – W.G. Kümmel: Das Neue Testament im 20. Jahrhundert. Ein Forschungsbericht. Kümmel (1985) 1994 – W.G. Kümmel: Vierzig Jahre Jesusforschung (1950 – 1990), Hrsg. von H. Merklein, Bonn. Küng 2012 – H. Küng: Jesus, Zürich. Künzi 1970 – M. Künzi: Das Naherwartungslogion Matthäus 10,23, Tübingen. Künzi 1977 – M. Künzi: Das Naherwartungslogion Markus 9,1 Par. Geschichte seiner Auslegung, Tübingen. Kuhn 2011 – H.-W. Kuhn: “Jesus im Licht der Qumrangemeinde,” HSHJ, 2, 1245 – 1286. Kvalbein 1981 – H. Kvalbein: Jesus og de fattige. Jesu syn p” de fattige og hans bruk av ord for “fattig,” Oslo. Kvalbein 2008 – H. Kvalbein: Jesus – hva ville han? Hvem var han? En innføring i de tre første evangelienes budskap, Oslo. Laaksonen 2002 – J.P. Laaksonen: Jesus und das Land. Das Gelobte Land in der Verkündigung Jesu, æbo. Laato 1997 – A. Laato: A Star Is Rising. The Historical Development of the Old Testament Royal Ideology and the Rise of the Jewish Messianic Expectations, Atlanta. Lagerkvist(1950) 1955 – P. Lagerkvist: Barabas, Købnhavn. Lang, 2010 – B. Lang: Jesus der Hund. Leben und Lehre eines jüdischen Kynikers, München. Lanczkowski 1978 – G. Langczkowski: Einführung in die Religionsphänomenologie, Darmstadt.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

290

Bibliography

Laperrousaz 1982 – E.-M. Laperrousaz: L’attente du Messie en Palestine — la veille et au d¦but de l’Àre chr¦tienne — la lumiÀre des documents d¦douverts, Paris. Lapide 1974 – P. Lapide: Der Rabbi von Nazareth. Wandlungen des jüdischen Jesusbildes, Trier. Lapide 1976 – P. Lapide: Ist das nicht Josephs Sohn? Jesus im heutigen Judentum, Stuttgart – München. Lapide 1990 – P. Lapide: Jesus – ein gekreuzigter Pharisäer? Gütersloh. Lee 1988 – B.J. Lee: The Galilean Jewishness of Jesus: Retrieving the Jewish Origins of Christianity, New York. Lehmann 1970 – J. Lehmann: Jesus-Report. Protokoll einer Verfälschung, Düsseldorf – Wien. Leivestad 1982 – R. Leivestad: Hvem ville Jesus være? Oslo. Lemche 2008 – N.P. Lemche: Det Gamle Testaente mellem teologi og historie. Den historisk-kritiske bibelforsknings storhed og fald, København. Lenowitz 1998 – H. Lenowitz: The Jewish Messiahs. From Galilee to Crown Heights, New York – Oxford. Lessing (1788) 1835 – G.E. Lessing (Hrsg.): Fragmente des wolfenbüttelschen Ungenannten, Berlin. Levine 2006 – A.-J. Levine: “Introduction,” in: Levine – Allison – Crossan 2008, 1 – 39. Levine – Allison – Crossan 2006 – A.-J. Levine, D.C. Allison and J.D. Crossan (Eds.): The Historical Jesus in Context, Princeton – Oxford. Levinson 2006 – J.D. Levinson: Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel. The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life, New Haven – London. Licona 2010 – M.R. Licona: “Did Jesus Predict his Death and Vindication/ Resurrection?”JSHJ, 8, 47 – 66. Liderbach 2009 – D. Liderbach: The Jesus of History as the Christ of Faith, New York. Lietzmann (1932) 1961 – H. Lietzmann: Geschichte der Alten Kirche, Berlin – Leipzig. Lindberg 2008 – C. Lindberg: Love. A Brief History Through Western Christianity, Oxford. Lindeskog (1938) 1973 – G. Lindeskog: Die Jesusfrage im neuzeitlichen Judentum. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung. Loader 1997 – W.R.G. Loader : Jesus’ Attitude towards the Law. A Study of the Gospels, Tübingen. Loader 2011 – W.R.G. Loader : “Jesus and the Law,” HSHJ, 3, 2745 – 2772. Lohfink (2011) 2012 – G. Lohfink: Jesus von Nazaret – was er wollte, wer er war, Freiburg – Basel – Wien. Lohmeyer (1921) 1973 – E. Lohmeyer : Soziale Fragen im Urchristentum, Darmstadt. Lohmeyer (1945) 1953 – E. Lohmeyer : Gottesknecht und Davidssohn, Göttingen. Lohse (1955) 1963 – E. Lohse: Märtyrer und Gottesknecht. Untersuchungen zur urchristlichen Verkündigung vom Sühnetod Jesu, Göttingen. Lüdemann 2000 – G. Lüdemann: Jesus nach 2000 Jahren. Was er wirklich sagte und tat, Lüneburg. Lunny 1994 – W.J. Lunny : The Jesus Option, New York.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Bibliography

291

Luz – Michaels 2002 – U. Luz and A. Michaels: Encountering Jesus and Buddha: Their Lives and Teachings, Minneapolis. Løgstrup (1956) 1958 – K.E. Løgstrup: Den etiske fordring, København – Stockholm – Oslo – Helsingford. Machovec (1972) 1976 – M. Machovec: A Marxist Looks at Jesus, London. Mack 1993 – B.L. Mack: The Lost Gospel. The Book of Q and Christian Origins, Rockport. Mack 1996 – B.L. Mack: “Jagten p” den historiske Jesus,” RvT, 29, 35 – 54. Mack 2001 – B.L. Mack: The Christian Myth. Origins. Logic, and Legacy, New York – London. Maier (1978) 1992 – J. Maier : Jesu von Nazareth in der talmudischen Überlieferung, Darmstadt. Manson (1953) 1961 – T.W. Manson: The Servant Messiah. A Study of the Public Ministry of Jesus, Cambridge. Marshall 1977 – I.H. Marshall: I Believe in the Historical Jesus, London – Grand Rapids. Marshall 2004a – I.H. Marshall: New Testament Theology, Downers Grove. Marshall 2004b – I.H. Marshall: A Concise New Testament Theology, Downers Grove – Nottingham. Marshall 2008 – I.H. Marshall: A Concise New Testament Theology, Downers Grove – Nottingham (An abbreviated version of Marshall 2004b). Marshall 2009 – I.H. Marshall: “Ch. 11. The Last Supper,” in: Bock – Webb, 481 – 578. Martin (1994) 1995 – R.A. Martin: Studies in the Life and Ministry of the Historical Jesus, Mangham – New York – London. Mart†nez (1992) 1994 – F.G. Mart†nez: The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated. The Qumran Texts in English, Leiden – New York – Cologne. Mason 1992 – S. Mason: Josephus and the New Testament, Peabody. Mason 1998 – S. Mason: Understanding Josephus. Seven Perspectives, Sheffield. Mason 2009 – S. Mason: Josephus, Judea, and Christian Origins, Peabody, MA. Mason 2011 – S. Mason: “The Writings of Josephus: Their Significance for New Testament Study,” HSHJ, 2, 1639 – 1686. Mayer-Haas 2003 – A.J. Mayer- Haas: “Geschenk aus Gottes Schatzkammer” (bSchab 10b). Jesus und der Sabbat im Spiegel der neutestamentlichen Schriften, Münster. Mayer 1998 – R. Mayer (Mitarbeit Inken Rühle): War Jesus der Messias? Geschichte der Messiasse Israels in drei Jahrtausenden, Tübingen. Mayordomo – Smit 2011 – M. Mayordomo and Peter-Ben Smit: “The Quest for the Historical Jesus in Postmodern Perspective,” HSHJ, 2, 1377 – 1409. McKnight 1999 – S. McKnight: A New Vision for Israel. The Teaching of Jesus in National Context, Grand Rapids – Cambridge. Mead (1901) 1966 – G.R.S. Mead: Apollonius of Tyana. The Philosopher-Reformer of the First Century A.D., New York. Meadors 1995 – E.P. Meadors: Jesus the Messianic Herold of Salvation. A Study of Q and Mark, Tübingen. Meeks 2006 – W.A. Meeks: Christ Is the Question, Louisville.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

292

Bibliography

Meier 1991 – 2009 – J.P. Meier : A Marginal Jew. Rethinking the Historical Jesus. Vol. One: The Roots of the Person (1991). Vol. Two: Mentor, Message, and Miracles (1994). Vol. III: Companions and Competitors (2001). Vol. IV: Law and Love (2009), New York – London. Mendels 1994 – D. Mendels: “Jesus and the Politics of His Day,” in: Charlesworth – Weaver, 98 – 112. Merklein (1978) 1984 – H. Merklein: Die Gottesherrschaft als Handlungsprinzip. Untersuchung zur Ethik Jesu, Würzburg. Merklein (1983) 1989 – H. Merklein: Jesu Botschaft von der Gottesherrschaft, Stuttgart. Meshorer 1967 – Y. Meshorer : Jewish Coins of the Second Temple Period, Tel-Aviv. Meye 1968 – R.P. Meye: Jesus and the Twelve. Discipleship and Relevation in Mark’s Gospel, Grand Rapids, MI. B.F. Meyer 1979 – B.F. Meyer: The Aims of Jesus, London. E. Meyer (1921) 1962 – E. Meyer: Ursprung und Anfänge des Christentums. Zweiter Band: Die Entwicklung des Judentums und Jesus von Nazareth, Darmstadt. R. Meyer (1940) 1970 – R. Meyer : Der Prophet aus Galiläa. Studie zum Jesusbild der drei ersten Evangelien, Darmstadt. Mildenberg 1984 – L. Mildenberg: The Coinage of the Bar-Kochba War, Aarau – Frankfurt/M. – Salzburg. Miller 2001 – R.J. Miller (Ed.): The Apokalyptic Jesus. A Debate, Santa Rosa. Moore (1927) 1970 – G.F. Moore: Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era, the Age of the Tannaim, Vol. I – III, Cambridge, MA. Moser 2009 – P.U. Moser (Ed.): Jesus and Philosophy. New Essays, Cambridge – New York. Moule 1977 – C.F.D. Moule: The Origin of Christology, Cambridge. Mowinckel 1951 – S. Mowinckel: Han som kommer. Messiasforventningen i Det gamle Testament og p” Jesu tid, København. Moxnes 2000 – H. Moxnes (red.): Jesus – ”r 2000 etter Kristus, Oslo. Moxnes 2003 – H. Moxnes: Putting Jesus in His Place. A Radical Vision of Household and Kingdom, Louisville – London. Müller 1972 – M. Müller : Messias og “menneskesøn” i Daniels Bog, Første Enoksbog og Fjerde Ezrabog, København. Müller 1975 – M. Müller : “Historikernes Jesus, den historiske Jesus og kirkens Kristusforkyndelse,” DTT, 38, 81 – 104. Müller 1978 – M. Müller : Jesus-opfattelser i den nytestamentlige forskning, København. Müller 1980 – M. Müller : “Hvad skal vi stille op med den historiske Jesus?,” Fønix, 4, 170 – 183. Müller 1984 – M. Müller : Der Ausdruck “Menschensohn” in den Evangelien. Voraussetzungen und Bedeutung, Leiden. Müller 1996 – M. Müller : “Jesus fra Nazaret, en jødisk messias? Nogle overvejelser om den historiske Jesus,” in: Fatum – Müller 1996, 172 – 181. Müller 2008a – M. Müller : Jesu-liv-litteratur i Danmark, København.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Bibliography

293

Müller 2008ab – M. Müller : The Expression ‘Son of Man’ and the Development of Christology. A History of Interpretation, Lonson – Oakville. Nacpil (1998) 1999 – E.P. Nacpil: Jesus’ Strategy for Social Transformation, Nashville. Nelson-Pallmeyer 2001 – J. Nelson-Pallmeyer: Jesus against Christianity. Reclaiming the Missing Jesus, Harrisburg. Neusner (1962) 1970 – J. Neusner : A Life of Yohanan Ben Zakkai. Ca. 1 – 80, Leiden. Neusner 1993 – J. Neusner : A Rabbi Talks with Jesus: An Interfaifth Exchange, New York – London – Toronto – Sidney – Auckland. Neusner – Chilton 2005 – J. Neusner and B. Chilton (Eds.): Altruism in World Religions, Washington. Neusner – Chilton 2008 – J. Neusner amd N. Chilton (Eds.): The Golden Rule. The Ethics of Reciprocity in World Religions, New York – London. Nichlas 2011 – T. Nicklas: “Traditions about Jesus in the Apocryphal Gospels (with the exception of the Gospel of Thomas,” HSHJ, 3, 2081 – 2118. Nichols 2008 – S.J. Nichols: Jesus Made in America. A Cultural History from thge Puritans to The Passion of Christ, Downers Grove. Niederwimmer 1968 – K. Niederwimmer : Jesus, Göttingen. C.L. Nielsen 1879 – C.L. Nielsen: Apollonios fra Tyana og Filostrats Beskrivelse af hans Levnet. Med en Oversættelse af Eusebs Gjenmæle mod Hierokles i Anledning af Dennes Sammenstilling af Apollonios og Kristus. Et Bidrag til Kulturhistorie og Kritik, København. D. Nielsen (1924) 1933 – D. Nielsen: Den historiske Jesus. Fremtidens Religion, København. H.K. Nielsen 1987 – H. Kjær Nielsen: Heilung und Verkündigung. Das Verständnis der Heilung und ihres Verhältnises zur Verkündigung bei Jesus und in der ältesten Kirche, Leiden – New York – København – Köln. Niemand 2007 – C. Niemand: Jesus und sein Weg zum Kreuz. Ein historischrekonstruktives und theologisches Modelbild, Stuttgart. Nissen 1974 – A. Nissen: Gott und der Nächste im antiken Judentum. Untersuchungen zum Doppelgebot der Liebe, Tübingen. Noack 1965a – B. Noack: Markusevangeliets lignelseskapitel, København. Noack 1965b – B. Noack: “Jesu forkyndelse”, GDB, Vol. 1, 963 – 974. Noack 1967 – Guds rige i os eller iblandt os. Jesusordet, Lukas 17,21, København. Noack 1969 – B. Noack: Om Fadervor, København. Noack 1975 – B. Noack: Jesus Ananiassøn og Jesus fra Nazaret, København. Nøjgaard 1975 – N. Nøjgaard: Portræt af Jesus, København. Nørgaard 1975 – E. Nørgaard: Partisanen Jesus, København. Oakman 1986 – D. Oakman: Jesus and the economic Questions of his day, Lewiston. Oakman 2008 – D.E. Oakman: Jesus and the Peasants. Eugene. Oakman 2012 – D.E. Oakman: The Political Aims of Jesus, Minneapolis. Oberlinner 1980 – L. Oberlinner : Todeserwartung und Todesgewissheit Jesu. Zum Problem einer historischen Begründung, Stuttgart.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

294

Bibliography

Oegema 1994 – G.S. Oegema: Der Gesalbte und sein Volk. Untersuchungen zum Konzeptualisierungsprozess der messianischen Erwartungen von den Makkabäern bis Bar Koziba, Göttingen. Öhler 1997 – M. Öhler : Elia im Neuen Testament. Untersuchungen zur Bedeutung des alttestamentlichen Propheten im frühen Christentum, Berlin – New York. Öhler 1999 – M. Öhler : “The Expectation of Elijah and the Presence of the Kingdom of God”, JBL, 118, 461 – 476. Orchard (1976) 1977 – B. Orchard: Matthew, Luke & Mark, Manchester. Ortwein 1999 – G.G. Ortwein: Status und Statusverzicht im Neuen Testament und seiner Umwelt, Freiburg/Schweiz – Göttingen. Otto (1933) 1954 – R. Otto: Reich Gottes und Menschensohn. Ein religionsgeschichtlicher Versuch, München. Paesler 1999 – K. Paesler : Das Tempelwort Jesu. Die Traditionen von Tempelzerstörung und Tempelerneuerung im Neuen Testament, Göttingen. E.T. Pedersen (1970) 1989 – E.T. Pedersen: Jesu forkyndelse. Fortolkning af udvalgte tekster fra de synoptiske evangelier, Valby. S. Pedersen 1994 – S. Pedersen (red.): Den nytestamentlige tids historie, ærhus. Pelikan (1985) 1999 – J. Pelikan: Jesus through the Centuries. His Place in the History of Culture, New Haven – London. Nicholas Perrin 2010 – Nicholas Perring: Jesus the Temple, London – Grand Rapids. Norman Perrin (1963) 1967 – N. Perrin: Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus, London. Person 2002 – R.F. Person: The Deuteronomic School. History, Social Setting, and Literature, Atlanta. Petersen 2011 – O.B. Petersen: Jesus – profet, frelser eller rebel? København. Petzel 2005 – P. Petzel: “Sabbatai Zvi – ein Bruder des Messias Jesus? Anmerkungen und Fragen zu einer schwierigen Verwandtschaft”, ZThK, 127, 415 – 448. Pieris 1987 – A. Pieris: “The Buddha and the Christ. Mediation of Liberation,” in: Hick – Knitter, 162 – 177. Pilgaard 1983 – Aa. Pilgaard: Jesus som undergører i Markusevangeliet. Undertraditionens betydning for Markusevangeliets kristologi, København. Piper 1979 – J. Piper : “Love Your Enemies”. Jesus’ Love Command in the Synoptic Gospels and the Early Christian Parenesis, Cambridge. Pitre 2005 – B. Pitre: Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of the Exile. Restoration Eschatology and the Origin of Atonement, Tübingen – Grand Rapids. Pitre 2011 – B. Pitre: Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist. Unlocking the Secrets of the Last Supper, New York. Pöhlmann (1976) 1978 – H.G. Pöhlmann: Wer war Jesus von Nazareth? Gütersloh. Pokorny´ 1998 – P. Pokorny´ : Jesus in the Eyes of His Followers. Newly Discovered Manuscripts and Old Christian Confessions, North Richland Hills. Porter 2011 – S. Porter : “The Criteria of Authenticity,” HSHJ, 1, 695 – 714. Porter – de Roo 2003 – S.E. Porter and J.C.R. de Roo: The Concept of the Covenant in the Second Temple Period, Leiden – Atlanta. Powell (1998) 2000 – M.A. Powell: Jesus as a Figure in History. How Modern Historians View the Man from Galilee, Nashville.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Bibliography

295

Price 2000 – R.M. Price: Deconstructing Jesus, Amhearst. Price 2003 – R.M. Price: The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man. How Reliable Is the Gospel Tradition? Amhearst. Price 2007 – R.M. Price: Jesus Is Dead, Cranford. Price 2010 – R.M. Price: “Jesus at the Vanishing Point,” in: Beilby – Eddy, 55 – 83. Priestley 1803 – J. Priestley : Socrates and Jesus Compared, Pphiladelphia. Prior 1995 – M. Prior : Jesus the Liberator. Nazareth Liberation Theology (Luke 4:16 – 30), Sheffield. Prothero 2007 – S. Prothero: American Jesus. How the Son of God Became a National Icon, New York. Puig i T—rrech 2010 – Puig i T—rrech: Jesus. An Uncommen Journey. Studies on the Historical Jesus, Tübingen. Räisänen (1983) 1987 – H. Räisänen: Paul and the Law, Tübingen. Rasmussen 1904 – E. Rasmussen: En Kristus fra vore Dage. Italiensk Kulturbillede, København. Rasmussen 1905 – E. Rasmussen: Jesus. En sammenlignende Studie, København. Ratzinger 2007 – J. Ratzinger/Benedikt XVI: Jesus von Nazareth. Erster Teil. Von der Taufe im Jordan bis zur Verklärung, Freiburg – Basel – Wien. Ratzinger 2011 – J. Ratzinger/Benedikt XVI: Jesus von Nazareth. Zweiter Teil. Vom Einzug in Jerusalem bis zur Auferstehung, Freburg – Basel – Wien. Rau 2000 – E. Rau: Jesus – Freund von Zöllnern und Sündern. Eine methodenkritische Untersuchung, Stuttgart. Reed (2000) 2002 – J.L. Reed: Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus. A Re-examination of the Evidence, Harrisburg. Reimarus (1774 – 1778) 1835 – H.S. Reimarus: Fragmente des Wolfenbüttelschen Ungenannten herausgegeben von Gotthold Ephraim Lessing: Von dem Zwecke Jesu und seiner Jünger, Berlin. (English translation by G.W. Buchanan: The Goal of Jesus and his Disciples, Leiden 1970). Reinbold 2000 – W. Reinbold: Propaganda und Mission im ältesten Christentum. Eine Untersuchung zu den Modalitäten der Ausbreitung der frühen Kirche, Göttingen. Reinharz 2007 – A. Reinharz: Jesus of Hollywood, Oxford – New York. M. Reiser (2011) 2012 – M. Reiser : Der unbequeme Jesus, Neukirchen – Vluyn. E. Reiser 1995 – R. Reiser : Götter und Kaiser. Antike Vorbilder Jesu, München. Renan (1863) 1947 – E. Renan: Vie de J¦sus, Paris. Rhee 2005 – H. Rhee: Early Christian Literature. Christ and culture in the second and third Centuries, London – New York. Rhoads (1976) 1979 – D.M. Rhoads: Israel in Revolution: 6 – 74 C.E. A Political History Based on the Writings of Josephus, Philadelphia. Richert 2011 – F. Richert: Platon und Christus. Antike Wurzeln des Neuen Testaments, Darmstadt. Riches 1980 – J. Riches: Jesus and the Transformation of Judaism, London. Riley (1997) 2000 – G.J. Riley : One Jesus, Many Christs. How Jesus Inspired Not One True Christianity, But Many, Minneapolis. Ringleben 2008 – J. Ringleben: Jesus. Ein Versuch zu begreifen, Tübingen.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

296

Bibliography

Rist 1978 – J.M. Rist: On the Independnce of Matthew and Mark, Cambrigde – London – New York – Melbourne. Ristow – Matthiae (1960) 1962 – H. Ristow und K. Matthiae (Hrsg.): Der historische Jesus und der kerygmatische Christus. Beiträge zum Christusverständnis in Forschung und Verkündigung, Berlin. J.A.T. Robinson 1976 – J.A.T. Robinson: Redating the New Testament, London. J.M. Robinson (1960) 1967 – J.M. Robinson: Kerygma und historischer Jesus, Zürich – Stuttgart. J.M. Robinson 2007 – J.M. Robinson: Jesus According to the Earliest Witness, Minneapolis. J.M. Robinson 2011 – J.M. Robinson: “The Gospel of the Historical Jesus,” HSHJ, 1, 447 – 474. J.M. Robinson et al. 2002 – J.M. Robinson, Paul Hoffmann and John S. Kloppenborg (Eds.): The Sayings Gospel Q in Greek and English with Parallels from the Gospels of Mark and Thomas, Minneapolis, MN. Roloff 1998 – J. Roloff: Jesusforschung am Ausgang des 20. Jahrhunderts, München. Roloff (2000) 2007 – J. Roloff: Jesus, München. Roloff 2001 – J. Roloff: “Jesus von Nazareth”, RGG, 4, 463 – 467. Roose 2004 – H. Roose: Eschatlogische Mitherrschaft. Entwicklungslinien einer urchristlichen Erwartung, Göttingen. Rosenau (2005) 2011 – H. Rosenau: “Hellenistisch-römische Philosophie”, in: Zangenberg (2005) 2011, 5 – 7. Roukema 2010 – R. Roukema: Jesus, Gnosis and Dogma, London – New York. Ruager 1975 – S. Ruager : Guds rige og Jesu person, ærhus. Ruckstuhl 1996 – E. Ruckstuhl: Jesus, Freund und Anwalt der Frauen. Frauenpräsenz und Frauenabwsenheit in der Geschichte Jesu, Stuttgart. Rudolf 1993 – P. Rudolf: Jesus und Qumran. War der Nazarener ein Essener? Solothurn – Düsseldorf. Rutishausen 2006 – C.M. Rutishausen: “Jesus von Nazareth und Sabbatai Zwi oder das Scheitern des Messias”, Gregorianum, 87, 324 – 346. Ruppert 1972 – L. Ruppert: Jesus als der leidende Gerechte. Der Weg Jesu im Lichte eines alt- und zwischentestamentlichen Motivs, Stuttgart. Ryme 2008 – T.J. Ryme: Gandhi and Jesus. The Saving Power of Nonviolence, Maryknoll. Sacchi (2000) 2004 – P. Sacchi: The History of the Second Temple Period, London – New York. Salibi (1988) 1992 – K. Salibi: Who Was Jesus? A Conspiracy in Jerusalem, London – New York. E.P. Sanders 1977 – E.P. Sanders: Paul and Palestinian Judaism. A Comparison of Patterns of Religion, London. E.P. Sanders 1985 – E.P. Sanders: Jesus and Judaism, London. E.P. Sanders 1990 – E.P. Sanders: The Question of the Uniqueness in the Teaching of Jesus, London.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Bibliography

297

E.P. Sanders 1998 – E.P. Sanders: “Jesus i historisk kontekst,” in: Engberg-Pedersen, 72 – 102. J.T. Sanders 2000 – J.T. Sanders: Charisma, Converts, Competitors. Social and Sociological Factors in the Success of Early Christianity, London. Sandmel 1965 – S. Sandmel: We Jews and Jesus, New York. Sandmel 1978 – S. Sandmel: Judaism and Christian Beginnings, Oxford – New York. Schäfer (1981) 2003 – P. Schäfer : Der Bar Kochba-Aufstand, Tübingen. Schäfer – Cohen 1998 – P. Schäfer and M. Cohen (Eds.): Toward the Millenium. Messianic Expectations from the Bible to Waco, Leiden. Schillebeeckx (1974) 1976 – E. Schillebeeckx: Jesus. Die Geschichte von einem Lebenden, Frieburg – Basel – Wien. Schlatter (1925) 1972 – A. Schlatter : Geschichte Israels von Alexander dem grossen bis Hadrian, Darmstadt. Schlosser 1980 – J. Schlosser : La RÀgne de Dieu dans les dits de J¦sus, 1 – 2, Paris. Schmoller (1869) 1960 – A. Schmoller : Handkonkordans zurm griechischen Neuen Testament, Stuttgart. Schnabel 1994 – E. Schnabel: “Jesus and the Beginnings of the Mission to the Gentiles”, in: Green – Turner, 37 – 58. Schnabel 2004 – E. Schnabel: Early Christian Mission, Vol. 1: Jesus and the Twelve, Downers Grove – Leicester. Schneemelcher 1981 – W. Schneemelcher : Das Urchristentum, Stuttgart. Scholem (1957) 1973 – G. Scholem: Sabbatai Sevi. The Mystical Messiah, Princeton. Scholl 2012 – N. Scholl: Jesus von Nazaret. Was wir wissen, was wir glauben können, Darmstadt. Schonfield (1965) 1978 – H.J. Schonfield: The Passover Plot. New Light on the History of Jesus, London – New York. Schottroff – Stegemann (1978) 1981 – L. Schottroff und W. Stegemann: Jesus von Nazareth – Hoffnung der Armen, Stuttgart – Berlin – Köln – Mainz. Schreiber 2000 – S. Schreiber: Gesalbter und König. Titel und Konzeptionen der königlichen Gesalbtenerwartung in frühjüdischen und urchristlichen Schriften, Berlin. Schröter – Brucker 2002 – J. Schröter und R. Brucker (Hrsg.): Der historische Jesus. Tendenzen und Perspektiven der gegenwärtigen Forschung, Berlin – New York. Schürer – Vermes 1973 – 1987 – E. Schürer: The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ. A New English Version Revised and Edited by G. Vermes & F. Millar, Vol. 1 – 3, Edinburgh. Schürmann 1973 – H. Schürmann: “Wie hat Jesus seinen Tod bestanden und verstanden? Eine methodenkritische Besinnung”, in: P. Hoffmann: FS J. Schmid, 325– 363. Schürmann (1975) 1976 – H. Schürmann: Jesu ureigener Tod. Exegetische Besinnungen und Ausblick, Freiburg – Basel – Wien. Schürmann 1983 – H. Schürmann: Gottes Reich – Jesu Geschick. Jesu ureigener Tod im Licht seiner Basileia-Verkündigung, Freiburg –Basel – Wien. Schürmann 1994 – H. Schürmann: Jesus – Gestalt und Geheimnis. Gesammelte Aufsätze, Paderborn.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

298

Bibliography

Schwager (1991) 1998 – R. Schwager : Jesus of Nazareth. How He Understood His Life, New York. A. Schweitzer (1901) 1956 – A. Schweitzer : Das Messianitäts- und Leidensgeheimnis Jesu. Eine Skizze des Lebens Jesu, Tübingen. A. Schweitzer (1906) 1966 – A. Schweitzer : Geschichte der Leben Jesu Forschung, Hamburg. D. Schweitzer 2010 – D. Schweitzer : Contemporary Christologies. A Fortress Introduction, Minneapolis. Schweizer (1955) 1962 – E. Schweizer : Erniedrigung und Erhöhung bei Jesus und seinen Nachfolgern, Zürich Schweizer (1994) 1996 – E. Schweizer : Jesus, das Gleichnis Gottes. Was wissen wir wirklich vom Leben Jesu? Göttingen. B.B. Scott 2001 – B.B. Scott: Re-Imagine the World. An Introduction to the Parables of Jesus, Santa Rosa, CA. J.M. Scott 2001 – J.M. Scott (Ed.): Restoration. Old Testament, Jewish, and Christian Perspectives, Leiden – Boston. A.F. Segal 1986 – A.F. Segal: Rebeccas Children. Judaism and Christianity in the Roman World, Cambridge – London. R.A. Segal 2000 – R.A. Segal: Hero Myths. A Reader, Oxford. Sharpe (1975) 1986 – E. Sharpe: Comparative Religion. A. History, London. Siegert 2004 – F. Siegert: Der Erstentwurf des Johannes. Das ursprüngliche, judenchristliche Johannesevangelium in deutscher Übersetzung vorgestellt nebst Nachrichten über den Verfasser und zwei Briefen von ihm (2. – 3. Joh.), Münster. Siegert 2010 – F. Siegert: Das Leben Jesu. Eine Biographie aufgrund der vorkanonischen Überlieferungen, Göttingen. Simonsen 1966 – H. Simonsen: Traditionssammenhæng og forkyndelsesigte i Markusevangeliets fortællestof, København. Skarsaune 2006 – O. Skarsaune: Den ukendte Jesus. Nye kilder til, hvem Jesus virkelig var. Da Vinci Mysteriet, Gralsfortællingerne, Thomasevangeliet, Q-kilden, Fredericia. Skovmand – Giversen 1999 – M.Aa. Skovmand og Søren Giversen (red.): Historien om Jesus og Jesus i historien, København. Sloyan 2008 – G.S. Sloyan: Jesus. Word Made Flesh, Collegeville. Sløk 1968 – J. Sløk: Det absurde teater og Jesu forkyndelse, København. M. Smith 1978 – M. Smith: Jesus the Magician, London. D.M. 2011 – D.M. Smith: “Jesus Tradition in the Gospel of John,” HSHJ, 3, 1997 – 2039. Snodgrass 2008 – K. Snodgrass: Stories with Intent. A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of Jesus, Grand Rapids. Snyder 1999 – G.F. Snyder: Inculturation of the Jesus Tradition. The Impact of Jesus on Jewish and Roman Cultures, Harrisburg. Sobrino (1982) 1987 – J. Sobrino: Jesus in Latin America, Maryknoll. Sobrino (1991) 1993 – J. Sobrino: Jesus as Liberator. A Historical-Theological Reading of Jesus of Nazareth, Maryknoll. Spangenberg – Heinze 2010 – V. Spangenberg und A. Heinze (Hrsg.): Der historische Jesus im Spannungsfeld von Glaube und Geschichte, Leipzig.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Bibliography

299

Spencer 2003 – F.S. Spencer : What Did Jesus Do? Gospel Profiles of Jesus’ Personal Conduct, Harrisburg – London – New York. Spinoza (1670) 2009 – B. Spinoza: Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, in: Opera – Werke, Hrsg. von Günter Gawlick und Friedrich Niewöhner, Darmstadt, Vol. I. Stanley 2006 – A.P. Stanley : Did Jesus Trade Salvation by Works? The Role of Works in Salvation in the Synoptic Gospels, Eugene. Stanton (1989) 1993 – G.N. Stanton: The Gospels and Jesus, Oxford. Stauffer (1938) 1948 – E. Stauffer : Die Theologie des Neuen Testaments, Stuttgart. Stauffer 1959 – E. Stauffer: Die Botschaft Jesu damals und heute, Bern – München. H. Stegemann (1993) 1994 – H. Stegemann: Die Essener, Qumran, Johannes der Täufer und Jesus. Ein Sachbuch, Freiburg – Basel – Wien. W. Stegemann 2010 – W. Stegemann: Jesus und seine Zeit, Stuttgart. Stegemann – Stegemann (1995) 1997 – E.W. Stegemann und W. Stegemann: Urchristliche Sozialgeschichte. Die Anfänge im Judentum und die Christusgemeinden in der Mediterranen Welt, Stuttgart – Berlin – Köln. Stegemann – Malina – Theißen 2002 – W. Stegemann, B.J. Malina and G. Theißen (Hrsg.): Jesus In neuen Kontexten, Stuttgart. Stein (1978) 1994 – R.H. Stein: The Method and Message of Jesus’ Teachings, Philadelphia. Stemberger 1979 – G. Stemberger : Das klassische Judentum. Kultur und Geschichte der rabbinischen Zeit (70 n. Chr. bis 1040), München. Stoldt 1977 – H.-H. Stoldt: Geschichte und Kritik der Markushypothese, Göttingen. Strauss (1835 – 1836, 1969) 2012 – D.F. Strauss: Das Leben Jesu kritisch bearbeitet. Mit einer Einleitung von Werner Zager, Vol. 1 – 2, Darmstadt. Strecker (1995) 1996 – G. Strecker : Theologie des Neuen Testaments. Bearbeitet, ergänzt und herausgegeben von F.W. Horn, Berlin – New York. Stuhlmacher 1988 – P. Stuhlmacher : Jesus von Nazareth – Christus des Glaubens, Stuttgart. Stuhlmacher 1992 – P. Stuhlmacher : Biblische Theologie, Bd. I: Grundlegung: Von Jesus zu Paulus, Göttingen. Stuhlmacher 1996 – P. Stuhlmacher : “Jes 53 in den Evangelien und in der Apostelgeschichte”, in: Janowski – Stuhlmacher, 93 – 105. Suggs et al. (1976) 1992 – M.J. Suggs et al. (Eds.): The Oxford Study Bioble. Revised English Bible with the Ap”ocrypha (OSB), New York. Sung 1993 – Ch-H. Sung: Vergebung der Sünden. Jesu Praxis der Sündenvergebung nach den Synoptikern und ihre Voraussetzungen im Alten Testament und Frühen Judentum, Tübingen. Sweet 1984 – J.P.M. Sweet: “The Zealots and Jesus,” in: Bammel – Moule, 1 – 9. Sweet, 1991 – J.P.M. Sweet: “A House not Made with Hands,” in: W. Horbury (Ed.): Templum Amicitiae. Essays on the Second Temple presented to Ernst Bammel, Sheffield, 368 – 390. Swidler 2007 – L.J. Swidler : Jesus was a Feminist. What the Gospels Reveal about His revolutionary Perspectives, Lanham – Plymuth.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

300

Bibliography

Swidler – Mojzes 1997 – L. Swidler and P. Mojzes (Eds.): The Uniqueness of Jesus. A Dialogue with Paul F. Knitter, Maryknoll. Sørensen 1992 – V. Sørensen: Jesus og Kristus, København. Tabor 2006 – J.D. Tabor : The Jesus Dynasty. The Hidden History of Jesus, His Royal Family, And the Birth of Christianity, New York – London – Toronto – Sydney. Talmon 2001 – S. Talmon: “’Exile’ and ‘Restoration’ in the Conceptual World of Ancient Judaism,” in: J.M. Scott, 107 – 146. Tan 1997 – K.H. Tan: The Zion traditions and the aims of Jesus, Cambridge. Tatum 2009 – W.B. Tatum: Jesus. A Brief History, Oxford. Taylor 1997 – J.E. Taylor : The Immerser. John the Baptist within Second Temple Judaism, Grand Rapids – Cambridge. Teeple 1957 – H.M. Teeple: The Mosaic Eschatological Prophet, Philadelphia. Thackeray et al. 1922 – 1968 – H.St.J. Thackeray et al. Josephus with an English Translation … in nine Volumes, LCL, vol. I – IX, London – Cambridge, MA. Thatcher 2006 – T. Thatcher : Jesus the Riddler. The Power of Ambiguity in the Gospels, Louisville – London. Thatcher 2007 – T. Thatcher (Ed.): What we have Heard from the Beginning. The Past, Present, and Future of Johannine Studies, Waco. Thatcher 2009 – T. Thatcher : Greater than Caesar. Christology and Empire in the Fourth Gospel, Minneapolis. Theißen 1974 – G. Theißen: Urchristliche Wundergeschichten. Ein Beitrag zur formgeschichtlichen Erforschung der synoptischen Evangelien, Gütersloh. Theißen 1977 – G. Theißen: Soziologie der Jesusbewegung. Ein Beitrag zur Entstehungsgeschichte des Urchristentums, München. Theißen (1986) 1988 – G. Theißen: Der Schatten des Galiläers. Historische Jesusforschung In erzählender Form, München. Theißen 1996 – G. Theißen: “Sadduzäismus und Jesustradition. Zur Auseinanerzetzung mit Oberschichtmentalität in der synoptischen Überlieferung”, in: Fatum – Müller, 224 – 245. Theißen (2000) 2004 – G. Theißen: Die Religion der ersten Christen. Eine Theorie des Urchristentums, Gütersloh. Theißen 2002 – G. Theißen: “Die Politische Dimension des Wirkens Jesu,” in: Stegemann – Malina – Theissen, 112 – 122. Theißen 2003a – G. Theißen: Jesus als historische Gestalt. Beiträge zur Jesusforschung, Göttingen. Theißen (2000) 2003b – G. Theißen: “Das Doppelgebot der Liebe. Jüdische Ethik bei Jesus”, in: Theissen 2003a, 57 – 72. Theißen – Merz 1996 – G. Theißen und A. Merz: Der historische Jesus. Ein Lehrbuch, Göttingen. Theißen – Merz 2003 – G. Theißen und Anette Merz: “Der umstrittene historische Jesus. Oder : Wie historisch ist der historische Jesus?”, in: Theissen 2003a, 3 – 32. Theißen – Winter 1997 – G. Theißen und D. Winter : Die Kriterienfrage in der Jesusforschung. Vom Differenzkriterium zum Plausibilitätskriterium, Göttingen. Thiering 1992 – B. Thiering: Jesus the Man, New York – London.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Bibliography

301

Thundy 1993 – Z.P. Thundy : Buddha & Christ. Nativity Stories and Indian Traditions, Leiden. Trocm¦ 1971 – Ê. Trocm¦: J¦sus de Nazareth vu par les t¦moins de sa vie, Neuch–tel. Tuckett (1996) 1997 – C.M. Tuckett: Q and the History of Early Christianity. Studies on Q, Edinburgh. Twelftree 1993 – G.H. Twelftree: Jesus the Exorcist. A Contribution to the Study of the Historical Jesus, Tübingen Twelftree 1999 – G.H. Twelftree: Jesus the Miracle Worker. A Historical and Theological Study, Downers Grove. Udoh 2005 – F.E. Udoh: To Caesar What Is Caesar’s. Tribute, Taxes, and Imperial Administration in Early Roman Palestine (63 B.C.E.–70 C.E.), Providence. Ulrich 2009 – V. Ulrich: “Das Testimonium Flavianum. Ein autentischer Text des Josephus”, NovT, 52, 72 – 82. Uro 1998 – R. Uro: Thomas at the Crossroads. Essays on the Gospel of Thomas, Edinburgh. Uro 2003 – R. Uro: Thomas. Seeking the Historical Context of the Gospel of Thomas, London – New York. Valantatis 1997 – R. Valantatis: The Gospel of Thomas, London – New York. van Aarde 2001 – A. van Aarde: Fatherless in Galilee. Jesus as Child of God, Harrisburg. van der Leeuw (1933) 1956 – G. van der Leeuw: Phänomenologie der Religion, Tübingen. van der Loos 1965 – H. van der Loos: The Miracles of Jesus, Leiden. van der Woude 1957 – A.S. van der Woude: Die messianischen Vorstellungen der Gemeinde von Qumran, Assen. van Henten 1997 – J.W. van Henten: The Maccabean Martyrs as Saviours of the Jewish People. A Study of 2 and 4 Maccabees, Leiden. van Henten (2007) 2009 – J.W. Van Henten: “The Hasmonean Period,” in: Bockmuehl – Paget, 15 – 28. Vermes 1973 – G. Vermes: Jesus the Jew. A Historian’s Reading of the Gospels, New York. Vermes 1981 – G. Vermes: The Gospel of Jesus the Jew, Newcastle/Tyne. Vermes (1983) 2003 – G. Vermes: Jesus and the World of Judaism, Philadelphia. Vermes 1993 – G. Vermes: The Religion of Jesus the Jew, Minneapolis. Vermes 2000 – G. Vermes: The Channging Faces of Jesus, London. Vermes 2003 – G. Vermes: Jesus in His Jewish Context, Minneapolis. Vermes (2003) 2006 – G. Vermes: The Authentic Gospel of Jesus, London – New York. Vermes 2007 – G. Vermes: The Nativity. History and Legend, New York. Vermes 2009 – G. Vermes: Searching for the Real Jesus, the Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Religious Themes, London. Vinning 2008 – M. Vinning: Jesus the Wicked Priest. How Christianity Was Born of an Essene Schism, New York.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

302

Bibliography

Volz (1934) 1966 – P. Volz: Die Eschatologie der jüdischen Gemeinde im neutestamentlichen Zeitalter. Nach den Quellen der rabbinischen, apokalyptischen und apokryphen Literatur, Hildesheim. Warrington 2009 – K. Warrington: Discovering Jesus in the New Testament, Peabody. J.A. Weawer 2007 – J.A. Weawer : Theodoret of Cyprus on Romans 11:26. Recovering an Early Christian Elijah Redivivus Tradition, Bern – New York. W.P. Weawer 2005 – W.P. Weawer : Jesus and His Biographers, North Richland Hills. Webb 1991 – R.L. Webb: John the Baptizer and Prophet. A Socio-Historical Study, Sheffield. Webb 2009 – R.L. Webb: “The Historical Enterprise and Historical Jesus Research,” in: Bock – Webb 2009, 9 – 93. Wedderburn 2010 – A.J.M. Wedderburn: Jesus and the Historians, Tübingen. Weeber 2012 – K.W. Weeber : Diogenes. Botschaften aus der Tonne, Darmstadt. Weiss (1892) 1964 – J. Weiss: Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes, Göttingen. Wellhausen 1905 – J. Wellhausen: Einleitung in die drei ersten Evangelien, Berlin. Wells 1971 – G.A. Wells: The Jesus of the Early Christians, London. Wells (1975) 1986 – G.A. Wells: Did Jesus Exist? Chicago – LaSalle. Wells 1982 – G.A. Wells: The Historical Evidence for Jesus, Buffalo. Wells 1989 – G.A. Wells: Who was Jesus? A Critique of the New Testament Record, La Salle. Wells 1996 – G.A. Wells: The Jesus Legend, Chicago. Wells 1999 – G.A. Wells: The Jesus Myth, Chicago. Wells 2004 – G.A. Wells: Can We Trust the New Testament? Thoughts on the Reliability of Early Christian Testimony, Chicago. Wells 2009 – G.A. Wells: Cutting Jesus down to Size. What Higher Criticism Achieved and Where It Leaves Us, LaSalle. Wenham 1995 – D. Wenham: Paul. Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity, Grand Rapids – Cambridge. Wenz 2011 – G. Wenz: Jesus und die Anfänge der Christologie, Göttingen. Wernström 1972 – S. Wernström: Kammerat Jesus, København. Westerholm 1978 – S. Westerholm: Jesus and Scribal Authority, Lund. White 2004 – L.M. White: From Jesus to Christianity, New York. White 2010 – L.M. White: Scripting Jesus. The Gospels in Rewrite, New York. Wilder (1939) 1950 – A.N. Wilder : Eschatology and Ethics in the Teaching of Jesus, New York – London. Wilckens (2002) 2005 – U. Wilckens: Theologie des Neuen Testaments. Band 1: Geschichte der urchristlichen Theologie. Teilband 1: Geschichte des Wirkens Jesu in Galiläa, Neukirchen – Vluyn. A.N. Wilson (1992) 2003 – A.N. Wilson: Jesus, London. B. Wilson (2008) 2009 – B. Wilson: How Jesus Became Christian. The Early Christians and the Transformation of a Jewish Teacher into the Son of God, London. Wise 1999 – M.O. Wise: The First Messiah. Investigating the Savior before Jesus, San Francisco.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095

Bibliography

303

Witherington 1992 – B. Witherington: Jesus, Paul and the End of the World. A Comparative Study in New Testament Eschatology, Downers Grove – Exeter. Witherington 1994 – B. Witherington: Jesus the Sage. The Pilgrimage of Wisdom, Minneapolis. Witherington (1995) 1997 – B. Witherington: The Jesus Quest. The Third Search for the Jew of Nazareth, Downers Grove. Witherington 1999 – B. Witherington: Jesus the Seer. The Progress of Prophecy, Peabody. Witherington 2006 – B. Witherington: What Have They Done with Jesus? Beyond Strange Theories and Bad Hitory, San Francisco. Witherington 2010 – B. Witherington: Jesus and Money. A Guide for Tomes of Financial Crisis, Grand Rapids. Wolff (1942) 1984 – H.W. Wolff: Jesaja 53 im Urchristentum, Giesen. Wright (1992) 1993 – N.T. Wright: Who Was Jesus? London. Wright 1996 – N.T. Wright: Jesus and the Victory of God, London. Yadin 1971 – Y. Yadin: Bar Kochba. The Rediscovery of the legendary hero of the Second Jewish Revolt against Rome, London – Jerusalem. Yoder 1972 – J.H. Yoder : The Politics of Jesus, Grand Rapids. Yoshimura 2010 – H. Yoshimura: Did Jesus Cite Isa 6:9 – 10? Jesus’ Saying in Mark 4:11 – 12 and the Isaianic Idea of Hardening and Remnant, æbo. Young (1995) 2008 – B.H. Young: Jesus the Jewish Theologian, Peabody. Young (1998) 2009 – B.H. Young: The Parables. Jewish Tradition and Christian Interpretation, Peabody. Young 2007 – B.H. Young: Meet the Rabbis. Rabbinic Thought and the Teaching of Jesus, Peabody. Zahl 2003 – P.F.M. Zahl: The First Christian. Universal Truth in the Teachings of Jesus, Grand Rapids – Cambridge. Zangenberg (2005) 2011 – J. Zangenberg (Hrsg.): Neues Testament und Antike Kultur, Vol. 3: Weltauffassung, Kult, Ethos, Darmstadt. Zangenberg – Schröter 2012 – J.K. Zangenberg und J. Schröter (Hrsg.): Bauern, Fischer und Propheten. Galiläa zur Zeit Jesu, Darmstadt – Mainz. Zeitlin (1988) 1990. I.M. Zeitlin: Jesus and the Judaism of His Time, Oxford. Zetterholm 2007 – M. Zetterholm (Ed.): The Messiah in Early Judaism and Christianity, Minneapolis. Zimmermann 1998 – J. Zimmermann: Messianische Texte aus Qumran, Tübingen. Zolondek 2010 – M.V. Zolondek: “The Authenticity of the First Passion Prediction and the Origin of Mark 8.31 – 33,” JSHJ, 8, 2010, 237 – 253. ædna 2000 – J. ædna: Jesu Stellung zum Tempel. Die Tempelaktion und das Tempelwort als Ausdruck seiner messianischer Sendung, Tübingen. ædna 2011 – J. ædna: “Jesus and the Temple,” HSHJ, 3, 2677 – 2707. ædna – Kvalbein 2000 – J. ædna and H. Kvalbein: The Mission of the Early Church to Jews And Gentiles, Tübingen.

© 2013, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783525536094 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647536095