Gospel Images of Jesus Christ in Church Tradition and in Biblical Scholarship: Fifth International East-West Symposium of New Testament Scholars, ... ... Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament) [Illustrated] 3161519086, 9783161519086

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Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament Herausgeber / Editor Jörg Frey (Zürich) Mitherausgeber / Associate Editors Friedrich Avemarie (Marburg) Markus Bockmuehl (Oxford) James A. Kelhoffer (Uppsala) Hans-Josef Klauck (Chicago, IL)

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Gospel Images of Jesus Christ in Church Tradition and in Biblical Scholarship Fifth International East-West Symposium of New Testament Scholars Minsk, September 2 to 9, 2010 Edited by

Christos Karakolis, Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr and Sviatoslav Rogalsky

Mohr Siebeck

Christos Karakolis, born 1968; 1990 Bachelor in Theology; 1990–96 Doctoral studies at the Universities of Thessaloniki, Regensburg and Tübingen; 1996 ThD; since 2005 As­ sistant Professor at the Faculty of Theology of the University of Athens. Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr, born 1956; 1975–1981 studied Theology at Halle University; 1985 Dr. Theol. Halle; 1986 ordained as a Lutheran Pastor; 1991 Habilitation; since 1997 Professor of New Testament at the Theological Faculty of Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena. Sviatoslav Rogalsky, born 1978; 2003 Doctor of Theology; responsible for the organisation of 5th East-West Symposium in Minsk in 2010; 2011 Secretary of the Academical Council of the Theological Institute of Belarusian State University; 2011 ordained as a deacon of Belarusian Orthodox Church.

e-ISBN 978-3-16-152141-6 ISBN 978-3-16-151908-6 ISSN 0512-1604 (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament) Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen National­bibliographie; detaillierte bibliographische Daten sind im Internet über http:// dnb.dnb.de abrufbar. © 2012  Mohr Siebeck Tübingen. Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlags unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Sys­ temen. Das Buch wurde von Gulde-Druck in Tübingen auf alterungsbeständiges Werkdruck­­ papier gedruckt und von der Großbuchbinderei Spinner in Ottersweier gebunden.

Contents Preface .................................................................................................. IX KARL-WILHELM NIEBUHR Introduction ......................................................................................... 1

I Biblical Scholarship in Russia and Belarus METROPOLITAN PHILARET OF MINSK AND SLUTSK Church Life and Biblical Scholarship in Belarus. An Opening Lecture ........................................................................... 13 SVIATOSLAV ROGALSKY A Historical Overview of Pre-Revolutionary Russian Biblical Scholarship ........................................................................................ 19

II Papers from the symposium ULRICH LUZ Jesus from a Western Perspective. State of Research. Methodology ........................................................ 41 CHARALAMPOS ATMATZIDIS The Historical Jesus: State of Research and Methodological Questions from an Orthodox Perspective ........................................... 65 MARIUS REISER Jesus-Research from the Enlightenment until Today ......................... 93 VASILE MIHOC How Did the Church Fathers Understand the History of Jesus? ....... 115 EKATERINI G. TSALAMPOUNI Jesus in the view of Luke ................................................................. 153

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REIMUND BIERINGER “… because the Father is greater than I” (John 14:28). Johannine Christology in Light of the Relationship Between the Father and the Son ....................................................... 181 KONSTANTINOS TH. ZARRAS Beyond Jesus the Jew: Old Visions Meet Modern Challenges ......... 205 JOEL MARCUS Jesus the Jew in Recent Western Scholarship .................................. 235

III Contributions from the Seminars ARMAND PUIG I TÀRRECH Interpreting the Parables of Jesus. A Test Case: The Parable of the lost Sheep ..................................... 253 PREDRAG DRAGUTINOVIĆ The Parables: A Theological Approach. Reading Parables in the Context of Today’s Orthodox Church ........ 291 CARL R. HOLLADAY Jesus and His Followers in Galilee: Albert Schweitzer’s Reconstruction ................................................. 313 CARL R. HOLLADAY Jesus’ Ministry in Galilee in Matthew 8−10 .................................... 337 TOBIAS NICKLAS The Crucified Christ and the Silence of God. Thoughts on the Christology of the Gospel of Mark ........................ 349 DOMINIKA A. KUREK-CHOMYCZ Performing the Passion, Embodying Proclamation: The Story of Jesus’ Passion in the Pauline Letters? ......................... 373

IV Discussion CHRISTOS KARAKOLIS Group Discussion: Summaries and Reflections ................................ 405 URS VON ARX Notes from the Group Discussion .................................................... 409

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MANUEL VOGEL A Talk to Be Continued: A Minsk Group Report ............................. 413 CHRISTOS KARAKOLIS Final Plenary Discussion: A Summary ............................................. 421

V Epilogue CHRISTOS KARAKOLIS Hermeneutical Reflections on Modern Jesus-Research: An Orthodox View ........................................................................... 427 TOBIAS NICKLAS “Historical Jesus(ses)” and the Christ of Christian Belief. A Catholic Perspective ..................................................................... 435 KARL-WILHELM NIEBUHR Which Jesus Are We Proclaiming? Some Reflections from a Lutheran Perspective with Reference to Martin Kähler ........ 439 List of Contributors .............................................................................. 441 Participants of the Symposium ............................................................. 443 Index of Ancient Sources ..................................................................... 445 Index of Modern Authors ..................................................................... 449 Index of Subjects .................................................................................. 455

Preface The Fifth International East-West Symposium of New Testament Scholars was held in Minsk (Belarus), September 2-9, 2010. The symposium was a project of the Eastern Europe Liaison Committee (EELC) of Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas and took place at the Internationales Bildungsund Begegnungszentrum ‘Johannes Rau’ in Minsk, a German-Belarusian joint venture for intercultural and inter-confessional encounter. The symposium was organized jointly by the EELC, the Institute for Theology ‘Sts. Methodius and Cyril’ of the Belarusian State University, and the Theological Academy of the Russian Orthodox Church in Belarus. The symposium was the fifth in a series of conferences devoted to the development and improvement of scholarly cooperation and exchange between Eastern Orthodox and Western Roman Catholic and Protestant biblical scholars. Earlier conferences took place in Romania (Neamt 1998), Bulgaria (Rila 2001), Russia (St. Petersburg 2005), and again in Romania (Sâmbăta de Sus 2007). Their proceedings have been published by Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen (Germany), in four conference volumes.1 After dealing with methodological and hermeneutical questions, as well as with ecclesiological and liturgical topics, in the previous four conferences, the theme of the Minsk symposium was: “Gospel Images of Jesus Christ in Church Tradition and in Biblical Scholarship.” The symposium was the first international conference of Orthodox and “Western” biblical scholars devoted to Jesus research. In ecumenical openness and with mutual respect for different exegetical traditions, participants discussed important historical, exegetical, hermeneutical, and theological questions about the Gospels, questions which in the past have resulted in tensions 1 J. D. G. Dunn et al., eds., Auslegung der Bibel in orthodoxer und westlicher Perspektive: Akten des west-östlichen Neutestamentler/innen-Symposiums von Neamţ vom 4. - 11. September 1998 (WUNT 130; Tübingen, 2000); I. Z. Dimitrov et al., eds., Das Alte Testament als christliche Bibel in orthodoxer und westlicher Sicht: Zweite europäische orthodox-westliche Exegetenkonferenz im Rilakloster vom 8. - 15. September 2001 (WUNT 174; Tübingen, 2004); A. A. Alexeev et al., eds., Einheit der Kirche im Neuen Testament: Dritte europäische orthodox-westliche Exegetenkonferenz in Sankt Petersburg, 24. - 31. August 2005 (WUNT 218; Tübingen, 2008); H. Klein et al., eds., Das Gebet im Neuen Testament: Vierte europäische orthodox-westliche Exegetenkonferenz in Sâmbăta de Sus, 4. - 8. August 2007 (WUNT 249; Tübingen, 2009).

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and splits between the Christian confessions. The conference also dealt with various methodological approaches to Jesus research in Eastern and Western biblical scholarship and reflected upon their place and function within the divergent church traditions. The institutions involved in the symposium considered it to be an important undertaking that demonstrates the role and significance of biblical studies within the context of modern European universities. The symposium also attests the value of biblical studies for modern European societies. Whereas in the Western European tradition theology and biblical studies have been part of the universities' curricula from their origins in the Middle Ages, such has not been the case in Eastern European countries where the majority of the population is Orthodox. In Russia, for instance, these two disciplines developed primarily at theological academies under the auspices of the Orthodox Church. After the Russian Revolution of 1917 and during Communist rule in Eastern Europe, all public theological activities were banned from the universities (East Germany being the only exception) and were restricted to church-controlled theological academies generally isolated from the international scholarly community. Since biblical scholars in Eastern Europe were able to maintain only restricted contacts with international scholarship and had limited access to basic tools for scholarly work, their biblical research could not flourish as it did in other parts of the world. As a consequence, after the fall of Communism, Eastern European biblical scholarship was in urgent need of academic, financial, and moral support in order to be able to reach the level of its Western counterpart. The EELC has been addressing this situation for more than fifteen years by engaging in several activities that aim at the development of better conditions for biblical scholarship in Eastern Europe. One of its projects has been the establishment of two biblical libraries in Russia and Bulgaria sponsored by various organizations and foundations in Western Europe and run by the State University in St. Petersburg and the Theological Faculty of the State University in Sofia, respectively. The EELC also created and supported teaching programs in biblical studies for future academic staff in Eastern European countries. For example, the EELC has established an Institute for Biblical Studies at the Philological Faculty of St. Petersburg State University and organized the “Collegium Biblicum Bulgaricum” and the “Association of Biblical Scholars in Romania.” Holding the above-mentioned East-West symposia of biblical scholars has been another important initiative of the EELC. The conferences first and foremost seek to foster the exchange of different methodological approaches and theological perspectives that inform Eastern Orthodox and Western Roman Catholic and Protestant biblical research. There is no “one

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way” communication but a genuine exchange of opinions, from which both sides profit to the same extent. A second and vitally important aspect of the symposia – as of all activities of the EELC – is their ecumenical spirit. Protestant and Catholic scholars from Eastern Europe, who are members of minority churches in their own countries, have also taken part in all symposia. All participants have always accepted that the symposia are to be characterized by a spirit of Christian love and solidarity, even if there are a number of difficult situations and serious tensions – some of them deeply rooted in history – among the churches in these countries. We consider the symposia a valuable contribution towards creating an atmosphere of better understanding and reconciliation among churches and peoples in the European continent. In Belarus, specifically, the symposium can be considered an important step towards the integration of Belarusian biblical scholarship into international cooperation and research projects. Its attendance by a considerable number of leading international scholars enhanced the reputation and the scientific standing of the Belarusian State University with its Theological Institute, as well as the Theological Academy of the Orthodox Church in Belarus. Beyond the field of biblical studies, several aspects of the conference and its topic have proven valuable for Belarusian society. The Orthodox Christian tradition, having the Bible at its center, has played a crucial role in Belarusian history and culture up to the present day. It remains among the most important elements of cultural, social, and ethical education. Contemporary society in Belarus, as well as in other European countries, can profit substantially from a deeper understanding of the contents and values of the Bible. Nonetheless, the participants from different European countries, as well as from the United States, could also sense the tensions in Belarusian society. The Belarus of today is a modern country with many apparent characteristics of globalization in the lifestyle, cultural enterprises, and social interests of its citizens. At the same time, Belarusian society has to cope with economic difficulties similar to those of other countries in the process of transformation from a post-socialist state economy to the so-called “free” market economy. Furthermore, the Belarus of today is a country in which important ethnic and religious minorities coexist as integral parts of the society. Roman Catholic as well as Protestant participants from Belarus and its neighbouring countries attended the sessions and the public events of the symposium, and their presence contributed to its success by providing information about the situation of their churches, of minorities, and of political circumstances in their respective geographic areas or countries. Biblical scholarship today cannot operate in a “space void of air.” It has to reflect upon the significance of the Bible and to express its message for the

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church, as well as for modern society. These endeavors must be carried out in a spirit of freedom and openness, free of any unfounded dogmatism and hierarchic or political restrictions, and at the same time, open to the spiritual, intellectual, and social needs of the people. We consider our symposium with its ecumenically and academically open character a promising event for Belarus in its present state of transformation into a modern European state. Holding a conference in a country and in a city previously unfamiliar to most of the participants appeared somewhat adventurous to many of them. It has indeed been an adventure, though one with many pleasant surprises. The participants and organizers of the symposium were excited by the overwhelming hospitality of the Belarusian people, the Russian Orthodox Church, and the City of Minsk, as well as by the persistent support they received, especially from Metropolitan Philaret of Minsk and Slutsk, the Rector of the Belarusian State University Professor Ablameyko, the First Vice-Rector Professor Zhuravkov, the Head of the International Relations Office Dr. Tichonov, the Vice-Rector of the Institute for Theology “St. Methodius and Cyril,” Bishop Serafim, and the Rector of the Minsk Theological Academy Archimandrite Ioasaf. To all of these we express our sincere gratitude. We are also grateful to the IBB Minsk “Johannes Rau” Institution, and especially to its director Dr. Viktor Balakirev, as well as to the conference manager Olga Philipovich, who did an excellent job covering all our needs. The IBB provided us with outstanding conference facilities, high standard accommodations, and first-class meals. For the financial support of the symposium, we gladly thank several institutions and foundations, in particular the “Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland” and its department for scholarships, the “Diakonisches Werk Mitteldeutschland,” the Roman Catholic foundation “Renovabis” (Regensburg), the Roman Catholic Diocese of Regensburg, as well as several theological foundations and congregations of the Reformed Church in Switzerland. With regard to the publication of the volume, the editors would like to thank the series editor of “Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament,” Professor Jörg Frey (Zurich), as well as the publishing house Mohr Siebeck, and especially Dr. Henning Ziebritzki, for continuing to support the symposia by accepting their proceedings as part of this distinguished series. Special thanks go to Dr. James Buchanan Wallace (Memphis) for his language editing of all contributions by non-native English speakers. Finally, the layout of the volume was prepared by Tommy Drexel (Jena), by the help of Ionuţ-Adrian Forga (Leipzig), and the index-

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es were organized by Georg Friedrich Schmidt (Duderstadt), for which they too earn our gratitude. Athens, Jena, Minsk, February, 2012

Christos Karakolis Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr Sviatoslav Rogalsky

Introduction KARL-WILHELM NIEBUHR

Biblical scholars, wherever they live and work, have to deal with Jesus as the center of the Christian Bible. Having said this, it seems all the more surprising that, as far as the organizers of the Minsk symposium knew, there had never been a scholarly symposium on Jesus attended by Orthodox and “Western” New Testament scholars. From the very beginning, this conference was aimed at more than discussing Jesus from an ancient literary or historical point of view. When we asked for “Gospel images of Jesus in church tradition and in biblical scholarship,” we also had in mind the many ways and places Jesus Christ is alive in our own time. We asked how he would be known in the twenty-first century in our societies in the West as well as in Eastern Europe. If Jesus is known at all in our modern societies, it is the Jesus of the Bible as transmitted by the church through the centuries. Therefore, Jesus as he is known today is not, by and large, the Jesus of Bible scholars, neither the so-called “historical Jesus” of the Western academic tradition since the Enlightenment, nor the “dogmatic Christ” of Eastern Orthodox tradition since ancient times. The Jesus who is best known by ordinary people today is still the biblical Jesus Christ, the Jesus of the Gospels, the Son of God and the man from Galilee, who turned the people’s minds to God, who helped the poor and healed the sick, who went around telling wonderful stories or parables, who challenged people to lead a better life, who taught them who God really is and who they should be, and who, in the end, met his fate on the cross in Jerusalem but was resurrected by God from the dead and was exalted into his heavenly realm. If we ask what shaped this Jesus of our time, the answer is obvious: it is the Bible, the NT Gospels in particular. Almost all that we know about Jesus comes from the NT Gospels, but there is a perpetual task for us as biblical scholars to know him better, to better understand his aims and his end, to give better explanations for what he did and what he taught and what he suffered. This was always the task of biblical scholarship from ancient times until today. This was also the main reason why many NT

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scholars came together in Minsk for the symposium on “Gospel Images of Jesus in Church Tradition and in Biblical Scholarship.” Protestants looking back to Scripture in order to better understand Jesus and the Gospels normally associate their perspective with Martin Luther and the Reformers of the sixteenth century. Even Roman Catholics may refer to a renewed interest in the Bible fostered by the reforms of the Council of Trent during the same period. But who knows about very similar efforts undertaken during this period in those parts of Eastern Europe that have remained a virtual terra incognita for modern biblical scholarship to this day? As early as the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century, there was a man named Francišak Skorina (1490−1551) from Polotsk, today a city on the northern border of Belarus. He came from an Orthodox family background, entered the University of Kraków in Poland to study philosophy, and went on to the University of Padua in Italy, where he became a medical doctor. Afterwards, he lived in Prague where he founded his own press, becoming one of the first publishers to use the recent technology of printing invented by Johannes Gutenberg. He also used this technology to create the first-ever printed edition of the Bible in the (Belo-) Russian language using Cyrillic letters, even before Martin Luther’s famous translation of the New Testament had appeared. Later, he returned to the region of his birth and founded a press in Vilnius (Wilna) where he continued to publish translations of biblical books and many other works. Thus, he became the founder of the literary language of the Belorusian people, much as Luther was for German. (For Skorina in the context of Russian biblical scholarship, see the contribution of Sviatoslav Rogalsky, in this volume 24−25.) We should know more, in the West, about such figures of cultural history in the East like Skorina! Today, most people seem to know at least a little bit about Martin Luther and his influence on modern culture and theology. But who knows about Francišak Skorina? It may not be by chance that both these cultural heroes of the sixteenth century were translators and interpreters of the Bible. Obviously, both were convinced that the Bible should be read and understood by ordinary people, because from the Bible they would learn about Jesus and would find images of Jesus Christ that apply to their own lives. In this regard, Martin Luther and Francišak Skorina may be seen as paradigms for biblical scholarship even today. The lectures and seminar papers given at the Minsk symposium addressed several topics and approaches to the Gospels from a scholarly point of view. They have been published here in revised versions, supplemented by several contributions that developed from the seminars. Like the symposium itself, the volume is introduced by two contributions that

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highlight the role of biblical scholarship in Russia and Belarus in past and present times. The volume concludes with several reports on discussions of the conference papers. These discussions were conducted by groups of participants from different confessional and linguistic backgrounds. The final contributions also include a report on the final plenary meeting, as well as a hermeneutical reflection on these talks by one of the participants. Three brief perspectives on Jesus from Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Lutheran points of view round out the volume. This “Epilogue” had its origins in a workshop held at the Theological Faculty of the State University in Belgrade. At the same time, it will provide an outlook for a future conference project. The three authors are members of the preparatory team for the next International East-West Symposium of the SNTS to be held in Belgrade in 2013 on “The Holy Spirit and the Church according to the New Testament.” In his opening address to the symposium, the Metropolitan Philaret of Minsk and Slutsk referred to the deep and radical changes in every day life that the peoples of Eastern Europe have experienced in recent times. According to the tradition of Orthodox Christianity, the life of the Church always interacts with the external world, with the state and with secular society. The history of Christianity in Belarus, in particular, was often a time of martyrdom and confession, but nevertheless: “Orthodox values have penetrated the culture, history, and way of life in Belarus since the times of St. Euphrosinia of Polotsk (†1167)” (14). Therefore, even today theology and biblical scholarship can make a contribution to answer “questions about the purpose and meaning of human life, about personal spirituality and responsibility in human society” (13). Subsequently, the Metropolitan refers to examples of biblical studies in Belarus in the past and present (see his contribution in this volume: Church Life and Biblical Scholarship in Belarus, 13‒17). Sviatoslav Rogalsky, in his well-documented overview of biblical studies in Russia from the middle ages up to the early twentieth century, illustrates that biblical scholarship in Russia was always narrowly connected to the needs of church life, in particular to the task of translating the Bible (A Historical Overview of Pre-Revolutionary Russian Biblical Scholarship, 19‒37). One of the most important Russian gospel scholars was Nicolay Glubokovsky (1863−1937), whose work can be described as “the culmination of all pre-revolutionary Russian biblical scholarship” (34). After the Russian revolution, Glubokovsky continued to pursue his biblical studies in Bulgaria, where he published his main work on the Gospels (The Gospels and Their Evangelism about Christ the Savior, 1932). Rogalsky offers the following as the predominant hermeneutical features of Russian bibli-

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cal scholarship: an orientation to Church Tradition, an orientation to the patristic heritage, an understanding of the polysemantic character of Holy Scripture, and the Christological perspective that detects in Holy Scripture divine and human aspects, just as the divine and human natures were united in Jesus Christ. The first four contributions of the central section of the volume, which presents the main papers of the symposium, address different approaches to Jesus in modern research. Two of them (Luz, Atmatzidis) are primarily interested in the history of research, with special attention to the methods applied. The other two (Reiser, Mihoc) deal in particular with the hermeneutical foundations of biblical exegesis in antiquity and in modern times. In his introductory essay, Ulrich Luz asks how scholars, in their approaches to Jesus, have posed the theological question of speaking about God in a modern world where the separation between God and history is prevailing as a matter of principle (Jesus from a Western Perspective. State of Research. Methodology, 42‒64). In his overview of the different “quests” for the historical Jesus from the eighteenth century until today, Luz shows that the quest for Jesus, even if carried out by using historical methods, has never been a “pure” historical task but more often than not was guided by theological interests depending on the prevailing theological convictions of modern authors. Even the last phase of Jesus research, the so-called “Third Quest,” may have indirect theological implications in that it highlights the historical and religious contexts of Jesus as a Jew of his own time. From an Orthodox perspective, Charalampos Atmatzidis also gives a critical review of the quest for the historical Jesus in predominantly German-speaking Protestant research (The Historical Jesus: State of Research and Methodological Questions from an Orthodox Perspective, 65‒91). After a sketch and critique of the “Third Quest,” he concludes his article with a reference to the quest for the historical Jesus in the Greek Orthodox tradition and with a plea for Jesus research as a meeting point for Christians from different confessional backgrounds. A third and deeply critical look at the history of research since the Enlightenment is given by Marius Reiser (Jesus-Research from the Enlightenment until Today, 93‒113). Reiser, in his essay, challenges the dogmatic principles of a rationalistic approach to Jesus, founded by Hermann Samuel Reimarus in the eighteenth century. These principles, according to Reiser’s view, “determine the larger part of modern Jesus research to this day” (97). After reviewing critical reactions to Reimarus by Johann Gottfried Herder and Matthias Claudius, he deals with the approaches of David Friedrich Strauß and Ernest Renan in the nineteenth century. Then he turns to the twentieth century and deals critically with several Jesus books that,

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more or less, follow in the hermeneutical footsteps of Reimarus. Quoting Albert Schweitzer, he ends up with a rather critical judgment of most of the recent Jesus research, which time and again tries “to picture Him as truly and purely human, to strip from Him the robes of splendor with which He had been appareled and clothe Him once more with the rags in which He had walked in Galilee” (111). Vasile Mihoc, in his essay (How Did the Church Fathers Understand the History of Jesus?, 115‒152), starts by defining the basic principles in the Fathers’ approach to Jesus. The Holy Scriptures form a perfect unity, with their harmony, their unquestionable trustworthiness, and their authority, and they point as a whole to Jesus. These convictions also remain valid for the four Gospels and their distinctive views on Jesus: “there is always a way by which we can harmonize the differences” (119). Concentrating on the early Church Fathers (Apostolic Fathers, Acta Pilati, Julius Africanus, Irenaeus of Lyon, Origen, Eusebius of Caesarea), Mihoc demonstrates how these principles are applied in ancient exegesis, dealing primarily with passages that exhibit an explicitly historical interest. The next two contributions cover exemplary christological conceptions developed in different gospels. Ekaterini Tsalampouni first turns to Luke, whom she regards not only as a historian but as a theologically interested author who based his message about Jesus on history (Jesus in the View of Luke, 153−180). After giving an overview of recent studies on the Christology of Luke’s Gospel, she aims to “present the major Christological themes and ideas of the third gospel, … search for a possible interconnection between them within the narrative and theological structure of the Gospel, and … discuss the role of Jesus within the overall theological scheme of the Gospel” (155). As a result of her reading of the gospel presentation, she concludes: “Luke preserves and utilizes the divergent Christological material at his disposal, while at the same time he does not seem to promote one particular idea or motif as an overarching concept that integrates all others. On the contrary, all his major Christological notions are present throughout his story, although they either come to the foreground or stay in the background in each part of the story” (174). Moreover, there is a specific Lukan interest in the role of the Holy Spirit intertwined throughout various parts of the gospel and the Book of Acts. The idea that the Scriptures are fulfilled in the person of Jesus and in his proclamation of God’s Kingdom serves as a another guiding principle for Luke-Acts. In the next contribution, Reimund Bieringer treats the Gospel of John as a well-known example of a so-called “high Christology” (“… because the Father is greater than I” [John 14:28]. Johannine Christology in Light of the Relationship between the Father and the Son, 181‒204). Based on a

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detailed exegesis of John 14:28 (“… because the Father is greater than I”) in its context of the farewell discourse in 13:31-14:31 as a key to the Johannine presentation of Jesus, Bieringer concludes that there is no indication in this phrase of a hierarchical or subordinationist meaning. Rather, the sentence reviewed in its context “has a very specific meaning pointing to the Father’s guarantee that death will not have the final word when Jesus suffers a violent death on the cross” (203). The last two essays of this section deal with a rather explosive case of Jesus research, in particular with regard to the history of interpretation of the Bible in Orthodox, as well as in “Western,” traditions. The quest for Jesus the Jew has been one of the most exciting projects of recent Jesus research conducted not only by Christian biblical scholars but also by Jewish or “non-confessional” academics. It has also been experienced, however, as one of the most challenging aspects of modern NT scholarship for Christian theologians from all confessions. This seemingly “historical” question of the religious background and context of Jesus is inevitably intertwined with the theological problem of the “two natures” of Jesus Christ according to the christological dogma developed in the ancient church, a dogma which forms the confessional basis for most of the Christian churches even today. First, Konstantinos Zarras explores the state of research on ancient Judaism, including the availability of new sources (Qumran!), since the second half of the twentieth century (Beyond Jesus the Jew: Old Visions Meet Modern Challenges, 206‒233). These recent developments allow a much better and more nuanced view of the Judaism of the time and region in which Jesus lived. Zarras in his contribution moves from the periphery to the center and then back again. He first describes the political and religious environment of Jesus. Next, he examines the person and some aspects of his life and work as a Galilean Jew, “display(ing) nearly all the characteristics of a typical, faithful, observant Jew” (218). Zarras does not, however, overlook the harsh conflicts Jesus had to face with other Jewish groups and authorities of his time. Here, he also refers to rabbinic sources, being well aware of the problems of dating and evaluating this material historically. Finally, he cautiously evaluates the results of his sketch for a more nuanced theological description of the relationship between Jesus, the Son of God, and Israel, the elected people of God: “At least in my mind, Jesus’ act of coming to Israel, as an Israelite, indicates and emphasizes Israel’s specific significance” (226). In the last contribution to this section, Joel Marcus gives an overview of more recent research (mostly in English) about Jesus the Jew (Jesus the Jew in Recent Western Scholarship, 236‒249). One of the main implications of his discussion is that Judaism in Antiquity was a highly heteroge-

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neous, almost pluralistic phenomenon, and it is therefore almost impossible to determine a “center” or to speak of the “margins” of Judaism in the time of Jesus (and beyond!). In the second part of his essay, Marcus looks at the use of the term “Jew” for Jesus in previous European scholarship (undertaken by Christians as well as by Jews) and demonstrates that this use does not predetermine a positive or negative evaluation of Jesus. By distinguishing between the different perspectives of Mark and Matthew on the one hand, and looking for a comprehensible background and understanding of Jesus’ own attitude on the other, Marcus gains a nuanced solution to the frequently asked question of the relationship between Jesus and the Jewish Law. In the third part of his paper, Marcus deals with the topic of Jesus and the Gentiles. The pericope of the Syrophoenician woman (Mark 7:24‒30//Matt 15:21‒28) may show a development in Jesus’ own view from a rather “chauvinist” position to one more open to Gentiles. He arrives at the following conclusion: “Our investigation of Jesus’ Jewishness, therefore, has ultimately led to a renewed appreciation for his humanity; and that is fitting, since the former is an essential part of the latter” (249). Seminars during the Minsk symposium examined three important topics belonging to the main areas of recent Jesus research. These seminars met for three sessions and were co-chaired by one Orthodox and one “Western” exegete. Some of the seminar leaders have been willing to elaborate their seminar papers in order to publish them here. Armand Puig i Tàrrech begins his contribution by critically reviewing the recently published Kompendium der Gleichnisse Jesu (ed. Ruben Zimmermann), which consciously refused to engage the quest for the “historical Jesus” when dealing with the parables (Interpreting the Parables of Jesus. A Test Case: The Parable of the lost Sheep, 253‒289). In reaction to this approach, he then develops his own, using the parable of the Lost Sheep (Matt 18:12–14; Luke 15:4–7; Gos. Thom. 107:1–3) as an example, by formulating seven steps that articulate the process for interpreting Jesus’ parables: (1) transmission analysis, (2) sociohistorical analysis, (3) semantic-field analysis, (4) narrative analysis, (5) situation analysis in the context of Jesus’ ministry, (6) Jesus-tradition analysis, (7) the history of interpretation up to present-day readings of the text. In conclusion, he points out: “The concept of polyvalence as applied to research into the parables of Jesus cannot exclude the historical question. The meaning of a narrative should not be completely separated from the question of its origin, its first transmitters, and its subsequent readings” (285). Predrag Dragutinović, in his theological approach to the parables, highlights the patristic hermeneutics of the parables (The Parables: A Theolog-

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ical Approach. Reading Parables in the Context of Today’s Orthodox Church, 291‒312). After a critical review of earlier research on the parables and (according to his judgment) “the inadequacy of the Orthodox biblical scholarship to engage this research” (291), he offers a short presentation of the main features of patristic hermeneutics of parables, including the general hermeneutical orientation, as well as the Church Fathers’ christological and canonical perspectives. Then he focuses on the question of how patristic hermeneutics could influence interpretations of the parables today. He concludes with an evaluation of the christological dimension of the parables and their importance in a canonical framework. Carl R. Holladay contributes two articles to the documentation of the seminar work of the symposium. His first contribution is a critical review of Albert Schweitzer’s reconstruction of Jesus’ Galilean ministry (Jesus and His Followers in Galilee: Albert Schweitzer’s Reconstruction, 313‒ 336). One of the more important topics is the quest for Jesus’ messianic consciousness. According to Schweitzer’s reconstruction, “Jesus possessed a much more open-ended sense of his messianic vocation. Rather than unfolding in robotic fashion, Jesus’ messianic identity interacted with historical reality, underwent change, and responded to God’s own intervention in history. It is a more dynamic process, in which Jesus’ own actions and sense of vocation unfold, develop, and change within the contingencies of human history. But at the end, in the final stage of his life, his messianic vocation became crystal clear, even fixed, as he took control of events in Jerusalem” (336). In his introductory seminar paper (Jesus’ Ministry in Galilee in Matthew 8‒10, 337‒347), Holladay first gives an overview of the different perspectives on Jesus’ ministry in Galilee according to the four Gospels. He then concentrates on Mt 8-10 to show how Matthew utilized the traditions at his disposal to reshape this portion of Jesus’ Galilean ministry to achieve his own literary and theological purpose. “Ever the evangelist, Matthew in chs. 8–10 gives us another panel of his messianic mural, presenting Jesus as a figure who embraces both past and present … These stories report what Jesus did; they also prescribe what the church should do. Through Jesus’ pronouncements and discourses, the church listens to his living voice.” (343) The last two of these contributions stem from the seminar sessions on the Passion narrative. Tobias Nicklas in his introductory paper concentrates on the Christology of the Gospel of Mark (The Crucified Christ and the Silence of God: Thoughts on the Christology of the Gospel of Mark, 349‒372). He identifies two central christological questions in the Gospel of Mark to be answered: “how or in what manner Jesus has to be understood as the Christ or Son of God”, and: “how far can what is said by or about Jesus be understood as gospel, ‘good news?’” (351) According to

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Nicklas, both of these questions “can only be answered if the final text of Mark is understood as a sensibly arranged unit in which the various intraand intertextual links are taken seriously” (ibid.). After such an analysis of the gospel text, he concludes: “The Gospel of Mark can be read as a narrative solution to the problem of how the crucified Jesus of Nazareth can be understood as the Christ and Son of God” (370). Contributing to the same seminar on the Passion Narrative in the Gospels, Dominika A. Kurek-Chomycz gives an overview of references to the passion story in the Pauline letters (Performing the Passion, Embodying Proclamation: The Story of Jesus’ Passion in the Pauline Letters?, 373‒ 402). In her first part, she takes into consideration passages that may reflect or allude to passion traditions. In the second part of her paper, the author includes passages in which Paul interprets his own hardships in terms of the suffering and death of Jesus. In so doing, Paul uses his own body as a vehicle for his proclamation of the gospel of Christ crucified.

I Biblical Scholarship in Russia and Belarus

Church Life and Biblical Scholarship in Belarus An Opening Lecture METROPOLITAN PHILARET OF MINSK AND SLUTSK

Dear participants, organizers, and guests of the Symposium! Dear colleagues! Let me cordially greet all of you at the Fifth International EastWest Symposium of New Testament Scholars, which has as its theme, “Gospel Images of Jesus Christ in Church Tradition and Biblical Scholarship.” The Symposium takes place this time in Minsk, the capital of the Republic of Belarus. It is not only a great honor for us; it is also a testimony to the increasing popularity of our Theological School in the European scholarly community. In recent times, the citizens of East European countries have experienced great changes in their life, changes which have been deep and radical, and often rather painful. These changes in people’s life and mentality have raised questions about the purpose and meaning of human life, about personal spirituality and responsibility in human society. Similar changes have also taken place, however, in West European countries. Therefore, the elucidation of the Christian perspective on the process of modern social formation in Europe is extremely important and could be named as the first task not only for scholars, but also for every Christian. Carrying out the evangelical mission in the world, the Church through its ministry addresses every human person, and through them, all humankind. Being both a divine and a human organism, the Christian Church has not only a mysterious but also a historical essence that interacts with an external world, with the state and with a secular society.1 For over two millennia, Christianity has proved an essential and defining influence on the development of European society, its outlook, and culture. In Belarusian national history, Christianity in the Orthodox tradition has had crucial importance. During the process of historical development, Orthodoxy in

1 Основы социальной концепции Русской Православной Церкви (The Basis of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church) (Moskau, 2000), 9

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Belarus have always cooperated with the Western Christian confessions, from time to time entering into intense dialogue and even rigid opposition. Today, we thank God for the opportunity to carry on the dialogue with other religious representatives on the basis of equality and mutual respect, and we are blessed by the spirit of Christian love. I would like to accompany these general statements with some facts about the latest history of the Orthodox Church in the land of White Russia. Orthodox values have penetrated the culture, history, and way of life in Belarus since the times of St. Euphrosinia of Polotsk (†1167), St. Cyrill of Tourov (†1183), and St. George Konissky (†1795). The value of this centuries-old spiritual heritage was never belittled, for it has truly and invariably inspired national revival. Many decades of the previous century became for Belarusian Orthodox people a time of martyrdom and confession. In 1917, there were about 78,000 Orthodox parishes in the country, but in the summer of 1939, the last church in eastern Belarus, situated in the town of Bobruisk, was closed.2 The clergy was persecuted everywhere; more than two thousand clergymen were killed or died in prison. During the Second World War and in the post-war period, the situation changed for the better. The number of Orthodox communities increased to about one thousand. Very soon, however, this process stopped, and many parishes were closed again. In the sixties, the process of church formation and theological education was interrupted for more than two decades. By the end of the seventies, there were no more than 360 Orthodox communities in the territory of the Soviet Byelorussia. However, further changes created the possibility of reviving the Minsk Theological Seminary in 1989, and then of opening, one by one, eleven historical dioceses in the territory of Belarus. In 1993, the Theological Department was founded in Minsk. Three years later, in 1996, the Minsk Theological Academy was opened in Zhirovichy. At that time, close interactions were developed with leading theological schools, where theological education had not been interrupted. Cooperation with them was the starting point for further development of Belarusian Orthodox theological education. In this context, research on the Holy Scripture was especially important for us because the whole of Christian theology is based on such study. Studying, understanding, and keeping the Christian spiritual treasure is a necessity, for this is the way to life in the Church. Through study of Scripture, we confirm our continuity with the apostolic tradition and maintain the unity between the past and the future. This continuity demands that 2 Th. Krivonos. Белорусская Православная Церковь в ХХ столетии (The Belarusian Orthodox Church in the Twentieth Century) (Minsk, 2008), 71.

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we remain, according to the words of the Apostle Paul, “… knit together in love … fully assured of understanding, reaching the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, in whom all treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden” (Colossians 2:2–3). In order to underline the depth of biblical texts and how they are saturated with meaning, St. John Chrysostom said, “Καὶ οἱ πρὸ ἡµῶν κατὰ δύναµιν τὴν ἑαυτῶν τὰ ἐντεῦθεν νάµατα ἐξήντλησαν, καὶ οἱ µεϑ’ ἡµᾶς πάλιν τοῦτο ποιῆσαι ἐπιχειρήσουσι, καὶ οὐδὲ οὕτω κενῶσαι δυνήσονται τὸ πᾶν, ἀλλ’ αὔξεται τὰ τῆς ἐπιρροῆς, καὶ ἐπιδίδωσι τὰ νάµατα.”3 This prophecy, I think, comes true in the revival of theological scholarship in the Belarusian Orthodox Church. According to the well-known Russian biblical scholar Archimandrite Iannuary Ivliev, Holy Scripture has the concrete texts, accessible not only for judgment and discussion, but also suitable for scientific research.”4 We cannot deny that “textual criticism means studying a particularly human aspect of the Bible’s composition, and here we have a lot of room for reflections, guesses, assumptions, conclusions, which could be obvious or not.”5 For this reason, understanding the Scriptures through the Church Fathers’ tradition is of vital importance. Our duty is to use it in the process of modern biblical research and interpretation. In so doing, we continue on our path of developing Orthodox Belarusian biblical scholarship, though our achievements are still quite modest. In this context, I would like to mention the following examples of doctoral research by our Belarusian scholars: the doctoral thesis, “The Doctrine of the Apostle Paul about the Relation of the Human Being to the Created World,” by Seraphim (Belonozhko), Bishop of Bobruisk and Byhov;6 the study of Archpriest Alexis Vasin devoted to the History of interpretation of the words from Psalm 109(110):3, “… From the womb of the morning, You have the dew of 3

John Chrysostom, Hom. Gen. 3. (PG 53:32); “our forebearers drank from these waters to the limit of their capacity, and those who come after us will try to do likewise, without risk of exhausting them; instead the flood will increase and the streams will be multiplied,” St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 1–17 (trans. R.C. Hill; FC 74; Wachington 1999), 39. 4 I. Ivliev. “Библеистика в Русской Праовславной Церкви в ХХ веке” (“Biblical Scholarship in the Russian Orthodox Church in the Twentieth Century”), in Материалы богословской конференции Русской Православной Церкви «Православное богословие на пороге третьего тысячелетия» (The Materials of the Theological Conference of the Russian Orthodox Church “The Orthodox Theology on the Eve of the Third Millenium”) (Moskau, 2000), 30. 5 A. Sorokin, Введение в Священное Писание Ветхого Завета (Introduction to the Holy Scripture of the Old Testament) (Kiew, 2003), 28. 6 A. Belonozhko, Учение апостола Павла об отношении человека к тварному миру (The Doctrine of the Apostle Paul about the Relation of the Human Being to the Created World) (diss.; Zhirovichy, 2001).

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Your youth”;7 the research of Deacon Sergei Riaboy on the theme: “The Church Fathers’ Interpretation, Exegetical, and Literary-Critical Analysis of 1 Corinthians 13”;8 the work of Dr. Sviatoslav Rogalsky, “The Commandments of the Sermon on the Mount about Love of the Enemies and Resistance to Evil (Мatt 5:38‒48) in the History of Russian Theological and Philosophical Thought.”9 I hope that these scholars will continue their biblical research, cooperating actively with their foreign colleagues and the leading biblical scholars of the world. Fortunately, the number of research projects devoted to Holy Scripture increases every year. This fact strengthens our hope for the fruitful development of biblical theology in Belarus. These hopes lead me to recall the words of St .Theophan the Recluse (Govorov, 1815‒1894): “Do not say, ‘I cannot.’ This is not a Christian word. A Christian word is: ‘I can do everything.’ But not by myself, but in the Lord, strengthening us, according to the words of the Apostle ...”10 It is necessary to emphasize that holding this Symposium has become a significant event for our biblical scholarship. Its purpose is to promote the exchange of scholarly experience between the leading world universities and Belarusian New Testament researchers. Since 2005, the Belarusian Exarchate has had a close connection with the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas (SNTS), which unites the leading Biblical experts and New Testament scholars from all over the world. The Eastern Europe Liaison Committee of the SNTS, headed by Prof. Dr. Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr from Jena University (Germany), has already supported some projects in the countries of Eastern Europe and in the Commonwealth of Independent States. We are delighted to have the opportunity to hold the present Symposium in Belarus. We are certain that the results of the symposium can be fruitfully used not only in theology but also in other scientific branches such as: history, sociology, archaeology, art criticism, philology, philosophy, and ethics. 7

A. Vasin, История толкования слов псалма 109 стих 3: “ …Из чрева прежде денницы родих тя” (History of Interpretation of the Words from Psalm 109(110):3: “… From the Womb of the Morning, You Have the Dew of Your Youth”), (diss.; Zhirovichy, 2004). 8 S. Riaboy, Святоотеческие толкования, экзегетиечкий и литературно-критический анализ 13 главы 1 Послания святого апостола Павла к Коринфянам. (The Church Fathers’ Interpretation, Exegetical, and Literary-Critical Analysis of 1 Corinthians 13) (diss.; Zhirovichy, 2002). 9 S. Rogalsky, Заповеди о непротивлении злу и о любви к врагам (Мф. 5:38–48) в истории русской релишиозно-философской мысли (The Commandments of the Sermon on the Mount about Love of the Enemies and Resistance to Evil (Мatt 5:38–48) in the History of Russian Theological and Philosophical Thought) (diss.; Zhirovichy, 2003). 10 Theophan the Recluse. Собрание писем святителя Феофана (The Collection of Letters of Theophan the Recluse) (vol. 1; Moskau, 1898), 237.

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The Symposium has gathered representatives from many countries, nations, and cultures. There are things that make us distinct from one another, but more important is what unites us all. St. Gregory the Theologian confirmed: Πᾶσι µία τοῖς ὑψηλοῖς πατρίς, ὦ οὗτος, ἡ ἄνω Ἱερουσαλήµ, εἰς ἣν ἀποτιθέµεϑα τὸ πολίτευµα. Πᾶσι γένος ἕν, εἰ µὲν τὰ κάτω βούλει σκοπεῖν, ὁ χοῦς, εἰ δὲ τὰ ὑψηλότερα, τὸ ἐµφύσηµα, οὗ µετειλήφαµεν καὶ ὃ τηρεῖν ἐκελεύσϑηµεν καὶ µεϑ’ οὗ παραστῆναί µε δεῖ λόγον ὑφέξοντα τῆς ἄνωϑεν εὐγενείας καὶ τῆς εἰκόνος.11

By taking part in spiritual and cultural formation, we can contribute substantially to the strengthening of the moral and civil state of modern society through its critical analysis and calling for improvement. May the Lord Jesus Christ, through the prayers of his most holy Mother, bless all participants, organizers, and visitors of this Symposium and grant his help in the forthcoming activity.

11 Gregory of Nazianzus, Or. 33, (PG 36:229a); “My friend, every one that is of high mind has one Country, the Heavenly Jerusalem, in which we store up our Citizenship. All have one family – if you look at what is here below the dust – or if you look higher, thatInbreathing of which we are partakers, and which we were bidden to keep, and with which I must stand before my Judge to give an account of my heavenly nobility, and of the Divine Image. Everyone then is noble who has guarded this through virtue and consent to his Archetype,” NPNF2 7:332.

A Historical Overview of Pre-Revolutionary Russian Biblical Scholarship SVIATOSLAV ROGALSKY

1 Introduction Modern biblical scholarship in Russia, as well as in Belarus, the Ukraine, and some other republics of the former Soviet Union, is in a stage of formation and development even now. The period of the atheistic past, which lasted more than 70 years of the previous century, created a kind of spiritual and theological vacuum, in which the existence and development of theology as a scholarly discipline in the university was completely impossible. Theological study was strictly limited by the authorities of that time, and it was more or less possible only in some church institutions. Theological literature was not officially published (there was only “samizdat,” which means self-publishing), and it was almost impossible to get a copy of the Holy Bible for one’s own purpose. This situation was quite different before the great socialist October Revolution (1917). It seemed that Russian biblical scholarship had reached quite a significant level of formation as a serious, scientific discipline and could develop further and further, hand in hand with other Western countries, but, as Nicolay Glubokovsky has written, “the wicked bolshevism destroyed everything ...”1 Despite its relatively short period of development (we can generally speak about the period of the nineteenth century), Russian biblical research could be considered a peculiar and independent trend in the history of biblical scholarship. When speaking of the revival of theological and biblical research nowadays, we think that it is very important to take into consideration the experience of our remarkable predecessors in order to “feel the roots” and to preserve and develop the peculiarities of the Russian biblical heritage. 1

N. Glubokovsky, Русская богословская наука в ее историческом развитии и новейшем состоянии (Russian Theological Discipline in its Historical Development and Present State) (Moscow, 2002), 51.

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In this paper, we try to draw out the historical background and the development of Russian biblical research. We shall also speak about some of its representatives and the peculiarities of their research methodology.2

2 The Historical Background and Formation of Russian Biblical Scholarship The history of the formation of Slavonic culture, its nationality, and statehood was closely connected with Holy Scripture. The Bible appeared in the Russian lands in the translation of Sts. Methodius and Cyrill, and it was made on the basis of the Septuagint. The translation may have been made even before the official Baptism of Rus in 988. Regardless, after the Baptism of Rus, Christianity spread among the Russian population, and this caused the distribution of copies of the Holy Scriptures in the territory of Ancient Rus. The archaeological discovery in ancient Novgorod has proven that the level of literacy in medieval Rus was rather high.3 The research conducted in the 1950s by the Academy of Science of the Soviet Union told us of more than one hundred thousand manuscripts of the Bible from the elev2

A profound description of the history of interpretation of the Bible in Russia is presented in the book of A. Negrov, Biblical Interpretation in the Russian Orthodox Church: A Historical and Hermeneutical Perspective (BHT 130; Tübingen, 2008). As Prof. Dr. Richard C. Benton Jr. (University of Wisconsin-Madison) states: “This book offers an important, in-depth treatment of an area of hermeneutics and history of biblical interpretation in an area often neglected by and inaccessible to Western biblical scholars” (R.C. Benton Jr., review of A.I. Negrov, “Biblical Interpretation in the Russian Orthodox Church: A Historical and Hermeneutical Perspective,” JOCABS 2 (2009): 3, n.p. [cited 28 May 2011]. Online: http://www.ocabs.org/journal/index.php/jocabs/article/viewFile/ 45/20). Negrov demonstrates the ecclesiological and anthropological basis of biblical hermeneutics in the Russian Orthodox Church (pp.140–63, 291–308). He describes the context of biblical interpretation in Russian history, from the late tenth until the early twentieth centuries (pp. 24–140), and analyzes the exegetical assumptions of one of the pre-revolutionary Russian biblical scholars, Archbishop Vasily (Dimitri Bogdashevsky, 1861−1933), in his interpretation of the New Testament (pp. 163–291). This research contributes significantly to the field of the history of biblical interpretation because it has brought into the discussion a large amount of pre-revolutionary, Russian language literature, which, because of a shortage of extant copies and English-language translations, lies beyond the reach of many Western biblical scholars. 3 This point, presented by archpriest Alexander Men, “К истории русской православной библеистики” (“Toward the History of Russian Orthodox Biblical Scholarship”), Богословские труды (Theological Works) 28 (1987): 272−29, has been discussed by Alexander Negrov, Biblical Interpretation (n. 2), 24−38. He claims that the illiteracy of the majority of the Orthodox clergy was one of the specific reasons that the study of biblical literature was delayed.

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enth through the twelfth centuries that belonged to the Russian Orthodox Church.4 According to M. Rizhsky, “through the Bible, the reader of Ancient Rus adjoined with the ancient Eastern culture, as well as with the culture of the Greco-Roman world. Undoubtedly, the Bible influenced greatly the process of formation of ancient Russian literature.”5 We can add that this influence was even greater, because the Bible assisted significantly in the political and social formation of Ancient Rus. From the tenth through the thirteenth century, the Russian people were becoming acquainted with Holy Scripture and with the commentaries of the Church Fathers. This period, of course, was not the beginning of independent Bible exegesis. The main goals of the ancient Russian theologians and other educated persons were missionary, and they sought to bring enlightenment to the population of Rus.6 The Mongol-Tatar invasion (1280−1480) suspended the development of Russian culture, but it could not completely destroy its basis. The spiritual renaissance of Rus, as a way of resistance to oppression, was represented at that time by such persons as Sts. Sergiy of Radonezh (the founder of the Holy-Trinity Lavra), Epiphaniy the Wise, and Andrey Rublev. Manuscripts of the Bible were corrected and edited by the Metropolitan of Moscow, Alexiy (1295−1378). In the fifteenth century, after the fall of the Byzantine empire, the Moscow Princedom acquired the role of the “keeper of the Orthodoxy.” At exactly the same time (from the fourteenth through the sixteenth century), however, different kinds of heretical trends and reformatory movements appeared in Rus. Using the Holy Scriptures, they acted against the icons, hierarchy, monastic life, and proclaimed Unitarian ideas.7 These trends in Rus, which were simultaneous with pre-Reformation movements in Europe, required that Russian theology take on an apologetic character. 4

Such a large number of manuscripts at that time could sound rather strange, but this information was provided by Soviet academic scholars, who were probably more interested in decreasing this amount than in exaggerating it. See: Труды отдела русской литературы АН СССР (The Works of the USSR Academical Department of Ancient Russian Literature) (vol. 2; Moscow and Leningrad, 1955), 323. 5 M. Rizhsky, История переводов Библии в России (The History of Bible Translation in Russia) (Novosibirsk, 1978), 31. 6 This period, however, influenced the outlook of Russian Orthodox biblical interpretation. This influence was expressed in two main ways: 1. The patristic heritage introduced the Russian readers to the variety of exegetical approaches to the Bible; 2. Biblical literature was perceived as the books which appeared and then were kept “in the Church and for the Church,” Negrov, Biblical Interpretation (n. 2), 37−38. 7 See: A. Klibanov, Реформационные движения в России в XIV- первой половине XVI в. (The Reformation Movements in Russia [XIV−XVI cent.]) (Moscow, 1960).

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Resistance to heresies required the presence of a unified and approved text of Holy Scripture. This manuscript appeared in the year 1499 and is known as the “Gennadievskaya Biblia,” named after its editor, the Archbishop Gennady of Novgorod (†1505). The text in this version of the Bible was corrected, and some parts were translated again from the Septuagint and Vulgate by the archbishop Gennady. At the same time, a talented monk from Mount Athos, Maxim the Greek (1470−1555), formulated the main hermeneutical rules for Russian theology, which were based on the synthesis of patristic exegesis. The seventeenth century was marked by the rapprochement of the Russian and European cultures.8 During this period, the first theological schools in Rus were established. Sometimes they experienced the influence of Western traditions. The predecessor of the Moscow Theological Academy, the Slavonic-Greek-Latin Academy, was opened in Moscow Theophania Monastery in 1685.9 The founders of this academy were the Greek brothers Sophronios and Ioannikios Lihudos. They continued the research of Maxim the Greek on the commentaries on the text of the Slavonic Bible. Among the biblical scholars who were working at that time, Fr. Alexander Men mentions Hieromonk Makary (Petrovich, †1766), Archimandrite Theophilact (Gorsky, †1788), the Archbishop of Astrachan Tihon (Malinin, †1798), Archimandrite Gabriel (Petrov, †1801), and Metropolitan of St. Petersburg, Ambrosiy (Podobedov, †1818). They wrote some commentaries on the books of Holy Scripture. It was the beginning of academic biblical scholarship and mainly consisted of the translation and reworking of Latin sources.10 The Russian exegete Archbishop Mikhail (Luzin) wrote: “Due to these scholars, Russian biblical research received the first strong impact for its future development.”11 8 In the history of the Russian Orthodox Church, the seventeenth century was also marked by the “Old-ritual schism” (“Staroobriadchesky rascol”) which was caused by the refomation activity of Patriarch Nikon (Minov, 1605−1681). In order to have clearer and improved texts of liturgical and theological books, in 1653 Nikon launched editorial work (“Knizhnaya sprava”), comparing the books with their Greek originals. His aim was to unify all the liturgical and theological texts in Russia. This met strong opposition, inspired by protopresbyter Abbakum and his collaborators. For more than a century, the Orthodox theologians were preoccupied with defending or overcoming “new,” “old,” and “non” Orthodox doctrines, which hindered the development of Biblical studies. See: Metropolitan Ioann (Snychev), “Раскол. Старообрядчество. (Old-ritual schism),” n.p. [cited 29 May 2011]. Online: http://www.hrono.ru/religia/pravoslav/raskol.php. 9 I. Ekonomtsev, “Основание Славяно-греко-латинской Академии” (“The Foundation of the Slavonic-Greek-Latin Academy”), Журнал Московской Патриархии (Journal of Moscow Patriarchia) 2 (1985): 67−68. 10 Men, “К истории русской православной библеистики” (n. 3), 275. 11 Archbishop Mikhail (Luzin), Библейская наука (Biblical Science) (vol. 1; Tula, 1878), 117.

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The subsequent formation of biblical scholarship was closely connected with the activity of a talented scholar, the Metropolitan of Moscow Platon (Levshin, 1732−1812). Being rector of Holy-Trinity-Sergiev’s Seminary, he initiated systematic study of the Bible there (this subject was a part of Church history at that time) and formulated hermeneutical rules for the commentators of the Holy Scriptures. According to these rules, a scholar, first of all, should search for the direct, historical sense of the text; secondly, he should not seek for the mysterious sense where it does not exist in the text; and thirdly, he should not avoid clarifying the difficult and disputable passages of the Holy Scripture, but rather, he should “solve them in a clear and satisfactory manner.”12 In summary, during this formative period of Russian biblical scholarship, the Russian scholars produced certain achievements, assimilating and following the methods they learned from Greek, Latin, and European sources and commentaries.

12 In the year 1786, Metropolitan Platon (Levshin) presented his “Nine Rules of Orthodox Biblical Interpretation,” which are the following: “1. Open the literal meaning, and where it is dark because of translation or an ambiguity in the language, explain it in such a way that no passage is left, which students cannot understand, apart from the very rare texts, which are too complex to comprehend. 2. Interpret spiritual and mysterious meanings, especially in the Old Testament, in those passages where such meanings are transparently concealed. In doing this, one has to be cautious so as not to do this with force. Thus, one ought not to seek out a secret meaning where there is none (or where one is forced, as is noticeable with many interpreters), but where links and the parallel passages follow directly from the words. Interpret spiritual and mysterious readings in agreement with the best interpreters. 3. For a better understanding of dark passages, find and link the parallel passages, for this will make comprehension easier, since what is said in one place is often said ambiguously and briefly in another place, and despite the similarity between the two texts, the one differs in terms of a more detailed and clearer account. 4. In interpreting Scripture, do not forget to conclude with the moral teachings flowing from the text. Formulate it with great regard. 5. In interpreting the books of the Old Testament Prophets, indicate clearly when and in which circumstances their prophecies were fulfilled in the Old Testament and the New Testament. 6. Where passages of Holy Scripture seem to contradict each other, explain these texts in agreement with published sources that contain general agreement. 7. Wherever passages are found from which some false conclusions were drawn and which subsequently led to schisms or heresies, one is obliged to clearly indicate the right and true meaning of these passages, and to invalidate the opinions and arguments of heretics and schismatics. 8. Where passages of Scripture are found to which human wisdom might make objections, such objections must not be hidden. Instead, allow them to be seen in a clear and satisfactory form. 9. On the part of the teacher, it is critical to consult the Church Fathers, to read scrupulously the best Church teachers and interpreters, to know Church history well, and, above all, to beseech often and diligently the Father of Light to open the eyes toward understanding the wonders in His Law.” English translation is adopted from: Negrov, Biblical Interpretation (n. 2), 61−62.

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3 The Development of Russian Biblical Scholarship. The History of the Russian Translation of the Bible The further development of Russian biblical scholarship is closely connected with the history of the translation of the Bible from Church Slavonic into Russian. The beginning of the printed editions of the Holy Scripture influenced greatly the spreading of the Bible in Russia. The first printed Slavonic Bible appeared as a result of the great efforts of the outstanding Belarusian scholar Francisk Skorina (1490−1541). The son of a Polotsk merchant, he entered the University of Krakow at the age of fourteen. In 1506, he obtained a bachelor’s degree there. Thereafter, he made his way to Italy and there, at Paduan University, had the degree of “doctor in the science of healing” conferred upon him. Skorina published his edition of the Holy Scriptures first in Prague (1517−1519)13, and then in Vilno (1525−1528).14 This was the first translation of the Bible into the spoken Belarusian language.15 The text was the Old Belarusian version of the Church-Slavonic translation and was made for the sake of missionary work, “for the benefit of simple people.”16 F. Skorina looked upon the Bible also as a source of secular education, and his translation became a model of the Belarusian literary language of the sixteenth century. However, Skorina’s translation did not become popular among the people because of the conservatism of that time and the secular character of his translation. In 1564, Deacon Ivan Fedorov (1510−1583) published the first Church Slavonic “Apostle” in Moscow.17 With his Belarusian colleague Peter Mstislavec, he worked under the patronage of the Orthodox Prince Konstantin of Ostrog (1526−1608). In his printing house in Ostrog in 1581 was published the first full edition of the Church Slavonic Bible, with the es-

13

Within three years, spent in Prague, Skorina published twenty-two copies of the

Bible. 14 In Vilno (modern Vilnius), which was the capital of Belarus and Lithuania at that time, Skarina continued publishing his editions of the Bible and also his “Minor Itinerary,” a kind of prayerbook. 15 In this case, some scholars consider Skorina’s translation the first translation of the Bible into the spoken tongue of a living nation. Even Luther’s translation appeared later; his New Testament appeared only in September 1522 and the whole Bible in 1534; see U. Karatkevich, The Land Beneath White Wings (Minsk, 1982), 114. 16 L. Abzedarsky, История БССР (The History of BSSR) (Minsk, 1975), 40. 17 The book of the “Apostle” is an Orthodox lectionary, consists of the periscopes from the Book of Acts, and the Epistles.

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tablished text, divided into chapters and verses.18 This unique edition, which was a result of analysis of the Vulgate, Czech Bible, “Gennadievskaya Biblia,” and the Bible of F. Skorina, became a basis for the Moscow printed Bible, which was published in 1663.19 The reign of Peter the first (1672−1725) touched on all the spheres of Russian life: political, social, economic, and cultural. His reforms had a great influence on the Russian language, which became quite different from Church Slavonic. This created the need for a new translation of the Holy Scripture. The first attempt at a Russian translation of the Bible was undertaken by the rector of the Slavonic-Greek-Latin Academy Mikhail Smirnov (later, Archbishop Methodius [1761−1815]), who in 1792, during the session of Academical Council, presented and gave comments on his own translation of the Epistle to the Romans. Later, it was published by the Synodal Printing House and became the first example of a printed Russian translation.20 According to the Russian scholar Hilarion Chistovich, the history of the Russian translation of the Bible passed through four stages: a. The translation, made by the Russian Bible Society (1818−1824); b. The translation of the Old Testament, made by Archpriest Gerasim Pavsky (1840); c. The translation of the Old Testament, made by Archimandrite Makary (Gluharev) (1860–1867); d. The “Synodal” translation of the Bible (1876).21 In 1810, a branch of the British and Foreign Bible Society was founded in Russia. Three years later, on January 11, 1813, there was a festive opening of the Russian Bible Society in St. Petersburg. The Society declared itself an interconfessional and ecumenical organization. At the opening ceremony, representatives of the Russian Orthodox, Roman Catholic, An18

H. Chistovich, История перевода Библии на русский язык (The History of the Russian Translation of the Bible) (Moscow, 1997), 13. 19 The cultural and educational activity of Prince Konstantin of Ostrog is considered to have been very important and significant. His edition of the Bible (“Ostrozhskaya Biblia”), made after profound analysis of extant copies and translations, became the first full Bible in the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and in Polish lands. It was officially recognized by the Church authorities and provided for the liturgical needs of the Orthodox people. This fact attaches to “Ostrozhsaya Biblia” more importance than the editions of F. Skorina. During the existence of the Ostrog Publishing house, they printed about 1000−1500 copies of “Ostrozhskaya Biblia.” Nowadays, we have about 260 copies of this unique edition, preserved in museums and libraries of the Ukraine, Poland, Russia, Belarus, Lithuania, Romania, the Vatican, and Greece; see L. Kulazhanka, Князь Канстанцін (Васілій) Астрожскі (Prince Konstantin [Vasily] of Ostrog) (Minsk, 2007), 8−10. 20 Men, “К истории русской православной библеистики” (n. 3), 276. 21 Chistovich, History (n. 18), 15.

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glican, Lutheran, and other churches were present. The Russian Emperor Alexander I was elected as an honorary member of the Society. He granted his patronage and great prospects for its further activity. The President of the Society was Prince Alexander Golitstin (1773−1844), a very active and influential person. The vice-president of the Society, the future Moscow metropolitan Archimandrite Philaret (Drozdov) (1782–1867), played the most important role in the history of Russian biblical scholarship.22 The Society proved extremely active and productive. In 1818, they published the translation of the New Testament and in 1823 the translation of the Psalms and Torah. For the needs of the foreign communities that lived in Russia at that time, they distributed Bibles in German, Polish, French, and many other languages; later, their publishing in Russia was also adjusted. They organized the translation of the Bible into the languages of different nationalities of the Russian Empire. The Bible was translated into Kalmyk, Buryat, Chuvash, Mari, Udmurt, Tatar, and other languages.23 During the publishing activity of the Bible Society, they made over 876,000 copies in twenty-nine languages (in twelve languages the translations were made for the first time). Soon after the foundation of the Society, there was an attempt to distribute the Slavonic Bible. In 1814, the Bible Society decided to print the Slavonic Bible in the Society printing house. During ten years, they printed about fifteen editions of the complete version of the Slavonic Bible (118,000 copies). All their publishing activity was possible thanks to donations. During this period, we can say that the Bible Society carried out all the Bible translations, including editorial and publishing work, in the Russian Empire.24 Unfortunately, soon after the Decembrists rebellion in 1825, the government of the Emperor Nicolay the first closed the Society, and its activity was proclaimed as prohibited. The suppression of the Society resulted from inspections by suspicious governmental censors. They found that the

22 23

Ibid., 16–21. As declared in the “Rules of the Society,” the main tasks were the following: 1. To distribute among the inhabitants of the Russian state copies of the Bible for a good price and to the poor people for free; 2. To distribute copies of the Bible especially among the Muslims and Gentiles, living in the Russian Empire, to everyone in his or her mother tongue. B. Tihomirov, “Начало истории русского перевода Библии и Российское библейское общество” (“The Beginning of the Russian Bible Translation and the Russian Bible Society”), n.p. [cited 29 May 2011]. Online: http://www.portal-slovo.ru/theology/ 37752.php. 24 B. Tihomirov, “Начало истории русского перевода Библии и Российское библейское общество». (“The Beginning of the Russian Bible Translation and the Russian Bible Society”), n.p. [cited 29 May 2011]. Online: http://www.portal-slovo.ru/ theology/37752.php.

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Society supported the ideas of mysticism, non-conformism, and voluntarism. The closing of the Russian Bible Society was characterized by Metropolitan Philaret (Drozdov) as “returning back to the scholastic time.” At the instigation of the government, two of the outstanding translators of the Old Testament, Archpriest Gerasim Pavsky and Archimandrite Makary (Gluharev), experienced great troubles with their scholarly work from Church authorities.25 Archpriest Gerasim Pavsky (1787−1863) is considered to be one of the founders of Russian philology and the founder of historical and philological research on the Bible. He was one of the most active members of the Bible Society, and a translator, editor, and exegete. After the closing of the Society, he was appointed as a catechist of the future emperor Alexander II, and then he became a professor at the St. Petersburg Theological Academy. He continued translating the Old Testament, and he read his new translations with his own commentaries to his students. His students were writing down the lectures, which were then published them as a manuscript by lithography. Afterwards, in 1841, he was persecuted for spreadingthese manuscripts, which had not been approved by the Holy Synod censorship. Only after the death of Nicolay I were his works rehabilitated. Gerasim Pavsky could be named as one of the founders of Russian biblical scholarship. His brilliant knowledge of the Hebrew language and ‘feeling for the Biblical style’ made his translation of the Old Testament unique, first of all, from the philological point of view. He was the first to speak about biblical genres and about the problem of the authorship of the books of Psalms, Isaiah, and Zechariah in his dissertation “The Overview of the Book of Psalms”, published in St. Petersburg in 1814.26 Unfortu25 Nevertheless, the process of Bible research was continued even during the reign of Nicolay I. At that time, among the Bible scholars we should mention Archbishop Philaret (Gumilevsky, 1805−1866). He wrote the following books: Беседы о страданиях Господа нашего Иисуса Христа (The Talks about the Passions of Our Lord Jesus Christ) (Moscow, 1884); Опыт объяснения послания апостола Павла к Галатам (The Interpretation of Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians) (Moscow, 1862); Евангелие святого Иоанна (The Gospel of John) (Moscow, 1866), among other works. In this period, a new historical and literary genre appeared in Russian theological literature. The representatives of this genre were Archbishop Innocent (Borisov, 1800−1857) and Archpriest Alexander Gorsky (1812−1875). Archbishop Innocent wrote the book, Последние дни земной жизни Иисуса Христа (The Last Days of Earthly Life of Jesus Christ), in (Moscow, 1828) and it was very popular up to the time of World War I. Archpriest A. Gorsky wrote История Еванегльская и Церкви Апостольской (The Gospel and the Apostolic Church’s History) (Moscow, 1888). Both texts were representatives of a popular historical and literary trend in Russian biblical scholarship according to Men, “К истории русской православной библеистики” (n. 3), 276−78. 26 See ibid., 277.

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nately, Russian biblical research of that time was not ready for such statements. He was condemned as a “preacher of Protestantism,” and this had tragic consequences for his future research activity27. Professor I. Evseev emphasized that these persecutions of Pavsky “influenced badly the whole development of Russian Biblical scholarship.”28 One of the followers of Archpriest Gerasim Pavsky was Archimandrite Makary (Gluharev, 1792−1847). His life and research activity were also full of troubles, deprivations, and misunderstanding. In the history of the Russian Orthodox Church, he is known as the missionary of Altay (Siberia region). During this missionary work, he applied several times to the Emperor and the Holy Synod requesting a Russian edition of the Bible. His requests were not satisfied for a long time, so he himself translated the Old Testament from Hebrew into Russian. However, he had no opportunity to publish it and was afterwards persecuted by the authorities. As a result, he had to stop his missionary activity in 1843. Only after his death was his translation published in the periodical “Pravoslavnoe Obozrenie” (The Orthodox Overview) in 1860−1867.29 As we can see, despite the suspicion of the authorities, which caused rather strict church censuring, the necessity of an accessible Russian translation of the Bible was evident and such attempts were undertaken by some talented enthusiasts. The contributions by Pavsky and Gluharev were appreciated later, when the Holy Synod signed the decision for an official translation of the Bible. This decision was a turning point for biblical scholarship and was made, after long discussions, on March 20, 1858. It was underlined that “the Russian translation of the New Testament and all the other books of the Bible, is useful and necessary.”30 The Holy Synod gave the task to four Theological Academies (of St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev, and Kazan) to undertake the project of the translation, based on the Hebrew text, Septuagint, and the Textus Receptus. The whole work was inspired by Moscow Metropolitan Philaret (Drozdov, 1782–1867), with the great support of St. Petersburg Metropolitan Isidor (Nicolsky, 1799−1892). Famous academic scholars, such as Evgraf Loviagin (1822−1909), Pavel Savvaitov (1815−1895), Moisey Guliaev 27 The starting point of this incident was the letter, written in 1841 by Hieromonk Agaphangel (Soloviev) from Vladimir to the Holy Synod, where he condemned the work of Pavsky as influenced by western liberal scholars. After that there was a long term of investigations, which had been finished only in 1844. All the copies of Pavsky’s translation were ordered to destroy and never publish any translation in future without the official permition of the Holy Synod. See Chistovich, История перевода Библии на русский язык (n. 18), 133–206. 28 See Men, “К истории русской православной библеистики” (n. 3), 278. 29 Chistovich, История перевода Библии на русский язык (n. 18), 207−40. 30 Ibid., 294.

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(†1866), and Daniil Hvolson (1819−1911), worked on the translation. The translations of Archpriest Gerasim Pavsky and Archimandrite Makary (Gluharev) were also published in Russian periodicals “Pravoslavnoe Obozrenie” (“The Orthodox Overwiew”) and “Duh Hristianina” (“The Spirit of Christian”) in Moscow during the years 1860–1869.31 The Russian translation of the New Testament was published by the Synodal Publishing House in St. Petersburg in 1863 The complete translation of the Bible was finished in 1876 and published in the same place. This translation, which received the name of “Synodal,” became a “Textus receptus” for private reading, preaching, and research in Russia and remains such to the present day.32 In Russian Orthodox liturgical life, the Church Slavonic translation is used to this day in its last version, known as the “Elisavetinskaya Biblia,”33 which was published in 1751 in Moscow during the reign of empress Elisaveta. We have paid so much attention to the history of the translation of the Bible in Russia in order to show its importance for the development of biblical scholarship. The Russian translation opened new opportunities for mass reading, research, and exegesis. It provided the impetus for the first systematic hermeneutical and exegetical commentaries, and we shall have cause to speak about the Russian translation again.

4 Russian Biblical Scholars and Their Research Activity The first half of the nineteenth century was marked by a specific phenomenon, which is known as the “Russian religious and philosophical awakening.” This was a time of close communication with the West, and, according to the majority of scholars, the beginning of authentic religious and

31 32

Men, “К истории русской православной библеистики” (n. 3), 278. After the October Revolution, publishing the Holy Bible was officially prohibited. Later, in 1956, the Moscow Patriarchate managed to publish the revised version of the Synodal translation, according to the new orthographical rules (Библия. Священное Писание Ветхого и Нового Завета) (Holy Bible: Holy Scripture of Old and New Testament) (Moscow, 1956; repr., Moscow, 1968). These editions, were distributed strictly in Church institutions and were inaccessible to the wider population of the Soviet Union. The renewal of Bible publishing activity began only after the Millenium of the Baptism of Rus in 1988. (Библия. Священное Писание Ветхого и Нового Завета (Holy Bible. Holy Scripture of Old and New Testament) (Moscow, 1988). See: E. Karmanov, “Библия” (“The Bible”), Журнал Московской Патриархии (Journal of Moscow Patriarchia) 1 (1977): 78. 33 The title: Библия, сиречь Книги Священнаго Писания Ветхаго и Новаго Завета (Holy Bible or Holy Scripture of Old and New Testament) (Moscow, 1751).

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philosophical thought in Russia.34 As Negrov mentions, “The intellectual mentality of the 19th century provided for Orthodox biblical interpretation a basis for theorizing, the prospect of interdisciplinary studies, and an openness for new solutions.”35 In this overview it is not easy to mention all the representatives of Russian biblical scholarship. We will speak about some outstanding persons and their enormous contribution to the development of Russian biblical research. As mentioned above, Archpriest Gerasim Pavsky, the scholar with a tragic fate, was one of the founders of Russian biblical scholarship. His contemporary, Metropolitan of Moscow Philaret (Drozdov) served as an outstanding inspiration for ideas of translation and research on the Bible. Being one of the most active members of the Bible Society, he was a supervisor of the translation of the New Testament and translated himself the Gospel of John in 1816−1819.36 After the closing of the Society, he raised the problem of a Russian translation again thirty years later, and his proposal was successful. Metropolitan Philaret published some valuable research, concerning isagogics, hermeneutics, and exegesis. Most of it was based on German, scholars, for instance, Johann Franz Buddeus, but his own conception was quite original. Fedor Eleonsky (1836−1906), a famous Russian biblical scholar, said that Metropolitan Philaret “brought our biblical scholarship out of the narrow circle of the Greek-Slavonic translation into the wide scholarly way.”37 During his research activity, Metropolitan Philaret formulated four main hermeneutical rules, which were the basis of his methodology. These are the following: a. Exegesis should be done on the basis of the original text. b. In exegesis, the scholarly methodology should be applied, using the Western scholars. c. The theological aspects of the Bible should be central. d. The ideas of Orthodoxy and the Church Fathers should be retained.38 34 G. Florovsky, Archpriest, The Ways of Russian Theology (vol. 6 of Collected Works; Vaduz, 1987), 3–13. 35 Negrov, Biblical Interpretation (n. 2), 69−76. 36 V. Tsypin, Archpriest, История Русской Православной Церкви: Синодальный период: Новейший период (The History of the Russian Orthodox Church: The Synodal and the New Periods) (Moscow, 2006), 215. 37 F. Eleonsky, “Отечественные труды по изучению Библии в XIX веке“ (“Native Research of the Bible in the Nineteenth Century”), Христианское чтение (Christian Reading) 5 (1901): 635. 38 Philaret (Drozdov), Metropolitan, О догматическом достоинстве и охранительном употреблении греческого семидесяти толковников и славянского переводов Священного Писания (About Dogmatic Significance and Careful Usage of

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Unfortunately, Metropolitan Philaret was not able to complete his system of biblical theology and exegesis. Most of his ideas were preserved sporadically in his letters and sermons, but his hermeneutical principles made an impact on future biblical research. His follower, Alexander Buharev (Archimandrite Feodor, 1824−1871), was a professor of New Testament in the Moscow and Kazan Theological Academies. During 1850−1860, he published several works devoted to the Book of Job, the Prophets, and the Apostolic Epistles. In his main thesis, The Research of the Apocalypse39, he made an attempt to represent the philosophy of history as the history of the salvation of humankind. He was firmly convinced that Christianity must become an existential basis for the development of culture and history. Alexander Buharev was a very emotional and creative thinker, and his ideas were, of course, very unusual for his time, causing great controversy.40 An available translation of the Bible required some qualified commentaries. This compilation was undertaken by Archbishop Mikhail (Luzin, 1830−1887), professor and rector of the Moscow Theological Academy. In his research, he tried to accomplish both exegetical and apologetic goals. His three-volume The Exegesis of the Gospel (published in Moscow in 1870−1874) and two-volume The Exegesis of the Apostle (published in Kiev in 1890−1897) contained a systematic commentary, based on the Church Fathers and on traditional Protestant scholars41. Nonetheless, these editions were harshly criticized for their eclectic character, but Archbishop Mikhail was convinced that people needed at least something, in order to read and understand the Holy Scriptures better. His research had an apologetic dimension in his discussions with the representatives of Western critical trends. In particular, his doctoral thesis the Translation of LXX and the Slavonic Translation of the Holy Scripture), Прибавление к изданию творений святых отцов (The Addition to the Publishing of the Church Fathers’ Works) 17 (1858): 452–83. 39 A.M. Buharev (Archimadrite Theodor), Изследованiя Апокалипсиса (The Research of the Apocalypse) (Sergiev Posad, 1916). 40 The life of Alexander Buharev (Archimandrite Feodor) ended quite tragically. He left the monastic life became a civilian, and finally died in deprivation. His research was published only after his death, in 1916. 41 Mikhail (Luzin), Archimandrite, Толковое Евангелие: Евангелие от Матфея, Марка, Луки и Иоанна: На славянском и русском наречии, с предисловиями и подробными объяснительными примечаниями архимандрита Михаила (The Exegesis of the Gospel: The Gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, John in Slavonic and Russian Language, with Commentaries of Archimandrite Mikhail) (Moscow, 1870–1874). Mikhail (Luzin), Bishop, Толковый Апостол: Деяния и Послания Апостолов: На славянском и русском наречии: С предисловием и подробными объяснительными примечаниями епископа Михаила (The Exegesis of the Apostle: The Acts and Epistles in Slavonic and Russian Language, with Commentaries of Bishop Mikhail) (Kiev, 1890–1897).

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was devoted to the polemics against the work of E. Renan, Vie de Jésus42, and it was the beginning of detailed engagement with the ideas of Western critics. The works of Archbishop Mikhail (Luzin) gave a new impetus to Russian biblical scholarship. Even more Russian scholars began to analyze the achievements and of their Western colleagues and applied them to their own research.43 Ultimately, as noted above, the development of exegesis in Russia was closely connected with the Russian translation of the Bible. From that time, a good many different commentaries on the books of the Old and New Testament appeared. Soon, Boris Gladkov (1841−1921) published a very popular work entitled, The Exegesis of the Gospel, which was based on the Church Fathers’ commentaries and the research of the nineteenth century scholars. St. Theophan the Recluse (Bishop Theophan [Govorov] 1815−1894)44 conducted exegetical research on Paul’s epistles, and significant contributions came from Archbishop Vasily (Bogdashevsky, 1861− 1933)45 and some others.46

42 43

E. Renan, Vie de Jésus (Paris, 1895). Among the representatives of the critical analysis of Western biblical research, we can mention the followers of M. Luzin, such as Archpriest Nicolay Eleonsky (1843−1910), who wrote about the works of Baur, Wellhausen, and Delitzsch: N. Eleonsky, О Евангелии от Марка: Разбор мнения Ф.Х. Баура о происхождении и характере Евангелия от Марка (About the Gospel according to Mark: the Analysis of the Opinion of F. Baur Concerning the Origin and Character of Mark’s Gospel) (Moscow, 1873); Archpriest Timothy Butkevich (1854−1925): T. Butkevich, Жизнь Господа нашего Иисуса Христа (Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ) (St. Petersburg, 1887); Nicolay Troitsky (1851−1920): N. Troitsky, О происхождении первых трех канонических Евангелий (About the Origin of the Synoptic Gospels) (Kostroma, 1878). 44 The research of Theophan the Recluse (Govorov) consists of six volumes of exegesis on the Epistles of Paul (Rom, 1 and 2 Cor, Gal, Col, and Phil), published in Moscow in 1890–1894 and then republished in 1996: Theophan (Govorov), Bishop, Толкование на Послания св. Апостола Павла (The Exegesis on the Epistles of Paul) (Moscow, 1890–1894; repr. Moscow, 1996). 45 The detailed analysis of the work of Archbisop Vasily (Dimitry Bogdashevsky) is given by Negrov, Biblical Interpretation (n. 2). Negrov demonstrates that Archbishop Vasily represents the link between ecclesiology and anthropology in biblical interpretation in the Russian Orthodox tradition. Archbishop Vasily began as a philosopher focused on Plato, but later he turned to New Testament exegesis (ibid., 184). The New Testament, as a divine revelation, represented for him the perfect philosophy and source of wisdom. The comprehension of this wisdom requires ethical purification (the anthropological aspect), which could be reached in the Church (the ecclesiological aspect), by “a connection with a divine agent of the highest religious reality.” (ibid., 171). This “divine agent” is the Holy Spirit in the Church. Here, Bogdashevsky follows the patristic tradition of deification by the Holy Spirit that is realized through “life in the Church.” We could completely agree with Negrov that archbishop Vasily was representative of more than a “tiny minority” in the Russian Orthodox Church, for he stayed connected to

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Despite the number of different commentaries, a complete Bible commentary was published in Russia only once. It was an edition of the twelve-volume “Tolkovaya Biblia” (“The Bible Exegesis”), published in 1904−191347. This massive work was begun by a professor of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, Alexander Lopuhin (1852−1904), and continued by his colleagues. This extended commentary addressed wide circles of educated readers, and it was a good scholarly and at the same time comprehensible commentary on the text. “Tolkovaya Biblia” was republished in Stockholm in 1988 for the Millenium of the Baptism of Rus48. It is worth to speak a little bit more about the scholar Nicolay Glubokovsky (1863−1937), who worked at the end of the pre-revolutionary period in Russia and after the Revolution in Bulgaria. Nicolay Glubokovsky occupies a significant place among the representatives of Russian pre-revolutionary biblical scholarship. As Fr. Alexander Men observed, N. Glubokovsky “successfully combined the breadth of theological, philological, historical, and church interests with the depth of his research work.”49 He started his research as an historian of the Church with his brilliant thesis about Theodorete, the Bishop of Cyrus, and he continued his research activity as a profound biblical scholar.50 the life of the Church and earned a “high regard” among clergy and scholars of his time (ibid., 155). 46 Among the exegetical research works of this period, one should also mention the popular Gospel Observation by Bishop Vitaly (Grechulevich, 1822−1885): Vitaly (Grechulevich), Bishop, Подробный сравнительный обзор Четвероевангелия в хронологическом порядке (The Detailed Comparative Gospel Chronological Observation) (St. Petersburg 1859–1966); Apostle Exegesis by Bishop Nicanor (Kamensky, 1847−1910): Nicanor (Kamensky), Bishop, Толковый Апостол (Apostle Exegesis) (St. Petersburg 1904–1905); and the work of Archpriest Andrew Polotebnov (1843−1905) About the Bible Research: A. Polotebnov, Archpriest, Об изучении Библии. Исторические свидетельства в хронологическом порядке (About the Bible Research: the Historical Witnesses in Chronological Order) (Moscow, 1875). 47 Толковая Библия, или Комментарий на все книги Св. Писания Ветхого и Нового Завета (The Bible Exegesis, or Commentary on the Books of Holy Scripture of the Old and the New Testament) (St. Petersburg, 1904–1913). 48 Толковая Библия, или Комментарий на все книги Св. Писания Ветхого и Нового Завета. (The Bible Exegesis, or Commentary on the Books of Holy Scripture of the Old and the New Testament) (Stockholm, 1987). 49 A. Men, Библиологический словарь (Biblographical Dictionary), n.p. [cited 28 November 2011]. Online: http://www.sinai.spb.ru/cor/glubok/glubokovsky140.html. 50 N. Glubokovsky, Блаженный Феодорит, епископ Киррский. Его жизнь и деятельность.Церковно-историческое исследование Н. Глубоковского (Blessed Theodorete, Bishop of Cyrus: His Life and Literary Activity) (Moscow, 1890). A. von Harnack, the well-known scholar and professor of Berlin University (1851−1930), reviewed Glubokovsky’s dissertation (A. von Harnack, review of N. Glubokovsky, “Der selige Theodoret, Bischof von Cyrus: Sein Leben und seine literarische Tätigkeit,” TLZ 20 [1890]: 502–504).

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Nicolay Glubokovsky’s research covers practically all the New Testament and consists of works about the Apostle Paul, the Gospels, Acts, and the Apocalypse. The works by N. Glubokovsky could be generally accepted as the culmination of all pre-revolutionary Russian biblical scholarship.51 The most important work by Glubokovsky was his three-volume (2.350 pages) research project, The Evangelism of St. Apostle Paul in its Origin and Essence, which was published partly in St. Petersburg in the period of 1905−1912. In this work, Glubokovsky gives a detailed analysis of different views on the origin of “Paulinism.” He criticizes the widespread statements concerning the total influence of “external” (rabbinic, Hellenistic, Roman) doctrines and trends on the theology of Paul. Glubokovsky proves that the “evangelism” of Paul is the true “evangelism of Christ” in its essence. He was sure that the conversion of Paul was not only caused by his personal religious experience, but it was the revelation of God, given to him as to a prophet and evangelist.52 Engaging the Gospels, Glubokovsky published in Sofia his book The Gospels and Their Evangelism about Christ the Savior (1932)53. In this work, he researches the synoptic problem. He believes that the similarities of the synoptic Gospels are caused by the unity of tradition and the diversity by the needs of concrete Christian communities. With regard to the Gospel of John, its aim, according to Glubokovsky, was to accent the divine personality of Christ. Glubokovsky also engaged in special research Harnack characterized this work as “the most important scientific phenomenon in the field of modern patristics,” and his review brought a wide popularity to Glubokovsky. 51 His first work, The Evangelism of Christian Freedom in the Epistle of Paul to the Galatians, was published in St. Petersburg in 1902 (N. Glubokovsky, Благовестие христианской свободы и Послания св. Апостола Павла к галатам: Сжатый обзор апостольского Послания со стороны его первоначальных читателей, условий происхождения, по содержанию и догматико-историческому. значению (The Evangelism of Christian Freedom in the Epistle of Paul to the Galatians: the Exegetical, Historical and Dogmatic Overview) (St. Petersburg, 1902). He demonstrated that the theology of Paul is first of all “the theology of freedom,” which is higher than any law or ritual. Later, with some additions, this work was published in Sofia in 1935: N. Glubokovsky, Благовестие христианской свободы и Послания св. Апостола Павла к галатам: Сжатый обзор апостольского Послания со стороны его первоначальных читателей, условий происхождения, по содержанию и догматико-историческому. значению (The Evangelism of Christian Freedom in the Epistle of Paul to the Galatians: the Exegetical, Historical and Dogmatic Overview) (Sofia, 1935). 52 N. Glubokovsky, Благовестие св. Апостола Павла по его происхождению и существу: Библейско-богословское исследование (The Evangelism of St. Apostle Paul in its Origin and Essence: Biblical and Theological Research) (vol. 3; St. Petersburg, 1912), 230–65. 53 N. Glubokovsky, Евангелия и их благовестие о Христе Спасителе и Его искупительном деле (The Gospels and Their Evangelism about Christ the Savior) (Sofia, 1932).

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devoted to Luke in his book, St. Luke as the Author of a Gospel and Acts (Sofia, 1932)54, in which he summarized all the discussion points about the origin of the third Gospel and the book of Acts, and confirmed their authorship by Luke. During the last years of his life, Nicolay Glubokovsky worked on New Testament theology. He tried to explain the most significant Christian statements, such as Christian freedom, sanctity and glory through the analysis of three New Testament books. The first was his already mentioned work on Galatians, the second had the title, The Evangelism of Christian Sanctity, and was developed on the basis of the Epistle to the Hebrews (published in Sofia in 1937)55 and the third research was, The Evangelism of Christian Glory in the Apocalypse of St. Apostle John the Theologian56, published in 1966 in Jordanville only after his death.57 Coming to the end of our overview, we could mention, that Nicolay Glubokovsky’s research work was based on a statement, that New Testament is first of all an expression of the unity of God and humanity, embodied in the Personality of Christ, where God and human nature are entirely inseparable and complete. These words could also express the whole idea of Russian pre-revolutionary biblical scholarship.

5 Conclusions: The Peculiarities of the Russian Biblical Scholarship In this short overview of the history and development of Pre-revolutionary Russian Biblical scholarship, we did not pretend to give a full and in-depth analysis of the history of the formation of biblical research in Russia of that time. In this overview, we can see that Russian biblical scholarship 54 N. Glubokovsky, Св. Апостол Лука, Евангелист и дееписатель (St. Luke as the Author of a Gospel and Acts) (Sofia, 1932). 55 N. Glubokovsky, Благовестие христианской святости (The Evangelism of Christian Sanctity). (Sofia, 1937). 56 N. Glubokovsky, Благовестие христианской славы в Апокалипсисе св. Апостола Иоанна Богослова: Сжатый обзор (The Evangelism of Christian Glory in the Apocalypse of St. Apostle John the Theologian: A Short Overview) (Jordanville, 1966). 57 A. Ignatiev offered the most complete description of the published works by Glubokovsky, which can be found in Журнал Московской Патриархии (Journal of Moscow Patriarchia) 8 (1966): 57–76. Some of his works were published in Russia (1882−1921), others were written by him during his emigration (1921−1937), and others were only published after his death. In total, we can find 127 published works. About 48 of them belong to the post-revolutionary period of Glubokovsky’s research and were printed outside of Russia.

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had its own, and not very easy, path of development. Russian biblical scholarship developed through external discussion with Western radical biblical scholars on the one hand, and through internal discussion of hermeneutical approaches – literal or creative58 − on the other hand. Russian scholars constantly faced difficulties as they worked towards a translation of the Bible, but they also faced misunderstanding, rejection, troubles, and deprivations. Just when it seemed that Russian biblical scholarship was becoming a serious scholarly discipline, the October Revolution broke off its further development. Despite these obstacles, we can speak today about the distinctive characteristics of that Russian biblical scholarship. We can generally speak about four main hermeneutical features of Russian biblical scholarship: a. The orientation to Church Tradition. This feature is fundamental for Orthodox hermeneutics. In accordance with this feature, Holy Scripture, as a part of the Holy Tradition, appeared in the Church and for the Church. Therefore, it should be interpreted while taking account of the Church Tradition and should not contradict dogma. From this perspective, the authenticity of the book of Holy Scripture is determined not by the isagogical data, which could be from time to time contradictable, but by its reception in the universal Church.59 b. The orientation to the patristic heritage. This statement follows from the previous point. Following the Church Fathers, Russian biblical scholars perceived the interpretation of the Bible as a work of the faith, as the cognition of God’s Word. At the same time, some Russian scholars were followed the fathers literally − “word for word,” while others perceived the patristic methodology creatively − as an example for the future development of biblical exegesis, using the achievements of history, archaeology, paleography, and so forth. Following the patristic heritage opened for Rus-

58 59

The meaning of these approaches is explained below in point b. The Russian ecclesiologist and new-martyr St. Hilarion (Archbishop Hilarion [Troizky], 1886−1929): Archbishop Hilarion (Troizky), Священное Писание и Церковь (The Holy Scripture and the Church) (Moscow, 1914), 17, wrote: “The Church existed when there were not any books of the New Testament at all. The New Testament books were written during more than fifty years after the beginning of the Church, as a reflection of the existing oral tradition. They were written for the Church, which already existed ...” At the same time, the Church orientation of Russian biblical scholarship did not deny any historical or scientific approach: “Orthodoxy,” wrote Archpriest Sergiy Bulgakov (1877−1944), “gives to the scholar freedom of research within the bounds of his faith, expressed in basic Church dogma ... The Word of God, ... should not be only literature and a historical source, because under the temporal, external, historical cover there are the words of eternal life,” and in this case, the Bible is a place of a meeting between the eternal God and earthly human beings (S. Bulgakov, Православие [The Orthodoxy] [Paris, 1965], 51−58).

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sian scholars the opportunity for a creative exegetical and hermeneutical approach to biblical research. c. From the patristic heritage, Russian biblical scholarship acquired the statement about the polysemantic character of Holy Scripture. This characteristic concerns the hermeneutical approach to the interpretation, which requires different methods of exegesis. The exegetical methods should not contradict, but compete each other.60 d. The Christological (or divine and human) aspect. According to the topic of the Symposium, we would like to conclude with this very important statement of Russian biblical scholarship. Jesus Christ, the Savior, united the Old and New Testament, as has been expressed in the famous words of Augustine: Novum Testamentum in Vetere latet, Vetus in Novo patet.61 From the very beginning, Jesus Christ was perceived in the Orthodox Tradition as the center of Biblical hermeneutics. Holy Scripture has both a divine and a human origin.62 According to the twentieth century Russian biblical scholar Bishop Cassian (Bezobrazov), “faith in the divine and human nature of the Bible is the core of Orthodox hermeneutics.”63 This means that the process of writing and interpreting the books of Holy Scripture is a synergetic act of divine revelation and human creativity.

60 It is possible to assume that this feature helped Russian biblical scholars overcome the tension between Russian and Western biblical scholarship, which was quite strong in the nineteenth century. 61 Cf. Augustine, Quaest. Hept. 2.73 (PL 34:623). 62 This statement in Russian Orthodox hermeneutics is closely connected with Orthodox theology and is a kind of expression of the dogma of the Fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451) about the relationship between the divine and the human nature of Jesus Christ. According to this statement, the holy scripture also has both a divine and a human origin. In this case, biblical research should take into account the core of the holy scripture – namely the divine revelation – as well as the path of its human transmission. As the Russian scholar Anton Kartashev (1875−1960) claims, “critical research can be accepted when it investigates mainly the human aspect of the holy scripture,” A. Kartashev, Ветхозаветная критика (The Old Testament Bible Critics (Paris, 1947), 72. 63 Men, “К истории русской православной библеистики” (n. 3), 282.

II Papers from the symposium

Jesus from a Western Perspective State of Research. Methodology ULRICH LUZ

1 Introduction 1.1 Why do we seek the history of Jesus ‒ historically? In 1969 a Russian priest published a book on the historical Jesus. It was part of the Samisdatliterature and was first published in Bruxelles. Only in 1997 was it published in Russia also, under the title “Сын Человеческий” ‒ the son of Man.1 Its author was Aleksandr Men. The answer he gave to our question was the following: Atheists always pretended that Jesus was a myth ‒ for a long time only this answer was allowed in Soviet scholarship. Men states, “It is not in vain that Atheism sticks to the ‘Myth-Theory’ because this theory threatens the very existence of Christianity ... If they say in the name of science that Jesus of Nazareth was a fiction ‒ it is an attempt to destroy the whole building of the Church. Therefore this is the most serious of all attacks against Christianity led under the pretext of historical scholarship.” Then Men continues: “This question concerns concrete historical facts. Therefore it has to be examined exclusively on the basis of science. One may believe or not believe that God has revealed himself to the world through Christ ‒ this question cannot be decided by archaeology or written monuments ‒ but the historicity of Jesus Christ is a problem that is fully accessible to historical research.”2 Aleksandr Men makes two points: 1. The quest for the historical Jesus proves necessary because only with the methods of historical research can the theory that Jesus was only a mythological figure be refuted. This quest is necessary because we live in a secular world in a dialogue with atheists. 2. For believers ‒ and only for believers ‒ Jesus is more than a mere historical figure. Believers believe ‒ and historians do not prove or make plausi1 2

А. Меn, Сын Человеческий (Моskau, 1997). A. Men, Der Menschensohn (trans. M. Schierhorn; 2d ed.; Freiburg, 2006), 302f (translation into English U.L.).

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ble ‒ that God has revealed himself through Jesus or ‒ with the words of the Christological dogma ‒ that Jesus Christ is true God and true man. This is a reality of faith which is not accessible to historical research. These two points are the two pillars upon which the modern, Western quest for the historical Jesus rests. These two pillars can neither be separated from each other nor should they be confused. I purposely allude to the ἀδιαιρέτως and the ἀσυγχύτως of the Chalcedonian dogma,3 because I understand my two points and their relation to each other as an application of the Chalcedonian dogma to a different paradigm of thinking. 1.2 In the eighteenth century a fundamental paradigm-shift transformed Western-European thinking. The traditional ontological and theocentric way of thinking was replaced by the new way of thinking of the Enlightenment. One of the basic characteristics of this new way of thinking was the separation of the divine world of God, or of reason, from the visible world, characterized through extension and time, the realm of the laws of nature and those of history. With Lessing’s sharp distinction between “accidental truths of history” and “necessary truths of Reason”4 and with Kant’s dissolution of the traditional proofs for God’s existence and the transformation of God into a postulate of practical reason, the Enlightenment reached its peak in the last decades of the eighteenth century. With it came a split in the understanding of truth. In the realm of history, the question of truth became identical with the question of whether or not something was a “historical fact.”5 Historical facts have nothing to do with the eternal truths of reason or with the ethical truths of life. For Christology, this split implied that it became more and more impossible to locate the Human and the Divine on the same level of “being.” What the fathers of Chalcedon meant when they said that Jesus Christ was “true God and true man” was no more directly expressible, because “true humanity” was a complete description of a being and excluded the addition of anything else. “True divinity” had to be totally rethought and reformulated within a new paradigm of thinking in which “God” was available as a word of human tradition and as a human interpretation of reality but not directly as supreme “being.” Using the categories of the Christological dogma, one can say that due to the Enlightenment, the two natures of Christ were separated. The human nature became independent and selfsufficient. The divine nature came into a whirlpool of continuing debates; it unterwent a continuous process of constructions, deconstructions, and 3

H. Denzinger and A. Schönmetzer, eds., Enchiridion symbolorum (36th ed.; Freiburg im Breisgau, 1976) Nr. 302. 4 G. E. Lessing, On the Proof of Spirit and Power, in Lessing’s Theological Writings (ed. H. Chadwick; Stanford, 1956), 53. 5 H. W. Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative (New Haven, 1974), 17‒65.

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reconstructions, a process that continues till today and in which we theologians take part. This is only a very abridged interpretation of the paradigm-shift the Enlightenment brought about. By “paradigm-shift”, I mean a fundamental change of the dominant way of constructing the world. Such paradigmshifts are historical and contextual. On the one hand, I do not say that the “enlightened” way of constructing the world is the only or the only true way. Other cultures, for instance in Africa or in Asia, have different ways. Ways of constructing the world change continuously. On the other hand, to speak about a fundamental paradigm shift implies that we cannot escape it in our own thinking, in spite of the fact that we have to analyze it, criticize it, and call for transformations. Albert Schweitzer began his “Quest for the historical Jesus” with Reimarus. With him it became clear that “God” cannot be conceived as one among other active agents in history or as a direct cause of historical events. Any mixture (σύγχυσις) of the human nature with a divine element was now a priori impossible. After Reimarus, the “true humanity” of Jesus is natural and evident, but the “true Divinity” is no more given and has to be explored anew.6 Therefore, the fundamental theological question is: How can we express within this new paradigm that Jesus and God are indivisibly (ἀδιαιρέτως) one when human nature by definition excludes any σύγχυσις with God? I ask the same question in biblical terms: How can we speak about the historical Jesus as “Immanuel” or as the “incarnation of God” when “history” as a scientific concept excludes by definition any divine intervention as explanation of an event? In this sense, the quest for the historical Jesus includes a theological exploration of the possibility of speaking about God in our modern world. As I examine the different “quests” for the historical Jesus, my leading question will be: How have these scholars posed this theological question, or did they bypass it, or even exclude it?

2 The First Quest 2.1 The First Quest began dramatically. Lessing published the “Fragments of an anonymous person from Wolfenbüttel” between 1774 and 1778. He knew well who their author was – Hermann Samuel Reimarus, a classical 6

G. Ebeling, Theologie und Verkündigung (HUTh 1; Tübingen, 1962), 23f, characterizes the new situation as follows: “Whereas traditional Christology departed from the statement ‘vere Deus’ as a given basis and explained from there the ‘vere homo’ as a not unproblematical statement of faith, now the ‘true God’ as a statement of Christological confession was entirely problematical” (English translation mine).

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philologian and orientalist living in Hamburg till his death in 1768. The manuscripts published by Lessing were parts of a large work, “Apology or Plea for Protection for the Rational Worshippers of God,” published in its full length only in 1972.7 For the quest for Jesus, the most important part was the fragment “About the Intention of Jesus and of His Disciples,” published by Lessing in 1778. Reimarus was a radical Deist. For him, Jesus was not a teacher of “great mysteries or tenets of the faith ...” but of “moral teachings and duties intended to improve man inwardly and with all his heart.”8 Jesus’s Messianic ambitions failed; his resurrection and the church’s new vision of Jesus as a spiritual, suffering redeemer were the result of a fraud, an invention of his disciples. Reimarus did not risk publishing his work in his own time. The fate of great radical scholars like David Friedrich Strauss or Bruno Bauer much later in the nineteenth century demonstrates that he was well advised. The reaction of the official churches was defensive and repressive. 2.2 Roughly speaking, we can distinguish four “main roads” in the First Quest for the historical Jesus. The first is the way of rationalism. Its most important representative in Germany was Heinrich Eberhard Gottlob Paulus, author of a book on Jesus and of an extensive commentary on the Synoptic Gospels.9 Its main problem was the explanation of the miracles and the resurrection of Jesus. The rationalists could not accept the traditional explanation of miracles as direct interventions of God in the laws of nature. Because they retained the traditional definition of a miracle as something extraordinary happening outside the laws of nature,10 they failed to open new theological perspectives, in spite of the fact that many of the rationalists, including Paulus himself, were very pious people. 2.3 The same happened with the second way, the mythological interpretation of Jesus, represented by David Friedrich Strauss. With this mythological interpretation, Strauss sought an approach to the interpretation of Jesus that went beyond rationalism and supernaturalism. For this pupil of Hegel, “myth” was the “creation of a fact out of an idea.” In the case of Jesus, “the history of the life of Jesus (is) of mystical formation, inasmuch as it embodies the vivid impression of the original idea which the first 7 H. S. Reimarus, Apology or Plea for Protection for the Rational Worshippers of God; German edition of the full text: Apologie oder Schutzschrift für die vernünftigen Verehrer Gottes (ed. G. Alexander; Frankfurt, 1972). 8 H. S. Reimarus, “The Intention of Jesus and His Disciples” (1772), translated in The Historical Jesus Quest. A Foundational Analogy (ed. G. W. Dawes; Leiden, 1999), 62. 9 H. E. G. Paulus, Das Leben Jesu als Grundlage einer reinen Geschichte des Urchristentums (2 vols.; Heidelberg, 1828); H. E. G. Paulus, Kommentar über die drey ersten Evangelien, (4 vols.; Lübeck, 1800‒1808). 10 Thomas v. Aquino, STh I qu 110 art 4: A miracle is happening “praeter ordinem totius naturae creatae” and therefore a prerogative of God.

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Christian community had of their founder.”11 The formative idea of the life of Jesus is, according to Strauss, the conviction that in the selfconsciousness of Jesus Christ “the unity of the Divine and the Human has appeared for the first time and with such an energy ...” that the significance of Jesus became unique in world history. 12 In other words, not history in the sense of “facts,” but its impact on the believers, the faith of the earliest church in the divine-human nature of Christ, has formed the lives of Jesus as we have them in the Gospels. This sounds quite modern and different from the negative impression Strauss made upon his conservative theological contemporaries. Indeed, his intention has affinities with those of later theologians like Martin Kähler or even James D. G. Dunn. Probably the contemporary reception of Strauss was so negative because “myth” was taken in the sense of an “invention,” a fictive story without a historical core. The rediscovery of myths as foundational stories of life and religion, e.g. by Mircea Eliade, was not yet available in the early nineteenth century. Therefore, I would say that David Friedrich Strauss possibly opened a door to a rediscovery of the Divine in Jesus, but the time was not ripe for him. 2.4 The third way is the way of the liberal theologians, particularily in the second part of the nineteenth century. They are numerous, among them Karl Heinrich Weizsäcker, Bernhard Weiss, Wilhelm Bousset, Paul Wernle, Ernest Renan and ‒ for the parables ‒ Adolf Jülicher. For me, the most impressive texts are Heinrich Julius Holtzmann’s New Testament Theology and ‒ naturally ‒ the relevant lectures in Harnack’s What is Christianity.13 For the liberals, neither the problem of the miracles of Jesus nor the resurrection were in the foreground, but his religion. Jesus is for them the great teacher of a religion for enlightened individuals ‒ trust in the loving Father of the universe and an ethics of love. Holtzmann speaks in almost mystical terms about “the most living presence of God in his heart”14 that can be expressed ultimately only in images. For Harnack the kingdom of God is a purely religious reality, a gift from above for man: “It permeates and dominates his whole existence, because sin is forgiven and misery banished.”15 Yes, the liberals were religious people with a very personal, often almost mystical relation to God that was mediated to them through the religious 11 D. F. Strauss, The Life of Jesus critically examined (tr. George Eliot; London, 1973), 62 (Strauss follows J. George). 12 D. F. Strauss, Das Leben Jesu kritisch bearbeitet (vol. 2; 3d ed.; Tübingen, 1839), 778f (only in this edition; translation mine). 13 H. J. Holtzmann, Lehrbuch der neutestamentlichen Theologie (vol. 2; Tübingen, 1897; 2d ed. 1911); A. Harnack, What is Christianity? (trans. Th. B. Saunders; 5th ed.; New York, 1957). 14 Holtzmann, Theologie (vol. 1), 341. 15 Harnack, What is Christianity?, 62.

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genius Jesus. Nothing would be more unjust than to reduce their piety to mere ethics. One of the problems of their approach was that Jesus’s life, his healings, his death, and his resurrection were not of primary importance. Another problem was their negligence of Jesus’s Jewishness; most of them tended to use what they called “late Judaism” as a rather negative background for the unique religion of Jesus. This feature is more or less common for the entire “First Quest,” Albert Schweitzer included. 2.5 The fourth way is consequent eschatology, as represented by Johannes Weiss, Albert Schweitzer, and others.16 For them, the kingdom of God was supraindividual, supraethical, with cosmic and apocalyptic dimensions, aiming “beyond the consummation and salvation of the individual to a consummation and salvation of the world.”17 Jesus’s preaching is far more radical than the pious, liberal optimists believed; it is not only a foundational, but also a critical and destructive mythos. It is irrational, because it transcends the laws and the harmonies of this world. It is not by chance that Albert Schweitzer came to a deep cultural pessimism in the time of the publication of his “Quest.”18 Jesus’s eschatology was one of the keys that opened his eyes to the dark sides of European culture. For Schweitzer, a direct reference to Jesus is not possible for us. “Jesus of Nazareth will not let himself be modernized. He has no answer for the question: ‘Tell us your name in our speech and for our day!’ But he blesses those who have wrestled with him, so that, though they cannot take him with them, yet, like men who have seen God face to face and received healing in their souls, they go on their way with renewed courage, and fight with the powers of the world”.19 For Schweitzer, Jesus is an invaluable source of inspiration for the process of constructing our own view of the real God. 2.6 Methodologically the most important contribution of the First Quest is the fundamental distinction between historical and dogmatic method in theology by Ernst Troeltsch.20 For Troeltsch, there is no bridge between 16 J. Weiss, Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes (Göttingen, 1892; 2d ed. 1900); A. Schweitzer, Von Reimarus zu Wrede (Tübingen, 1906); new edition 1913 with the title: Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung (Tübingen, 1913). Complete English translation: The Quest for the Historical Jesus (trans. J. Bowden; London, 2000). 17 Schweitzer, Quest, 480. 18 The first version of his cultural philosophy was written under the title “Wir Epigonen” between 1914 and 1918, but its basic idea goes back to 1899. “Wir Epigonen” was not published until 2005 (Α. Schweitzer, Wir Epigonen. Kultur und Kulturstaat [Albert Schweitzer. Werke aus dem Nachlass; ed. U. Körtner and J. Zürcher; München, 2005]). 19 Schweitzer, Quest, 277. 20 E. “Troeltsch, Historical and Dogmatic Method in Theology,” in: E. Troeltsch, Religion in History (tr. J. L. Adams and W. F. Beuse; Edinburgh, 1991), 11‒32.

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them, but rather, the historical method is “a leaven that ... blows up lastly the whole set of traditional theological methods.”21 Why? Because the three basic principles of the historical critical method – criticism, analogy and correlation – imply firstly, that there is no certitude in the realm of historical judgments but only probability; secondly, that what happens historically is basically “similar” (“gleichartig”);22 and thirdly, that all historical events must be seen as part of a larger context. With regard to the miracles of Jesus and his resurrection, traditionally interpreted as events outside the laws of nature, but also with regard to the Christological dogma of the two natures, the consequences of these principles seem to be entirely negative. They are not necessarily so, if we realize that these principles of historical criticism have to be applied to themselves as well. They, too, are relative and contextual. They are not meant as ontological principles about reality but as methodological principles about our own present possibilities of constructing and verifying historical reality. The principle of analogy in particular is very open because every enlargement of our scientific, ethnological, or historical knowledge leads to a widening of the horizon of possible analogies. The intention of Troeltsch in this classic essay was not at all to propagate scepticism in history and to deny certitude to faith, but to give to both a proper basis. He says: “Faith interprets facts, but it cannot establish them,”23 and even less postulate them! In this way, the consequence of Troeltsch’s principles is that divine reality is a matter of interpretation, not a matter of facts. 2.7 Result: “Wrestling with God” ‒ this could be a motto for the best representatives of the First Quest for Jesus in the nineteenth century. “Wrestling with God” who, after the collapse of the metaphysically understood union of the divine and human nature in the christological dogma, was discernible for the scholars of the First Quest only indirectly through human interpretations and ‒ especially ‒ in the life and teaching of Jesus. No doubt, what they offered were only glimpses, hunches, and human views on the living God, but their attempt was honest and important. 2.8 The forty years between the first World War and 1953 have been called a period of “No Quest.” Albert Schweitzer’s book brought about disillusion for further questers. Martin Kähler’s influential contribution of 1896 reminded scholars that the Gospels witness to the biblical Christ of history and not the historical Jesus.24 William Wrede’s “The Messianic 21 22 23

Troeltsch, Method in Theology, 12. Troeltsch, Method in Theology, 14. E. Troeltsch, Die Bedeutung der Geschichtlichkeit Jesu für den Glauben (Tübingen, 1911), 33. 24 M. Kähler, Der sogenannte historische Jesus und der geschichtliche biblische Christus (Leipzig, 1896; new edition ed. E. Wolf; ThB 2; München, 1956).

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Secret” shook the Markan basis of the quest.25 Form criticism revealed the formative character of the early transmission processes and the late date of the narrative framework of the Gospels.26 Dialectic theology conceived God as a reality totally different from any worldly reality and rejected any paths to God “from below”, including the quest for the historical Jesus. For Rudolf Bultmann, author of the most influential book about Jesus in the period between the wars,27 Jesus is not a part of New Testament theology, but its presupposition.28 He saw him as a radical Jewish prophet and teacher whose concrete proclamation of God calls for a human decision. With Easter, something totally new began – the Christian kerygma, the basis of Christian preaching and its theological reflection. After Jesus’s resurrection, there was no possibility of seeing the risen and exalted Jesus κατὰ σάρκα (2Cor 5:16).29 In spite of historical continuities between Jesus and the post-Easter Church, for Bultmann, discontinuity prevailed.30

3 The “New” or Second Quest31 3.1 In a famous lecture of 1953, Bultmann’s student Ernst Käsemann criticized Bultmann’s position and opened the debates of the “Second Quest.”32 25

W. Wrede, Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien: Zugleich ein Beitrag zum Verständnis des Markusevangeliums (Göttingen, 1901); English: The Messianic Secret (Greenwood, 1971). 26 Cf. K. L. Schmidt, Der Rahmen der Geschichte Jesu (Berlin, 1919). 27 R. Bultmann, Jesus (Die Unsterblichen 1; Berlin, 1929); English: Jesus and the Word (New York/London, 1934). 28 R. Bultmann, Theologie des Neuen Testaments (3d ed.; Tübingen, 1958 [1948]), 1f; English: Theology of the New Testament (London, 1952). 29 R. Bultmann, “Die Bedeutung des geschichtlichen Jesus für die Theologie des Paulus,” in R. Bultmann, Glauben und Verstehen (vol. 1; 2d ed. Tübingen, 1958), 206f. 30 R. Bultmann, Das Verhältnis der urchristlichen Christusbotschaft zum historischen Jesus (SHAW.PH 1960/3; 2d ed.; Heidelberg, 1961), 6f. English: The Primitive Christian Kerygma and the Historical Jesus (New York/Nashville, 1964). 31 J. Robinson, A New Quest of the historical Jesus (London, 1959), introduced the “new quest” to the American public, taking up the title of the English translation of Schweitzer. Only in light of the so-called “Third Quest,” however, did it become customary to speak about a “Second Quest.” An early and substantial selection of articles at the time of the “Second Quest,” written by its representatives, its opponents, and outsiders, is printed in the collection by H. Ristow and K. Matthiae, eds., Der historische Jesus und der kerygmatische Christus (Berlin, 1961). Another important collection of contributions from ca. 1900 onwards is J. D. G. Dunn and S. McKnight, eds., The Historical Jesus in Recent Research (Winona Lake, 2005). All the texts of the latter collection are written in (or translated into) English. 32 E. Käsemann, “The Problem of the Historical Jesus,” in E. Käsemann, Essays in New Testament Themes (trans. W. J. Montague; London, 1964), 15‒47; cf. also: E.

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This debate was primarily, but not exclusively, a debate among Bultmann’s pupils and friends. Its topic was not so much the history of Jesus, but the theological basis and necessity for pursuing the quest for Jesus. Käsemann’s main problem was that of the identity of the risen Jesus proclaimed in the Christian kerygma. Why did the early Church proclaim Jesus as Lord and Redeemer? Why did the early Christians neither “allow myth to take the place of history nor a heavenly king to take the place of the man of Nazareth?”33 Käsemann’s answer: “To cleave firmly to history is one way of giving expression to the extra nos of salvation.”34 Käsemann emphasized the importance of the Synoptic Gospels, especially of Matthew and Luke. Their strong conviction of the identity of the earthly and the exalted Lord Jesus Christ was the reason why they narrated their story of the earthly Jesus. Consequently, the Gospels by no means enumerate bruta facta but narrate a history as it is meaningful for the present church. Günther Bornkamm says in the introduction to his Jesus of Nazareth, in the sixties and seventies the most popular book about Jesus: The Gospels testify “that faith does not begin with itself, but lives from past history.”35 In a similar way, systematic theologian Gerhard Ebeling emphasizes that the explicit Christology of the post-Easter Church needs a foundation in the implicit christology of Jesus, otherwise it is a mere invention “without authority and without reality.”36 Because, for most of the pupils of Bultmann, Jesus did not have an explicit Christology, his so-called “implicit” Christology is of crucial importance for the continuity between the earthly Jesus and post-Easter christology. For Gerhard Ebeling and Ernst Fuchs, Jesus’s appeal to have faith is so vital because faith is absolute, unconditional trust in Jesus’s power. Ernst Käsemann emphasizes the absolute, God-like authority of Jesus’s “I say to you” in the antitheses of the Sermon on the Mount; Jesus’s authority here surpasses that of Moses. For all of them, the quest for the historical Jesus is a theological quest. It is a necessary interpretation of the kerygma37 or even, as Käsemann once said, a criterion for the kerygma38 which prevents it from becoming a spiritual invention. Not all representatives of the “Second Quest” share this type of kerygmatic christology “from above.” In Herbert Braun’s famous little book

Käsemann, “Blind Alleys in the ‘Jesus of History Controversy,’” in E. Käsemann, New Testament Questions of Today (London, 1969), 23‒65. 33 Käsemann, Problem, 25. 34 Käsemann, Problem, 33; cf. Käsemann, Blind Alleys, 63f. 35 G. Bornkamm, Jesus of Nazareth (London, 1960), 23. 36 Ebeling, Theologie und Verkündigung, 81. 37 Ebeling, Theologie und Verkündigung, 55: not a legitimation of the kerygma. 38 Käsemann, Blind Alleys, 47.

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“Jesus,”39 the basic problem of the First Quest is very much alive: How can we speak about God in a secular world? His answer is that in the life and teaching of Jesus, God does not work on human beings “vertically from above.” Rather, poor and guilty human beings have the experience of love down here on earth ‒ through fellow human beings.40 This was what Jesus did, and in this he is representative of God. In a similar way, Eduard Schweizer can speak about “Jesus, the parable of God.”41 For him, Jesus did not only teach in parables, but he himself, in his whole life and death, is the parable of the otherwise inaccessible God, a parable that does not allow distant knowledge but engages human existence. Behind Schweizer’s formulation stands the basic insight, that parabolic language and human images might be more appropriate to give testimony to the biblical God than the discursive and conceptual language of human reason. 3.2 Methodologically, a whole set of criteria was applied to determine the authenticity of a Jesus-tradition, such as the criterion of multiple attestation, the criterion of coherence, the criterion of dissimilarity or difference, the criterion of Semitic language background, etc.42 Not all of them are applicable to every tradition. Sometimes they even lead to contradicting results. None of these criteria is neutral and objective. But taken together ‒ so it was hoped ‒ a reliable and consensual picture of the historical Jesus would emerge. This hope was, for various reaons, only partially fulfilled. One reason lies in the criterion of dissimilarity that was very important for the scholars of the New Quest. Ernst Käsemann formulates it as follows: “We are only on really safe ground in one single case, namely when a tradition for any reason cannot be derived from contemporary Judaism nor attributed to early Christianity, especially, when Jewish Christianity has eased or turned around a tradition as being too radical.”43 It is perfectly clear ‒ and it was also clear for Ernst Käsemann ‒ that this criterion is much too narrow to include all Jesus-traditions. With regard to early Christianity, it was perfectly suitable for Bultmann, who presupposed a fundamental discontinuity between Jesus and the kerygma. It was, however, less suitable for his students who asked for continuity. With regard to 39 H. Braun, Jesus of Nazareth. The Man and his Time (trans. E. R. Kalin; Philadelphia, 1979). 40 Braun, Jesus of Nazareth, 127‒136. 41 E. Schweizer, Jesus, das Gleichnis Gottes (Göttingen, 1995); English: Jesus, the parable of God (Edinburgh, 1997). 42 Critical surveys about the criteria are given in N. Perrin, Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus (London, 1967), 15‒48; J. P. Meier, A Marginal Jew. Rethinking the Historical Jesus (New York, 1991), 167‒195; G. Theissen and D. Winter, Die Kriterienfrage in der Jesusforschung (NTOA 34; Fribourg/Göttingen, 1997), 1‒19. 43 Käsemann, Problem, 37.

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contemporary Judaism, it was suitable for most scholars of that time because most of them were influenced by the liberal tradition of nineteenth century New Testament scholarship and its vision of Jesus as a universalistic religious and ethical teacher different from the Pharisees. Moreover, the scholars of the Second Quest sought to root the kerygma of the distinctive religion Christianity firmly in Jesus of Nazareth, and this made it difficult for them to see Jesus as a pious Jew rooted in mainstream Judaism. They preferred a “different” Jesus. Other criteria have their problems and weaknesses too. For example, the criterion of multiple attestation, a seemingly sober and neutral criterion, contradicts the dissmilarity-criterion to some degree. When a Jesustradition was embarrassing and too radical for early Christianity, suppression rather than wide attestation is to be expected. Furthermore, the criterion of wide attestation could not be very conclusive as long as apocryphal Gospels were widely neglected and as long as there was total disagreement among scholars whether the Q-tradition, the Johannine tradition, the Thomas tradition, and the Markan tradition were independent from each another or not. The safest part of the criterion of multiple attestation is the agreement between sayings and narrative tradition. If something is attested by sayings of Jesus and confirmed by the narrative, we are on fairly safe ground.44 The criterion of coherence presupposes that a researcher has already a rather concise idea about Jesus and his proclamation; only then is it possible to say something about the coherence of a Jesus-tradition with the rest of the supposedly authentic traditions. Therefore, coherence is valid only as a secondary criterion. In addition, it excludes the possibility that Jesus changed or developed his views. The criterion of Semitic languagebackground is applicable only to the sayings of Jesus and even there only occasionally. Last but not least, the minimal interest of the “New Questers” in Judaism, as well as their emphasis on difference, had the consequence that something like a “criterion of contextuality” played no role. Does a tradition fit the situation of contemporary Israel-Palestine and can it be explained in the context of contemporary Palestinian Judaism? Questions like these were rarely asked by the scholars of the New Quest ‒ in spite of the fact that in the fifties, sixties, and seventies of the last century Jewish studies and Palestinian studies were exploding. This explosion, however, occurred mainly in Israel and the USA, but not on the European continent, for obvious and tragic reasons. It was left to the so-called “Third quest” to open these doors. 3.3 Other problems of the Second Quest. Vague and diverging scholarly opinions about the oral tradition presented another difficulty. How much 44

Cf. E. Fuchs, Jesus. Wort und Tat (Tübingen, 1971).

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should be attributed to the creativity of the early transmittors of Jesustraditions? Or were the transmitters rather interested in verbal tradition and in memorizing words of Jesus?45 How faithful, how creative, how selective is memory? Research in orality was still in its infancy then and scholarly ideas about oral transmission both in early Christianity and early Judaism were partly fanciful. It was unavoidable that presuppositions about the oral tradition greatly impacted scholars’ attribution of a Jesus tradition as authentic or secondary. Another problem is that the Second Quest was almost exclusively interested in the preaching of Jesus, and not in his life, largely because of the form critics’ discovery that the narrative of the life of Jesus in the Gospels is basically a creation of the Evangelists. While this realization is certainly correct, it does not prohibit questions about the sequence of events in the life of Jesus. 3.4 Result. Generally, one can say that the “Second Quest” for the historical Jesus, as far as Bultmann’s school is concerned, was very important theologically. However, one cannot say that it has greatly advanced our historical knowledge about Jesus. Their Jesus looked very faint and abstract, like a construction determined by the needs of the kerygma, but not like a person of flesh and blood. The most important result of the Second Quest is a new insight into the theological importance of the quest for Jesus. 3.5 The conservative, non-Bultmannian “outsiders.” For the reconstruction of the historical Jesus, much more influential were some scholars who shared the theological point of departure of the Bultmannians46 but held much more conservative views of history. They relied more on our sources; therefore, they made more substantial contributions to the historical questions. To Joachim Jeremias we owe numerous insights into the Aramaic background of the words of Jesus and into many aspects of the proclamation and self-consciousness of Jesus.47 We owe to the Roman Catholic scholar Heinz Schürmann, who was teaching in the German Democratic Republic, numerous insights, particularily into the origin of the Lord’s Supper and the way Jesus interpreted his death.48 And we owe 45 This was the basic hypothesis of B. Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript (Uppsala, 1961), and the Scandinavian School. 46 Cf. e.g. J. Jeremias who reproached Bultmann: “We are close to the point of giving up the phrase: ‘the Word became Flesh’ ... We have come close to Docetism, and to a mere Christ-myth.” ... “The historical Jesus is not just one prerequisite of the kerygma among many, but the one prerequisite, just like the call is the prerequisite for the answer” (Das Problem des historischen Jesus [CwH 32; Stuttgart, 1960], 12, 24). 47 J. Jeremias, Neutestamentliche Theologie. Erster Teil: Die Verkündigung Jesu (Gütersloh, 1971); English: New Testament Theology (London, 1971); cf. J. Jeremias, Jesus und seine Botschaft (Stuttgart, 1976). 48 H. Schürmann, Jesu ureigener Tod (Leipzig, 1975); H. Schürmann, Jesus. Gestalt und Geheimnis. Gesammelte Beiträge (ed. K. Scholtissek; Paderborn, 1994).

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many insights to Martin Hengel and his immense knowledge of early Judaism. One of the recurring melodies of the rich music of his theological work is the statement that kerygma and history are not oppositions; the kerygma is not an invention of a history of Jesus that never existed. Rather, history and kerygma are complementary, and one never existed one without the other.49 Their different historical approach was also due to their different evaluation of the authenticity-criteria. Because they were interested in the continuity between Jesus and early Christianity, and because Hengel and Jeremias had a strong interest in the roots of Jesus in early Judaism, the criterion of contextuality (only that which can be explained from the context of early Palestinian Judaism is authentic) proved important.50 In addition, for Joachim Jeremias, Semitisms, especially Aramaisms, were an important criterion for authenticity. Once more, we see the interdependence of theological background, methodological approach, and assessment of the historical Jesus. In all these ways, they became important fathers of the “Third Quest”.

4 The Third Quest51 The “Third Quest” differs from the Second by being a truly historical effort.52 It started from issues the Second Quest had neglected or where it 49

Cf. M. Hengel, “Kerygma oder Geschichte,” in M. Hengel, Jesus und die Evangelien (Kleine Schriften V; Tübingen, 2007), 289‒305 (the text was written in 1971). 50 Cf. J. Jeremias, Jerusalem zur Zeit Jesu (Leipzig, 1923–1937; 3d ed. Göttingen, 1959; for Martin Hengel special references are not necessary. 51 Some important monographs representing different tendencies of the “Third Quest” are the following: D. C. Allison, Jesus of Nazareth. Millenarian Prophet (Minneapolis, 1998); J. D. Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (San Francisco, 1991); J. D. Crossan, Jesus. A Revolutionary Biography (San Francisco, 1994); J. D. G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered. Christianity in the Making I (Grand Rapids, 2003); S. Freyne, Jesus. A Jewish Galilaean (London, 2004); R. A. Horsley, Jesus in Context (Minneapolis, 2008); C. S. Keener, The Historical Jesus of the Gospels (Grand Rapids, 2009); J. P. Meier, A Marginal Jew. Rethinking the Historical Jesus (vol. I; New York, 1991; vol. II 1994; vol. III 2001; vol. IV 2009; E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia, 1985); E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (London, 1993); J. Schröter; Jesus von Nazareth. Jude aus Galiläa ‒ Retter der Welt (Leipzig, 2006); W. Stegemann, Jesus und seine Zeit (Stuttgart, 2010); G. Theissen and A. Merz, Der historische Jesus (Göttingen, 1996); G. Theissen, Jesus als historische Gestalt (FRLANT 202; Göttingen, 2003); G. Vermes, Jesus the Jew. A Historian’s Reading of the Gospels (London, 1973); G. Vermes, Jesus and the World of Judaism (London, 1983); G. Vermes, The Religion of Jesus the Jew (London, 1993). 52 For most representatives of the “Third quest,” “historical” does not simply mean “corresponding to the historical facts,” so that everything which is not “historical” is a “great fraud” ‒ this is the conviction of G. Lüdemann, Der grosse Betrug: Und was Jesus

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was biased. The question of sources was reopened. The question of Jesus’s contexts became an issue of primary importance. Political and social history, archaeology, ethnology, anthropology, and psychology became tools to contextualize Jesus as a Galilean Jew of the first century. The question of the Jewishness of Jesus became a matter of primary importance.53 Different from the First and the Second Quest, the Third Quest is a truly international effort: Anglosaxon scholars, particularily scholars from the USA, play a leading role; Jews, Christians, humanists, agnostics have made important contributions. Because my primary interest is a theological one, I cannot give a detailed report on the historical debates. I concentrate on some major points of discussion and mark some main tendencies. 4.1 Literary Sources. In the beginning of the “Third Quest,” the interest turned away from the canonical gospels, particularly to the “fifth Gospel,”54 the non-eschatological Gospel of Thomas, which was seen as independent from the Synoptic Gospels by many scholars. For many, other non-canonical gospels, like the “Secret Gospel of Mark,” were thought to be important and early source texts. Early, non-eschatological layers of the Sayings Source Q were reconstructed; the Gospel of Thomas and the socalled “Gospel of the Cross,” a source text of the Gospel according to Pe-

wirklich sagte und tat (Lüneburg, 1998), who shares it with Reimarus, who wrote 230 years ago. A more differentiated and modern view is presented by John P. Meier who starts the first volume of his “opus maximum” with the paradox: “The historical Jesus is not the real Jesus. The real Jesus is not the historical Jesus” (A Marginal Jew, 21). Why not? Historical reconstructions are always interpretations, i.e. constructions of historians on the basis of casual and fragmentary data. A truly scholarly presentation of the life and teaching of the “historical Jesus” cannot be more than the attempt to reach a provisional consensus in the dialogue of historians with different backgrounds, and this consensus will serve as a common starting point for new dialogues. In this sense, J. P. Meier “propose(s) the fantasy of an ‘unpapal conclave’: a Catholic, a Protestant, a Jew, and an agnostic ... are locked up in the bowels of Harvard Divinity School library, put on a spartan diet, and not allowed to emerge until they have hammered out a consensus document on Jesus of Nazareth” (Meier, A Marginal Jew, vol. II, 4f). But maybe even this is too high of an expectation. 53 The earlier Jewish contributions to the quest about the historical Jesus were hardly given the weight they deserved by the Christian scholars of the “Second Quest.” This is particularily true for Abraham Geiger’s important contribution in the nineteenth century: A. Geiger, Das Judentum und seine Geschichte (2d ed. Breslau, 1865); and in the 20th century for Joseph Klausner’s magisterial book: J. Klausner, Jesus von Nazareth. Seine Zeit, sein Leben und seine Lehre (Berlin, 1930; orig. in Hebrew). 54 R. W. Funk, R. W. Hoover and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels (San Francisco, 1993); cf. S. J. Patterson and J. M. Robinson, eds., The Fifth Gospel: The Gospel of Thomas comes of age (Harrisburg, 1998).

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ter, were believed by many to have a first century origin.55 Most of these hypotheses have lost their attractiveness today, even in the USA. A wide consensus has emerged that our canonical gospels remain by far the most important source texts for the historical Jesus.56 By “canonical Gospels,” I mean the four canonical Gospels. Although most scholars do not deny that the Fourth Gospel has developed its own spiritual vision of Jesus and presents a quite special form of “Jesus-language,” which is very different from Jesus’s own way of speaking, there is a growing consensus that the Fourth Gospel also contains many historically valid traditions about Jesus, particularly from the South, from Jerusalem, and Judea.57 Increasingly, not only individual narrative traditions but also the narrative frame of the Gospels are taken as a source for historical insights. 4.2 Contextualizing Jesus. There is general agreement today that Jesus’s social background was the lower classes of agricultural upper-Galilee, but that his family did not belong to the poorest of the poor. Less agreement exists about the Galilean background of Jesus. Most scholars agree that there is no special “Galilean Judaism,” but the Galilean background of Jesus remains important. Jesus lived in a rural area; his preaching and life resonate with his local58 and social contexts.59 Archaeology has been taken very seriously, particularily by American scholars, who added new insights to our knowledge of life in Galilean villages and towns.60 Methods of social science, cultural and ritual studies, and social anthropology were applied in order to shed new light upon other aspects of the “contextual Jesus.”61

55 An influential book propagating the importance of the apocryphal gospels was H. Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels. Their History and Development (Philadelphia, 1990). For the so-called “Cross-Gospel” cf. also J. D. Crossan, The Cross that Spoke. The Origins of the Passion Narrative (San Francisco, 1988). Their basic hypotheses were taken over by many members of the “Jesus Seminar.” 56 Cf. Theissen and Merz, Der historische Jesus, 96‒120; Keener, Historical Jesus, 71‒161. For a very conservative position see R. Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand Rapids, 2006). 57 Cf. J. Charlesworth, “From Old to New: Paradigm Shifts concerning Judaism, the Gospel of John, Jesus and the Advent of ‘Christianity,’” in Jesus Research (J. Charlesworth and P. Pokorny, eds.; Grand Rapids, 2009), 56‒72. 58 Cf. Freyne, Jesus, and Idem, Galilee, Jesus and the Gospel: Literary Approaches and Historical Investigations (Philadelphia, 1988). 59 Cf. Horsley, Jesus, 20‒34. 60 Cf. J. H. Charlesworth, ed., Jesus and Archaeology (Grand Rapids, 2006); C. Claussen and J. Frey, eds., Jesus und die Archaeologie Galiläas (BThS 87; Neukirchen, 2008). 61 Cf. W. Stegemann, B. J. Malina and G. Theissen, eds., Jesus in neuen Kontexten (Stuttgart, 2002).

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4.3 Jesus as a Jew. “A result of two hundred years of historico-critical Jesus-research is the discovery: Jesus is part of Judaism. Only after his death did he become founder of Christianity”.62 This statement of Gerd Theissen expresses a general consensus. An especially important point of the consensus is that Jesus did not abolish the Torah. Open questions are: What is the place of Jesus within Judaism? In spite of the harsh debates with Pharisees narrated in the Gospels, is he close to the Pharisees, as many Jewish scholars since the nineteenth century have suggested?63 For Geza Vermes, he is a charismatic exorcist and healer like Hanina ben Dosa.64 For John Dominic Crossan, he is a Jewish peasant, propagating an open, inclusive form of Judaism, somthing like a Jewish variant of a cynic philosopher, or even an antic variant of a hippie.65 For Dale Allison, he is a Millenarian ascetic, understandable only from the background of worlddenying Apocalypticism.66 For Marcus Borg, he is a Jewish mystic ‒ whatever that means.67 For Richard Horsley, Jesus is a representative of popular Jewish resistance movements opposed to the educated elite.68 Other questions are: Is Jesus a central or a marginal Jew?69 According to Gerd Theissen, Jesus “is a marginal Jew in his style of life and in his ethical radicalism, but he is a central Jew with regard to his basic beliefs.”70 It is evident that the discussion about Jesus’s Jewishness depends on each scholar’s interpretation of contemporary Judaism, e.g. whether it is seen as a religion or as an ethnicity, whether the emphasis lies on common Judaism or on special movements within Judaism, etc. There is no consensus in this re62 G. Theissen, “Jesus im Judentum,” in G. Theissen, Jesus als historische Gestalt (FRLANT 202; ed. A. Merz; Göttingen, 2003), 35. 63 That Jesus was close to the Pharisees is a pointed thesis advocated by many (liberal!) Jewish scholars for whom the Pharisees were close to mainstream Judaism. Cf. A. Geiger, Judentum, 116‒119; Klausner, Jesus, 161f; D. Flusser, Jesus (Reinbek, 1968), 51‒57; Schalom ben Chorin, Bruder Jesus (München, 1967), 19‒23. 64 Vermes, Jesus the Jew, 58‒82. 65 Crossan, Historical Jesus, 421. 66 Allison, Jesus, 172‒219; cf. also B. D. Ehrman, Jesus, Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millenium (Oxford, 1999). 67 M. Borg, Jesus. A New Vision (San Francisco, 1987). 68 Horsley, Jesus, esp.169‒204. 69 An example of the first view is Sanders’s portrait of Jesus as representative of “Jewish restoration eschatology” that fits well into mainstream Judaism (cf. the survey in Jesus and Judaism, 326f). Contrarily, J. P. Meier calls Jesus a “marginal” Jew, but his intention is not to say that Jesus is somewhere near the borderline between Jews and Non-Jews, but that he was marginalized in several ways: he was not a “key-figure” of Judaism for most of the leading Jews, he “marginalized himself” through his life-style and some of his teachings, he was a poor layman and not a scribe, he suffered a shameful death, etc (cf. Meier, A Marginal Jew, vol. I, 6‒9). 70 Theissen, “Jesus im Judentum,” 55f.

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spect, but one thing is clear – Jesus was a very distinct, in many respects a unique, Jew within Judaism. 4.4 Eschatology. The old debate as to whether Jesus’s roots are sapiental or prophetic still goes on. In other words, was a transworldly eschatology of the coming kingdom fundamental for him or not? This debate is related to the question of sources. Those who see the Gospel of Thomas as an important and early source text and those who contend that the SayingsSource Q received a strong apocalyptic and eschatological colouring only in the later stages of its development, will tend to minimize the importance of eschatology. Among them are the scholars of the Jesus Seminar, notably John Dominic Crossan. Those who give preference to the canonical gospels favor an interpretation of Jesus’s teaching in which eschatology is central; among them are Ed P. Sanders, John P. Meier, and Craig Keener. At present, one gets the impression that the high-tide of the uneschatological Jesus of the Jesus Seminar is over. 4.5 Jesus’s understanding of his own mission. There is a growing tendency to emphasize Jesus’s unique claim to authority. A majority of scholars would accept today that Jesus used the expression “the Son of Man” referring somehow to his own person and mission, not or not only as an Aramaic circumlocution of “a human being” or “I.” The way Jesus combines the coming of the kingdom of God with his own mission and person seems to be a unique phenomenon in ancient Judaism. Many scholars speak again about a “Messianic claim” of Jesus in an open and untechnical sense.71 To speak about an “implicit Christology” of Jesus is not enough; there is an obvious shift towards a greater continuity in the field of Christology. Post-Easter Christology seems to have pre-Easter roots. Nonetheless, it is obvious that Jesus did not formulate his claim in a way that would correspond directly to a traditional Jewish Messianic pattern or to a traditional Messianic title.72 4.6 The death of Jesus as part of his mission.73 For Bultmann, Jesus’s death was accidental. I hardly know anybody today who would still hold this position. It is striking that in almost all books about Jesus, the chapter 71 Cf. Sanders, Historical Jesus, 248: Jesus saw himself as “viceroy.” God was king, but Jesus represented him and will represent him in the coming kingdom. J. Frey, “Der historische Jesus und der Christus der Evangelien, in: Der historische Jesus. Tendenzen und Perspektiven der gegenwärtigen Forschung (BZNW 114; ed. J. Schröter and R. Brucker; Berlin, 2002), esp. 299‒313: If Jesus had no ‘messianic’ claims at all, it would be difficult to understand why he was sentenced to death as “king of the Jews.” Cf also Keener, The Historical Jesus, 256‒268. 72 Perhaps contemporary Jewish Messianic expectations were not the clear and distinctive concepts that we often think they were. 73 Cf. U. Luz, “Warum zog Jesus nach Jerusalem?,” in Schröter and Brucker, Der historische Jesus, 409‒428.

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about his death goes beyond a mere reconstruction of the events. For most authors, Jesus clearly did not do anything to escape his death ‒ quite the opposite; he wanted to die. His death, therefore, must have had a meaning for him. However, there is no consensus about the problem of how Jesus interpreted his death; in particular, no consensus exists as to whether he interpreted it to have an atoning function. 4.7 Orality. James D. G. Dunn’s important book, Jesus Remembered,74 has helped to clarify the importance of the oral tradition. Most important for the sayings-tradition, and a blow against classical “Formgeschichte,” is his insight that the oral tradition subverts the idea of an “original.”75 According to him, the oral tradition does not provide access to a “historical” Jesus, but only to Jesus as he was remembered by his disciples. He was remembered only insofar as he made an impact on the people around him.76 Consequently, it is impossible to separate the “historical Jesus” from post-Easter faith, because all traditions about the earthly Jesus are the result of the impact Jesus has made on the transmitters. In Dunn’s own summarizing words: “A characteristic and relatively dinstinctive feature of the Jesus tradition is most likely to go back to the consistent and distinctive character of the impact made by Jesus himself.”77 In other words, if there were not a basic continuity, there would be no tradition. For Richard Horsley, the communal aspect of the oral tradition is most important. Jesus must not be seen as an individual religious genius, but as a leader of a popular movement belonging to popular oral culture.78 4.8 New tendencies in methodology. The Third Quest has opened new dimensions in debates on method.79 The criterion of dissimiliarity, in particular, has been attacked. I will summarize the most important results. Gerd Theissen and Dagmar Winter, in an important monograph,80 proposed to supplement the criterion of dissimiliarity by a criterion that they call “criterion of plausibility”. It has two aspects. One is the plausibility of the context: “What Jesus aimed at and said, has to be compatible with Galilean

74

Cf. note 51. Cf also J. D. G. Dunn, A New Perspective on Jesus (Grand Rapids,

2005). 75

Dunn, New Perspective, 50f, 96‒98. Dunn, Jesus remembered, 882f. Dunn, Jesus remembered, 884. Horsley, Jesus, 56‒145. Cf. also Meier, A Marginal Jew, vol. I, 167‒195; B. Chilton and C. A. Evans, eds., Authenticating the Words of Jesus (NTTS 28/1; Leiden, 1999), esp. 3–80; B. Chilton and C. A. Evans, eds., Authenticating the Activities of Jesus (NTTS 28/2; Leiden, 1999), esp. 3‒58. 80 G. Theissen and D. Winter, Die Kriterienfrage in der Jesusforschung: Vom Differenzkriterium zum Plausibilitätskriterium (NTOA 34; Göttingen, 1997). Cf. also D. S. du Toit, “Der unähnliche Jesus,” in Schröter and Brucker, Der historische Jesus, 89‒129. 76 77 78 79

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Judaism of the first half of the first century C.E.”81 The other aspect is what they call “plausibility of effective history:” The chance of authenticity is greatest for traditions that early Christian sources transmit even if they are contrary to their own tendencies. The second innovation is what James D. G. Dunn calls the criterion of charactericity: “Any feature that is characteristic within the Jesus tradition, even if only relatively distinctive of the Jesus tradition, is most likely to go back to Jesus.”82 This criterion – basically a developed version of the criterion of coherence – would replace the criterion of dissimilarity with respect to Judaism. “Characteristic” means important in the Jesus-tradition, regardless of whether it is different from or central to contemporary, mainstream Judaism. At the same time, the criterion emphasizes the continuity between Jesus and the early Christian Jesus-tradition. What is characteristic for Jesus was transmitted because it was remembered. Although extensive comments on this issue cannot be offered now, one must remember that all methodological criteria are never absolute but in continuous development. The dominant tendencies of research, their results, and the methodological criteria are interdependent. All historical methods are an open set of scholarly tools that require constant reflection and development. The quest for the historical Jesus is a key example of this. 4.9 Theological profits of the Third Quest. In the beginning of this section, I claimed that the Third Quest is truly a historical quest. If I now ask after its theological value, the answer is difficult. The scholars participating in the debate are Jews, Christians of all denominations, humanists, atheists, scholars of religious studies, as well as theologians. Their common interest is in Jesus as a key figure of humanity. In many respects, the “Third Quest” reflects the changed situation of society in the West: our open society, the increasing importance of interreligious and particularly Jewish-Christian dialogue, and the decreasing centrality of churches and theologies. In our societies, Jesus ceases to be the exclusive possession of the churches. In my opinion, the theological profit of the “Third Quest” is primarily an indirect one. Let me mention the following two points: 1. The first one is the rediscovery of the contextuality of Jesus. Jesus in the “Third Quest” is a man of the past. He lives in a different time and in a different culture from ours. In this respect, he is fully human. It has become more difficult to “transfer” Jesus to one’s own life or to adapt him for one’s own faith. In many respects, he remains a stranger for us; indeed, even his faith in God remains strange to us in many respects.83 Therefore, 81 82 83

Theissen and Winter, Kriterienfrage, 216. Dunn, New Perspective, 69. E.g. in his preaching of the Final Judgement.

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we cannot and should not try to legitimize our Christianity by direct appeal to Jesus. Rather, we have to transform conscientiously the historical Jesus into our Jesus and take responsibility for this transformation. This is exactly what the author of the Fourth Gospel did. After him, the Fathers of the Christological dogma conscientiously transformed Jesus, as did Albert Schweitzer centuries later. This is the task of our theologies.84 2. The second point is the rediscovery of Jesus as a Jew. It is a strange situation for us Christians to realize that our saviour was a Jew who did not intend at all to become founder of a new religion called Christianity. Whatever that means, we have to share Jesus with Israel. We have to realize that, at best, we are adopted children of the God of Israel. We have no monopoly on God; rather, we are like the dogs under the table who eat the children’s scraps (Mark 7:27). Whatever that means for our understanding of the church and for our relations with Israel, this insight of the “Third Quest” should make us modest. And modesty is always good.

5 Conclusions During the last 240 years an amazing number of books about Jesus have been published. Their number has not diminished, in spite of the fact that the influence of the churches in the West has diminished substantially. Originally, the quest for Jesus was mainly a Protestant phenomenon; Protestants wanted to regain their Christian identity after the collapse of traditional Christian dogma in the intellectual paradigm-shift of the Enlightenment. They wanted to regain the foundation of their faith in God after the collapse of the traditional metaphysics whose summit was God. The quest for Jesus is no longer merely a Protestant or even a Christian quest, but it remains a quest that has something to do with our identity. In almost all cases, the quest for Jesus is not merely a historical quest. I am amazed to what extent Jesus remains the most important ‘projection screen’ of people’s religious identity, even in the Post-Christian or at least Post-Ecclesial context of many countries in Western Europe. From the moment when the human Jesus was freed by historical criticism from the 84 G. Vermes ends his last book about Jesus, The Changing Faces of Jesus (London, 2000) with a dream. Jesus returns to earth ‒ at the beginning of the third millenium ‒ and adresses a Jewish, a Christian, and a post-religious public. To the Christians he says: “... I feel I must exhort you to rely more on yourselves, on your own insights ‒ you may call it the voice of the Holy Spirit ‒ on your strength and goodness. You have been told to expect everything from me ... Don’t forget the Kingdom of God is always at hand. Get on with it at once. You can do it, on your own, as you are children of our Heavenly Father who alone is God, blessed forever ... You used to blame my Jewish brethren for turning the spirit into the letter. Aren’t you doing the same?”

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normative interpretive framework of the Church, he became the victim of projections of the questers’ own religious identity, which they wanted to legitimize through Jesus. This is the reason why the character of the historical Jesus changed so much according to the theological identity of the different questers. This is the reason why we can distinguish between the Jesus of radical ‒ I would say, “fundamentalist” ‒ “Enlighteners” like Reimarus or Lüdemann, the liberal Jesus of the nineteenth century, the mystical Jesus, the rather bloodless Jesus of the kerygmatic theologians, the revolutionary Jesus of 1968, Jesus the ideal man, or Jesus the psychotherapist,85 the uneschatological preacher or cynic hippie philosopher of sunny California, the advocate of the poor of Liberation Theology, the pious Son of God surpassing all contemporary Jewish teachers of Pope Benedict,86 and even ‒ as I have discovered in our library to my surprise ‒ “Jesus in bluejeans,” meant as a “guide for everyday spirituality” and “Jesus CEO,” inspiring managers for “visionary leadership,” two books written, incidentally, by the same author.87 The deficiency and the disputed authenticity of our sources invites many kinds of projections. We know well today ‒ and after the linguistic turn we know it even better ‒ that all “faces of the historical Jesus” are constructions of their authors and never direct representations of historical reality. Naturally, not all books on Jesus are of this kind. For many researchers, the face of Jesus resulting from their research was only partially or not at all an expression of their own religious identity. Albert Schweitzer, Johannes Weiss, or, to take a recent exemple, the charismatic Jew Jesus of Geza Vermes are wonderful examples to demonstrate that historical research can result in an image of Jesus that is at least partially contrary to one’s own wishes and useless as the direct foundation of one’s own piety. Nonetheless, the danger of the “trap of wishfulness” persists in historical research. Or to put it another way, the “criterion of dissimilarity” ‒ John Meier called it the “criterion of embarrassment”88 ‒ applied not to contemporary Judaism or early Christianity, but to the wishes of an author of a book on the historical Jesus, is a very important criterion for his or her seriousness and reliability.

85 H. Wolff, Jesus der Mann (Stuttgart, 1975); H. Wolff, Jesus als Psychotherapeut (Stuttgart, 1978). 86 J. Ratzinger Benedikt XVI, Jesus von Nazareth (vol. 1; Freiburg, 2007). 87 L. B. Jones, Jesus CEO: Using ancient wisdom for visionary leadership (New York, 1995); L. B. Jones, Jesus in blue jeans: a practical guide to everyday spirituality (New York, 1999). 88 Meier, Marginal Jew, vol. I, 168‒171.

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How can we avoid the trap of our own wishes? I think we never can fully avoid it, because it is always we who interpret Jesus; we can avoid it only partially, as much as possible. For this, in my view, two principles are necessary. The first is the principle of dialogue. Serious Jesus-research is a constant dialogue between us and our sources. In this dialogue, we have to become conscious of our own situation, our cultural and theological background, our inherited biases and our corresponding wishes. With this in mind, we have to interrogate our sources and to open our eyes in particular to those features that are embarrassing for us. And naturally, we have to be in constant dialogue also with our collegues, in particular those coming from other theological, ecclesiological, and cultural traditions, and their views of Jesus. The second is the principle of relativity. We have to be aware of the fact that all our results and all our views of Jesus are relative, provisional, and open to revision. This is embarrassing, because Jesus is our mediator of God, the guide of our faith in God. When Jesus, who is for us the way and the truth, is available only in the form of very relative human constructions, we cannot avoid the conclusion that our own faith, too, is affected by this relativity. God is never relative, but our human views and interpretations of him ‒ and likewise our convictions of faith ‒ always are. Methodologically, this may be the most important benefit we can gain from the quest for the historical Jesus. With this I have reached the theological center of the meaning of the quest for the so-called “historical” Jesus. We started from the Chalcedonian dogma saying that theologically the quest for the “historical” Jesus has no other task than to discover the true God through the human Jesus under our modern conditions of thinking. We have used the Chalcedonian dogma as a kind of guideline for our journey through the different quests for the historical Jesus. What is the result? Concerning the humanity of Jesus, we have found a great variety of human reconstructions of the historical Jesus, some more, some less plausible, some compelling in their interpretations, others through their austerity, some rather like novels. However, all of them are relative, human reconstructions ‒ not more than this. Concerning the divinity, the result is even less. We have gained insights into the proclamation of God by the human Jesus, into his life with God, insights into the verbalization of his relation with God ‒ all this mirrored through human interpretations by human scholars. God is only available in the form of human interpretations. This is not a very solid rock upon which to build a personal faith or even the faith of a church. Jesus-research resembles a very rugged and rocky landscape, well-nigh impossible to survey. Still, I think it is a gain, particularly for those numerous people for whom the Chalcedonian dogma is far away and who do not speak its lan-

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guage any more. What have we gained? If I interpret human life as a way to God, we have received glimpses of a reliable companion on this way, a man of flesh and blood, a Jew, who is neither a Christian nor a theologian, a man who is certainly different from us. Jesus research strives to maintain this difference and to prevent Jesus from becoming the embodiment of our own ideals and wishes or from becoming a mythological projection. On our way to God we can dialogue with this human companion of flesh and blood, with the Jew Jesus. In this dialogue our companion can introduce us into his own life with God and into his own God-language – the narrative, parabolic, and metaphorical language of the Bible. We will realize that he lived in a situation which is rather different from ours, and this will encourage us to find our own perspectives and to go our own way. On our journey we will also find other people who walk with the same companion; we are on a common way with them. It is natural that they see this companion differently than we do, but since it is the same companion we will exchange our views about him and thus revise and widen our own horizons. Jesus, as a historical basis of Christian faith, is at the same time the basis of a community among Christians that would neither be possible nor necessary without him.89 We might also discuss what this companion Jesus means for us. Maybe he is for us a spiritual leader to God or a representative of God’s presence with us, and then a new understanding of the biblical language about Christ, like ἀρχηγός or “Immanuel,” will be possible.90 Let me mention another fortunate result of modern Jesus-research. In many European countries, the churches are no longer in the marketplaces of society, in the agora where in antiquity people met, discussed, sold and bought, learned and taught. They are no longer in the mainstream of life in our societies. Their doors are open, but only a few people go in. Jesus, however, is in the marketplace. He is a public figure; many people discuss with and about him and identify through him. In the marketplace, he is not 89

Ernst Troeltsch, in his 1911 paper about the significance of the historicity of Jesus for Christian faith (cf. above note 23), made a statement prophetic for our Western European situation. He spoke about the growing religious individualism that accompanies the dissolution of faith in Christ and “that does not know what to do with community, church, cult and sermon. ... In any case, it will be impossible to retain in the field of religion an individualism that one is forced to overcome in all other fields of life. Like this the energies of religion will be shattered, they will evaporate and get tired. There will be again a strong break-through of the need for community and cult – if inside our present churches or apart from them, is another question” (Troeltsch, Bedeutung der Geschichtlichkeit, 46f). 90 It is one of the explicit goals of many books belonging to the “Third Quest” to bring different views of “Jesus” into dialogue with each other, e.g. Schröter, Jesus von Nazareth, 361: “Historical criticism does not lead us to the ‘real’ Jesus. But it teaches us to understand how different images of Jesus came into being.”

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an exclusive possession of any Christian church. Jews, Christians of all colors, humanists, followers of other religions meet in the marketplace of our societies in order to talk with Jesus. There, he is accessible through the secular methods of historical research, and no special revelation or confession of faith is required in order to get acquainted with him. In the marketplace of our secularized and pluralistic societies, Jesus is present as a missionary for God, even when Christian Churches to a large extent have ceased to be effective missionaries for Christ and God. This is not an insignificant gain that we owe at least partially to modern research on the historical Jesus.

The Historical Jesus: State of Research and Methodological Questions from an Orthodox Perspective CHARALAMPOS ATMATZIDIS

1 Introduction This paper explores the quest for the historical Jesus and the way this enterprise has developed and has been evaluated both in Western and Eastern Orthodox biblical scholarship. The first part of this presentation will provide a short overview of the historical development of the “Quest for the Historical Jesus” and will highlight the recent achievements that contribute to a better understanding of the historical Jesus. In the second part, the methodological problems that are related to this issue will be discussed. Subsequently, some examples that demonstrate the importance of the effort to investigate Jesus as a historical figure will be presented. The last part focuses on the Orthodox hermeneutical approach and on the question of whether and to what extent the quest for the historical Jesus can contribute to the dialogue among Christian denominations. At the outset it should be stressed that the quest for the historical Jesus – like many other issues in New Testament scholarly research – has been an object of interest primarily for Protestant biblical scholars and researchers. This cannot be coincidental; on the contrary, it reflects a new way of thinking that appeared in the period after the Reformation. Indeed, the scholars of the other two major Christian confessions, Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy, often followed their Protestant brothers and sisters unwillingly, gasping for breath all the while. Many different opinions have been expressed in this long debate on the historical Jesus. Some scholars regarded Jesus as the incarnated God, to whom the greatest respect and worship is due. Others saw in him the strict, eschatological judge, while still others perceived him as the merciful savior of humankind. In this critical quest of Jesus’ life, many different approaches have also been employed. The first one was source criticism (Quellenkritik). According to this approach, the gospel narratives should

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be scrutinized in order to establish whether they are genuine and historically reliable or whether in some parts of them Jesus was clothed in mythical and poetic garments. Consequently, a historical relativism arose, and according to this view, even if a reliable and historical picture of Jesus ever existed, it would not have helped us much. Finally, others have claimed that it is possible to obtain credible information on Jesus, and according to this information, Jesus remains an extraordinary and unique personality. In this attempt to arrive at a complete understanding of the person of Jesus in spite of the controversial character of the evidence, a hermeneutical problem emerges. On the one hand, Jesus appears to be close to us, but on the other, he distances himself from our way of thinking since he is presented as part of a past world where much of what today is thought to be incomprehensible the exorcisms, for example – was perceived as real. Hence, the “modern” person tries to deal with Jesus himself as a person and to identify his main characteristics. To make clear the wide range of perspectives, I briefly mention some of the characteristics that have been attributed to Jesus. He has been regarded as: 1) an eschatological prophet, 2) a simple man from Galilee, 3) a magician, 4) an enlightened and progressive rabbi from Galilee who assisted and led the people, 5) a psychotherapeutic shaman, 6) a wise Jew, 7) a political rebel, 8) a traveling exorcist, 9) a Pharisee advocating the renewal of the Mosaic Law, 10) a mythos that was transformed in the course of history, 11) a philosopher and most notably a Cynic, 12) the agent and delegate of eschatological ideas, 13) a social reformer, 14) a man who perceived himself as the Messiah, 15) someone who was closely related to Yahweh, 16) an existential preacher who encouraged people to discover their inner selves. Some of the depictions that could be regarded as the most significant in the history of the quest for the historical Jesus are briefly discussed in the following pages. The aim of this discussion is not to substitute for the important historical introductions to this issue that are already available but rather to name some of the main ideas that have contributed to the formulation of the positions held by scholars of the so-called “Third-Quest.” The modern quest for the historical Jesus is based on various perceptions that can be supported by interesting arguments. Two features are, however, the most characteristic. First, this quest is rooted in and developed from a tradition that is more than three hundred years old. The “Third Quest,” therefore, goes back to ideas that have already been articulated but are formulated anew. This observation should not be understood in a negative way; on the contrary, it discloses the continuity of the scholarship, which is governed by its own distinct rules that always prevail. Among them, the fundamental one is the engagement of rational thinking (ὀρθὸς λόγος). With its assistance, various

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phenomena can be analyzed, including the historical Jesus. What varies, however, are the specific tools, which may be philosophical, historical, sociological, and so forth. Second, the modern quest for the historical Jesus attempts to connect him with the theological discussion of his person. It attempts, therefore, to explain rationally a non-rational event – namely, faith. The available possibilities are manifold, creative, clever, and exhibit a sincere scholarly endeavour to bring about a correspondence between the historical Jesus and the church’s theology. The questions of whether this is really possible and of what function and purpose it can fulfill within the life of the church will be addressed in the last part of this paper.

2 The Quest of the Historical Jesus before the “Third Quest” As already mentioned, the “Third Quest” rests upon the results of previous research. This earlier phase took place in the German-speaking world and was strongly determined by the various intellectual currents of its time, such as deism, dialectical philosophy, existential philosophy, and so forth. According to the perspective of this initial research, the following should be presupposed in order to achieve a successful and historically reliable description of Jesus’ life: Jesus’ preaching and the apostles’ faith should be separated from each other. A better knowledge of the Jewish religion and of Jesus’ age must be attained and will lead to a deeper understanding of his message. Accordingly, the following aspects of his teaching were regarded as Jewish: a) the concept of the kingdom of heaven, b) its imminent advent, c) the need for repentance, d) the fact that Jesus as the anointed Messiah of Israel proclaimed an earthly reign that the Jews had already anticipated, and e) the fact that Jesus is a Jewish apocalyptic prophet, while the notion that Christianity freed itself from the bonds of Judaism is a later fabrication of the apostles. One must also underline the distinction between the political-messianic message of Jesus and the kerygma of the apostles about a Christ who brought salvation to this world through his suffering, his resurrection, and his return. In order to justify themselves, his disciples had stolen his body (see Matt 28:11–15) and after fifty days – when it was not possible to identify the body anymore – they declared Jesus’ resurrection and the return of Christ.1 1

The “objective theory of deception.”

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The above-mentioned assumptions were advocated by H.S. Reimarus, and they still find adherents.2 It comes therefore as no surprise that Reimarus is regarded as the father of the so-called “Third Quest.”3 The list, however, of those developments that had to take place in order to enable the historical Jesus eventually to emerge continue with the claim that the concept of mythos could contribute to understanding many gospel narratives that refer to Jesus. This new concept was proposed by D.F. Strauß (1808–1874).4 Strauß suggested that mythological narratives are present and intermingled with the events described. The gospel writers unconsciously project the mythological conceptions of their age. This integration of mythological features in the Jesus tradition is a “synthesis” (a “Synthese” according to the Hegelian interpretation) of those approaches that regarded Jesus’ works as metaphysical events and those that attempted to interpret them in a logical way. Consequently, Jesus’ miracles and other extraordinary “events” that the Jews in Jesus’ time accepted as realities were rooted in a mythological perception that was adopted to interpret many phenomena. The events, therefore, had a logical explanation that was missing and needed to be supplied through a reasonable interpretation (e.g., the resurrection was regarded as an apparent death; Jesus walking on the water of the Sea of Galilee was a vision of his disciples).5 These rationalized clarifications did 2 H.S. Reimarus (1694–1768) was a Professor of ancient Oriental languages at the University of Hamburg and an adherent of English deism. He began his research on the historical Jesus by applying mere historical criteria. For Reimarus’s work, see M. Baumotte, Die Frage nach dem historischen Jesus: Texte aus drei Jahrhunderten (Gütersloh, 1984) and H.S. Reimarus, Reimarus Fragments (ed. C.H. Talbert; trans. R.S. Frazer; Chico, 1985). See also, A. Schweitzer, Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung (7th ed.; Tübingen 1984; repr., 2nd ed.; Tübingen, 1913), 56‒68; G. Theißen and A. Merz, Der historische Jesus: Ein Lehrbuch (Göttingen, 2001) 22–23; J.K. Beilby and P.R. Eddy, The Historical Jesus: Five Views (Downers Grove, 2009), 12–14. On the impact of deism on H.S. Reimarus, cf. H.J. De Jonge, “The Loss of Faith in Historicity of the Gospels: Hermann S. Reimarus on John and the Synoptics,” in John and the Synoptics (ed. A. Denaux; BETL 101; Leuven, 1992), 409‒421. 3 Beilby and Eddy, Jesus (n. 2), 12. 4 The philosopher and theologian D.F. Strauß (1808–1874) was the student of F.C. Baur and F.W. Hegel. In 1835–1836 he published his biography of Jesus, which caused much turmoil: Das Leben Jesu, kritisch bearbeitet (2 vols.; 2nd ed.; Tübingen 1835‒1836 and 1837; 3rd ed.: “Entschärfte Auflage”; Tübingen 1838–1839; 4th ed.: identical with 1st ed.; Tübingen, 1840). His book caused long and heated debates and made its author famous. 5 In principle, D.F. Strauß adopted the ideas of H.E.G. Paulus (1789–1851) who in his work Das Leben Jesu als Grundlage einer reinen Geschichte des Urchristentums (Heidelberg, 1828), suggested that the quest for the life of Jesus could be achieved by applying reason, which could provide a “logical” way of interpreting Jesus’ miracles and the other miracles that are attested in the gospels.

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not aim at undermining the Christian faith; on the contrary, they led to the awareness that the mythos is the “historical” mantle that enrobes the supreme idea, “the idea of the humanity of the deity,” that is personified in Jesus.6 The development of a demythologized and rationalized presentation of Jesus’ life required the analysis of all the evidence presented in the four Gospels. Ultimately, the Gospel according to John was regarded as a less reliable source than the Synoptic Gospels because its composition had been determined by theological criteria and because it is focused on dealing with theological conflicts. Regarding the Synoptic Problem, it was suggested that the gospels of Matthew and Luke were the oldest gospels while that of Mark was comprised of excerpts from the other two. This theory, as is well-known, was displaced by the so-called “two-source theory.” The above-mentioned presuppositions laid the foundations for the quest of the historical Jesus. The main theses of the two great founders of the quest of the historical Jesus were not forgotten but remained effective and gave the necessary impulse for seeking new ways to discover the historical Jesus. New research tools – philological, religious-historical, and philosophical approaches – have been developed. The following paragraphs trace this development more concretely. The quest for the historical Jesus was further developed by the representatives of liberal theology. They decided that the picture of Jesus as it had been shaped by the dogmatic doctrine of the Church should be disputed by means of new scientific criteria (historical-critical reconstruction), including philological investigation. At the same time, liberal theologians attempted to renew the Christian faith. In this new attitude, the philological element is more prominent than the philosophical one. The liberal quest for the historical Jesus, as it has been called, began to achieve its task, investigating its sources more closely and categorizing the various literary descriptions of Jesus that exist in the sources. Hence, F.C. Baur (1792–1860) proved that the composition of the Synoptic Gospels preceded that of the Gospel of John. Furthermore, H.J. Holtzmann (1832–1910) contributed to the dominance of the two-source theory.7 He also adopted the Markan outline of Jesus’ life, and at the same time, he argued that in the Gospel of Mark there is a development in the account of Jesus’ life that begins in chapter 8. According to this development, Jesus’ messianic identity was formed during his ministry in Galilee, while in Caesarea of Philippi Jesus allowed his disciples to acknowledge 6 On the Christology of D.F. Strauß, see most notably Theißen and Merz, Jesus (n. 2), 24, 156–174. 7 H.J. Holtzmann, Die synoptischen Evangelien: Ihr Ursprung und geschichtlicher Charakter (Leipzig, 1863).

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him as the Messiah. To the historical outline of Mark, H.J. Holtzmann added those words from Q that were regarded as genuine. The above-mentioned enterprise ultimately led to two important results that remain valid. First, it consolidated the theory that the Gospel of Mark, whose importance was previously played down, and the literary source Q, which researchers were able to reconstruct, are the most reliable sources for the description of the historical Jesus. Secondly, it contributed to the development of a theory of the historical Jesus that was independent from the conservative church viewpoint. However, the efforts of liberal research on the historical Jesus were criticized by the scholars who followed. They tried to find other solutions to the problem. In the early twentieth century, three new theories questioned the liberal quest of the historical Jesus and enriched it with new ideas. The first theory, which was put forward by W. Wrede (1859–1906), advocated that each one of the ancient sources that deals with Jesus’ life preserves its own distinct perception of Jesus’ person. For example, Mark’s gospel reflects the conviction or teaching of a particular community. According to this community, the faith in Jesus’ messianic identity, as it was shaped after the events of Jesus’ last celebration of the Jewish Pesach (πάσχα), had already existed previously. Furthermore, Wrede argued that the entire gospel was theologically tinted by the messianic secret, which he did not regard as historical.8 Wrede’s theory dismissed the assumption that there existed two sources on Jesus, a pre-Easter one, which describes the historical Jesus, and a post-Easter one, which expresses the faith in Christ. The two aforementioned theories have contributed substantially to research, and their contributions have already been acknowledged. Nevertheless, they already represent an abandonment of positivistic historiography and a more postmodern outlook.9 The second theory was advanced by A. Schweitzer (1875–1965) in his work, Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung.10 The German scholar argued that the various descriptions of the character, personality, and deeds of Jesus in the studies of liberal theologians were nothing more than

8 W. Wrede, Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien: Zugleich ein Beitrag zum Verständnis des Markusevangeliums (Göttingen, 1901; repr. 4th ed.; Göttingen 1969). 9 P. Craffert, The Life of a Galilean Shaman: Jesus of Nazareth in AnthropologicalHistorical Perspective (Eugene, 2008), 129‒131. 10 The first edition of his work was published under the title Von Reimarus zu Wrede: Eine Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung (Tübingen, 1906). The title of the second revised edition of the year 1913 was Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung (n. 2). The following editions came out with no further changes. The only exception was the edition of 1915 where Schweitzer added a new preface.

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“Veranschaulichungen der Wahrnehmungen, die die Verfasser der Werke über Jesus hatten.” Finally, according to the third theory, which was represented by K.L. Schmidt (1891–1956), all four gospels have a fragmentary character. Schmidt worked first and foremost philologically. Furthermore, he applied a new exegetical method, form criticism (Formgeschichte). More precisely, Schmidt demonstrated that in the Gospel of Mark, the Jesus tradition consists of individual “smaller units” that can be placed within a certain chronological and geographical framework. This framework, however, did not exist from the very beginning but was constructed by the gospel writer himself. Schmidt’s remarks highlighted the fact that Mark’s account and the sequence of the gospel’s pericopes cannot help reconstruct the sequence of events of the historical Jesus’ life. Even the small units that refer to Jesus were developed on the basis of the pastoral needs (κήρυγµα) of the community.11 Indeed, the memories of Jesus’ life played a secondary role in shaping Jesus’ picture in the gospels. The above-mentioned theory was further developed and enhanced by new theological motifs proposed by various scholars such as R. Bultmann (1884–1976), who was one of the most prominent exegetes of the twentieth century and at the same time the most important representative of dialectical theology. With R. Bultmann, philosophy, or more precisely existential philosophy, was given a dynamic role in the quest of the historical Jesus. Dialectic theology placed God opposite to the world and argued that there existed only a few intersections between God and the world. Their relationship resembles that of the tangents and the circle, where each of the tangents touches the circle at only one point. According to dialectic theology, God and the cosmos encounter each other only because Jesus came into this world, and by means of his crucifixion and resurrection, he departed from it. It is not important, though, what Jesus taught and did in this world but what God himself did and said on the cross and in the resurrection. The message of this divine act – that is, the message of the New Testament – has nothing to do with the historical Jesus but with Christ, whom the church preaching describes. Dialectic theology also adopted the opinion of existential philosophy, according to which human beings are authentic, their real selves, when they make decisions about their very existence without depending on objective, worldly things, such as historical knowledge. For Christian existentialism, this decision of human beings is the answer to God’s calling, as this was articulated through the preaching of the cross and the resurrection.

11 M. Dibelius, Die Formgeschichte des Evangeliums (Tübingen, 1919); R. Bultmann, Die Geschichte der Synoptischen Tradition (Tübingen, 1921).

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Human beings achieve, therefore, their authenticity through Christ’s death and resurrection. It was further established that the two major theological trends that were developed in the New Testament and were represented by Paul and John respectively demonstrate no particular interest in the historical Jesus. According to 2 Cor 5:16, it was not necessary and theologically important for Christians to have met Christ “in the flesh.” In John’s Gospel, however, the only revelation that Jesus makes is that he has revealed himself. Both New Testament theologians developed the kerygma, the faith in Christ, as this had emerged in the post-Easter period. In this faith, the memory of the historical Jesus, which had already been formed before Easter, was connected to Christ’s cross and resurrection and was thereby renewed. Bultmann described Jesus’ teaching as of no significance for Christian theology.12 In order to strengthen his position, he grounded his line of argumentation in the History of Religion School that from a theological point of view placed Jesus in Judaism and the birth of Christianity in Easter – namely, in the crucifixion and resurrection. He assumed, however, that Christology, as this was formed in the post-Easter period, was very clearly articulated for the first time when Jesus asked his disciples before Easter to decide who their master was. This calling encouraged the disciples to redefine their opinion about the historical Jesus. The monumental theory of R. Bultmann and his school remained the most prominent in New Testament research for many decades. The arguments of the great German scholar were indeed not easy to refute. At the same time, however, the distance between the Jesus of history and the Christ of the Church kerygma became much wider. It became necessary that an equally convincing theory should be found that could reduce this gap. This decisive step was made by R. Bultmann’s student E. Käsemann (1906–1998). In 1953 Käsemann gave a lecture in Marburg under the title, “The Problem of the Historical Jesus,”13 with which the historical Jesus was brought again to the fore. Therewith began a new phase in the quest of the historical Jesus that was henceforward described as “the New Quest for the Historical Jesus.” The representatives of this new current attempted to move beyond the old question regarding the historical Jesus that was posed by liberal theologians. In their view, the historical Jesus was juxtaposed with the Christ of the church’s kerygma. The representatives of the new current, by contrast, presupposed that the Jesus of the gospels is identical with the Christ 12 R. Bultmann’s, Theologie des Neuen Testaments (4th rev. and engl. ed.; Tübingen, 1984), 1, begins with the sentence: “Die Verkündigung Jesu gehört zu den Vorrausetzungen der Theologie des Neuen Testamentes und ist nicht ein Teil dieser selbst.” 13 E. Käsemann, “Das Problem des historischen Jesus,” ZTK 51 (1954): 138‒142.

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of the church’s kerygma and posed a new question: Are there any preEaster elements in Jesus’ teaching and deeds that could explain his exaltation by the church? The scholars of this “new quest” of the historical Jesus noted the following: The Christological kerygma, the proclamation of Jesus as Christ, necessarily depends on the historical Jesus because it has its roots in those passages of the gospels that refer to the historical Jesus. In those early Christian texts, the historical Jesus is identified with the exalted Christ. This identification is probably due to the attempt the Church made to deal with the enthusiastic tendencies that prevailed in the first Christian community.14 The Jesus tradition preserves many Jewish and Christian features that were secondarily attributed to him. At the same time, however, the New Quest assumes that this tradition also contains many historical references to him. These can be discovered and brought into light when all the Jewish and Christian elements have been removed. In this enterprise, the methodological tool of the “dissimilarity criterion”15 plays an important role. The various traditions about Jesus can be categorized historically and can be compared on religious-historical grounds. By contrast, the earlier phase of the quest for the historical Jesus, that of liberal theology, emphasized the attempt to connect and combine the various literary sources that referred to Jesus. In this new phase, the attempt to locate in the pre-Easter activity and teaching of Jesus any elements that are connected to the Christological preaching of the Church was separated from the question of whether or not Jesus used any Christological titles for himself (e.g., Son of Man, Messiah, Son of God). The scholars of the “New Quest,” however, presupposed that Jesus regarded the Christological titles as an essential part of his teaching. These titles also reflected Jesus’ critique of the Mosaic Law, by which he expressed his doubts regarding the old religion and called human beings to freedom.16 Finally, it was stressed that Jesus had to be compared with the Judaism of his time by means of the “dissimilarity criterion” in order for him to be better understood. The application of this criterion could separate the Jew-

14

The assumption that the anti-enthusiastic and anti-docetic motifs played an important role in the composition of the gospels was mainly advocated by Käsemann, ibid. 15 J.P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus: The Roots of the Problem and the Person (vol. 1; New York, 1991), 171‒174. 16 E. Käsemann, Der Ruf der Freiheit (Tübingen, 1968).

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ish elements that were not related to the historical Jesus from those elements that were part of the historical Jesus and his teaching.17

3 The “Third-Quest” The term “Third-Quest” was first introduced by N. T. Wright in 1982, but it remains debatable. Those who adopted this term used it either to denote a new approach to the old problem of the historical Jesus or to define a new period in the quest that began in the late 1970s and still goes on.18 During this period, many scholars published important studies on the issue. Among them one should mention B. Meyer,19 E.P. Sanders,20 A. Harvey,21 J. Riches,22 G. Vermes,23 M. Borg,24 J.D. Crossan,25 R. Funk,26 J. Meier,27 N.T. Wright,28 J.D.G. Dunn,29 M. Hengel and A.M. Schwemer,30 M. A. Powell,31 G. Theißen and Α. Merz,32 and R. Bauckham.33 In this new 17 G. Theißen, “Theologie und Exegese in den neutestamentlichen Arbeiten von Günther Bornkamm,” EvT 51 (1991): 308‒332, esp. 319‒325. 18 See, for example, H. Leroy, Jesus: Überlieferung und Deutung (3rd ed.; Darmstadt, 1999), 129‒166; D. du Toit, “Erneut auf der Suche nach Jesus: Eine kritische Bestandsaufnahme der Jesusforschung am Anfang des 21 Jahrhunderts” in Jesus im 21. Jahrhundert: Bultmanns Jesusbuch und die heutige Jesusforschung (ed. U.H.J. Körtner; Neukirchen-Vluyn, 2002), 91‒134; A. Merz, “Der historische Jesus – faszinierend und unverzichtbar,” in Die Anfänge des Christentums (ed. F.W. Graf and K. Wiegandt; Frankfurt a.M., 2009), 23‒56; Beilby and Eddy, Jesus (n. 2), 28‒29. 19 B.F. Meyer, The Aims of Jesus (London, 1979). 20 E.P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia, 1985). 21 A. Harvey, Jesus and the Constraints of History (Philadelphia, 1982). 22 J. Riches, Jesus and the Transformation of Judaism (London, 1980). 23 G. Vermes, Jesus the Jew: A Historian's Reading of the Gospels (New York, 1973); G. Vermes, Jesus and the World of Judaism (Philadelphia 1984). 24 M. Borg, Conflict, Holiness, and Politics in the Teaching of Jesus (New York, 1984). 25 J.D. Crossan, In Fragments: The Aphorisms of Jesus (San Francisco, 1983); J.D. Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (San Francisco, 1991). 26 R. Funk, “The Issue of Jesus,” Forum 1 (1984): 7–12. 27 J.P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (4 vols.; New York, 1991–2009). 28 N.T. Wright, Christian Origins and the Question of God (3 vols.; Minneapolis, 1992–2003). 29 J.D.G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered (vol. 1 of Christianity in the Making; Grand Rapids, 2003). 30 M. Hengel and A.M. Schwemer, Jesus und das Judentum (vol. 1 of Geschichte des frühen Christentums; Tübingen 2007). 31 M.A. Powell, Jesus as a Figure of History (Louisville, 1998). 32 Theißen and Merz, Jesus (n. 2).

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phase of the quest, many new questions regarding terminology, the advantages and disadvantages of the quest, as well as its content, have been posed. 3.1 The Critique of the “Third Quest” Many scholars expressed their doubts regarding the efficacy of this new trend and formulated their own historical, theological, and literary arguments against its results. Following his teacher R. Bultmann, H. Koester argued that it is impossible to detect any traces of the historical Jesus in the Gospels.34 Therefore, every attempt to locate the historical Jesus is futile. W. Hamilton approached the issue more radically. He argued that Jesus is historically inapproachable and proposed that the quest should change its direction and focus on the post-historical Jesus (Quest for the PostHistorical Jesus).35 The Jewish scholar J. Neusner rejected the historiography on the grounds of post-structuralism and maintained that the “Third-Quest” was a “failing enterprise.”36 W. Arnal37 doubted the efficacy of historiography and proposed, in a very characteristic way, that “the question regarding the historical Jesus must probably be rejected once more ... Not because the descriptions of Jesus proposed by various scholars do not coincide ... neither because the scholars cannot reach reasonable results due to the lack of safe sources ... It must be rejected because the historical Jesus is of no importance, because he is related with either our perception of the past or our perception

33 R. Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospel as Eyewitness Testimony (Cambridge, 2006). 34 See H. Koester, “The Historical Jesus and the Historical Situation of the Quest: An Epilogue” in Studying the Historical Jesus: Evaluations of the State of Current Research (eds. B. Chilton and G.A. Evans; New York, 1994), 535‒545. 35 W. Hamilton, A Quest for the Post-Historical Jesus (New York, 1994), 19; see also J. Altizer, The Contemporary Jesus (Albany, 1997); D. Georgi, “The Interest in Life of Jesus as a Paradigm for the Social History of Biblical Criticism,” HTR 85 (1992): 51‒83. 36 See J. Neusner, “Who Needs ‘Historical Jesus’? A Review Essay,” BBR 4 (1994): 119. Reviewing the works of J.P. Meier and J.D. Crossan, he remarks: “Still, theirs are magnificent and successful efforts to rehabilitate a field of learning that had fallen in disgrace, made doubters collapse in laughter at its ‘final’ results not fifteen years ago. For, in this context Meier’s and Crossan's books should be read as valiant efforts, in the face of the ridiculous and absurd, to establish the rationality and reputation of a failing enterprise.” 37 W.E. Arnal, The Symbolic Jesus: Historical Scholarship, Judaism and the Construction of Contemporary Identity (Oakville, 2005).

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for the present. That Jesus who is important to us is not the Jesus of history but the symbolic Jesus.”38 R.M. Price39 rejected the “Third Quest” and at the same the historicity of Jesus himself. After long and meticulous research, he concluded that the verified witnesses of Jesus’ historicity are so sparse that they lead to the rejection of his historical existence. He wrote that the historical Jesus “shrunk to the vanish point.”40 L.T. Johnson41 gave theology and not history the lead. He advanced the view that it is impossible to describe the Christian faith when this faith is tied to the quest for the historical Jesus because the results of historical research are not always permanent but can change over the course of time. He also believed that historical research is not compatible with the Christian faith.42 According to his view, the Christian faith focuses its interest not on the “events” of Jesus’ pre-Easter life but on the living, and always present, resurrected Jesus who abides among us. It must also be noted that Johnson’s arguments remind one of Reimarus, the father of the quest for the historical Jesus, who advocated the distinction between Jesus’ teaching and the apostles’ faith. However, Johnson’s theory can lead to a form of docetism, even though he also notes that the tradition is based on several sources that rule out this danger.43 3.2 The Proponents of the “Third Quest” The proponents of the “Third Quest” remain, however, the majority. They are convinced that in spite of its flaws, the quest for the historical Jesus is of great importance and therefore must continue.44 38 39

The excerpt is from the book of Beilby and Eddy, Jesus (n. 2), 32. R.M. Price, Deconstructing Jesus (Amherst, 2000); R.M. Price, The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable is the Gospel Tradition? (Amherst, 2003); E. Doherty, The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ? (Ottawa, 1999). 40 Price, Son of Man (n. 41), 354. 41 L.T. Johnson, “The Real Jesus: The Challenge of Current Scholarship and the Truth of the Gospels” in The Historical Jesus through Catholic and Jewish Eyes (eds. B.F. LeBeau et. al.; Harrisburg, 2000), 57. 42 Johnson, “Jesus,” (n. 43), 59. 43 L.T. Johnson, “The Humanity of Jesus: What’s at Stake in the Quest for the Historical Jesus?” in The Jesus Controversy: Perspectives in Conflict (eds. J.D. Crossan et al.; Harrisburg, 1999), 61‒66. 44 See J.D. Crossan, “Why Is Historical Jesus Research Necessary?” in Jesus Two Thousand Years Later (eds. J.H. Charlesworth and W.P. Weaver; Harrisburg, 2000), 7‒ 37; Dunn, Jesus (n. 31), 99‒136; C. Evans, “The Historical Jesus and Christian Faith: A Critical Assessment of a Scholarly Problem,” CSR 18 (1988): 48‒63; W.H. Kelber, “The Quest for the Historical Jesus from the Perspectives of Medieval, Modern and PostEnlightenment Readings, and in View of Ancient, Oral Aesthetics” in J.D. Crossan et al.,

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They put forth the following arguments: This quest can help the church to formulate a more accurate Christology that will be protected from docetism and a barren and self-righteous piety that is not rooted in the life and true message of Jesus. It prevents the diffusion of theories that distort the picture of the true Jesus and twist his message. It can also help people of the present day, whether they believe or not, to understand that faith in Christ is not shaped through ideas that are oldfashioned and related to a past world. On the contrary, the quest for Jesus applies modern scientific methods that are generally accepted and used by the modern academic world. The use of such methods demonstrates that a Christian is not an unusual and marginal person but that her or his faith complies with the modern way of thinking.45 For a church member of today, the quest is also much more useful and constructive than the rejection of any quest for the historical Jesus, for the quest is shaped by and is based on modern ways of thought and research. The rejection of the quest, by contrast, relies on “axioms” that modern human beings cannot and will not accept – namely, that the historical Jesus is incompatible with the Christian faith.46 It also provides a description of Jesus’ person and deeds that can function as an example for members of the church. They are thereby enabled to change their lives and the society they live in.47 3.3 Methodology Those scholars who deal with the “Third Quest” stress the significance of the methodical, historical analysis of the existing evidence. In the application of this analysis, the following principles play a significant role: The general acceptance of minimal presuppositions regarding the problem of the “historical Jesus.” As W. Lyons48 has already noted, there is always a network of presuppositions, reflected in the source materials, that all scholars without exception accept. Such a unanimously accepted preControversy (n. 45), 75‒155; Meier, Jew (n. 17), 4; M.A. Powell, Jesus as a Figure in History (Louisville 1998), 182‒184; N.T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (Minneapolis, 1996), 600‒662. 45 L. Keck, A Future for the Historical Jesus: The Place of Jesus in Preaching and Theology (Nashville, 1971), 36‒39. 46 This position is usually adopted in conservative theological circles (e.g. the Evangelicals). See, for example, the literature in Beilby and Eddy, Jesus (n. 2), 36, n. 100. 47 This is especially underlined by scholars of the Third World, such as J. Sobrino, Jesus the Liberator: A Historical Theological Reading of Jesus of Nazareth (Wellwood and New York, 1994). 48 W.J. Lyons, “The Hermeneutics of Fictional Black and Factual Red: The Markan Simon of Cyrene and the Quest for the Historical Jesus,” JSHJ 4 (2006): 154.

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supposition is the fact that Jesus was regarded as an exorcist and miracleworker by his contemporaries.49 Certainly this does not mean that all scholars interpret Jesus’ miracles in the same way. All those scholars that follow Bultmann,50 for example, and approach the issue through the lenses of the natural sciences reject the reality of those miracles. Others maintain that the miracles could be explained by reason; this does not mean, however, that there is any concrete proof of their historicity.51 Finally, there are also some scholars who maintain that such a psychological explanation is arbitrary, and they attempt to explain Jesus’ miracles or to defend their historical existence.52 Selection of those traditions and elements for which there is a substantial indication of authenticity. Only then can these be combined and enable a reconstruction of the historical Jesus.53 The presupposition of an initially hypothetical portrait of Jesus and consequently its modification and evaluation.54 The application of the so-called “authenticity criteria” by means of which information and traditions regarding Jesus are traced and evaluated, and the features that are most probably related to the historical Jesus are highlighted. Among the many “authenticity criteria” the most significant ones are the following:55 The criterion of “multiple independent attestation” which focuses on Jesus’ teaching and deeds that are attested by different and independent sources (e.g., the Gospel of Mark, Q, Paul’s epistles, the Gospel of John) or are mentioned in various literary genres (forms) (parables, miracles, narrations, prophecies, etc.). The “embarrassment or contradiction criterion” that focuses on those elements of Jesus’ teaching and deeds that because of their content caused embarrassment or conflict in the early Church (e.g., Jesus’ baptism). 49

J.P. Meier, “The Present State of the ‘Third Quest’ for the Historical Jesus: Loss and Gain,” Bib 80 (1999): 477‒483, esp. 461, maintains that one of the most notable results of the “Third Quest” is the assumption that Jesus was seen as a miracle-worker. 50 See R. Bultmann, “Concerning the Hidden and the Revealed God,” in Existence and Faith: Shorter Writings of Rudolf Bultmann (trans. S.M. Ogden; New York, 1960), 23‒34. 51 Price, Son of Man (n. 41), 19‒20. 52 For more details, see, among others, J.P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus: Mentor, Messsage, and Miracles (vol. 2; New York, 1994), 509‒532. 53 This method is adopted by Crossan, Historical Jesus (n. 27), xxii–xxiv; Meier, Jew (n. 17), 167‒195. 54 This is the method followed by Sanders, Jesus (n. 22), 3‒22, and J.D.G. Dunn, New Perspective on Jesus: What the Quest for the Historical Jesus Missed (Grand Rapids, 2005), 57‒78. 55 For other criteria, see Meier, Jew (n. 17), 167‒197, who distinguishes between the “primary criteria” and the “secondary (or dubious) criteria.”

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The “(historical) plausibility criterion” that has a twofold purpose. On the one hand, it investigates whether a piece of information or a tradition regarding Jesus is in agreement with the Jewish reality of his time and whether at the same time it differs from Jewish reality due to its particular features. On the other hand, it attempts to locate those pieces of information and traditions about Jesus that, in spite of their being independent from each other, contain common features that are also closely connected to Jesus’ teaching and deeds.56 The criterion of the “characteristic Jesus” that examines the information that can be found in the tradition about Jesus and which at the same time is part of the Jewish tradition of his time. This information can be located in Jesus’ preaching and deeds that were preserved in the oral tradition. It contains elements that are typical for Jesus or elements that are certainly Jewish but can only be compatible with Jesus himself. These elements also reveal the “impact” that Jesus had on his contemporaries who singled him out among other personalities of his time and followed him. Interdisciplinary approaches as playing a potentially significant role in the quest of the historical Jesus. Scholars from various disciplines have worked together during the last decades to achieve this task. Three interdisciplinary approaches that seem to be especially important are: The cooperation of New Testament scholarship and archaeology.57 With the assistance of archaeology, the picture of the economical, social, and cultural life of Palestine in the time of Jesus becomes clearer. Archaeology also illuminates some important questions, such as the influence of Hellenistic culture on the Jews of Jesus’ time or, vice versa, the influence of the Jewish culture on the Mediterranean world and culture.58 The cooperation of New Testament scholarship with disciplines of the social sciences, such as with cultural anthropology or sociology.59 The fo56

For this criterion, see also Theißen and Merz, Jesus (n. 2), 117‒120; G. Theißen and D. Winter, Die Kriterienfrage in der Jesusforschung: Vom Differenzkriterium zum Plausibilitätskriterium (Freiburg and Göttingen, 1997). 57 See, for example, the work of L.I. Levine, ed., The Galilee in Late Antiquity (New York, 1992); D.R. Edwards and C.T. McCollouth, Archaeology and the Galilee: Texts and Contexts in the Greco-Roman and Byzantine Periods (Atlanta, 1997); S. Freyne, Galilee and Gospel: Collected Essays (Tübingen, 2000); J.D. Crossan and J.L. Reed, Excavating Jesus: Beneath the Stones, Behind the Texts (San Francisco, 2001); M.A. Chancey, Greco-Roman Culture and the Galilee of Jesus (Cambridge, 2005); J.H. Charlesworth, ed., Jesus and Archaeology (Grand Rapids, 2006). 58 See, for example, the standard work of M. Hengel, Judentum und Hellenismus: Studien zu ihrer Begegnung unter besonderer Berücksichtigung Palästinas bis zur Mitte des 2. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. (Tübingen, 31988). 59 See, for example, G. Theißen, Studien zur Soziologie des Urchristentums (Tübingen, 1983); H. Kee, Christian Origins in Sociological Perspective: Methods and Resources (Philadelphia, 1980); R. Horsley, Sociology and the Jesus Movement (New York

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cus of interest in this particular cooperation is the investigation of the social history of Jesus’ time through the application of various methods of social analysis. One of the most important works in this field is J.D. Crossan’s attempt to prove, by applying social-scientific methods and theories, the existence of a consistent cultural model that is valid for the whole Mediterranean region.60 The sociological investigation of the historical Jesus has become so important that in many cases the anthropologicalhistorical approach to Jesus’ life has almost replaced the generally accepted historical-critical method. At least P. Craffert attempted to prove that this is the case when he proposed the replacement of traditional historiography (“positivist-post modern historiography”) with the anthropologicalhistorical method and came to the conclusion that Jesus was a Galilean shaman.61 The relationship between the oral tradition about Jesus and the written Gospels.62 The most important suggestions in this field were made by W. Kelber, K. Bailey, J.D. Crossan, J.D.G. Dunn, and R. Bauckham, among others. We can discern two different trends within this field of research. In the first trend, the nature of this oral tradition about Jesus as well as the impact this definition has on the quest of the historical Jesus are closely examined. In the second trend, scholars examine how this information about Jesus was written down in the gospels and the role of rules and norms (for example, “oral sensibility” 63 or “social / collective memory”64), which occupy a prominent place in oral tradition, in the process of the written crystallization of Jesus tradition. In the following pages, the work of four New Testament scholars who tried to fill the gap between the so-called historical Jesus and the Jesus of faith will be briefly discussed: J. D. G. Dunn, R. Bauckham, G. Theissen, and L. Hurtado. These scholars tried to build a bridge between the older oral layers of the Jesus tradition and the New Testament gospels and there1989); J. H. Elliott, What is Social-Scientific Criticism? (Minneapolis, 1993); K.C. Hanson and D.E. Oakman, Palestine in the Time of Jesus: Social Structures and Social Conflict (Minneapolis, 1998). 60 Crossan, Historical Jesus (n. 27). 61 Craffert, Life (n. 9). 62 Dunn, Jesus (n. 31), 172‒254. 63 See most notably E.J. Bakker. “How Oral is Oral Composition?” and J.M. Foley, “What is a Sign?”, in Signs of Orality: The Oral Tradition and Its Influence in the Greek and Roman World (ed. E.A. MacKay; Boston, 1999), 29‒37 and 1-27; R. Thomas, Literacy and Orality in Ancient Greece (New York, 1992). 64 See S.C. Barton et al., eds., Memory in the Bible and Antiquity (Tübingen, 2007); R. Horsley et al., eds., Performing the Gospel: Orality, Memory and Mark: Essays Dedicated to Werner Kelber (Minneapolis, 2006); A. Kirk and Th. Thatcher, eds., Memory, Tradition and Text: Uses of the Past in Early Christianity (Atlanta, 2005).

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by at the same time between the pre-Easter Jesus and the Christ of faith. Before presenting the main points of their work, however, Kenneth Bailey and his theory will be briefly discussed. K. Bailey published a paper in 1991 under the title “Informal Controlled Oral Tradition and the Synoptic Gospels,”65 in which he attempted to reconstruct the oral Jesus traditions on the basis of the oral tradition mechanisms of Arabian village communities. His results were adopted by N. T. Wright66 and J.D.G. Dunn67 while they were critically discussed68 by R. Bauckham.69 Bailey distinguishes between three different types of oral tradition: the “informal uncontrolled oral tradition” that was proposed by R. Bultmann, the “formal controlled oral tradition” that was mainly promoted by the Scandinavian School (Riesenfeld, Gerhardsson), and the intermediate solution proposed by C.H. Dodd of “the informal controlled oral tradition.”70 His model, by which he attempted to explain the New Testament tradition, was based on the way tradition is preserved and transmitted in a modern Arabian village meeting. In these meetings, the socalled haflat samar, proverbs, riddles, poems, parables, stories, or historical accounts, are recited. Most interestingly, as Bailey remarked, the taleteller is allowed some freedom in recounting his tale in his own, personal way, provided that the tenor of the story remains unaltered. Hence, continuity and flexibility but not change are combined.71 As C. Claußen remarks, “Festzuhalten ist die Beobachtung Baileys, dass einige Teile einer vorgegebenen mündlichen Überlieferung absolut unveränderbar sind, während für andere Teile eine gewisse Flexibilität möglich ist.”72 However, one could again in the words of Claußen ask “inwieweit Baileys Modell einer ‘informellen’ und doch ‘kontrollierten’ Traditionsweitergabe, wie sie in der Erzählkultur einer modernen arabischen Dorfversammlung zu finden ist, den Verhältnissen im antiken palästinischen Judentum zur Zeit Jesu entspricht.”73 Nevertheless, Bailey’s hypothesis demonstrates that the oral tradition follows different rules than the editorial processes of the written

65 66 67 68

AJT 5 (1991): 34‒51. Wright, Jesus (n. 46), 133‒137. Dunn, Jesus (n. 31), 205‒210. On this, see C. Claußen, “Vom historischen zum erinnerten Jesus: Der erinnerte Jesus als neues Paradigma der Jesusforschung,” ZNT 20 (2007): 12–14. 69 Bauckham, Jesus (n. 35), 252‒263. 70 Bailey, “Tradition” (n. 67), 35. 71 Idem, 44. 72 Claußen, “Jesus” (n. 70), 13. 73 Idem.

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traditions. This conclusion was adopted by N.T. Wright, J.D.G. Dunn, and partly by J. Schröter,74 as will become evident. The British New Testament scholar J.D.G. Dunn attempted with his work, especially his hypothesis of the remembered Jesus, to demonstrate that more emphasis should be laid on the fact that the gospels emerged from the oral tradition. He suggests that the spring board for the oral tradition was the “impact” that Jesus made during his earthly mission.75 According to Dunn, Jesus had already aroused faith before Easter.76 Dunn also claims, “The idea that a Jesus reconstructed from the Gospel traditions (the so-called ‘historical Jesus’) yet significantly different from the Jesus of the Gospels, is the Jesus who taught in Galilee (the historical Jesus!) is an illusion. The idea that we can see through the faith perspective of the NT writings to a Jesus who did not inspire faith or who inspired faith in a different way is an illusion. There is no such Jesus.”77 Dunn also maintains that the stability as well as the deviations of the parallel traditions of the Synoptics can be explained as a result of the process of oral tradition. Dunn follows K.E. Bailey and writes, “In particular, the paradigm of literary editing is confirmed as wholly inappropriate: in oral tradition one telling of a story is in no sense an editing of a previous telling; rather, each telling starts with the same subject and theme, but the retellings are different; each telling is a performance of the tradition itself, not of the first, or third, or twenty-third ‘edition’ of the tradition. Our expectation, accordingly, should be of the oral transmission of Jesus tradition as a sequence of retellings, each starting from the same storehouse of communally remembered events and teaching, and each weaving the common stock together in different patterns for different contexts.”78 Hence, Dunn formulates a new model by means of which he attempts to explain and legitimize the various Jesus traditions. According to Dunn, these traditions in the Synoptic Gospels are the memories of the agents that were further developed. Another British scholar, R. Bauckham, suggests that the gospel writers had direct access to the accounts of the eyewitnesses. He maintains therefore that Jesus is the Jesus of the eyewitnesses. He writes, “I suggest that we need to recover the sense in which the Gospels are testimony. This does not mean that they are testimony rather than history. It means that the kind 74 J. Schröter, “Der erinnerte Jesus als Begründer des Christentums? Bemerkungen zu James D.G. Dunns Ansatz in der Jesusforschung,” ZNT 20 (2007): 46‒54. See also Chr. Landmesser, “Der gegenwärtige Jesus: Moderne Jesusbilder und die Christologie des Neuen Testaments,” KD 56 (2010): 96‒120. 75 Dunn, Jesus (n. 31), 332, 335. 76 Idem, 132, 498‒505. 77 Idem, 126. 78 Idem, 209.

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of historiography they are is testimony … Understanding the Gospels as testimony, we can recognize this theological meaning of the history not as an arbitrary imposition on the objective facts, but as the way the witnesses perceived the history, in an inextricable coinherence of observable event and perceptible meaning. Testimony is the category that enables us to read the Gospels in a properly historical way and a properly theological way. It is where history and theology meet.”79 Bauckham describes this transmission from mouth to mouth as “oral tradition”80 and not as “oral history.” The following question, however, can be raised: Are the accounts of the eyewitnesses as reliable as Bauckham argues that they are? Are not the memories of the eyewitnesses subject to modification and interpretation? The term “recollections” is, therefore, more appropriate in order to describe the oral transmission of the tradition rather than language of “eyewitnesses,” because it can retain the balance between the past event and the interests and particularities of the agents.81 C. Stecker’s remarks on the issue of remembrance and the remembered Jesus are also thought-provoking. He deals with the problem from the perspective of cultural studies and notes that the depreciation of memory is a sign of enlightened modern times and that New Testament scholarship should take into more consideration the possible role that memory played in the composition of the gospels.82 G. Theißen, in his book Das Neue Testament,83 suggested that there existed many different traditions within the Synoptic Tradition. He mentions as such the traditions of the wandering charismatics, which are preserved in Q, the synoptic apocalypse, which was transmitted by local communities, and the miracle stories, which circulated among the people (cf. Mark 1:28). All these traditions are actually a tradition continuum that begins with the proclamation and teaching of the historical Jesus and describes the way to the Synoptics. Finally, the New Testament scholar L.W. Hurtado and his study, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity, should be mentioned. Hurtado investigated the devotion to Jesus from 30 C.E. to about 170 C.E. It is worth noticing that although Hurtado mainly discusses the post-Easter Christ and not the historical Jesus, he underlines that the devotion to Jesus began already in the time of the pre-Easter Jesus, and it develops from there. He writes, “I propose that the only reasonable factor 79 80 81 82

Bauckham, Jesus (n. 35), 5‒6. Idem, 30‒38. Cf. also Claußen, “Jesus” (n. 70), 6. C. Strecker, “Der erinnerte Jesus aus kulturwissenschaftlicher Perspektive,” ZNT 20 (2007): 18‒27. 83 G. Theißen, Das Neue Testament (München, 2006).

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that accounts for the central place of the figure of Jesus in early Christianity is the impact of Jesus’ ministry and its consequences, especially for his followers.”84 The expression “impact of Jesus’ ministry” is striking and reminds one of Dunn’s “Jesus Remembered.” C. Claußen’s remarks are to the point regarding Hurtado’s work: “Damit setzt selbst ein Werk wie dieses, das sich als Schwerpunkt die nachösterliche Verehrung Christi gesetzt hat, bei den Erfahrungen Jesu und seine Jünger ein. Die Identität des nachösterlich verehrten Christus mit dem vorösterlichen Jesus wird auch bei Hurtado vorausgesetzt.”85 In the final part of this discussion of methodology the problem of the sources will be briefly presented. Among New Testament scholars, there is no unanimously accepted opinion regarding which sources are the most appropriate in order to draw a plausible picture about the culture and the place Jesus lived in, on the one hand, and about Jesus himself, on the other. There are many tendencies, which will be briefly presented in the following pages. First of all, a distinction should be made between Christian, Jewish, and pagan sources. Regarding the Christian sources, it should be noted that in the quest of the historical Jesus86 only the following should be used: Only the canonical books of the New Testament87 and especially the four canonical gospels. Earlier there was a strong tendency to rule out the Gospel of John as a source. According to this opinion, one should look for the historical Jesus only in the accepted Synoptic Gospels and not in the theologically coloured Gospel of John. However, this “tyranny of the synoptic Jesus,” as C.W. Hendrick characterized it,88 began to be disputed, and although it still remains the major trend, the Fourth Gospel has begun to be regarded as a safe source for Jesus’ life, too.89 At the same time, the question of whether the literary form of the gospel should be counted among the other literary forms of that period (e.g., historiographies, novels) has also played an important role.

84 L.W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids 2003), 53‒54. 85 Claußen, “Jesus” (n. 70), 7. 86 For the methodological problems, see M.F. Bird, “Textual Criticism and the Historical Jesus,” JSHJ 9 (2008): 133‒156. 87 This position was held, for example, by Meier, Jew (n. 17), 139‒141, and Wright, Jesus (n. 46). 88 C.W. Hedrick, “Introduction: The Tyranny of the Synoptic Jesus,” Semeia 44 (1988): 1‒8. 89 See also J.H. Charlesworth, “The Historical Jesus: Sources and a Sketch,” in Jesus (n. 46), 87‒88.

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The quest recognized that the other canonical books of the New Testament contain historical information about Jesus. Since, however, this information is also preserved in the gospels, the other books of the New Testament are not usually utilized in the discussion about the historical Jesus. Some scholars also suggest that in the quest for Jesus other Christian sources should also be discussed – for example, Q, the Nag Hammadi texts, the Gospel of Thomas, or the Gospel of Peter.90 Jewish sources should also be utilized since they offer valuable insights for the reconstruction of the environment of Jesus and for a better understanding of his teaching and actions. Such sources are the Qumran texts and Josephus’s writings (37–100 C.E.) – namely, Jewish War and Jewish Antiquities. To demonstrate Josephus’ significance in the quest for the historical Jesus, one need only mention the famous Testimonium Flavianum (Ant. 18.63 –66),91 where Josephus refers to Jesus (see also Ant. 20.200): Finally, it is also maintained that in the quest for the historical Jesus one should also take into consideration information that comes from pagan sources ‒ for example, the works of Tacitus or Suetonius.92 3.4 The Quest for the Historical Jesus in the Greek-Orthodox Tradition The quest for the historical Jesus was neither consistently nor effectively promoted in the Greek Orthodox world or in Orthodoxy generally. Occasionally, shorter or more extended studies appear that deal with the issue of the historical Jesus. These could be organized into three groups: Works that have an apologetic character.93 These works, as I. Karavidopoulos remarks, “are oriented to the needs of their times and focus on the collection of non-Christian and historical witnesses about the person and the work of Jesus.”94 The second group contains works that relate the quest for the historical Jesus to patristic theology generally95 or are works that have a rather informative character.96

90 91 92

See Theißen and Merz, Jesus (n. 2), 48-62. See, for example, idem, 75‒82. More precisely, see P.R. Eddy and G.A. Boyd, The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition (Grand Rapids, 2007), 309‒453; Theißen and Merz, Jesus (n. 2), 86‒92. 93 See, for example, G. Papamichael, Ὁ Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς ὡς ἱστορικὸν πρόσωπον, (Athens 1921); P. Trempelas, Ἰησούς ὁ ἀπὸ Ναζαρέτ (vol. 5 of Ἀπολογητικαὶ µελέται; 4th ed.; Athens 1973). 94 I. Karavidopoulos, “Ἡ ‘τρίτη ἀναζήτηση’ τοῦ ἱστορικοῦ Ἰησοῦ,” in Βιβλικές Μελέτες (vol. 3; Thessaloniki 2004), 240‒259. 95 See, for example, P. Andriopoulos, Τὸ πρόβληµα τοῦ ἱστορικοῦ Ἰησοῦ ἐν τῇ συγχρόνῳ ἑρµηνευτικῇ τῆς Κ.∆. ὑπὸ τὸ φῶς τῆς θεολογίας Κυρίλλου τοῦ Ἀλεξανδρείας (Ath-

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The third group consists of translations of foreign works that deal with the quest for the historical Jesus.97 Despite the good intentions of those few scholars and especially of one pioneer, the late Professor Savvas Agourides, literature that deals with the historical Jesus remains very scarce in the Greek Orthodox world. There are various reasons for this. In the last part of this paper, some of them will be briefly discussed. At the same time, it will be argued that the quest for the historical Jesus is not “a point of dispute” that divides Christians but a meeting and starting point. 3.5 The Quest for the Historical Jesus: A Meeting Point for Christians Greek Orthodox biblical scholarship has taken a limited interest in the quest for the historical Jesus for two major reasons. First, there is reservation on the part of Orthodox theological scholars towards biblical studies, and especially towards any discussion of the historical Jesus and the theology of the New Testament. Both enterprises are regarded as Protestant creations, as the fruits of rationalism, and as opposed to the Orthodox patristic tradition. The second reason is related to the rapid growth of other fields in Orthodox theology, such as liturgics and dogmatics or systematic theology, compared to biblical theology. This growth resulted in fewer scholarly attempts to do research on the historical Jesus and New Testament theology. This happened because the emphasis was laid on the sacramental and liturgical union with the crucified and resurrected Christ. Some also maintained that the quest for the historical Jesus would overstress the human nature of Jesus and his divine nature would be somehow downgraded. Indeed, some claimed that New Testament theology was ultimately a subject of interest for dogmatics.98 ens 1975); G. Patronos, Ἡ ἱστορικὴ πορεία τοῦ Ἰησοῦ: Ἀπὸ τὴ φάτνη ὣς τὸν κενὸ τάφο, (Athens 1991). 96 See S. Agouridis, “Ἡ ἀναζήτηση τοῦ ‘ἱστορικοῦ Ιησοῦ’ ἀπὸ τὴ νεώτερη εὐρωπαϊκὴ σκέψη,” in Ἆρα γε γινώσκεις ἃ ἀναγινώσκεις; (Athens 1989), 46‒64; ibid., “Ἡ ἱστορία τῆς ἔρευνας γιὰ τὸν ἱστορικὸ Ἰησοῦ (Πορτραῖτα τοῦ Ἰησοῦ),” in Ἑρµηνευτικὴ τῶν ἱερῶν κειµένων (Athens 2002), 276‒321; Karavidopoulos, “Ἀναζήτηση” (n. 96), 240‒259. 97 For example, the work of A. Schweitzer, Ἱστορία τῆς ἔρευνας τοῦ βίου τοῦ Ἰησοῦ (trans.; Athens 1982); E. Trocmé, Ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἀπὸ τὴ Ναζαρὲτ ὅπως τὸν εἶδαν ὅσοι τὸν γνώρισαν (trans.; Athens 1983). 98 Professor P. Vassiliadis, “Προλεγόµενα στὴ Θεολογία τῆς Καινῆς ∆ιαθήκης,” DBM 19 (2000): 6, offers a very interesting remark regarding this problem in: “On the contrary, in the Orthodox theological world the problem of the existence of ‘New Testament theology’ is closely connected to the established perception of the exclusiveness of systematic theology, which ever since the establishment of the modern theological facul-

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One cannot deny, however, that the Holy Scriptures and their theology actually play a leading role in Orthodox theology, and therefore, every attempt to come to a deeper understanding of Scripture is necessary. Moreover, most Greek Orthodox scholars have concluded that such study is necessary and that the time is ripe for a current interpretation of the Holy Scriptures that will exist parallel to the traditional patristic one. Finally, the rivalry prevalent in other Christian denominations between the two poles of theology – namely, between the Holy Scriptures and tradition – does not exist in Orthodox theology, nor is one of the two poles favoured at the expense of the other. Such an attitude would inevitably lead to a confrontation between biblical and systematic theology. For example, evangelical theology often focuses primarily on the Bible and gives the leading role to biblical exegesis more so than other Christian denominations. Therefore, some reach conclusions like those of H.J. Iwand, who remarks, that “alle Theologie notwendigerweise Exegese ist. Denn: Das Thema der Theologie konstruieren wir nicht, sondern wir finden es vor. Und wir behandeln es im Nachdenken, im immer neuen Vollzug des ursprünglichen und darin freilich ausgezeichneten Ansatzes.”99 Similarly, E. Jüngel concludes, “Theologie ist grundlegend und sie ist bis zuletzt Exegese, sie ist nur als ‘konsequente Exegese’ recht verstanden.”100 Contrary to these scholars, the Orthodox theologian, N. Matsoukas, writes: “The Holy Scriptures, or in other words, the entity of the canonical books of the Old and New Testament, and the tradition are not two different things separated from each other or two sources or even two agents that come from outside and are placed over the Church in order to define and organize it ... The books of the Holy Scriptures are rather the selected and juicy fruit of the traditional life. Under no circumstances can the tradition and the Holy Scriptures be separated from each other. Hence the Church, like every other living and historical organism, can have tradition only by means of the living agents and its monuments. The Holy Scripture is one of the primary and exquisite monuments of this tradition.”101 ties and Orthodox theological education has generally monopolized the expression and the wording of the Church theology. This is also the reason why the contribution of biblical scholarship never influenced the reality of the modern Orthodox Church, which always treated it with distrust if not with disgust and disapproval.” 99 H.J. Iwand, “Über das Verhältnis von Theologie und Kirche,” in Um den rechten Glauben: Gesammelte Aufsätze (München 1965), 210. The text of Iwand is cited by O. Hofius, Exegetische Studien (WUNT 223; Tübingen, 2008), 280. 100 E. Jüngel, Indikative der Gnade ‒ Imperative der Freiheit (Theologische Erörterungen 4; Tübingen, 2000), 98. 101 N. Matsoukas, Εἰσαγωγὴ στὴ θεολογικὴ γνωσιολογία (vol. 1 of ∆ογµατικὴ καὶ Συµβολικὴ Θεολογία; Thessaloniki, 1985), 182, 184: “Ἡ Ἁγία Γραφή, ἢ µὲ ἄλλα λόγια τὸ σύνολο τῶν κανονικῶν βιβλίων τῆς Π. καὶ τῆς Καινῆς ∆ιαθήκης, καὶ ἡ Παράδοση δὲν

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Three of the typical features of the quest for the historical Jesus could also be accepted by Orthodox theology. They will be briefly discussed in order to make evident the fact that there exists a common ground where the various Christian denominations could meet and strengthen their relationships and ties. The first common element is the awareness of the necessity of approaching the Holy Scriptures by means of modern exegetical methods. In the Orthodox Church, the Holy Scriptures are the primary and exquisite fruits of the tradition and hence of Church life; they are also the “memorandum of its history.”102 At the same time, it is regarded as necessary that the Holy Scriptures be investigated by all available means (philological, historical-critical, sociological, etc.). N. Matsoukas remarks when referring to the Holy Scriptures and their analysis: “Since they primarily refer to life and experience and secondarily to events, the existence of many and successive traditions, layers, and forms in them is quite obvious. It is necessary to trace the traditions and layers in a gospel or the pre-Pauline tradition in the Pauline epistles. These books are not the result of a dictation, and they did not come first but were written down in order to comment on events that were evolving and on ways of life of autonomous and diverse stances and currents. This is something that the Orthodox tradition regards as self-evident.”103 εἶναι δύο ἀνεξάρτητα ἀντικείµενα ἢ δύο πηγὲς ἢ τέλος πάντων δύο φορεῖς ποὺ ἔρχονται ἀπέξω καὶ τοποθετοῦνται πάνω ἀπὸ τὴν Ἐκκλησία, ρυθµίζοντας καὶ ὀργανώνοντας τὴ ζωή της … Ἁπλούστατα τὰ βιβλία τῆς Ἁγίας Γραφῆς ἀποτελοῦν τοὺς ἐκλεκτοὺς καὶ εὔχυµους καρποὺς τῆς παραδοσιακῆς ζωῆς. ∆ὲν µποροῦν ν’ ἀποµονωθοῦν µὲ κανένα τρόπο. Ἑποµένως ἡ Ἐκκλησία, ὅπως καὶ κάθε ζωντανὸς ἱστορικός ὀργανισµός, παράδοση ἔχει µονάχα σὲ ζωντανοὺς φορεῖς καὶ σὲ ἀναρίθµητα µνηµεῖα. Ἡ Ἁγία Γραφὴ εἶναι ἕνα ἀπὸ τὰ πρωταρχικὰ καὶ ἐκλεκτὰ µνηµεῖα αὐτῆς τῆς παραδόσεως.” (“The Holy Scripture, or in other words the corpus of the canonical books of the Old and the New Testament, as well as the Tradition are not two independent objects or two sources or anyway two institutions that come from outside and are located above the church in order to rule and organize its life ... The books of the Holy Scripture are simply the most splendid and succulent fruits of traditional life. They cannot be isolated in any way. Thus, just like in every other living historical organism, the tradition of the Church only exists within its own living institutions and outstanding monuments.”). 102 Matsoukas, Εἰσαγωγή (n. 103), 186. 103 Idem: “Ἀφοῦ πρόκειται πρῶτα γιὰ ζωὴ καὶ ἐµπειρία, καὶ ἔπειτα γιὰ ὑποµνηµατισµὸ γεγονότων, εἶναι αὐτονόητη ἡ ὕπαρξη πολλῶν καὶ διαδοχικῶν παραδόσεων, στρωµάτων καὶ ποικίλων µορφῶν. Ἔτσι σ’ ἕνα Εὐαγγέλιο εἶναι ἀπαραίτητο νὰ ἐντοπίσουµε παραδόσεις καὶ στρώµατα ἢ στὶς Ἐπιστολὲς τοῦ Παύλου προπαύλεια παράδοση. Τὰ βιβλία δὲν εἶναι καρπὸς ὑπαγόρευσης οὔτε προηγήθηκαν, ἀλλὰ γράφτηκαν γιὰ νὰ ὑποµνηµατίσουν γεγονότα ἐξελισσόµενα καὶ τρόπους ζωῆς µέσα σὲ µιὰ αὐτόνοµη ποικιλία τάσεων καὶ ρευµάτων. Κάτι τέτοιο τὸ θεωρεῖ αὐτονόητο πέρα γιὰ πέρα ἡ ὀρθόδοξη παράδοση.” („Since (the tradition of the Church) is primarily life and experience and secondarily a commentary on the events, the existence of many suc-

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This position can help the modern Orthodox biblical scholar to realize that the quest for the historical Jesus must fulfil an additional current task – namely, to convey to people of today the redemptive message of Jesus Christ. This message, however, is contained in ancient texts that have their own language, their own way of thinking, and reflect a different culture. In order to achieve this task, it is necessary that other disciplines be involved, too. Only through such interdisciplinary cooperation can biblical scholars work efficiently. Another feature that both Orthodox theology and the quest for the historical Jesus regard as highly significant is the role of the experience that the early Church had. This experience of the early Christians functions as a catalyst that leads to the identification of the pre-Easter Jesus with the post-Easter Christ, of the Christ of history with the Christ of faith. This experience of the Christians has drawn the attention of many scholars who deal with the issue of the historical Jesus, and its importance has been underlined by them. In my opinion, for example, the key term “impact,” which J.D.G. Dunn used to stress the fact that Jesus had already influenced his apostles during his earthly ministry and had instilled in them the idea that he was the Christ, refers to the personal experience of the apostles with Jesus himself.104 C. Strecker attempted to answer the problem of the historical Jesus from the cultural-anthropological perspective and lays the emphasis on what he describes as the everyday, physical communication of Jesus with his disciples, which he thinks played an important role in the composition of the gospels. Strecker remarks, “[Jesu] Botschaft artikulierte sich also augenfällig somatisch und schrieb sich solcherweise wohl bei den Betroffenen ins Körpergedächtnis ein,”105 and he continues, “Ein in diesem Zusammenhang

cessive traditions, strata and various forms is self-evident. Thus, it is necessary to locate traditions and strata within a gospel or pre-Pauline tradition within Paul's epistles. The books are neither the fruit of dictation nor did they pre-exist, but they were written in order to comment on ongoing events and on ways of life within an autonomous variety of tendencies and currents. The Orthodox tradition considers this to be absolutely selfevident.“). 104 I mention here some of the scholars who attempted by means of various arguments to reduce the distance between the historical Jesus and the Christ of faith: 1) Schröter, “Der erinnerte Jesus” (n. 76); 2) Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (n. 35); 3) Landmesser, “Der gegenwärtige Jesus” (n. 76); 4) Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ (n. 86); 5) J. Frey, “Der historische Jesus und der Christus der Evangelien,” in Der historische Jesus: Tendenzen und Perspektiven der gegenwärtigen Forschung (eds. J. Schröter and R. Brucker; Berlin, 2002), 273‒336; 6) F. Vouga, “Erinnerung an Jesus im Johannesevangelium,” ZNT 20 (2007): 28‒37; 7) Theißen and Merz, Jesus (n. 2) and Theißen, Das Neue Testament (n. 85). 105 Strecker, “Jesus” (n. 84), 23.

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bislang nur wenig beachteter Aspekt ist die mögliche Rolle des Gedächtnisses bei der Komposition der Evangelien.”106 A third and final feature is the prevention of docetism. This quest for the historical Jesus and its efforts to describe Jesus more concretely underlines the human nature of Jesus and does not lay the emphasis solely on the divine nature of Jesus Christ. Hence, the danger of an one-sided understanding of Jesus is prevented. This is the opinion of modern scholars who are involved in this quest for the historical Jesus as well as the opinion of the patristic tradition. Two characteristic examples should be cited here: W. Stegemann includes in his treatise on the historical Jesus a chapter bearing the title, “Der historische Jesus als Kritik einer ‘mythologischen’ Christologie.” After a discussion of the suggestions of E. Käsemann and J. Sobrino, he concludes, “Diese Kontroverse ... stellt m. E. ein illustratives Beispiel für die Τheologie- und kirchenkritische Funktion der Rückfrage nach dem historischen Jesus dar. Sie zeigt, dass der historische Jesus bzw. die historische Jesusforschung eine unentbehrliche kritische Funktion zum Beispiel für alle ‘mythischen’ Christologien besitzt, die den himmlischen Christus vom irdischen Jesus trennen. Der ‘Christus nach dem Fleisch’ (Χριστὸς κατὰ σάρκα) geht uns eben doch etwa an. Grundsätzlicher formuliert: Die Rückfrage nach dem historischen Jesus bleibt ein ‘Pfahl im Fleisch’ von Theologie und Kirche, damit sie sich nicht überheben (2. Kor 12,7).”107 Stegemann stresses here the great significance of the quest for the historical Jesus. Such a quest could guard us from absolute conclusions regarding Jesus. In a similar tone, John of Damascus (ca. 650 – ca. 750) stresses the same fact in his work, Expositio fidei. In his chapter with the title “Περὶ τῶν ἐπὶ Χριστοῦ λεγοµένων” (“On what is said about Jesus”), he refers to the characteristics of Jesus and notes: Those then that are sublime must be assigned to the divine nature, which is superior to passion and body; and those that are humble must be ascribed to the human nature; and those that are common must be attributed to the compound, that is, the one Christ, who is God and a human being. And it should be understood that both belong to one and the same Jesus Christ, our Lord. For if we know what is proper to each, and perceive that both are performed by one and the same, we shall have the true faith and shall not go astray.108 106 107

Idem, 25. W. Stegemann, Jesus und seine Zeit (Biblische Enzyklopädie 10; Stuttgart 2010),

431. NPNF2 9. For the original see John of Damascus, F.O. 91.151 (Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos [vol. 2; ed. B. Kotter; Berlin 1973]): ∆εῖ οὖν τὰ µὲν ὑψηλὰ (ὀνόµατα) προσνέµειν τῇ θείᾳ καὶ κρείττονι φύσει παθῶν καὶ σώµατος, τὰ δὲ ταπεινὰ (ὀνόµατα) τῇ ἀνθρωπίνῃ, τὰ δὲ κοινὰ (ὀνόµατα) τῷ συνθέτῳ ἤγουν τῷ ἑνὶ Χριστῷ, ὅς ἐστι θεὸς καὶ ἄνθρωπος, καὶ εἰδέναι ἀµφότερα ἑνὸς καὶ τοῦ αὐτοῦ κυρίου ἡµῶν Ἰησοῦ 108

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Τhe examples that were presented here are only two among numerous others. They serve as arguments for the thesis of this paper that regardless of the Christian denomination that we belong to as biblical scholars, we are called to bear witness to Jesus in our world. In order to fulfill this task, we must take into consideration and utilize the means that modern human beings have at their disposal. One such method, which brings us closer to Jesus Christ, is the modern quest for the historical Jesus.

Χριστοῦ· ἑκάστου γὰρ τὸ ἴδιον γινώσκοντες καὶ ἀµφότερα ἐξ ἑνὸς πραττόµενα βλέποντες ὀρθῶς πιστεύοµεν καὶ οὐ πλανηθησόµεθα.

Jesus Research from the Enlightenment until Today MARIUS REISER1

In ‘Anna Karenina,’ Tolstoy presents a painter by the name of Mikhailov, who just completed a painting entitled, ‘Christ before Pilate.’ “Have you seen Mikhailov’s picture?” Vronsky asked his friend Golenishtchev. “I’ve seen it,” answered Golenishtchev. “Of course, he’s not without talent, but it’s all in a wrong direction. It’s all the Ivanov-Strauss-Renan attitude to Christ and to religious painting.” Golenishtchev characterizes the painter here as a free-thinker, who grew up with no faith, with skepticism and materialism. What he does not like about the “Ivanov-Strauss-Renan attitude to Christ” he tells the painter quite clearly: Christ appears as “man-god, and not the God-man.” To which the painter replies gloomily: “I cannot paint a Christ that is not in my heart.”2 In this episode, Tolstoy has captured the whole problem of the depiction of Jesus since the Enlightenment, both for the arts and for theologians. From the conservative, orthodox viewpoint the “wrong direction” is marked by three names: Alexander Ivanov (1806–1858), one of the most important Russian painters of the nineteenth century, who worked for twenty years on his masterpiece, ‘The Appearance of Christ before the People.’ Today it can be seen in the Tretyakov gallery. And then, there are the two most influential authors of Jesus books in the nineteenth century: the German Protestant David Friedrich Strauss and the French Catholic Ernest Renan. From the conservative, orthodox point of view, their crucial shortcoming is that they do not depict Jesus as God who has become man, but only as a divine man. The critic also has an explanation for this conviction: free-thinking, lack of faith, skepticism, and materialism. In reply, the representative of this ‘mistaken direction’ appeals to the Christ who is alive in his heart. However, this Christ is apparently not the one of the traditional Christian faith. Does the orthodox image of Christ, then, not hold up against the critical view? Was the historical Jesus indeed completely 1 2

Translated from the German by Christoph Ochs. L. N. Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (trans. C. Garnett; 2 vols.; New York, 1917), Part V, chapters 9 and 11.

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different? Which view is further away from the historical reality: the traditional orthodox, or that of enlightened-critical research? These are the central questions of this contribution. In order not to remain entirely stereotypical, I will at least present the beginnings of the whole field of research in more depth.3 One can thereby more easily discern that all the characteristic features that shape the field to this day were already present in the beginning.

1 Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694–1768)4 No, it is true, we do not believe what Christendom today requires one to believe, and we have important reasons not to believe it. Nevertheless, we are not heinous people, but we strive to give honor to God according to rational understanding, to sincerely love our neighbor daily, to carry out rightly the duties of an upstanding citizen and to conduct ourselves virtuously in all respects. 5

This is the confession and profession that Hermann Samuel Reimarus gives in his ‘Apology or Defense of the Rational Worshippers of God.’ Reimarus was a philosopher, Greek linguist, and professor of oriental languages at the Academic Gymnasium in Hamburg. In 1761 he was accepted into The Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences. Hamburg’s enlightened elite met in his house for entertainment and discussion, and it is primarily this circle to which Reimarus probably refers when he says ‘we.’ He wrote his magnum opus, however, in secret; he waited for more enlightened times for its publication.6 Only years after his death did Gotthold Ephraim Lessing publish longer excerpts from it as ‘Fragments of an Unnamed.’ The quoted confes-

3 A thorough overview of Jesus research can be found in: C. Brown, “The quest of the Historical Jesus,” in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (ed. J. B. Green and S. McKnight; Leicester, 1992), 326‒341. For the history and background of critical exegesis see: H. Graf Reventlow, Epochen der Bibelauslegung IV: Von der Aufklärung bis zum 20. Jahrhundert. (Munich, 2001); M. Reiser, Bibelkritik und Auslegung der Heiligen Schrift: Beiträge zur Geschichte der biblischen Exegese und Hermeneutik (WUNT 217; Tübingen, 2007). 4 Cf. D. Klein, Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694‒1768): Das theologische Werk (BHTh 145; Tübingen, 2009). 5 H. S. Reimarus, Apologie oder Schutzschrift für die vernünftigen Verehrer Gottes (ed. G. Alexander; Frankfurt, 1972), I, 128 (= I, 4 § 5). The translation from the German here and of any other German source is mine unless otherwise stated. 6 Reimarus, Apologie, I, 41 (Vorbericht): “The treatise ought to remain in secret, to be used by sympathetic friends; my will is that it should not be published in print before more enlightened times.” Translated from the German.

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sion was already given in the first fragment, which Lessing entitled ‘On toleration of deists.’7 In the preceding paragraph, which Lessing did not print, Reimarus explains his conviction of the “somewhat more freely adjudging critics” to which he feels he belongs: “They reasonably admit, that the strict sentences of the so-called orthodoxy” cannot all be kept – for example, that Christ is the Son of God, that he is eternally begotten, and “the Trinity of different persons in one divine nature.” “In a similar manner they have attempted to relate the sending of Jesus to the cleansing of the corrupted teaching amongst the Jews and to an ideal of a God-pleasing, pious lifestyle. The harsh sentences of original sin and absolute election by grace, and also the eternal condemnation of all unbelievers were explained more mildly and humanely, the sacraments were made to be mere symbolic rituals, the demonic possession understood as madness and frenzy, etc. How have the orthodox responded to such concession and mitigation? With curses and denunciations.”8 Reimarus openly confesses what hermeneutic principles he uses in his exegesis: The regula or analogia fidei, that is, the tradition and the faith of the church, is not binding for him anymore; the Bible is only heeded insofar as it makes sense to reason, and that ultimately means: to his reason. Reason is to the enlightened of the eighteenth century an absolute that demands total allegiance. The realization that reason is not an absolute, but is always influenced by experience, tradition, and language has, to this day, not been fully grasped. In the eighteenth century, Johann Georg Hamann stood alone with this conviction. His friend Immanuel Kant would not have any of it.9 How is Jesus’s preaching and ministry to be understood under these conditions? Jesus, according to Reimarus, was a pious Jew, who did not want to abolish the Jewish religion but only meant to reform it. His basic tenets serve as a “practical religion;” that is, mainly the love of God and of one’s neighbor (including the love of one’s enemies), goodness, patience, humility, self-denial, also the battle against “the wanton lust” and the “wicked desires of the heart,” principles as they are expressed in the Lord’s Prayer and the Sermon on the Mount.10 These are also the stipulations of a reasonable religion, valid for all times. “And God-willing,” exclaims Reimarus, “could we keep these rules in all matters: we would be in 7 G. E. Lessing, Von der Duldung der Deisten. Fragment eines Ungenannten. Cited and translated from: G. E. Lessing, Gesammelte Werke in zehn Bänden (ed. P. Rilla; Berlin, 1956), VII, 654. For an exhaustive commentary and documents I would point to the excellent edition: G. E. Lessing, Werke und Briefe in zwölf Bänden (ed. A. Schilson; Frankfurt, 1989‒2001), vols. 8‒10. 8 Reimarus, Apologie, I, 126 (= I, 4 § 4). 9 Cf. Reiser, Bibelkritik, 33‒34. 10 Reimarus, Apologie, II, 3–38 (= I, 1 §§ 8–10). Translated from the German.

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harmony with each other, peaceful, loving, pious, god-fearing and happy.”11 The childish naiveté of these enlightened people is always touching. Jesus’s timeless principles are to be sharply differentiated from his teaching of the Kingdom of God. It was a temporal and illusory teaching, because Jesus understood this kingdom as earthly-political. His coming was to bring liberation from the Roman yoke. Jesus hoped that his people would recognize him as Messiah and declare him king of the realm to be established. But he hoped in vain and died in disappointment. His disciples, however, did not content themselves with this. They got rid of his corpse, interpreted his death as a death of atonement and redemption, and invented the fairytale of his resurrection. Since the kingdom on earth they hoped for did not come about, they redirected their hope to a heavenly one. They explained Jesus as the Son of God and proclaimed that he would return soon on the clouds of heaven. When his return was delayed, they used some exegetical tricks, such as, a “thousand years are like a day to God.” Accordingly, Christianity is by and large a skillfully conceived invention of the disciples, who could not get over the failure of their master. This was seen as having very little to do with the historical Jesus. Yet, there is little new about this. Reimarus took it mostly from the English Deists of the first half of the eighteenth century.12 The theses of the disciples’ ploy and the stealing of the corpse had already been given by the critic Celsus in the second century. Origen and Blaise Pascal demonstrated their psychological impossibility and their incongruence with undeniable facts.13 Reimarus explains this away by noting that pious fraud was very common in antiquity and had always been present in the church. The rest has to be attributed to the disciples’ enthusiasm and desire for power.14 What lifts Reimarus above the deistic literature despite his weaknesses is the thoroughness, diligence and erudition he applies. Besides, his work is very well written; Albert Schweitzer called it a “masterpiece of world literature.”15 11

Reimarus, Apologie, II, 23f. Translated from the German. Cf. also A. C. Lundsteen, Hermann Samuel Reimarus und die Anfänge der LebenJesu Forschung (Copenhagen, 1939); Reventlow, Epochen IV, 160‒165; Klein, Reimarus, 133‒148. 13 For Origen cf. Ch. Reemts OSB, Vernunftgemäßer Glaube. Die Begründung des Christentums in der Schrift des Origenes gegen Celsus (Hereditas 13; Bonn, 1998), 87‒ 90. Blaise Pascal, Pensées (310.322; ed. L. Lafuma; Paris, 2002; 801.802; ed. L. Brunschvig; Paris, 1959). 14 Cf. Reimarus, Apologie, II, 316‒323. 15 A. Schweitzer, Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung (9th ed.; Tübingen, 1984), 58. Translated from the German. The most recent translation in English is: A. Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus: First Complete Edition (ed. John Bowden; London 2000). 12

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“Oh rational people!” starts Reimarus in the ‘Findings’ of his Jesus section, “It was not so easy to discern in this story, which has been twisted with much skill, what is true and what is false.”16 Indeed, that was the main issue for Reimarus, “to discern what is true and what is false.” What were his criteria? First of all, they were the unwritten dogmas of the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century and especially two dogmas that relate to the deity of Jesus and his miracles. That is, Jesus could not have been God or God’s son; consequently, these respective doctrines belonged to the “system of the apostles.” This is also Lessing’s conviction. In 1780 he begins a short essay entitled ‘The religion of Christ’ with the statement: “Whether Christ was more than a man, that is a problem. That he truly was human … that is certain.” He continues: “Consequently, the religion of Christ and the Christian religion are two totally different matters.”17 They are indeed different, but certainly not “totally different.” The second dogma of the Enlightenment is: Miracles are, based on how nature is constituted, not possible. Consequently, Jesus did not do any miracles nor did he rise from the dead. All miracles in the Gospels were made up by the apostles, according to Reimarus, to support the “newly invented system.”18 These three assumptions, that is: 1) that Jesus was a special man, but no God; 2) that his religion has to be distinguished from the Christian religion, and 3) that miracles are simply impossible, determine the larger part of modern Jesus research to this day. Only with this in mind can one understand the partly irate reactions to the Jesus book of Pope Benedict XVI. The pope is seen as uncritical because he does not share the same premises. The main literary criteria for the discernment of the true and the false are contradictions and incongruities in the sources, whether alleged or real. In the Easter account, for example, Reimarus finds ten unsolvable contradictions.19 In his opinion, these contradictions came about because the gospel authors were not able “to entirely darken and extinguish” the trail of the authentic Jesus’s system and of the facts.20 This conviction, then, leads to the idea of painted layers that have to be removed in order to arrive at the original painting. The voluntary suffering and atoning death of Jesus, for example, are to Reimarus just a “false coat of paint resulting from the emergency-system of the apostles.” “Let us wipe away this newer tainting, so that the original character of Jesus comes back to light.”21 16 17

Reimarus, Apologie, II, 171. Translated from the German. Lessing, Werke, vol. 8, 538. The essay was published in 1784. Translated from the German. 18 Reimarus, Apologie, II, 380. Translated from the German. 19 Reimarus, Apologie, II, 214–249. 20 Reimarus, Apologie, II, 145. 21 Reimarus, Apologie, II, 153f. Translated from the German.

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This idea of layers painted on the image of Jesus in the gospels, which can be removed through critical scrutiny in order to regain the true image of Jesus, guides the enlightened-critical Jesus research to this day. In fact, it is naïve. The restorer of the painting does not find under the coats of paint a picture but perhaps a few lines and spots of color that can, with much imagination, be construed as a picture. Instead of coats of paint, sometimes the image of “layers” that have to be “stripped off” is used, which only replaces the metaphor of the restorer of a painting with that of an archaeologist. The finds of an archeologist, however, are likewise usually just remnants, which can hardly be reconstructed into a full picture. We have to find the path to the human Jesus with other methods.22

2 Reactions to Reimarus: Johann Gottfried Herder and Matthias Claudius The publication of the last two ‘Fragments’ of Reimarus’ work in the autumn of 1777 and spring of 1778 led to a public scandal. Lessing, as the publisher of the fragments, engaged in a famous debate with Hamburg’s leading pastor, Johan Melchior Goeze. Lessing did not necessarily agree with Reimarus in all matters, but nevertheless he was looking for rational arguments and hoped for an objective refutation of the ‘Unnamed.’ But on the orthodox side, nobody was able to rebut such a sharp-witted attack. The end of the affair was that the publication was confiscated and Lessing was no longer allowed to publish without censorship. Indignation, however, is not a proper reaction in a controversy, much less forbidding the opponent to speak. The educated class, which was still very interested in theological questions in the eighteenth century, was greatly impressed by Reimarus’s explanations. The main court preacher in Weimar and general superintendent Johann Gottfried Herder found in the ‘Fragmentist’ views much with which he could agree. He also saw in Christ mainly a man, who only by “scholastic sophistry” could have been made into “an ex-humane façade.” “No religion deserves his name, other than what he himself held to, himself believed, himself practiced.”23 This religion was the “truest humanity.” The church, however, made it into a religion of faith in him, a thoughtless

22

An attempt in this direction is: M. Reiser, “Die Charakteristik Jesu im Markusevangelium,” Trierer Theologische Zeitschrift 119 (2010): 43‒57. 23 J. G. Herder, Briefe, das Studium der Theologie betreffend (Nr. 21), in J. G. Herder, Sämtliche Werke (ed. B. Suphan; Berlin 1879), X, 239, 246. Translated from the German.

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worship of his person and his cross.24 This way the “medicine [of the gospel] was turned to poison.”25 So far Herder agreed with Reimarus. In the kingdom that Jesus preached Herder did not, however, see an earthly-political, but a “heavenly,” “ideal” kingdom, and Jesus’s “revolution” was purely spiritual.26 Herder even defends Jesus’s miracles; probability does not rule over all truth.27 In his portrayal of Jesus, which he later gave in his main work ‘Ideas on Philosophy and the History of Humanity,’ however, he omits any mention of Jesus as miracle worker. His main issue with Reimarus, in the end, is the simple inability to imagine the apostles “as cold deceivers of a non-resurrected Christ.”28 In spite of this objection, even for Herder the history of the church after Easter remains a falsification of the “human Christ.” This was also the conviction of Tolstoy in his later years, for which his church excommunicated him.29 Herder’s friend Matthias Claudius had also read the ‘Fragments of an Unnamed,’ and found that some of the doubts expressed therein were “quite learned and skilful.”30 But he did not see why the trusted medicine of the Christian faith should not be taken, just because a certain doctor doubted their effectiveness.31 He keeps with the biblical Christ, “who walked about and did well, without a place to lay his head, around whom the paralytics walk, the lepers become clean, the deaf hear, the dead rise and the poor hear the gospel preached, whom wind and sea obey, and who lets the children come to him, and caresses and blesses them, who was with God and was God and could have remained in joy, but who thought of the miserable in prison, and, clothed in the uniform of misery, came to them in order to set them free through his blood; who did not heed any toil and shame and was patient until death on a cross, so as to finish his work; who came into the world, to save the world, and who was in it stricken and

24

J. G. Herder, Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit (ed. Heinz Stolpe; 2 vols; Berlin 1965), II, 293f (beginning of book 17). 25 Herder, Ideen, 306; Cf. Herder, Briefe (Nr. 21), 245. Translated from the German. 26 Herder, Ideen, II, 293‒306 (book 17). 27 Herder, Briefe, (Nr. 13), 163‒165; (Nr. 14), 165f. 28 Herder, Briefe, (Nr. 13), 169. Translated from the German. 29 Tolstoy finished “Anna Karenina” in 1877. In that and the following year he sought to reconnect with the church. In 1789 he wrote “My confession,” in fact entitled: “Introduction to a critique of dogmatic theology and to an examination of the Christian teaching (confession).” 30 M. Claudius, “Nachricht von meiner Audienz beim Kaiser von Japan,” in M. Claudius, Sämtliche Werke (ed. J. Perfahl; Munich, 1968), 138. Translated from the German. 31 Claudius, “Nachricht”, 140.

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martyred and left it with a crown of thorns.”32 One can see in this portrayal what importance Claudius gives to the miracles, which Herder in his version completely omits. On the ‘Fragments’ published by Lessing, Claudius writes to a reporter: “Such fragments cannot topple religion, but they can sometimes topple a person, and in such a case one ought to leave them as unread.” Generally, one cannot “spin a lot of silk out of them” anyway, and one would find more benefit in reading Lessing’s debate against Goeze.33 Advanced in years, Claudius again expresses his high respect for the “old apostolic Christianity ..., especially during a time when the apostolic Christ in more than one place is being removed from people and another one is put in his place, of whom one cannot learn anything, and who also cannot do any miracles, and is nothing; because they cannot make him more than they are themselves, when they model him after their reason, and will not let him be what he is and how he has been given to us by God.”34 Claudius was not up to Herder’s or Lessing’s erudition, but he recognized what the real issue was with these “critics.” He maintained a decidedly orthodox position, whereas his friend Herder was looking for a compromise between the extreme position of Reimarus and that of orthodoxy. Reimarus, Herder, and Claudius stand in their own way for three convictions and positions that are still present in the life of the church and Jesus research.

3 David Friedrich Strauss (1808–1874) In 1835, when the book ‘The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined’ that would make him famous in all of Europe was published, David Friedrich Strauss was 27 years old. In the two-volume work, the young scholar desires to separate the trustworthy information in the gospels from the “mythical” elements. Strauss takes “mythical” to be everything that goes beyond the horizon of normal experience, everything supernatural, and every exaltation of a historical person. He presumes that God does not interfere in the earthly chain of events and causes. For Strauss, not only the nativity stories and the narratives about natural miracles are “mythical,” but also the Easter account. The Sermon on the Mount, the parables, and 32 M. Claudius, “Briefe an Andres,” in Claudius, Werke, 262. Translated from the German. 33 M. Claudius, Briefe (ed. Hans Jessen; Berlin-Steglitz, 1938), I, 174. Translated from the German. 34 M. Claudius, “Pränumerationsanzeige zum siebten Teil seiner Werke,” in Claudius, Werke, 498. The emphasis is mine. Translated from the German.

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the eschatological message of Jesus, on the other hand, are authentic, according to Strauss. Jesus understood himself as Messiah and as the Son of Man of Daniel 7; he expected his death, foretold the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, and the subsequent establishment of the Kingdom of God. Then, he would return with the great judgment. However, Strauss, unlike Reimarus, does not reconstruct history based on his findings; he does not want to eliminate the mythical in the gospels but to interpret it. He sees in the gospels “history-like embellishments of ancient Christian ideas, shaped through unconsciously formed legends,”35 in a sense, ideas that where intuitively fashioned as history. Accordingly, it is his aim to carve out the ancient Christian ideas from their embellishments. The “eternal truths” he unearths, however, seem quite trite. In Christ’s incarnate humanity Strauss finds, for example, a symbol for humanity as a union of spirit and nature – an idea that originated with Immanuel Kant.36 The resurrection of Christ merely symbolizes faith – that the dying human would, nevertheless, stay alive in the genus of humanity.37 What made an impression on the educated readers was not the philosophical interpretation but the minute, critical analysis of all the individual narratives. In fact, it is hardly possible to imagine a dryer read. It is surprising that a translator like George Eliot, that is, Mary Ann Evans, would take it upon herself to translate all 1,400 pages into English.38 Excessive historic skepticism tends to shroud the past with impenetrable darkness.39 As such, this skeptic also did not leave much that would allow for a reconstruction of the life of Jesus. The general suspicion with which he examined everything, however, set a precedent. Many of the conventions of the enlightened-critical exegesis go back to Strauss: e.g. that the Gospel of John is historically useless; that Jesus could not have been born in Bethlehem; that the Easter appearances began not in or around Jerusalem but in Galilee.40 The attempt to excavate the philosophical truths in the biblical stories has found a contemporary renewal in Rudolf Bultmann’s existentialist interpretation. That Strauss, unlike Reimarus, has nevertheless found competent critics is often overlooked nowadays. His vague def35 D. F. Strauss, Das Leben Jesu, kritisch bearbeitet (2 vols.; Tübingen, 1835‒1836), I, 75; Translated from the German. For the English cf. Idem, The Life of Jesus Critically Examined (2 vols.; London, 1973). 36 Cf. H. Vogel, “Die Umdeutung der Christologie in der Religionsphilosophie Immanuel Kants,” Ev. Theol. 14 (1954): 399‒413. 37 Strauss, Leben Jesu, II, 735. 38 The translation was published in 1848. 39 This has been demonstrated clearly by H.-I. Marrou, De la connaissance historique (Paris, 1954), chs. 4 and 5. 40 Strauss, Leben Jesu, I, 429‒519; 631‒676 (Gospel of John); 265‒278 (place of birth); II, 609‒629 (beginning of appearances).

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inition of myth was already thoroughly criticized by August Tholuck in 1838.41 And he rightly noticed: “To strike out the miraculous deeds and miracle experiences altogether from Jesus’s life as mythological, does that mean something different than to strike out the warfare or days of battle from the life of Cid and Alexander?”42 From the Catholic side came a sober critique in two volumes by the excellent scholar Leonhard Hug.43 He criticized the one-sided collation of suspicions and the pitting of parallel passages against each other, “without paying attention to the flow of the narrative, the character of the authors, to their relationship to the whole,” and rightly declares that this procedure is “uncritical peddling” which has not much to do with historical research.44 Nonetheless, Strauss caught the spirit of the age with his skepticism; arguments hardly stood a chance. From today’s point of view, one needs to add that Hug’s own method of harmonizing as much as possible also would not appear as being faithful to the texts. When it comes to biblical narratives, he pays little attention to the issue of literary types.45 After the publication of the Jesus book, the indignation of the church was enormous. Strauss immediately lost his lecturing position at the Tübinger Stift (a college and hall of residence of the Protestant Church). He was barred henceforth from any academic activities. In 1872, he published the last of his great works: “The Old Faith and the New: a Confession.” With it, he publicly disassociated himself from Christianity. His reason was mainly the conclusions of modern natural science, which could not be brought into agreement with Christian dogma. That book was an even greater success in terms of sales than his “Life of Jesus.”46

41 A. Tholuck, Die Glaubwürdigkeit der evangelischen Geschichte, zugleich eine Kritik des Lebens Jesu von Strauß für theologische und nicht theologische Leser dargestellt (2nd ed.; Hamburg, 1838), 51‒84. 42 Tholuck, Glaubwürdigkeit, 65. Translated from the German. 43 J. L. Hug, Gutachten über das Leben Jesu kritisch bearbeitet von Dr. David Friedrich Strauß (2 vols.; Freiburg, 1840, 1844). 44 Hug, Gutachten, I, 164. 45 Cf. Reiser, Bibelkritik, 355‒371. 46 Cf. N. Peter, Im Schatten der Modernität (Stuttgart, 1992); F. W. Graf, Kritik und Pseudo Spekulation: David Friedrich Strauss als Dogmatiker im Kontext der positionellen Theologie seiner Zeit (Munich, 1982), 16‒21.

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4 Ernest Renan (1823–1892)47 More influential and popular than the Protestant Strauss is, to this day, the Catholic Ernest Renan. Initially, he meant to become a priest, but he read M. Littré’s translation of Strauss’s Jesus book and then proceeded to learn German in order to be able to read the liberal German exegetes. According to his own statement, reading them took from him the faith in orthodox Christianity. For him, as for Strauss, faith in natural science took its place. In 1862, Renan was appointed professor of Semitic languages at the Collège de France. The next year he published his own Jesus book. It was brilliantly written, but it caused such a scandal that the government was forced to dismiss its author. Eight years later, however, he was given back his chair. In 1878, he was appointed to the Académie française and ten years later made Grand Officier de la Légion d’Honneur. He was buried in the Pantheon, which goes to show that the times had in fact become more enlightened. Renan’s Jesus book, from an academic point of view, is certainly not his best work. Nevertheless, his name remained associated primarily with it. In the preface to the thirteenth edition, which was already published in 1864, he summarized what we, according to his understanding, know for certain about Jesus: “He existed. He came from Nazareth in Galilee. He preached with charisma and was remembered by his disciples by means of aphorisms that made a great impression on them. His most important disciples were Cephas and John, the son of Zebedee. He evoked the hate of the orthodox Jews who managed to get the procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate, to execute him. He was crucified outside the city. Later people believed he was risen ... In everything else, doubts may be permissible.”48 Strauss collated a similar list.49 Just based on this, one can imagine how much arbitrary effort and fantasy are necessary to come up with a biography or even a mere sketch of Jesus. In effect, Renan’s “Life of Jesus” turned out to be more of a sentimental novel than a biography. Yet, Renan positions himself in the preface as an objective historian: “I have well deliberated all

47 Cf. Y. Marchasson, “Joseph-Ernest Renan,” Supplément au Dictionnaire de la Bible 10 (1985): 277‒344. 48 E. Renan, Vie de Jésus (24th ed.; Paris, 1895), XVI. Translated from the German. 49 Strauss, Leben Jesu (2nd ed.; 1837), 72: From the gospels one may accordingly take “the simple framework of the life of Jesus,” “that he was born in Nazareth, was baptized by John, summoned disciples, traveled the Jewish countryside teaching, opposed everywhere the Pharisaic system and invited people into the rule of the Messiah, but that in the end he succumbed to the hate and envy of the Pharisaic party and died on a cross.” Translated from the German.

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things, verified everything.”50 Just as Reimarus and Strauss, he seeks to address the truth-seekers.51 According to Renan, Jesus was not a sage, not a philosopher, not a patriot, not a good man, not a moralist, but rather, a charmer,52 loved by children, idolized by women, a dreamer and idealist, a preacher of meekness and love, a friend of blooming nature, raised under the blue sky of Galilee. What he wanted was a religion of the heart; any doctrine and any kind of system was an abomination to him. He therefore hated the city of Jerusalem, since there ruled the Pharisees and the Sadducees – pedants and dogmatists the former, and haughty aristocrats and priests that lived from the altar the latter. The temple with its bloody sacrifices disgusted him. As such, he became a revolutionary, who could be coaxed into performing pseudo-miracles. They only could be pretended, of course, since “miracles belong to those things, which never happen.”53 Lastly, Jesus attempted to scare people with his apocalyptic visions. It was a futile battle against reality under the flag of idealism. Consequently, it ended as it had to end. For the biographic framework of his depiction, Renan used the narrative sections of the Gospel of John, which he assessed as a trustworthy historical memory,54 in spite of the verdict Strauss had leveled against it. On this particular issue, Renan’s assessment appears to be validated by more recent research, such as archaeology.55 In 1923 the most learned Catholic exegete of his time, the Dominican and founder of the École Biblique in Jerusalem, Marie-Joseph Lagrange, published a devastating, yet thoroughly fair, critique of Renan’s Jesus book, which by this point had reached its 52nd edition (its popular version the 120th edition). Lagrange questioned if the author was not playing a dishonest game with the reader and strongly accused him of dilettantism.56 50 51 52

Renan, Vie de Jésus, III: “J’ai tout pesé, tout vérifié.” Renan, Vie de Jésus, IV. Renan, Vie de Jésus, XXIII, “Tel voudrait faire de Jésus un sage, tel un philosoph, tel un patriote, tel un homme de bien, tel un moraliste, tel un saint. Il ne fut rien du tout cela. Ce fut un charmeur.” 53 Renan, Vie de Jésus, VI, “Les miracles sont de ces choses qui n’arrivent jamais; les gens crédules seules croient en voir; on n’en peut citer un seul qui se soit passé devant des témoins capables de le constater.” That was already Reimarus’s opinion. 54 Renan justifies this assessment in the 13th edition of 1864 with an appendix over 70 pages long (Renan, Vie de Jésus, 477‒541). 55 Cf. C.H. Dodd, Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge, 1963); U. C. Von Wahlde, “Archaeology and John’s Gospel,” in Jesus and Archaeology (ed. James H. Charlesworth; Grand Rapids, 2006): 523‒586; P. N. Anderson, “Aspects of Historicity in the Gospel of John: Implications for Investigations of Jesus and Archaeology,” in Jesus and Archaeology (ed. Charlesworth; Grand Rapids, 2006), 587‒618. 56 M.-J. Lagrange, La Vie de Jésus d’aprés Renan (Paris, 1923), 144: “Donc une société superficielle et légère ... n’a connu qu’un Renan dilettante, l’invitant au plaisir, et

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In the same year, the ‘Société Ernest Renan’ celebrated his one-hundredth birthday with an international academic congress. As already mentioned, he had written better books than the one on Jesus. In 1928, Lagrange’s own Jesus book was published after he had written extensive commentaries on all four gospels.57 It is not satisfactory in every respect, but it proves nevertheless that one can also write a critical Jesus book starting from orthodox premises. Critical is not, of course, the same as skeptical. Before the nineteenth century, a critical examination meant simply a historical, philological, and literary enquiry. We should stick to this definition of critique. The common classification as ‘historicalcritical’ is just a tautology. However, what is often really meant by it is a historical examination based on the already-mentioned philosophical premises of the Enlightenment. When it comes to scientific research, we eventually should leave these premises behind.58 The problem, however, lies not only with the philosophical premises; it lies also in the nature of the sources and the methods by which the authentic and inauthentic are differentiated in order to remove the presumed tainting of the true image of Jesus. Even when researchers allowed for more historical certainties than Renan and Strauss, the result was always the same: “Instead of a depiction of history one was left with a novel. Although the historical research of the nineteenth century has attempted to push back these novel-like traits, one has to admit: It did not work.” This is what Erik Peterson observed in 1923. He further explained, “All the Lifeof-Jesus images of the nineteenth century, including Albert Schweitzer’s depiction, have more or less the characteristic of a novel. And that not by mistake. The character of the gospel accounts is of such a kind that a reasonably historical and psychological coherence is only found by adding fictional elements. From single narratives and collations of sayings one can never reconstruct a life of Jesus. Behind the fragments of biblical accounts stands, nevertheless, the unity of the Christ who is alive in the ritual of the church. To attempt to come to a uniform image of Jesus from the biblical expressions means to replace with a literary form and a novel-character the

elle s’est beaucoup amusée en le lisant, sans se demander s’il ne s’amusait pas d’elle.” Similar also Albert Schweitzer: „Eine große Unwahrhaftigkeit zieht sich vom Anfang des Buches zum Ende” (Leben-Jesu-Forschung, 217). “There is a kind of insincerity from beginning to end” (Schweitzer, The Quest for the Historical Jesus, 191). Incidentally, Schweitzer does not pay any heed to the great additions in the 13th edition of 1864 (a preface of over 100 and an appendix of over 70 pages), nor does he consider the popular version. 57 M.-J. Lagrange, L’Évangile de Jésus-Christ (Paris, 1928). 58 For more on the definition of critique and the related issues of hermeneutics cf. Reiser, Bibelkritik, cf. index “Kritik, Kritiker.”

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one whose life is again and again experienced in reality.”59 In fact, whether the Christ who is alive in the ritual of the church is indeed still one with the historical Jesus has become the main question for Jesus research ever since the Enlightenment. In the liberal tradition, in the trajectory of the Enlightenment, it was usually answered with ‘No.’

5 The mountain in labour The twentieth century brought a vast number of Jesus books and monographs on the historical Jesus. The history of Jesus research is usually divided into three phases, or “quests;” the beginning of the second phase is related to some of Bultmann’s students, and the third begins around the end of the twentieth century. But this chronology is artificial at best and does not really do justice to the diverging research trajectories. Without a doubt, this immense research effort was not in vain. Especially in regards to Jesus’s context we know much more today than in the nineteenth century. Yet, when it comes to the person Jesus and his authentic words and deeds, his intentions and goals, we are not much further. In fact, the portraits of Jesus presented as “historical,” “earthly,” or “pre-Easter” are more disparate than ever. To this day, we find radical liberal depictions in the tradition of Reimarus, Strauss, and Renan, which present us with a Jesus without a divine nimbus, a teacher of wisdom or a revolutionary, a more or less lawabiding Jew, with or without an apocalyptic message, depending on what is considered authentic or part of “the system of the apostles,” to use Reimarus’s words. The words of Jesus are often separated, as done by Reimarus, into those still relevant, and those temporal and obsolete. Usually the entire area of eschatology is taken to belong to the latter, even when one finds it, as Albert Schweitzer did, to be authentic Jesus material. “Last things” in the West, in fact, are quite disliked nowadays, and that even in the church. If possible they are skipped altogether and mostly shrouded in silence. Jesus is often characterized as a “prophet” and “charismatic” who does not fit into any schema, yet all representatives of this direction agree that he did not perform any real miracles. This follows because the performance of miracles is, according to Jewish understanding, God’s prerogative: “He alone works wonders” (Ps 72:18). A Jesus who is not God can obviously not work miracles, at least not by his own authority and initia59 Erik Peterson, excerpts of a lecture given in the winter semester 1922/23 on “Church history in the 18th and 19th centuries,” cited according to E. Peterson, Theologie und Theologen (Ausgewählte Schriften) (Würzburg, 2009), IX/1, 231f. Translated from the German.

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tive, nor can he forgive sins, because “who can forgive sins, but God alone?” (Mark 2:7) His resurrection can only happen in the hearts of his followers. Consequently, it is usually doubted that Jesus’s corpse vanished from the tomb by means of a miracle. John Dominic Crossan, an award-winning scholar and bestselling author, wrote an influential Jesus book along these lines, entitled ‘The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant.’60 He presents Jesus as a rural Jewish Cynic, who was mainly interested in egalitarian hospitality and free healing. Crossan is co-founder of the ‘Jesus Seminar,’ an association of American scholars that have similar premises.61 For them, the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas is an important source of the authentic sayings of Jesus. Of the words of Jesus in the canonical gospels, they only recognize about 20 percent as authentic.62 The image of Jesus of this particular research direction is similar to that of the great opponent of Christianity, Porphyry, in the third century. For him, Jesus was a pious man who worshiped the one God. His disciples, however, corrupted his teaching and made him into a God. Porphyry considers Jesus to be equal to figures such as Heracles, Orpheus, and Pythagoras.63 Augustine points out the critical issue when he writes, “honorandum enim tanquam sapientissimum virum putant; colendum autem tanquam Deum negant (They say one had to think of him as a great sage, but should refuse to worship him as God).”64 Along with the radical liberals, there remains conservative, orthodox Jesus research in the tradition of Lagrange that takes the aspect of the ‘human being Jesus’ as seriously as the aspect of the ‘God incarnate in a human being.’ A small but fine Jesus book in this direction was written by the prominent English New Testament scholar Charles Harold Dodd: The Founder of Christianity.65 According to Dodd, Jesus’s intention was mainly to establish a “Divine Commonwealth” that truly deserved to be called 60

J. D. Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (San Francisco, 1991). Cf. also my review: TThZ 104 (1995): 78‒80. 61 Cf. N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (London, 1996), 28‒82; Idem, “Five Gospels but no Gospel: Jesus and the Seminar,” in Authenticating the Activities of Jesus (ed. B. Chilton and C. A. Evans; Leiden, 1999), 83‒120. 62 Cf. R. W. Funk, R. W. Hoover and the Jesus seminar (eds.), The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus. New Translation and Commentary (New York, 1993). The respective volume on the “Acts of Jesus” was published in 1998. 63 More in R. L. Wilken, The Christians as the Romans Saw Them (New Haven, 1984). 64 Augustine, De consensu evangelistarum 1, 11 (PL 34: 1047). 65 C. H. Dodd, The Founder of Christianity (New York, 1970). A good biography of this author is F. W. Dillistone, C.H. Dodd: Interpreter of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, 1997).

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the “people of God.” Preceding the chapter on Jesus the teacher is an impressive chapter on the peculiarities of Jesus’s language. Unfortunately, the book is missing a complementary chapter on Jesus the miracle-worker. There is also an excellent and very readable dictionary article written by Ben F. Meyer.66 His book, The Aims of Jesus, belongs to the best achievements of Jesus research. In its first part, the book offers an astute critique of the history of research as it relates to hermeneutical and methodological issues, and exposes questionable preconceptions of this research.67 Meyer rightly writes, “That Reimarus was a deist, Strauss a Hegelian, Holtzmann a liberal, Bultmann an existentialist, that all of them were children of the Enlightenment, and that their enabling hermeneutical resources were also in every case inhibiting and reductionist, would seem basic to the understanding of the quest.” 68 In the final part, he relates Jesus to the history of Israel and its religious movements. Jesus rejected the program of the Zealots with his position on taxation (Mark 12:17), he took the Pharisaic ornamentation of the Torah as a perversion of the will of God (Mark 7:8–13), and through his behavior in the temple he made mortal enemies of the Sadducees. What provoked hostility on the part of the Jerusalem establishment was probably “the extraordinary pretention to authority inherent in all that Jesus said and did throughout his public career.”69 Jesus’s main intention, which was also John the Baptist’s intention, according to Meyer, was the eschatological gathering and restoration of Israel. This intention is visible in the proclamation of the Kingdom of God, in the constitution of a group of twelve, in the table fellowship with sinners, in the ethical instructions, in the conflicts with the Pharisees, in the healing miracles and exorcisms, and finds its culmination in the entry into Jerusalem and the symbolic cleansing of the temple. Of course, even Meyer’s depiction has weaknesses and does not answer all questions.70 A voluminous work in the same direction is the Jesus book by Tom Wright, who not only stands out because of his well-rounded scholarship but also on account of his attractive style.71 The first part of his book is 66 67

B. F. Meyer, “Jesus Christ,” ABD 3: 773‒796. B. F. Meyer, The Aims of Jesus ‒ with a New Introduction by N. T. Wright (Princeton Theological Monograph Series 48; Eugene, 2002), first published in London 1979. 68 Meyer, The Aims of Jesus, 27 69 Meyer, “Jesus Christ,” ABD 3:792. 70 Which was demonstrated by Ch. Metzdorf, Die Tempelaktion Jesu: Patristische und historisch-kritische Exegese im Vergleich (WUNT II/168; Tübingen, 2003), 221‒ 242. She writes: “The lack of differentiation between historical analysis and allegorical interpretation is a considerable deficit of Meyer’s exegesis” (Metzdorf, Tempelaktion Jesu, 240, Translated from the German). 71 See note 61. The resurrection is treated in a separate volume of over 800 pages: The Resurrection of the Son of God (London, 2003). A good summary of his view can be

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dedicated to the history of research, the second part deals with the ‘Profile of a Prophet,’ the third with ‘The Aims and Beliefs of Jesus.’ In this section, he devotes a large chapter to the reasons for the crucifixion of Jesus. Even the structure of the work reveals that Wright is strongly influenced by his friend Ben Meyer. He is well acquainted with the hermeneutical issues, takes the skeptics seriously, and demonstrates how limited and unbelievable their historical hypotheses often are. He assumes that the real Jesus was not very different from the Jesus in the Gospels. When it comes to historical erudition, the works of Martin Hengel and Anna Maria Schwemer are hard to match.72 The chapter on ‘Judaism and early Christianity’ begins with the statement: “That early Christianity grew in Jewish native soil is hardly doubted by any Christian theologian nowadays. However, this consensus becomes questionable as soon as one adds a mere word: that it sprung forth from Judaism exclusively.”73 Jesus was “from his baptism by John onward the divinely called messianic pretender, whose appearance brings the beginning of the new, that is, of the eschatological fulfillment.”74 The introduction explains that a special emphasis of the book is “the hitherto not rightly discerned messianic claim, without which we cannot understand the reports of the Gospels. The still muchfavored ‘un-messianic Jesus’ never existed. This becomes evident in the comparison with John the Baptist, his proclamation with ‘authority,’ his ‘deeds of power,’ the passion narrative and its accusation that he is ‘the king of the Jews,’ and in the development of the earliest Christology, which itself has its deepest roots in Jesus’s deeds and way.” “That Jesus only through resurrection, through the faith of the first church, became ‘Messiah,’ entirely against his original intentions, is in our view an untenable hypothesis which is opposed by the early Christian texts themselves.”75 Based on the depiction of Peter’s confession in Mark 8:27–33, found in his article: “Jesus and the Identity of God,” Ex auditu 14 (1998): 42‒56. It is also available on the internet. 72 M. Hengel and A.-M. Schwemer, Der messianische Anspruch Jesu und die Anfänge der Christologie: Vier Studien (WUNT 138; Tübingen 2001); M. Hengel and A. M. Schwemer, Jesus und das Judentum (Geschichte des frühen Christentums 1; Tübingen, 2007); M. Hengel, Studien zur Christologie. Kleine Schriften Bd. IV (WUNT 201; Tübingen, 2006); M. Hengel, Jesus und die Evangelien. Kleine Schriften Bd. V (WUNT 211; Tübingen, 2007). His last words on the topic: M. Hengel, “Zur historischen Rückfrage nach Jesus von Nazareth: Überlegungen nach der Fertigstellung eines Jesusbuches” in Gespräch über Jesus: Papst Benedikt XVI. im Dialog mit Martin Hengel, Peter Stuhlmacher und seinen Schülern in Castelgandolfo 2008 (ed. P. Kuhn; Tübingen, 2010), 1‒29; with discussion, 31‒61. 73 Hengel and Schwemer, Jesus und das Judentum, 21. Translated from the German. 74 Hengel and Schwemer, Jesus und das Judentum, 173. Translated from the German. 75 Hengel and Schwemer, Jesus und das Judentum. Translated from the German.

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Hengel gives the following important remark in his last lecture on the historical assessment of the narratives of the Gospels: “Mark has masterfully reduced and stylized everything: We cannot historically reconstruct the affair as it really happened, nor can we eliminate it hypercritically as mere ‘church development.’ Behind it stands an – extremely reduced – memory and a later, well-thought-out theological reconstruction in unison.”76 The mass of scholarly literature aligns itself somewhere between these two directions. It is hard to tell how representative the more liberal or more conservative depictions, crafted by theologians of different confessions, actually are. Certainly, the ‘course book’ of Gerd Theissen and Annette Merz is widely read. They introduce Jesus as a Jewish charismatic, who “exerts an abnormal vibrancy and power of irritation.”77 However, this entirely human Jesus, who only after Easter was ‘deified’ by his disciples, appears pale and shadow-like.78 Whoever does not accept the image of the gospels and does not want to write a Jesus novel, has to give up on creating a colorful image. But what does a believer do with the ‘shadow of a Galilean’? Unfortunately, even more conservative exegetes usually do not realize the (not by any means self-evident) premises upon which the depiction of a purely human Jesus is built. Franz Overbeck, who cannot be accused of any Christian prejudice, already remarked in 1873: “Indeed, contemporary liberal theology has already with the thought of a life of Jesus, and the manner it is being carried out, alienated the interests of Christendom as religion, more than they are willing to admit.”79 A newer example of this kind is, in my opinion, John P. Meier. Through decades of painstaking work, he has attempted to present an image of Jesus that four fictional characters, imagined as competent researchers, can agree 76 Hengel, “Rückfrage,” 28‒29. Emphasis is the translator’s to capture the sense of the German: “Dahinter steht ‒ aufs äußerste verkürzte ‒ Erinnerung und spätere theologisch sehr durchdachte Rekonstruktion in einem.” 77 G. Theissen and A. Merz, Der historische Jesus: Ein Lehrbuch (Göttingen, 1996), 486. The English translation: G. Theissen and A. Merz, The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide (trans. J. Bowden, Minneapolis, 1998). ‘Aussernormal,’ which carries the sense of ‘more than normal,’ was translated by Bowden somewhat mistakenly as ‘supernatural,’ Theissen and Merz, Historical Jesus, 470. The translation here is from the German. 78 Cf. G. Theissen, The Shadow of the Galilean: The Quest of the Historical Jesus in Narrative Form (London, 1987). This well-written book was in 2008 already in its 21st edition (German version). Notice also G. Theissen, Die Religion der ersten Christen: Eine Theorie des Urchristentums (Gütersloh, 2000). In it, § 3 is entitled: “Wie kam es zur Vergöttlichung Jesu?” (How did the deification of Jesus come about?). From the orthodox point of view, this is not even an issue. 79 F. Overbeck, “Über die Christlichkeit unserer heutigen Theologie,” in Werke und Nachlaß Band 1: Schriften bis 1873 (ed. E. W. Stegemann; Stuttgart, 1994), 155‒318, here 211. Translated from the German.

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on: a Catholic, a Protestant, a Jew, and an agnostic.80 With this agenda he cannot say, “It is highly probable that Jesus performed miracles;” rather, he has to content himself with: “Jesus performed deeds that many people, both friends and foes, considered miracles.”81 Meier attempts to show in the fourth volume of his massive work – essentially by following Strauss’s method – that Jesus did not take issue with the Pharisaic tradition of the elders, nor with the purity or dietary laws. Likewise, Mark 7:1–23 ought to be understood as a construct of the evangelist, except for the ‘corbansection.’ In this case, Meier’s fictitious Jew apparently was the one who determined what is authentic and what is not. The result of the first three volumes is: “Jesus saw himself as an eschatological prophet and miracle worker along the lines of Elijah. He was not a systematic teacher, scribe, or rabbi; he was a religious charismatic.”82 This is only another shadow, with which nobody feels satisfied. Moreover, it cannot account for the history actually initiated by this Galilean. As to our main question concerning the image of Jesus, the fruits of 300 years of Jesus research turn out to be irritating and disappointing. Confused, we look at the different images of Jesus that have no connection with each other except for the name of the one depicted. This holds true at least for the images of the radical, liberal direction. Yet, their desire was simply “to picture Him as truly and purely human, to strip from Him the robes of splendor with which He had been appareled and clothe Him once more with the rags in which He had walked in Galilee,” as Albert Schweitzer clearly stated.83 But is this different from attempting to play Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark? Most of these depictions of Jesus cannot even explain the most certain fact of his life: the crucifixion. Or did the crucifixion merely come from a misunderstanding? Why was Renan’s charming aphorist crucified? All four gospels have a convincing explanation for it. Renan, however, who does not accept this explanation, has none. For nobody can quite seriously believe that it happened on account of Jesus’s involuntary change from a charmer into a revolutionary. The same objection has also to be raised against Gerd Theissen’s or John P. Meier’s depiction. How did this charismatic fascinate the simple folk as well as the educated? Why did he dare to prohibit divorce, contrary 80 J. P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (4 vols.; New Haven, 1991‒2009). A quite impressive critique of this work relating to the issue hermeneutics is given by B. F. Meyer, “The Relevance of ‘Horizon,’” The Downside Review 112 (1994): 1‒14. 81 Meier, A Marginal Jew, II (1994), 3. 82 Meier, A Marginal Jew, IV (2009), 415. 83 Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, 4‒5. Instead of ‘rags’ (Lumpen) W. Montgomery has used the softer translation ‘coarse garments,’ which is maintained even in the most recent translation (London, 2000, cf. footnote 15).

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to Torah and the entire legal tradition in antiquity? How could he dare to behave in the temple in Jerusalem as if he were the landlord himself? How could he unify such a coalition of opponents: Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians, and the Roman governor – a truly astonishing coalition – that brought a harmless preacher of the love of God and one’s neighbor, a prophet and a charismatic, to the cross!? And why did it continue the way it did after his death, as in fact it did? For these questions, the enlightenedcritical exegesis has not found a satisfactory answer. Was the mountain in labour again and gave birth to a mouse? In reply, I will answer with a man who was not a theologian but a journalist: G. K. Chesterton. In his brilliant book, “The Everlasting Man,” we find two rather interesting chapters pertaining to our question: “The Riddles of the Gospel” and “The Strangest Story in the World.” In the former, he recounts a sequence of Jesus images that were en vogue in his time, that is, the first decades of the twentieth century: Jesus as a socialist, a pacifist, an exorcist, a Jewish teacher of wisdom, or even a madman with a Messianic delusion. Then appears “a more grimly scientific character who said that Jesus would never have been heard of at all except for his prophecies of the end of the world.” With this “more grimly scientific character” he probably means Albert Schweitzer. Chesterton continues, “Now each of these explanations in itself seems to me singularly inadequate; but taken together they do suggest something of the very mystery which they miss.”84 This observation would then allow us to find at least something positive in the irritating multiplicity, even absurdities, of images of Jesus. Every depiction of Jesus, especially when derived through a selection process of the source material, misses the mystery of his person, but taken all together, one may catch a glimpse. The revolutionary, the charmer, the charismatic, the Jewish cynic, and the prophet of the end of the world – in every one of them is a kernel of the truth, and every kernel is precious to us, because it is the truth of the Son of God. The rags of the Galilean belong as much to him as the robes of splendor of liturgy. We should not allow the rather disappointing results of previous research to discourage us. We have to continue with historical Jesus research, not only to avoid the danger of docetism, but primarily because the Christian faith is based on historical facts and the historical is part of the human nature of the Son of God. Furthermore, against an excessive historical skepticism that still lurks everywhere today, sensible research can at least prove that Jesus in fact existed as a clearly definable figure. In this endeavor, however, we should never forget that the goal of any type of historical research is not to unclothe and unmask but to gain understand84 G. K. Chesterton, “The Everlasting Man,” in The collected Works of G. K. Chesterton (ed. G. J. Marlin; 3 vols.; San Francisco, 1986), 135‒407, here II, 329.

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ing.85 In this endeavor, a critical inquiry into all available sources and their literary peculiarities cannot be circumvented, for without them there is no real understanding of historical events. For historical Jesus research this means: In our critical endeavor, we should not be led by a resentment of the church or by a general mistrust of the canonical gospels. In other words, we should not be led by what has been called a ‘hermeneutic of suspicion’ but rather by an honest desire to better understand not only who Jesus was, but also the history emanating from him. Perhaps in this way we might be able to return again to where the Christ, who lives in our hearts, is none other than the Christ of the traditional Christian faith.

85 Cf. Reiser, Bibelkritik, 37‒38; B. J. F. Lonergan, Method in Theology (Toronto, 1996, [1st ed.; 1971]), 208‒214.

How Did the Church Fathers Understand the History of Jesus? VASILE MIHOC

Modern critical research on the Jesus of history has as one of its foundational principles the distinction between Jesus and Christ, or, more precisely, between “the Jesus of history” and “the Christ of faith.”1 The idea of such a distinction sounds alarming in the ears of those who take the traditional Christology seriously and who are aware of the errors identified and condemned by those whom we now rightly consider to be Fathers and teachers of the Church. Already St. Irenaeus vividly refutes, in his famous Adversus Haereses, the heretics of his time (late second century) who, in a way different from contemporary criticism, “separate Jesus from Christ”;2 and he produces a long biblical and theological demonstration against such a dangerous error. In the very title of one of the chapters of this work we read these words: “that Christ and Jesus cannot be considered as distinct beings.”3 It is also worth quoting from the beginning of the next chapter: But again, those who assert that He was simply a mere man, begotten by Joseph, remaining in the bondage of the old disobedience, are in a state of death having been not as yet joined to the Word of God the Father, nor receiving liberty through the Son, as He does Himself declare: ‘If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed’ [John 8,36]. But, being ignorant of Him who from the Virgin is Emmanuel, they are deprived of His

1 This terminology was coined over a hundred years ago, in 1892, by M. Kähler, to distinguish between the historical Jesus, or the Jesus of Historie, and the Christ whom the Church proclaimed in its Gospels, or the Christ of Geschichte (cf. his The So-Called Historical Jesus and the Historic Biblical Christ [trans. C.E. Braaten; Philadelphia, 1964]). But surely the methodological starting point of distinguishing Jesus as historical person from the apostles’ faith in Christ is much older, see G. Theissen and A. Merz, The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide (trans. J. Bowden; Minneapolis, 1998), 2‒3. 2 Irenaeus, Haer. 3.11.2 (ANF 1:428). Among the errors of these heretics St. Irenaeus mentions their preference for the Gospel of Mark, but he adds that those who would read this Gospel itself “with a love of truth, may have their errors rectified” (ibid.). 3 Irenaeus, Haer. 3.18 title (ANF 1:445).

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gift, which is eternal life; and not receiving the incorruptible Word, they remain in mortal flesh, and are debtors to death, not obtaining the antidote of life. 4

For St. Irenaeus, there is no salvation, no elevation of human nature into God, outside of the confession of the truth that the Word of God became flesh for us; For it was for this end that the Word of God was made man, and He who was the Son of God became the Son of man, that man, having been taken into the Word, and receiving the adoption, might become the Son of God. For by no other means could we have attained to incorruptibility and immortality, unless we had been united to incorruptibility and immortality. But how could we be joined to incorruptibility and immortality, unless, first, incorruptibility and immortality had become that which we also are, so that the corruptible might be swallowed up by incorruptibility and the mortal by immortality, that we might receive the adoption of sons? 5

1 Some Basic Principles in the Fathers’ Approach to Jesus’ History In the above quotation from Irenaeus, we have a summary of Christian doctrine, centered as it is on the incarnation of the divine and eternal Logos for the salvation of humankind. Through such anti-heretical arguments as those of St. Irenaeus, we can understand why the Church Fathers never approach the historical man Jesus separated from His divinity despite their deep interest in rightly understanding the Scriptures and, to no lesser extent, in discovering and being able to present the Savior of the world in His deepest truth. Though the writings of the Church Fathers do indeed evince a clear interest in what actually happened in the Gospel stories, there is no trace of anything that could be labeled as a “quest of the historical Jesus” in the modern sense. The study of the Fathers clearly reveals some basic perspectives or principles in their efforts to understand the history of Jesus: a. Perhaps the first and foremost principle of their understanding of the history of Jesus is that of the perfect unity and unquestionable trustworthiness and authority of the Holy Scriptures. They never question the Scriptures as sources for Jesus’ history. There is no real “source criticism,” as we would call it, in their approach to understanding what really happened. Origen – who is actually not a “Father” – offers an exception on this issue, as we will see in this paper, but one that has nothing to do with modern Biblical criticism. He tries to answer to the problem of contradictions and discrepancies that he identifies in Scripture not by devaluing it as an his4 5

Irenaeus, Haer. 3.19.1 (ANF 1:448). Ibid.

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torical source but by a higher, spiritual interpretation. For these ancient Christian theologians, the Fathers of the church, everything in the Gospel accounts was authentic and valid for understanding the “history” of Jesus; and if the human authors of the writings of Scripture are different, there is above all the divine authorship of the whole of Scripture which insures its unity and trustworthiness, as well as its historical reliability. What we need, in their view, for the right reconstruction of Jesus’ history is a good interpretation (exegesis) of the biblical texts. Such an interpretation can only be realized from the perspective of the Scripture’s unity and in the context of the Church’s tradition. b. Another patristic principle is that not only the Gospels and the New Testament are sources for the history of Jesus. Indeed, for the Church Fathers, Jesus is interpreted by recourse not only to New Testament writings, but also to Scripture in its entirety, which is seen as being of the divine Word and about Him. The continuity and the perfect unity of the two Testaments are constantly affirmed in the apostolic preaching and in the writings that will form the New Testament. Jesus Himself presupposed and reconfirmed the validity and enduring worth of the Old Testament teaching (e.g. Mark 10:17–22; Matt 19:16–22; Luke 18:18–23). St. Paul asserts that the essential meaning of the Old Testament is opened up to Christians and that unconverted Jews fail to discern it (2 Cor 3:14–18). The apostolic Church determined that the Jewish canonical books were in harmony with the Gospel message. There was thus an essential unity between the Old Testament and the apostolic witness to Jesus Christ, His saving work, and the gift of the Spirit. This was felt so strongly that the Church at first saw no need of adding new Christian writings to the canon. The Old Testament was the Church’s book; it pointed to Christ and to His Church. The patristic writers generally stress the unity of the two Testaments6 as fundamental for the Christian perspective on the Old Testament and there6 This unity of the Bible, in the patristic tradition, is rooted in the fact of biblical inspiration and in the unity of God’s Heilsgeschichte centered on Christ, and not only in the fact that the different biblical authors and Christ Himself shared a common cultural and religious inheritance. From this perspective, the Old Testament could announce the coming and saving work of the Messiah because the prophets were given admission to the secret counsels of Yahweh; they could therefore reveal the mystery of His redemptive purpose. For the Church Fathers’ messianic interpretation of the Old Testament, see also among others (Archbishop) D. Trakatellis, “Theodoret’s Commentary on Isaiah: A Synthesis of Exegetical Traditions,” in New Perspectives on Historical Theology (ed. B. Nassif; Grand Rapids 1996), 313‒342; A. Corbu, Sfânta Scriptură şi tâlcuirea ei în opera Sfântului Grigorie de Nyssa (The Holy Scripture and its Interpretation in the Works of St. Gregory of Nyssa) (Sibiu 2002).

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fore claim that the true Christian interpretation of the Old Testament is centered on the Christ event.7 St. Irenaeus says that “the treasure hid in the Scriptures is Christ,” and explains: If any one, therefore, reads the Scriptures with attention, he will find in them an account of Christ, and a foreshadowing of the new calling (vocationis). For Christ is the treasure which was hid in the field, that is, in this world (for ‘the field is the world’); but the treasure hid in the Scriptures is Christ, since He was pointed out by means of types and parables. Hence His human nature could not be understood, prior to the consummation of those things which had been predicted, that is, the advent of Christ. 8

In the Old Testament we constantly see the presence of the Word, both in its vivid form of the spoken word (in the prophet’s activity) and as written word (in the Scripture’s writings). Already Heb 1:1‒2 reveals a deep and intimate relationship between the mystery of the Word and the mystery of Christ: God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds” (Heb 1:1‒2, NKJV).

7

This patristic perspective that the Old Testament can be interpreted by Christians only in the light of the New Testament – i.e., that the only true understanding of the Old Testament is centred on Christ – is a common inheritance of all Christian Churches of our times. For example, the Catholic scholar N. Lohfink, “Über die Irrtumslosigkeit und die Einheit der Schrift,” StZ 174 (1963): 173–174, writes: “When somebody, caring for historical exegesis, isolates a part of the Bible and deliberately refuses to place it, by relating it to Christ’s event, in the true perspective of the whole of Scripture’s teachings, this one elaborates maybe a brilliant, even indispensable, exegetical work, but his statements cannot pretend to be infallible.” From the Protestant side, W. Eichrodt, “Ist die typologische Exegese sachgemäße Exegesse?” in Volume du Congrès [International pour l’étude de l’Ancien Testament]. Strasbourg 1956.1957 (VTSup 4; Leiden, 1957), 177, says that the task of the Old Testament exegete is not to limit himself or herself to see “what is in the text itself, to discover therefore the literal meaning of a specific passage, by the means of historical and philological critique,” because “for the Bible, as for any literary work, exegesis must pass beyond the purely literal sense in order to discover the total sense, in the wide context of a cultural history, and to appreciate the influence of the text on successive periods. Or, for the Old Testament, this is truly possible only when one accepts its historical role of preparing the saving event of the New Testament. The Christian exegesis differentiates itself from the Jewish exegesis and from all other interpretations precisely by the fact that, for it, the Old Testament is fundamentally directed to the New Testament. We have to stress this ascension to the New Testament.” Eichrodt, ibid., 178, notes that there is “an encouraging sign, in the situation of today’s exegesis, to see that scholars who otherwise follow very different roads are all recognizing this presupposition, in conformity to the faith, of any theological research.” 8 Irenaeus, Haer. 4.26.1 (ANF 1:496).

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Christ is not only a messenger of God, like the prophets; He is the Father’s creator Word, His Logos (John 1:1–18; 1 John 1:1–2; cf. Rev 19:13). In Him, there is the final and plenary consummation of the mystery of God’s Word, which retrospectively enlightens and clarifies its antecedent manifestations in the old economy. When God was announcing His word through the prophets, it was already the Logos who, in a hidden way, was speaking to the world, for “no prophet prophesies without the Word of God,” as the Blessed Augustine says.9 This word, who was creating the events, was already the Word. And He was already, in a mysterious way, leading all things to the ultimate epiphany. From this perspective, the Fathers attribute to Christ, as the Word, both the Old Testament theophanies and the revelation transmitted by the prophetical word.10 Following this perspective, the Church Fathers often explain Christ and try to reconstruct His life and teaching by using words and texts from different parts of the Bible, in addition to the Gospels. For them, the Old Testament is, in a way, a source for Jesus’ history. “The Law,” “the Prophets,” and “the Evangelists” are considered together as sources for Jesus’ life, as for Christology: With regard to Christ, the law and the prophets and the evangelists have proclaimed that He was born of a virgin, that He suffered upon a beam of wood, and that He appeared from the dead; that He also ascended to the heavens, and was glorified by the Father, and is the Eternal King. 11

c. Another principle is that the contradictions between different texts of the Bible and accounts of Jesus are only apparent, and that there is always a way by which we can harmonize the differences. First, the very existence of four canonical Gospels, no more and no less, is in accord with God’s will and useful for our understanding and for our 9

Propheta Dominus, et Verbum Dei Dominus, et nullus propheta sine Verbo Dei prophetat; cum prophetis Verbum Dei, et propheta Verbum Dei. Meruerunt priora tempora prophetas afflatos et impletos Verbo Dei; meruimus nos prophetam ipsum Verbum Dei (Augustine, Tract. Ev. Jo. 24.7; cited by P. Grelot, Sens chrétien de l’Ancien Testament: Esquisse d’un traité dogmatique [Bibliothèque de Théologie: Théologie Dogmatique 3; 2nd ed.; Tournai, 1962], 133, n. 2). 10 Cf. J. Lebreton, Du saint Clément à saint Irénée (vol 2 of L’histoire du dogme de la Trinité des origines au Concile de Nicée; Paris 1928), 464‒467; 594‒597 etc. See G. Aeby, Les missions divines, de saint Justin à Origène (Fribourg 1958); J. Danielou, “L’unité des deux Testaments dans l’œuvre d’Origène,” RevScRel 22 (1948): 27‒56. The same perspective can be found in, for example, Cyril of Alexandria, Comm. Jo. 1.10 (PG 73:175‒178); 1.6 (PG 73:933‒934); Augustine, Tract. Ev. Jo. 13.16‒17; Leon, Serm. 26.2 (PL 54:215); etc. 11 Irenaeus, Fragments From the Lost Writings 53 (ANF 1:577); this extract from the Syriac is a shorter form of the next fragment (54 [ibid].), from an Armenian manuscript, which seems to be interpolated (cf. 577, n. 1).

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salvation. As one of his central themes, Irenaeus of Lyons (ca. 185) insisted upon there being a canon of four Gospels and no others. In his Adversus Haereses, Irenaeus denounced various early Christian groups that used only one gospel, such as Marcionites who used only Marcion’s version of Luke, or the Ebionites who seem to have used an Aramaic version of Matthew, as well as groups that embraced the texts of newer “revelations,” boasting of themselves “that they possess more Gospels than there really are,” such as the Valentinians.12 Irenaeus declared that the four Gospels are the “‘pillar’ and the ‘ground’ of the Church”; “it is not possible that there can be either more or fewer than four,” he stated, supporting his argument with the analogy of the four corners of the earth and the four winds.13 His image, taken from Ezekiel 1 or Revelation 4:6‒7, of God’s throne borne by four creatures with four faces that are equated with “the Gospel under four aspects,” is at the origin of the conventional symbols of the Evangelists: lion, bull, eagle, man. Irenaeus was ultimately successful in declaring that the four Gospels collectively, and these four exclusively, contain the truth. “And therefore,” says Irenaeus, “the Gospels are in accord with these things, among which Christ Jesus is seated”;14 and “these Gospels alone are true and reliable, and admit neither an increase nor diminution of the aforesaid number.”15 By reading each Gospel in light of the others, St. Irenaeus made of John – “that Gospel full of all confidence for such is His (the Word’s) person”16 – a lens through which to read Matthew, Mark, and Luke. There are four Gospels, says St. John Chrysostom, so we can objectively verify the truthfulness of their accounts. Having different accounts of the person and earthly ministry of Jesus Christ enables us to assess the accuracy of the information we have concerning Him: What then? Was not one evangelist sufficient to tell all? One indeed was sufficient; but if there be four that write, not at the same times, nor in the same places, neither after having met together, and conversed one with another, and then they speak all things as it were out of one mouth, this becomes a very great demonstration of the truth. 17

Chrysostom is aware that in many places the Gospels “are convicted of discordance.” But this very thing is a very great evidence of their truth. For if they had agreed in all things exactly even to time, and place, and to the very words, none of our enemies would have believed but that they had met together, and had written what they wrote by some human compact; because such entire agreement as this cometh not of simplicity. But now even 12 13 14 15 16 17

Irenaeus, Haer. 3.11.8 (ANF 1:428‒429). Ibid. (ANF 1:428). Ibid. Ibid. (ANF 1:429). Ibid. (ANF 1:428). John Chrysostom, Hom. Matt. 1.5 (NPNF 10:3).

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that discordance which seems to exist in little matters delivers them from all suspicion, and speaks clearly in behalf of the character of the writers. 18

Had the Gospels contained exactly the same information with the same details written from the same perspective, it would indicate collusion; that is, there would have been a time when the writers got together beforehand to get their stories straight in order to make their writings seem credible. The differences between the Gospels, even the apparent contradictions of details upon first examination, speak to the independent nature of the writings. Thus, the independent nature of the four Gospel accounts, agreeing in their information but differing in perspective, amount of detail, and which events were recorded, indicate that their record of Christ’s life and ministry is factual and reliable. The few discrepancies touch times and places, but nothing that “injures the truth of what they have said”; and the preacher is permitted to point out and to answer such problems as he explains the text. But Chrysostom asks his hearers, to observe that in the chief heads, those which constitute our life and furnish out our doctrine, nowhere is any of them found to have disagreed, no not ever so little. But what are these points? Such as follow: That God became man, that He wrought miracles, that He was crucified, that He was buried, that He rose again, that He ascended, that He will judge, that He hath given commandments tending to salvation, that He hath brought in a law not contrary to the Old Testament, that He is a Son, that He is only-begotten, that He is a true Son, that He is of the same substance with the Father, and as many things as are like these; for touching these we shall find that there is in them a full agreement. 19

Not all the moments of Jesus’ life and not all of His miracles are recorded by all four evangelists: They have both treated of many in common, and each of them hath also received and declared something of his own; that, on the one hand, he might not seem superfluous, and cast on the heap to no purpose; on the other, he might make our test of the truth of their affirmations perfect. 20

The independent approaches of the four evangelists are motivated by their different purposes and by the specific audience they each address.21 The truthfulness of their records is based both on the many “witnesses of what they said” and on the fact that “many too were the adversaries and enemies.” For they did not write these things in one corner and bury them, but everywhere, by sea and by land, they unfolded them in the ears of all, and these things were read in the pres-

18 19 20 21

Ibid. 1.6 (NPNF 10:3). Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. 1.7 (NPNF 10:3).

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ence of enemies, even as they are now, and none of the things which they said offended any one. 22

As an example, let us see how St. John Chrysostom explains the discrepancies concerning Christ’s genealogy: ‘Why then,’ one may say, ‘doth not Mark do this, nor trace Christ’s genealogy, but utter everything briefly?’ It seems to me that Matthew was before the rest in entering on the subject (wherefore he both sets down the genealogy with exactness, and stops at those things which require it): but that Mark came after him, which is why he took a short course, as putting his hand to what had been already spoken and made manifest. How is it then that Luke not only traces the genealogy, but doth it through a greater number? As was natural, Matthew having led the way, he seeks to teach us somewhat in addition to former statements. And each too in like manner imitated his master; the one Paul, who flows fuller than any river; the other Peter, who studies brevity. 23

2 The Early Church Fathers Our purpose in this paper is not to investigate the whole corpus of the Church Fathers’ writings but to study the earliest of them and primarily those passages that exhibit an explicitly historical interest. We will begin with the earliest writers, usually referred to as the “Apostolic Fathers” (ca. A.D. 90‒125), and will continue with some of those following them, up to Eusebius of Caesarea. 2.1 St. Clement of Rome († A.D. 101) One of the most important apostolic documents, Clement of Rome’s letter to the Corinthian Church, is generally considered to be the earliest extraNew Testament Christian writing. Clement, bishop of the Church in Rome, wrote this letter about A.D. 95 to help end a dispute between the Church members and the presbyters in Corinth. Although Clement’s letter to the Corinthians is a document which is largely doctrinal and moral in nature, it contains at least one important historical reference to Jesus and the beginnings of Christianity: The apostles have preached the Gospel to us from the Lord Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ [has done so] from God. Christ therefore was sent forth by God, and the apostles by Christ. Both these appointments, then, were made in an orderly way, according to the will of God. Having therefore received their orders, and being fully assured by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and established in the word of God, with full assurance of the Holy Ghost, they went forth proclaiming that the kingdom of God was at hand. And thus preaching through countries and cities, they appointed the first-fruits [of their labours], 22 23

Ibid. 1.9 (NPNF 10:4). Ibid. 4.1 (NPNF 10:20).

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having first proved them by the Spirit, to be bishops and deacons of those who should afterwards believe. Nor was this any new thing, since indeed many ages before it was written concerning bishops and deacons. For thus saith the Scripture in a certain place, ‘I will appoint their bishops in righteousness, and their deacons in faith.’ 24

In this passage, Clement makes several claims: – the Gospel was the primary Christian message; – this Gospel was given to the apostles by Jesus Himself even as it came from God; – Jesus’ resurrection provided the confirmation of the truthfulness of these teachings; – with the additional certainty of Scripture (“established in the word of God”) and the assistance of the Holy Spirit (“with full assurance of the Holy Ghost”), the apostles preached the Gospel; – wherever the Gospel was preached and local congregations were established, bishops and deacons were chosen and ordained to minister to the believers. 2.2 St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch (ca. 107–115) Identified through tradition as a disciple of Peter, Paul, and John, St. Ignatius wrote seven letters while on his way to Rome to be executed. There is no evidence that St. Ignatius had any sources other than the New Testament, so he cannot be used as an independent source. The following are examples of what we can describe as historical references to the founder of Christianity: In the Epistle to the Trallians 9: Stop your ears, therefore, when any one speaks to you at variance with Jesus Christ, who was descended from David, and was also of Mary; who was truly born, and did eat and drink. He was truly persecuted under Pontius Pilate; He was truly crucified, and [truly] died, in the sight of beings in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth. He was also truly raised from the dead, His Father quickening Him (having raised Him), even as after the same manner His Father will so raise up us who believe in Him by Christ Jesus, apart from whom we do not possess the true life.” 25

St Ignatius here affirms several facts concerning Jesus which were part of the great apostolic tradition: – he was of the lineage of David; – he was born of Mary; – as such, he really lived, ate, and drank on earth; – Jesus was crucified and died under Pontius Pilate; 24 1 Clem. (ANF 1:16). The Scripture citation is Isa 40:17 (LXX), but the text is here altered by St. Clement; the LXX has: “I will give thy rulers in peace, and thy overseers in righteousness.” 25 Ign. Trall. 9 (ANF 1:69–70).

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– God raised Him from the dead; – his resurrection is the model of our own resurrection. Again, as in the text quoted from Clement, we perceive how the resurrection was the chief sign for believers (in this case, that they will be raised from the dead like Jesus). In his Epistle to the Smyrneans, St. Ignatius refers twice to the historical Jesus. In the first instance (Smyrn. 1), he asserts the following concerning Jesus: He was truly of the seed of David according to the flesh, and the Son of God according to the will and power of God; He was truly born of a virgin, was baptized by John, in order that all righteousness might be fulfilled by Him; and was truly, under Pontius Pilate and Herod the tetrarch, nailed [to the cross] for us in His flesh. Of this fruit we are by His divinely-blessed passion, that He might set up a standard for all ages, through His resurrection, to all His holy and faithful [followers], whether among Jews or Gentiles, in the one body of His Church.26

St. Ignatius says again in this epistle that: – Jesus was physically of the lineage of David, adding that – He was also the Son of God as shown by His virgin birth; – Jesus was baptized by John; – He was later nailed (crucified) under Pontius Pilate and Herod the tetrarch; – He was raised from the dead. In the second reference in the same epistle (Smyrn. 3), St Ignatius insists on the resurrection of Jesus: For I know that after His resurrection also He was still possessed of flesh, and I believe that He is so now. When, for instance, He came to those who were with Peter, He said to them, ‘Lay hold, handle Me, and see that I am not an incorporeal spirit.’27 And immediately they touched Him, and believed, being convinced both by His flesh and spirit. For this cause also they despised death, and were found its conquerors. And after His resurrection He did eat and drink with them, as being possessed of flesh, although spiritually He was united to the Father. 28

Speaking of Jesus’ resurrection, St. Ignatius affirms the following: – Jesus was raised in the flesh; – afterward He appeared to Peter and the disciples and told them to touch His physical body, which they did; – Jesus ate and drank with them after His resurrection;

26 27

Ign. Smyrn. 1 (ANF 1:86). Literally, “demon.” According to Jerome, this quotation is from the Gos. Naz. (cf. Luke 24:39). 28 Ign. Smyrn. 1 (ANF 1:87).

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– in a statement which will be used later by Lucian of Samosata († A.D. 165)29 in his account of Christians, St. Ignatius relates that upon believing, the disciples despised death.30 A last reference of St. Ignatius to the historical Jesus is found in his Epistle to the Magnesians 11: I desire to guard you beforehand, that ye fall not upon the hooks of vain doctrine, but that ye attain to full assurance in regard to the birth, and passion, and resurrection which took place in the time of the government of Pontius Pilate, being truly and certainly accomplished by Jesus Christ, who is our hope. 31

In this text St. Ignatius assures his readers that they can be fully persuaded of the facticity of – Jesus’ birth; – Jesus’ death and His resurrection; – the last two having occurred in the time of the government of Pontius Pilate. As in other references, St. Ignatius attempts to place such events firmly in the realm of history. “His purpose, at least partially, is to provide an answer to the threat of Gnosticism, which often denied physical interpretations of some of these events.”32 2.3 Papias and Quadratus The preoccupation with maintaining the historicity of Jesus’ acts is found in very early sources, like the works of Papias of Hierapolis (ca. 60–135) and Quadratus († A.D. 124), whose words are reported primarily by Eusebius in the fourth century. Both of these authors mention eyewitnesses of Jesus’ ministry and healings who were still alive in their own time (the late first century). Papias, in giving his sources for the information contained in his (largely lost) commentaries, stated (according to Eusebius): 29

“For these poor wretches [i.e., the Christians] persuade themselves that they shall be immortal, and live for everlasting; so that they despise death, and some of them offer themselves to it voluntarily. Again, their first lawgiver taught them that they were all brothers, when once they had committed themselves so far as to renounce the gods of the Greeks, and worship that crucified sophist, and live according to his laws. So they hold all things alike in contempt, and consider all property common, trusting each other in such matters without any valid security” (Lucian, Peregr. 13 [Harmon, LCL]). 30 “And on this account also did they despise death, for it were too little to say, indignities and stripes. Nor was this all; but also after He had shown Himself to them, that He had risen indeed, and not in appearance only, He both ate and drank with them during forty entire days” (Ign. Smyrn. 1 [ANF 1:87; the longer version]). 31 Ign. Magn 11 (ANF 1:63‒64). 32 G.R. Habermas, The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ, (Joplin, 1996), 233.

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If by chance anyone who had been in attendance on the elders should come my way, I inquired about the words of the elders – that is, what according to the elders Andrew or Peter said, or Philip, or Thomas or James, or John or Matthew or any other of the Lord’s disciples, and whatever Aristion and the elder John, the Lord’s disciples, were saying. 33

Thus, while Papias was collecting his information (ca. A.D. 90), Aristion and the elder John (who were Jesus’ disciples) were still alive and teaching in Asia Minor, and Papias gathered information from people who had known them.34 Another early Christian writer, Quadratus, wrote an apology to Emperor Hadrian and was reported by Eusebius to have stated: The words of our Savior were always present, for they were true: those who were healed, those who rose from the dead, those who were not only seen in the act of being healed or raised, but were also always present, not merely when the Savior was living on earth, but also for a considerable time after his departure, so that some of them survived even to our own times.35

By “our Savior” Quadratus means Jesus, and by “our times” it has been argued that he may refer to his early life, rather than when he wrote (A.D. 117–124), which would mean that Quadratus refers to a time contemporary with Papias.36 2.4 St. Justin Martyr Most scholars agree that Justin Martyr was one of the greatest Christian apologists who ever lived. He was a learned man and became a professor of philosophical Christianity in his own private school in Rome. Born around A.D. 100, he was scourged and beheaded for his faith around A.D. 167. In his First Apology, written soon after A.D. 150 and addressed chiefly to Emperor Antoninus Pius, St. Justin refers to various aspects of the life of Jesus. Referring to Jesus’ birth, St. Justin notes that His physical line of descent came through the tribe of Judah and the family of Jesse (chap. 32), and He was born of a virgin (chap. 33).37 Concerning the location and the time of Jesus’ birth, St. Justin says in his First Apology (chap. 34):

33

Translation by R. Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (Cambridge 2006), 15–

34 35 36 37

Ibid., 15–21. Quoted in Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 4.3.2; translation by Bauckham, Jesus (n. 33), 53. Ibid., 53–55. Justin, 1 Apol. 47 (ANF 1:173‒174).

16.

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Now there is a village in the land of the Jews, thirty-five stadia from Jerusalem, in which Jesus Christ was born, as you can ascertain also from the registers of the taxing made under Cyrenius, your first procurator in Judaea. 38

We have in these references some important – and clear – items surrounding Jesus’ birth: – Jesus was a physical descendant of Jesse, of the tribe of Judah; – He was born of a virgin; – His birth place was the village of Bethlehem; – this village was located thirty-five stadia (approximately 6.5 km) from Jerusalem; – the location and the fact itself of Jesus’ birth could be verified by consulting the records of Cyrenius, the first Roman procurator of Judea. There is a difficulty concerning this last point: Is this reference to “the registers” of Cyrenius’s (Quirinius’s) census (as being available to the emperor in the second century) historically reliable? There is no evidence for the preservation of such registers in the second century, even if it is highly probable that the census implied that such registers were created at the time of Jesus’ birth and – why not? – sent to Rome and preserved in the imperial archives. Another piece of information related to Jesus’ birth is found in St. Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho 77: “For at the time of His birth, Magi who came from Arabia worshipped Him, coming first to Herod, who then was sovereign in your land.”39 As we know, the information that the Magi “came from Arabia” is not found in the Matthean record. There are many other historical references to Jesus’ life in St. Justin. I quote here just one more, from his First Apology 50: Accordingly, after He was crucified, even all His acquaintances forsook Him, having denied Him; and afterwards, when He had risen from the dead and appeared to them, and had taught them to read the prophecies in which all these things were foretold as coming to pass.40

There is nothing in these last texts which is not found in the Gospels. The texts we have cited up to this point do not provide any independent confirmation or new historical information on the history of Jesus.

38 39 40

Ibid. 34 (ANF 1:174). Justin, Dial.77 (ANF 1:237). Justin, 1 Apol. 50 (ANF 1:179).

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3 The Report of Pontius Pilate to the Emperor Tiberius (Acta Pilati) Many Christian writers in late antiquity and in the Middle Ages refer to the Acts of Pilate, which St. Justin Martyr said was Pilate’s report to Rome on the crucifixion of Jesus. The well-informed Church historian Eusebius of Caesarea (writing ca. 325), shows no acquaintance with this work, although he was aware of “Letters of Pilate” referred to by St. Justin and Tertullian. He was also aware of an anti-Christian text called Acts of Pilate, which was prescribed for reading in schools under Emperor Maximinus during the Diocletian persecution, as will be shown later in this paper. We are forced to admit that the Christian Acts of Pilate is of later origin, and scholars agree in assigning it to the middle of the fourth century. St. Epiphanius refers to an Acta Pilati (ca. 376), but the extant Greek texts show evidence of later editing. The apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus claims to have Pilate’s report within it, and there is also another report. The Gospel of Nicodemus is thought to have been written ca. 150‒200, which leaves a small possibility that it has a copy of the report of Pilate in it, but the gospel is not accepted as being authentic, and most historians doubt that it contains the report of Pilate. The book aimed at gratifying the desire for extra-evangelical details concerning our Lord, at strengthening faith in the resurrection of Christ, and at general edification. The second report, called The Letter of Pontius Pilate, which claims to be what he wrote to the Roman emperor concerning our Lord Jesus Christ, is thought by most historians to have been written in the fifth century. 3.1 Pilate’s Report in St. Justin Martyr St. Justin also speaks about Jesus’ public ministry and most of all about His crucifixion and resurrection, making reference to the official documentation. In his First Apology, St. Justin refers twice (chapters 35 and 48) to documents of the trial of Jesus before Pilate: – Chap. 35: “And that these things did happen (i.e., those related to the crucifixion of Jesus), you can ascertain from the Acts of Pontius Pilate.”41 – Chap. 48: “And that He did those things (i.e., that he healed all kinds of diseases and raised the dead), you can learn from the Acts of Pontius Pilate.”42 It is generally admitted that the extant apocryphon entitled the Acts of Pontius Pilate is a forgery from the fourth century. Did genuine Acts of Pon41 42

Ibid. 35 (ANF 1:175). Ibid. 48 (ANF 1:179).

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tius Pilate, or regular accounts of his procedure sent by Pilate to Emperor Tiberius, exist but were destroyed at an early period, possibly in consequence of the unanswerable appeals which the Christians constantly made to them? Some argue that there are three problems with Justin’s reference. First, Justin Martyr was not known for his historical accuracy. For example, in his First Apology (chap. 31), Justin incorrectly claimed that the Ptolemy who had the Septuagint translated was a contemporary of Herod43; he has also been caught referring to documents which ostensibly support his exaggerated claims but in fact do not. Given Justin’s inattention to historical detail, he probably just assumed that such documents must exist. In St. Justin’s repeated reference to an alleged Acts of Pontius Pilate, we have the only example of early Church Fathers relying on nonChristian tradition. If reliable, as some scholars think,44 these two references would surely be of great importance. Many scholars, however, refuse any historical value to these references to such a document. There is simply no evidence that the results of criminal trials of non-citizens would be sent to Rome. In fact, it begs the question to assume that such documentation ever existed. Such documentation surely did not exist in the fourth century, when Christians apparently felt the need to forge the apocryphal Acts of Pilate.45 Moreover, when Pliny, governor of Bithynia, writes to Trajan asking for advice on his trials of Christians, he describes these trials. If records of these trials were in Rome, such a description would not be necessary. When Trajan replies to Pliny, he mentions no precedents and no decrees.46 Thus, it is unlikely that any such records existed. Felix Scheidweiler observes that St. Justin, in the same First Apology (chap. 34) and in the same terms, invites us to examine the registers of the taxing (census) under Quirinius. Scheidweiler considers these registers (or schedules) simply fictitious. Likewise, Scheidweiler suspects that Justin’s reference to the Acts of Pilate rests solely on the fact that he assumed such documents must have existed.47 Two observations can be made about Scheidweiler’s assumption:

43 44

Ibid. 31 (ANF 1:173). J. McDowell and B. Wilson, He Walked among Us: Evidence for the Historical Jesus (San Benardino, 1988), 88, believe that “[the early writers] cited the existence of government records.” McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict (Nashville, 1979), 85, claims furthermore that Justin Martyr had access to “the imperial archives” of Pontius Pilate. 45 McDowell and Wilson, He Walked among Us (n. 44), 24, 85. 46 See Pliny the Younger, Ep. 10 ( Melmoth, LCL). 47 F. Scheidweiler, “Nikodemusevangelium, Pilatusakten und Höllenfahrt Christi,” in Evangelien (vol. 1 of Neutestamentliche Apokryphen in deutscher Übersetzung; ed. W. Schneemelcher; 5th ed.; Tübingen, 1987), 395.

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a. The argument is feeble; St. Justin could refer to a document (or collection of documents) corresponding to the profile he describes and not necessarily to a writing identical to the one we know under this name; and b. It is interesting that St. Justin uses such a document as an argument for Jesus’ messianic status;48 the writing must be known well enough both by Christians and by the recipients of the apology, as it is so casually quoted by St. Justin. To these observations, we can add that St. Justin had a strong interest in offering historical documentation, at least as far as the registers of the census under Quirinius are concerned (as we cannot know if the Acts of Pontius Pilate that he mentions is a work strictly dedicated to the historical argumentation). 3.2 Pilate’s Report to Tiberius in Tertullian Tertullian (ca. 160 – ca. 230), a famous Christian theologian, converted to Christianity (ca. 197) and became a remarkable Christian apologist. There are in Tertullian’s Apology (Apologeticus), written around A.D. 197, two references to Pontius Pilate which also merit discussion.49 Both of these references concern Pilate sending a report about Jesus to Rome. Tertullian claims that after the crucifixion, Pilate became a secret believer and told the emperor what transpired at the trial of Jesus: “This whole story of Christ was reported to Caesar (at that time it was Tiberius) by Pilate, himself in his secret heart already a Christian” (Apol. 21.24). R. Glover thinks that “this report was a presumption,”50 but, given the insistence with which such a document is mentioned in early Christian literature, the existence of a genuine document of this kind cannot be entirely ruled out, even if Tertullian himself did not have access to it. Second, Tertullian claims that this information about Jesus was presented to the Roman Senate: “So Tiberius, in whose reign the name of Christian entered the world, hearing from Palestine in Syria information which has revealed the truth of Christ’s divinity, brought the matter before the Senate, with previous indication of his approval. The Senators, on the 48 Justin, 1 Apol. 35, where for the first time these Acts are mentioned, is, indeed, dedicated to the prophecies fulfilled in Jesus’ life and work: Isa 9:6; 65:2; 58:2; Ps 23:17‒19 – all interpreted with reference to the passion of the Savior. The Acts of Pontius Pilate are referred to as witnessing to the fulfillment of the prophecy in Ps 22/23 of the nailing of Jesus’ hands and feet on the cross and of casting lots at the dividing of His clothes. 49 For the Latin text and an English translation, see T.R. Glover, Tertullian: Apology, De Spectaculis (LCL 250; Cambridge, 1931). The English translation of the texts from Tertullian quoted here is by Glover. 50 Ibid., 112.

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ground that they had not verified the facts, rejected it. Caesar maintained his opinion and threatened dire measures against those who brought accusations against the Christians” (Apol. 5,2). There are some who accept this story as historical.51 This session of the Roman Senate in A.D. 35 is a historical fact, as attested in a fragment of Porphyry.52 Felix Scheidweiler53 thinks that the writing from which the emperor supposedly “heard” this information from Palestine must be the Letter of Pontius Pilate rather than the one mentioned by Justin.54 We offer the following observations on the two texts quoted above: – There is agreement between the two texts in Tertullian. Both references seem to be to a letter of Pilate to the emperor. Its sender shares Christian convictions, and the addressee is himself convinced by the letter’s argumentation. – The profile of this writing is as follows: it is a Christian work on Jesus’ passion, interpreted in the context of Jesus’ fulfillment of messianic prophecies. – Together with the messianic claims of Jesus, His divinity is also affirmed. The pseudepigraphical character of the writing to which Tertullian refers is evident. Most of all, the information in the second passage is highly doubtful. It is difficult to accept Tertullian’s account, written about 170 years later than the event, with seemingly no good sources in between to argue for such acceptance.55 Pilate is supposed to know the Old Testament well and be able to interpret Jesus’ passion from the perspective of messianic prophecies. There is an extremely high probability that Tiberius never converted to Christianity, in which case this passage is unreliable and cannot be used as independent confirmation of Jesus’ history. This paper is not the place to provide an in-depth discussion of the apocryphal literature related to Pontius Pilate. There exists a rich literature

51 For an attempt at defending the historicity of this apocryphal story, see E. Voltera, “Di una decisione del senato Romana Ricordata da Tertulliano,” in Scritti in onore di Contardo Ferrini: Publicati in occasione della sua beatificatione, (vol. 1; Milan, 1947), 471‒488. 52 M. Sordi and I. Ramelli, “Il senatoconsulto del 35 contro i Cristiani in un frammento porfiriano,” Aev 78 (2004): 59‒67. See also I. Ramelli, “Tiberio, l’imperatore romano che difese i cristiani,” Avvenire (September 2009). Cited 27 July 2011. Online: http://terzotriennio.blogspot.com/2009/09/tiberio-limperatore-romano-che-difese-i.html. 53 Scheidweiler, “Nikodemusevangelium” (n. 47), 395. 54 Ibid., 419. 55 See F.F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are they Reliable? (Grand Rapids, 1967), 116, for an analysis of Tertullian’s statement.

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on the subject.56 Even up to our modern times, there are popular books that repeat information about Pilate from various ancient and medieval sources as if they were facts.57 3.3 Pilate’s Report to Tiberius in Eusebius of Caesarea (ca. 260 – ca. 339) The tradition that Pilate sent a written communication to the Roman emperor after the crucifixion of Jesus continued well into the fourth century. Eusebius, who relates some interesting and unique information in his Church History,58 also repeats the basic information contained in Tertullian’s account: Pilate wrote a letter to the emperor Tiberius about Jesus; Tiberius brought this information before the Roman Senate to vote upon Jesus being recognized as a god; the proposal was rejected; Tiberius continued to hold the opinion that Jesus was a god.59 It is very likely that Eusebius was dependent upon Tertullian for his information, for after mentioning this tradition he quotes directly from Tertullian’s Apology, Book 5.60 Eusebius adds the detail that the letter contained specific information about Jesus’ resurrection and miraculous deeds.61 It is noteworthy that Eusebius also knows some Acts of Pilate, antagonistic to Christ and to Christians, which he characterizes as a “forgery” on the basis of historical and chronological mistakes it contains.62 In opposition to these, among the Christians circulated pious, apocryphal Acts of Pilate, later fabrications which may have been written to take the place of 56 See R.A. Lipsius, Die Pilatus-Akten: kritisch untersucht (2d ed.; Kiel, 1886); E. von Dobschütz, “Pilatus,” RE 15:397‒401; A. Ehrhardt, “Pontius Pilatus in der frühchristlichen Mythologie,” EvT 9 (1949‒1950): 433‒437; A. Ehrhardt, “Was Pilate a Christian?” ACQR 137 (1944): 157‒167; S.G.F. Brandon, “Pontius Pilate in History and Legend,” HT 18 (1968): 523‒530; P. Dornier, “Les ‘Actes de Pilate’ au quatrième siècle,” Apocrypha 2 (1991): 85‒98; J.K. Elliot, The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford, 1993); J.K. Elliot, The Apocryphal Jesus: Legends of the Early Church (Oxford, 1996; repr. 2008), 89‒96; F.F. Judd, Jr., Pontius Pilate in Early Christian Literature (Chapel Hill, 2003); E. Cerulli, “Tiberius and Pontius Pilate in Ethiopian Tradition and Poetry,” in Proceedings of the British Academy 59 (1973): 141‒158; among others. 57 See, for example W.D. Mahan, The Acts of Pilate: Ancient Records Recorded by Contemporaries of Jesus Christ Regarding the Facts Concerning His Birth, Death, Resurrection (Kirkwood, 1997); W.P. Crozier, Letters of Pontius Pilate Written During his Governorship of Judea to his Friend Seneca in Rome (New York, 1928); etc. 58 For the Greek text, see K. Lake and J.E.L. Oulton, eds., Eusebius: Ecclesiastical History (2 vols.; LCL; Cambridge, 1926, 1932). For a recent English translation, see P. L. Maier, Eusebius: The Church History, Grand Rapids 1999). 59 See Eusebius, Hist. eccl., 2.2.1‒3 (NPNF2 1:105‒106). 60 Ibid. 2.2.4‒6 (NPNF2 1:106). 61 Ibid. 2.2.2, (NPNF2 1:105). 62 Ibid. 1.9.2‒3 (NPNF2 1:96).

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the records which were believed to exist and to which both Justin Martyr and Tertullian make reference, even though it remains questionable whether they knew what any such report may have contained. All in all, “there may well have been an original report sent from Pilate to Tiberius, containing some details of Jesus crucifixion,”63 and the early Christian writers had reason to believe that such a document existed, but there is no trace of this genuine document in the known apocryphal Acts of Pilate64 or any evidence that this specific document was quoted by another writer. Additionally, it is entirely possible that what Justin thought original was actually a concurrent apocryphal gospel.65 Later writings repeat the information about a letter sent by Pilate to Tiberius.66 What we can say for sure is that what may have been a genuine letter germinated many apocryphal variants.67

4 Julius Africanus Julius Africanus was a native of Jerusalem, with a good knowledge of Palestine, who traveled to Rome on an embassy from Emmaus.68 At Rome he so impressed the Emperor Alexander Severus (222–235) by his erudition that the emperor entrusted him with the building of his library at the Pantheon in Rome. He wrote, among other things, a miscellany, similar in content to Pliny’s Natural History, dedicated to Severus, and he did work in textual criticism on Homer’s works. Africanus, who as far as we know was not a cleric but a scholar and a philosopher, was the first Christian whose writings were not all concerned with his faith; he pursued his favorite stud63

Habermas, Jesus (n. 32), 217. See the apocryphon “Acta Pilati” in Schneemelcher, ed., Apokryphen (n. 47), 399‒ 414. The prologue of the writing offers a date of A.D. 425/426 (ibid., 400, n. 2). Some miracles of Jesus are recorded on pages 404‒405. 65 Habermas, Jesus (n. 32), 217, n. 84, who mentions H. Daniel-Rops’, “Silence of Jesus’ Contemporaries,” in The Sources for the Life of Christ (ed. H. Daniel-Rops; trans. P.J. Hepburne-Scott; New York, 1962), 14. 66 For example, the Doctrina Addai, f. 23b‒24b of the late fourth century, translated by G. Howard, The Teaching of Addai (Ann Arbor, 1981); see also I. Ramelli, “Possible Historical Traces in the Doctrina Addai,” Hugoye 9 (2006): 51–127, esp. 71, and History of Armenia 8 by Moses of Khoren of the 5th century translated by R.W. Thomson, Moses of Khoren: History of the Armenians (HATS, Cambridge, 1978), both preserve the correspondence between the Emperor Tiberius and King Abgar of Edessa, and have the emperor tell the king that Pilate has already sent a letter informing Tiberius of Jesus’ miracles and divinity. Cf. Judd, Pilate (n. 56), 174, n. 47. 67 See P. Winter, “A Letter from Pontius Pilate,” in NovT 7 (1964): 37‒43. 68 Jerome, Vir. ill. 63 (NPNF2 3:375). This embassy to the Emperor Heliogabalus, for rebuilding the ruined city of Emmaus, could have taken place between 218 and 222. 64

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ies after conversion and made them useful to the Church.69 He knew Hebrew and, of course, Greek. The later Christian historian Socrates classes him for learning with Clement of Alexandria and Origen. Africanus’s Chronikon (Chronicle) is the foundation of medieval historiography of the world and of the Church. This author “was one of the most learned men of the Ante-Nicene age.”70 In the following text, Africanus, writing in about A.D. 221 (this is the year at which his Chronicle closes), discusses the miraculous happenings at the moment of Jesus’ death on the cross and quotes two pagan writers, Thallus and Phlegon: As to His works severally, and His cures effected upon body and soul, and the mysteries of His doctrine, and the resurrection from the dead, these have been most authoritatively set forth by His disciples and apostles before us. On the whole world there pressed a most fearful darkness; and the rocks were rent by an earthquake, and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down. This darkness Thallus, in the third book of his History, calls, as appears to me without reason, an eclipse of the sun. For the Hebrews celebrate the Passover on the 14th day according to the moon, and the passion of our Saviour falls on the day before the Passover; but an eclipse of the sun takes place only when the moon comes under the sun. And it cannot happen at any other time but in the interval between the first day of the new moon and the last of the old, that is, at their junction: how then should an eclipse be supposed to happen when the moon is almost diametrically opposite the sun? Let that opinion pass however; let it carry the majority with it; and let this portent of the world be deemed an eclipse of the sun, like others a portent only to the eye. Phlegon records that, in the time of Tiberius Caesar, at full moon, there was a full eclipse of the sun from the sixth hour to the ninth – manifestly that one of which we speak. But what has an eclipse in common with an earthquake, the rending rocks, and the resurrection of the dead, and so great a perturbation throughout the universe? Surely no such event as this is recorded for a long period. But it was a darkness induced by God, because the Lord happened then to suffer. And calculation makes out that the period of 70 weeks, as noted in Daniel, is completed at this time. 71

Thallus,72 a Samaritan-born historian73 who lived and worked in Rome about A.D. 52, wrote to offset the supernatural element which accompa69 Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.31.1‒3 (NPNF2 1:276‒277), mentions four works left by him, the Cesti (kestoi = embroidered girdles), the five books on Chronology (Chronikon), the epistle to Origen (the only one of his writings preserved in a complete form), and the Epistle to Aristides. The English translation of the fragments of Africanus’s works is published in ANF 6:125‒139. 70 A.C. McGiffert, in NPNF2 1:276, n. 1. 71 The Extant Fragments of the Five Books of the Chronography of Julius Africanus (ANF 6:136‒137; on page 136, n. 8, the editors note that fragment 18, to which this text belongs, is preserved in George Syncellus’s Chronography). 72 Thallus wrote a history of the Eastern Mediterranean world from the Trojan War to his own time. This work itself has been lost and only fragments of it exist in the citations of others (F.F. Bruce, Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament [Grand Rapids, 1974], 29‒30).

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nied the crucifixion. Though the writings of Thallus are lost to us, Julius Africanus was familiar with them and quotes from them in a comment on the darkness that fell upon the land during the crucifixion (Mark 15:33). Answering Thallus’s interpretation of this darkness, Africanus is arguing that an eclipse of the sun cannot occur during the full moon, as was the case when Jesus died at Passover time.74 The force of the reference to Thallus is that the circumstances of Jesus’ death were known and discussed in the Imperial City as early as the middle of the first century. The fact of Jesus’ crucifixion must have been fairly well known by that time, to the extent that unbelievers like Thallus thought it necessary to explain the matter of the darkness as a natural phenomenon.75 William J. Durant observed that Thallus’s “argument took the existence of Christ for granted.”76 Phlegon of Tralles was a Greek writer and freedman of Emperor Hadrian, who lived in the second century A.D. His chief work was the Olympiads, a historical compendium in sixteen books, from the 1st down to the 229th Olympiad (776 B.C. to A.D. 137), several chapters of which are preserved in Eusebius’s Chronicle, Photius, and George Syncellus (9th c.).77 He mentions a three-hour eclipse in the time of Tiberius Caesar.78 Especially important for the topic of the history of Jesus in Africanus’s writings is his Epistle to Aristides.79 There is, in this epistle, “the first crit73

It is debated whether Thallus was the same person referred to by Flavius Josephus as a wealthy Samaritan, who was made a freedman by Emperor Tiberius and who loaned money to Herod Agrippa I; see Bruce, Jesus (n. 72), 29‒30; J.N.D. Anderson, Jesus Christ: The Witness of History (Leicester, 1985), 19. 74 See Bruce, Documents (n. 55), 113. 75 Neither Jesus nor the darkness at his death were ever denied as factual. Ironically, Thallus’s efforts have found their way into the mainstream as historical proof for Jesus and for the reliability of Mark’s account of the darkness at his death. See, for example, W.J. Durant, Caesar and Christ (New York, 1944), 555. 76 Ibid. 77 Two small works of Phlegon of Tralles are extant: On Marvels and On Long-lived Persons. 78 Some other Christian writers refer to the historical information on Christ from Phlegon, Olympiad 202, for example, Origen, Cels. 2.14, 23; Jerome, Chron. (a translation of the work of that same name by Eusebius) (see the texts in the original Greek [for Origen] and Latin [for Jerome] in: F. Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker [Leiden, 1996], 1165); among others. Here is, for example, George Syncellus’s Greek text from his Chronography (chap. 391) with the reference to Phlegon’s records (Jacoby, ibid.): “Phlegon records that during the reign of Tiberius Caesar there was a complete solar eclipse at full moon from the sixth to the ninth hour; it is clear that this is the one. But what have eclipses to do with an earthquake, rocks breaking apart, resurrection of the dead, and a universal disturbance of this nature?” 79 See the English translation of this epistle in ANF 6:125‒127. See also F. Spitta, Der Brief des Julius Africanus an Aristides kritisch untersucht und hergestellt (Halle, 1877).

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ical attempt to harmonize the two genealogies of Christ.”80 He approaches the matter in a critical spirit (such as seems always to have characterized him), and his investigations therefore deserve attention. He holds that both genealogies are of Joseph, and this was the unanimous opinion of antiquity, though, as he says, the discrepancies were reconciled in various ways. Africanus himself explains these discrepancies by the law of Levirate marriage: As Joseph, therefore, is the object proposed to us, we have to show how it is that each is represented as his father, both Jacob as descending from Solomon, and Heli as descending from Nathan: first, how these two, Jacob and Heli, were brothers; and then also how the fathers of these, Matthan and Melchi, being of different families, are shown to be the grandfathers of Joseph. Well, then, Matthan and Melchi, having taken the same woman to wife in succession, begat children who were uterine brothers, as the law did not prevent a widow, whether such by divorce or by the death of her husband, from marrying another. By Estha, then – for such is her name according to tradition – Matthan first, the descendant of Solomon, begets Jacob; and on Matthan’s death, Melchi, who traces his descent back to Nathan, being of the same tribe but of another family, having married her, as has been already said, had a son Heli. Thus, then, we shall find Jacob and Heli uterine brothers, though of different families. And of these, the one Jacob having taken the wife of his brother Heli, who died childless, begat by her the third, Joseph – his son by nature and by account. Whence also it is written, ‘And Jacob begat Joseph.’ But according to law he was the son of Heli, for Jacob his brother raised up seed to him.81

Africanus claims that this interpretation is “neither incapable of proof, nor is it an idle conjecture.”82 Because he speaks on other matters about some information handed down from “the kinsmen of the Saviour after the flesh,”83 it is possible that the way Africanus harmonizes the two genealogies also has its origin in the same source ‒ that is, the tradition coming from Jesus’ relatives. Africanus adds that “up to that time the genealogies of the Hebrews had been registered in the public archives,” and that King “Herod, knowing that the lineage of the Israelites contributed nothing to him, and goaded by the consciousness of his ignoble birth, burned the registers of their families.” But some succeeded in restoring these genealogies, in one way or another, “and among these happen to be those already mentioned, called desposyni, on account of their connection with the family of the Saviour.”84

McGiffert, in NPNF2 1:91, n. 2. Julius Africanus, Arist. 3 (ANF 6:126). The epistle is extensively quoted by Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 1.7.2‒16 (NPNF2 1:91‒94; the quoted text above, 91‒92). 82 Julius Africanus, Arist. 4 (ANF 6:126); see Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 1.7.2‒16, (NPNF2 1:92, n. 15, which justifies this translation as “the best rendering of the Greek”). 83 Julius Africanus, Arist. 4 (ANF 6:126). 84 Ibid. 5 (ANF 6:127). 80 81

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5 St. Irenaeus of Lyons (130‒202) on the Age of Jesus Writing in the late second century, St. Irenaeus, in his Against Heresies (ca. A.D. 180), shows no little interest concerning different aspects of Jesus’ life. For example, St. Irenaeus dedicates quite a large discussion to Jesus’ age at His death. Arguing against the Gnostic doctrine of the thirty aeons, considered by the Gnostics to be typified in the thirty years of Jesus’ life, Irenaeus says that if it is true that Jesus was thirty years old when He was baptized,85 the simple examination of the Gospels reveals that he traveled three times to Jerusalem on the occasion of the Passover.86 In fact, he says, Jesus lived close to 50 years. According to Irenaeus, the Gospel of John implies that Jesus was close to the age of 50 when the Jews ridiculed him as being too young to have achieved sufficient learning of the Jewish law: “The Jews then said to him: You are not yet fifty years old, and you have seen Abraham?” (John 8:57). Irenaeus argued that had the intention of the Jews been to mock Jesus’ youth, they would have accused Him of being “not yet forty years old”: But, besides this, those very Jews who then disputed with the Lord Jesus Christ have most clearly indicated the same thing. For when the Lord said to them, ‘Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day; and he saw it, and was glad’, they answered Him, ‘Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast Thou seen Abraham?’. Now, such language is fittingly applied to one who has already passed the age of forty, without having as yet reached his fiftieth year, yet is not far from this latter period. But to one who is only thirty years old it would unquestionably be said, ‘Thou art not yet forty years old’. For those who wished to convict Him of falsehood would certainly not extend the number of His years far beyond the age which they saw He had attained; but they mentioned a period near His real age, whether they had truly ascertained this out of the entry in the public register, or simply made a conjecture from what they observed that He was above forty years old, and that He certainly was not one of only thirty years of age. For it is altogether unreasonable to suppose that they were mistaken by twenty years, when they wished to prove Him younger than the times of Abraham. For what they saw, that they also expressed; and He whom they beheld was not a mere phantasm, but an actual being of flesh and blood. He did not then wont much of being fifty years old; and, in accordance with that fact, they said to Him, ‘Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast Thou seen Abraham?’ He did not therefore preach only for one year, nor did He suffer in the twelfth month of the year. For the period included between the thirtieth and the fiftieth year can never be regarded as one year. 87

Irenaeus puts forward not only the exegesis of John 8:57 as an argument but also reasons that Jesus needed time to become a teacher and to teach, as the “thirty years” mentioned by St. Luke (3:23) are only “the first stage of early life.” By maintaining that the Lord preached only one year, the 85 86 87

Irenaeus, Haer. 2.22.4 (ANF 1:391). Ibid. 2.22.3 (ANF 1:390‒391). Ibid. 2.22.6 (ANF 1:392).

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heretics are “destroying His whole work, and robbing Him of that age which is both more necessary and more honourable than any other; that more advanced age, I mean, during which also as a teacher He excelled all others. For how could He have had disciples, if He did not teach? And how could He have taught, unless He had reached the age of a Master? For when He came to be baptized, He had not yet completed His thirtieth year, but was beginning to be about thirty years of age (for thus Luke, who has mentioned His years, has expressed it: ‘Now Jesus was, as it were, beginning to be thirty years old’, when He came to receive baptism); and, [according to these men] He preached only one year reckoning from His baptism. On completing His thirtieth year He suffered, being in fact still a young man, and who had by no means attained to advanced age. Now, that the first stage of early life embraces thirty years, and that this extends onwards to the fortieth year, everyone will admit; but from the fortieth and fiftieth year a man begins to decline towards old age.”88 Irenaeus claims therefore that Jesus’ ministry included more than ten years ‒ in fact, almost twenty. He specifically states that his approximation of Jesus’ age is based not only on this text of the Gospel of St. John (8:5657), but also on the testimony of “all the elders” ‒ namely, those who were conversant in Asia with John, the disciples of the Lord, [affirming] that John conveyed to them that information. And he remained among them up to the times of Trajan. Some of them, moreover, saw not only John, but the other apostles also, and heard the very same account from them, and bear testimony as to the [validity of] the statement.89

The later Fathers did not repeat such a tradition, and only some modern authors came back to the supposition of Jesus living nearly fifty years, based mostly on an interpretation of John 8:57 similar to that of Irenaeus.90 As for the rest of those things concerning Christ and His earthly life, Irenaeus follows the teaching of Scripture, but in cases of dispute, one can 88 89 90

Ibid. 2.22.5 (ANF 1:391‒392). Ibid. 2.22.5 (ANF 1:392). So the modernist Roman Catholic priest and theologian A.F. Loisy, The Gospel and the Church (New York, 1912), 33, argued that the author of the Gospel of John implied that Jesus was in His mid-to-late forties during His ministry. According to Loisy, the author’s use of the allegory of the temple to describe Jesus’ body (with reference precisely to “this temple,” i.e., Herod’s Temple), which, according to Jesus’ Jewish opponents, required 46 years to build (John 2:19‒21), was meant as a symbolic comment on Jesus’ age at the time of His ministry. If accurate, such arguments would place the death of Jesus during the reign of the Roman Emperor Claudius (A.D. 41‒54). The Roman historian Suetonius records in his Lives of the Twelve Caesars (A.D. 121) that Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome for “making constant disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus” (Suetonius, Claud. 25 [Rolfe, LCL]), which some have interpreted as further evidence of an early tradition that Jesus lived to be approximately fifty years of age.

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find the tradition in “the most ancient Churches with which the apostles held constant intercourse, and learn from them what is certain and clear.”91 And he praises the “many nations of those barbarians who believe in Christ” who, “without paper or ink,” and “in the absence of written documents,” but “carefully preserving the ancient tradition,” believe in God and in “Christ Jesus, the Son of God; Who, because of His surpassing love towards His creation, condescended to be born of the virgin, He Himself uniting man through Himself to God, and having suffered under Pontius Pilate, and rising again, and having been received up in splendour, shall come in glory, the Saviour of those who are saved, and the Judge of those who are judged, and sending into eternal fire those who transform the truth, and despise His Father and His advent.”92 This statement could serve as a summary of Christian teaching, especially of Christology. It seems that this recourse to tradition which Irenaeus recommends concerns primarily Christian doctrines and not so much historical information.

6 Origen (ca. 185‒254) A special chapter – and a long one – would be needed to explore the approach to Jesus’ life and history in the writings of Origen. I am thinking first of all of his commentaries on the Gospels but also of his other important writings. Origen is one of the most appealing characters in history. Born in a pious Christian family and trained in the eclectic school of Alexandria, he was both a man of high spirituality and an outstanding scholar. He is said to have written 6000 books.93 This is surely an exaggeration, but enough of his writings survive to indicate how prodigious a worker he was.94 Je91 92 93

Irenaeus, Haer. 3.4.1 (ANF 1:417). Ibid. 3.4.2 (ANF 1:417). Jerome, Epist. 82.7 (NPNF2 6:173), writes that his opponent, John, bishop of Jerusalem, speaks about “the six thousand volumes of Origen,” a piece of information that he considers “falsehood.” 94 Jerome, Epist. 33.3‒4 (NPNF2 6:46), not only lauds Origen but also offers a list of his works (though part of the text is missing): “But why, you ask me, have I thus mentioned Varro and the man of brass? Simply to bring to your notice our Christian man of brass, or, rather, man of adamant (an allusion to the name of Origen, Adamantius) – Origen, I mean – whose zeal for the study of Scripture has fairly earned for him this latter name. Would you learn what monuments of his genius he has left us? The following list exhibits them. His writings comprise thirteen books on Genesis, two books of Mystical Homilies, notes on Exodus, notes on Leviticus, ... also single books, four books on First Principles, two books on the Resurrection, two dialogues on the same subject. So, you

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rome’s query, “Who has ever managed to read all that he has written?”95 is eloquent testimony to the volume of his theological work. The same Jerome says in the Preface to Translation of Origen on St. Luke: If the Lord grants me the opportunity to translate them (i.e., Origen’s treatises) into Latin, ... , you (i.e., Paula and Eustochium, his correspondents) will then be able to see – aye, and all who speak Latin will learn through you – how much good they knew not, and how much they have now begun to know. 96

As for the greatness of Origen’s life and work, it is enough to quote this wonderful summary of Jerome: Does anyone wish to praise Origen? Let him praise him as I do. From his childhood he was a great man, and truly a martyr’s son. At Alexandria he presided over the school of the church, succeeding a man of great learning, the presbyter Clement. So greatly did he abhor sensuality that, out of a zeal for God but yet one not according to knowledge (Rom 10:2), he castrated himself with a knife. Covetousness he trampled underfoot. He knew the Scriptures by heart and laboured hard day and night to explain their meaning. He delivered in church more than a thousand sermons, and published innumerable commentaries which he called tomes. These I now pass over, for it is not my purpose to catalogue his writings. Which of us can read all that he has written? And who can fail to admire his enthusiasm for the Scriptures?97

For Eusebius of Caesarea, Origen is “worthy in the highest degree of the honor.”98 If this testimony comes from somebody who was himself a heretic, numerous testimonies come from good Orthodox Fathers and express their great admiration for Origen while, at the same time, they clearly distance themselves from his heretical ideas. To these, we add this evaluation of a scholar of our own time: His critical judgment, creative energy and catholicity of knowledge are not equaled in any Christian thinker before Erasmus. Erasmus was his equal, no doubt, but the Renaissance scholar lacked Origen’s generosity of mind and affectionate disposition.99

6.1 Origen – a Liberal? Origen was surely, in many respects, a child of his time, and his theology in general was that of Church tradition. Nonetheless, here and there, he goes outside of this tradition and proposes interpretations and ideas which are different from this tradition. Future generations would identify some of

see, the labors of this one man have surpassed those of all previous writers, Greek and Latin.” 95 Ibid. 4 (NPNF2 6:46). 96 Jerome, Orig. Hom. Luc. (NPNF2 6:496). 97 Jerome, Epist. 34.8 (NPNF2 6:179). 98 Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.8.5 (NPNF2 1:255). 99 F. Gladstone Bratton, “Origen, the First Christian Liberal,” JBR 8 (1940): 137.

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these as heresies.100 Due to the liberties Origen takes in his thinking, he is considered by some to be “the first Christian liberal.”101 Such a characterization needs to be carefully nuanced, since Origen, surely the first Christian “scientific theologian,” was first of all a man of deep and genuine faith, and his theological work was clearly meant to be at the service of the Church. Jerome speaks of Origen’s “immortal genius,” and says that he understood dialectics, as well as geometry, arithmetic, music, grammar, and rhetoric, and taught all the schools of philosophers, in such wise that he had also diligent students in secular literature, and lectured to them daily, and the crowds which flocked to him were marvelous.

He adds, however, that Origen received all these students “in the hope that through the instrumentality of this secular literature, he might establish them in the faith of Christ.”102 Jerome is surely aware of the heretical points in Origen’s theology: For, while I have always allowed to Origen his great merit as an interpreter and critic of the Scriptures, I have invariably denied the truth of his doctrines. 103 Origen is a heretic, true, says Jerome, Still in many passages he has interpreted the Scriptures well, has explained obscure places in the prophets, and has brought to light very great mysteries, both in the Old and in the New Testament. 104

While he says that he has “praised the commentator but not the theologian, the man of intellect but not the believer, the philosopher but not the apostle,”105 Jerome is nonetheless convinced also of Origen’s great faith and commitment to the Church. Expressions of appreciation of Origen also exist in many of the great ancient Fathers of the Church who, in one way or another, felt indebted to him. What we can say for sure, therefore, is that by his liberality relative to the ideology and mentalities of his time, Origen was a “modern.” This characteristic is seen first of all in his exegetical writings. It is also worth

100 Especially in the context of the Christological controversies, during which the Arians claimed Origen for their party, the reaction against the great theologian of the third century became stronger and stronger, up to his official condemnation at the Fifth Ecumenical Synod in Constantinople (A.D. 553). 101 Bratton, “Origen” (n. 99), 137‒141. 102 Jerome, Vir. ill. 54 (NPNF2 3:374). 103 Jerome, Epist. 82.7 (NPNF2 6:173). 104 Jerome, Epist. 62.2 (NPNF2 6:133‒134). 105 Jerome, Epist. 84.2 (NPNF2 6:176).

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remembering that with his Hexapla, an assignment which consumed twenty-eight years,106 Origen is the forerunner of modern textual criticism. 6.2 Regarding Origen’s Main Writings Origen’s exegetical writings – commentaries, expository lectures, grammatical notes – cover both the Old and the New Testament. Little remains from his original Greek commentaries. Many of them are preserved in the Latin translations of Jerome and Rufinus. As an exegete, he is in many respects a true model for all later interpreters. His knowledge of Greek grammar and language was unsurpassed in his day. Among his New Testament commentaries, the most important are those on the Gospel of St. John, on St. Matthew, and on the Letter to the Romans. Origen’s chief dogmatic work is De principiis (“On the Fundamentals”), preserved in the Latin translation of Rufinus. This work represents a kind of philosophy of the Christian religion. His theology is Trinitarian, but by teaching that the Son is subordinated to the Father, he furnished a background for the Arian heresy in the next century. Regarding his anthropology, he mainly insists on human free will. Origen’s great apologetic work was Contra Celsum (“Against Celsus”). By A.D. 178, the pagan writer Celsus, in his anti-Christian work The True Discourse, restates all the arguments leveled at the Christians by the unbelieving Jews: that He was born in adultery and nurtured on the wisdom of Egypt; that His assertion of divine dignity is disproved by His poverty and His miserable end; that the Christians have no standing in the prophecies of the Hebrew Bible and their talk of a resurrection that was only revealed to some of their own adherents is foolishness; and so forth. Celsus’s work is lost, but much of it is preserved word-for-word in the pages of Origen’s refutation. Origen believed his opponent to be an Epicurean but to have adopted doctrines other than those of Epicurus, because he thought that by doing so he could better assail Christianity.107 This writing, belonging to the last years of Origen’s life and consisting of eight books, has always been regarded as the great apologetic work of antiquity. One might assume that Origen would gather an impressive number of historical arguments in order to prove that the traditional Christian portrait of Jesus is the true one, as opposed to the portrait Celsus proposes. This is not the case, however, because Origen’s argument is made not from the historical perspective but from one that is essentially biblical and theological. 106

The Hexapla was known and used by Eusebius and Jerome. The original document was probably lost in the destruction of Caesarea by the Arabs in A.D. 653. 107 Origen, Cels. 1.8 (ANF 4:399).

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Already in his Preface to this work, Origen explains how he thinks the falsifications of Celsus should be answered: When false witnesses testified against our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, He remained silent; and when unfounded charges were brought against Him, He returned no answer, believing that His whole life and conduct among the Jews were a better refutation than any answer to the false testimony, or than any formal defence against the accusations. And I know not, my pious Ambrosius,108 why you wished me to write a reply to the false charges brought by Celsus against the Christians, and to his accusations directed against the faith of the Churches in his treatise; as if the facts themselves did not furnish a manifest refutation, and the doctrine a better answer than any writing, seeing it both disposes of the false statements, and does not leave to the accusations any credibility or validity. Now, with respect to our Lord’s silence when false witness was borne against Him, it is sufficient at present to quote the words of Matthew, for the testimony of Mark is to the same effect. 109

He continues by quoting from Matt 26 and 27 the texts about the silence of Jesus in front of His accusers in the Sanhedrin or in front of Pontius Pilate. 6.3 Origen’s avant la lettre “Source Criticism” From the quotation above it seems that Origen takes for granted the information in the Gospels, with no real interest in the “history” of Jesus. Nonetheless, in his theological work, Origen allows an important place for human rationality or “understanding.” Origen discards everything that could not be reconciled with reason. His rationalism stands in contrast to the blind belief of Tertullian (“I believe it because it is absurd”) or the authoritarianism of Augustine (“I would not believe the Gospel if the authority of the Catholic Church did not compel me”). Origen’s anticipation of modern liberal study is particularly evident in his biblical criticism. Time and again, in his writings, Origen dismisses the literal meaning of Scripture. On the record of the creation in Genesis, for example, he says in De Principiis (4.1.16): For who that has understanding will suppose that the first, and second, and third day, and the evening and the morning, existed without a sun, and moon, and stars? And that the first day was, as it were, also without a sky? And who is so foolish as to suppose that God, after the manner of a husbandman, planted a paradise in Eden, towards the east, and placed in it a tree of life, visible and palpable, so that one tasting of the fruit by the bodily teeth obtained life? And again, that one was a partaker of good and evil by masticating what was taken from the tree? And if God is said to walk in the paradise in the evening, and Adam to hide himself under a tree, I do not suppose that any one doubts that these

108 109

This work was undertaken at the special request of his friend Ambrosius. Origen, Cels. 1 (ANF 4:395).

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things figuratively indicate certain mysteries, the history having taken place in appearance, and not literally. 110

The same approach is made to some New Testament texts. After pointing to the “irrationalities” in some of the laws in the legislation of Moses, and the impossibility of their literal observance,111 Origen continues: And if we go to the Gospels and institute a similar examination, what would be more irrational than (to take literally the injunction), ‘Salute no man by the way’ (Luke 10:4), which simple persons think the Saviour enjoined on the apostles. The command, moreover, that the right cheek should be smitten, is most incredible, since everyone who strikes, unless he happens to have some bodily defect, smites the left cheek with his right hand.112

After other examples of this kind, he concludes: All these statements have been made by us, in order to show that the design of that divine power which gave us the sacred Scriptures is, that we should not receive what is presented by the letter alone (such things being sometimes not true in their literal acceptation, but absurd and impossible).113

Also, in his Commentary on the Gospel of John (10.2‒6), Origen calls attention to various discrepancies and contradictions in and between the Gospels.114 His approach is based on the conviction that the Gospel can be trusted only if the discrepancies between their various narratives are solved and that this can be done by using our rationality: The truth of these matters must lie in that which is seen by the mind. If the discrepancy between the Gospels is not solved, we must give up our trust in the Gospels, as being true and written by a divine spirit, or as records worthy of credence, for both these characters are held to belong to these works. Those who accept the four Gospels, and who do not consider that their apparent discrepancy is to be solved anagogically (by mystical interpretation), will have to clear up the difficulty, raised above, about the forty days of the temptation, a period for which no room can be found in any way in John’s narrative; and they will also have to tell us when it was that the Lord came to Capernaum. If it was after the six days of the period of His baptism, the sixth being that of the marriage at Cana of Galilee, then it is clear that the temptation never took place, and that He never was at Nazara, and that John was not yet delivered up. Now, after Capernaum, where He abode not many days, the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and He went up to Jerusalem, where He cast the sheep and oxen out of the temple, and poured out the small change of the bankers. In Jerusalem, too, it appears that Nicodemus, the ruler and Pharisee, first came to Him by night, and heard what we may read in the Gospel. ‘After these things, Jesus came, and His disciples, into the land of Judaea, and there He tarried with them and baptized, at the same time at which John also was baptizing in Aenon near Salim, be-

110 111 112 113 114

Origen, Princ. 4.1.16 (ANF 4:365). Ibid. 4.1.17 (ANF 4:366‒367). Ibid. 4.1.18 (ANF 4:367). Ibid. Origen, Comm. Jo. 10.2–6 (ANF 9:382‒385).

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cause there were many waters there, and they came and were baptized; for John was not yet cast into prison’ [John 3:22‒24]. On this occasion, too, there was a questioning on the part of John’s disciples with the Jews about purification, and they came to John, saying of the Saviour, ‘Behold, He baptizeth, and all come to Him’ [John 3:26b]. They had heard words from the Baptist, the exact tenor of which it is better to take from Scripture itself. Now, if we ask when Christ was first in Capernaum, our respondents, if they follow the words of Matthew, and of the other two, will say, after the temptation, when, ‘leaving Nazareth, He came and dwelt in Capernaum by the sea’ [Matt 4:13]. But how can they show both the statements to be true, that of Matthew and Mark, that it was because He heard that John was delivered up that He departed into Galilee, and that of John, found there, after a number of other transactions, subsequent to His stay at Capernaum, after His going to Jerusalem, and His journey from there to Judaea, that John was not yet cast into prison, but was baptizing in Aenon near Salim? 115

After identifying such discrepancies between the Synoptics and the Fourth Gospel, Origen continues: There are many other points on which the careful student of the Gospels will find that their narratives do not agree; and these we shall place before the reader, according to our power, as they occur. The student, staggered at the consideration of these things, will either renounce the attempt to find all the Gospels true, and not venturing to conclude that all our information about our Lord is untrustworthy, will choose at random one of them to be his guide; or he will accept the four, and will consider that their truth is not to be sought for in the outward and material letter.116

At first, one might be totally confused by seeing such discrepancies between the Gospels: He, then, who takes the writings of these men for history, or for a representation of real things by a historical image, and who supposes God to be within certain limits in space, and to be unable to present to several persons in different places several visions of Himself at the same time, or to be making several speeches at the same moment, he will deem it impossible that our four writers are all speaking truth. To him it is impossible that God, who is in certain limits in space, could at the same set time be saying one thing to one man and another to another, and that He should be doing a thing and the opposite thing as well, and, to put it bluntly, that He should be both sitting and standing, should one of the writers represent Him as standing at the time, and making a certain speech in such a place to such a man, while a second writer speaks of Him as sitting. 117

Origen tries to explain the discrepancies in the accounts of the four Gospels by “the intention of the Evangelists,” and by “the difference in thought” and perception between Jesus’ different disciples who became witnesses of what the Lord did and said.118

115 116 117 118

Ibid. 10.2 (ANF 9:382). Ibid. Ibid. 10.3 (ANF 9:383). Ibid. (ANF 9:382‒383).

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6.4 The Miracles Relegated to a Secondary Place The miraculous cures are, for Origen, to be relegated to a secondary place, as they are not enough proof of divinity. 119 Asclepius is also said to have performed miracles. The same is true of prophetic knowledge; it is attributed also to Apollo (the Pythian oracle). These are not proofs of divinity by themselves. Moreover, the miracle workers and the possessors of foreknowledge are not always people of virtue.120 The situation is different, however, in the case of Jesus’ miracles and the power He gives to His followers to perform miracles: While we (in opposition to the accounts of pagan miracles), if we deem this a matter of importance, can clearly show a countless multitude of Greeks and Barbarians who acknowledge the existence of Jesus. And some give evidence of their having received through this faith a marvellous power by the cures which they perform, invoking no other name over those who need their help than that of the God of all things, and of Jesus, along with a mention of His history. For by these means we too have seen many persons freed from grievous calamities, and from distractions of mind, and madness, and countless other ills, which could be cured neither by men nor devils. 121

The purpose is also important. In the case of the miracles of Jesus, “God desired to commend the doctrine of Jesus as a doctrine which was to save mankind.”122 As for Jesus’ miracles and the miracles performed by His followers, they are always for the benefit of the human race. Furthermore, the Gospels present Jesus both in His divinity and in His humanity and, thereby, call human beings (those who are believers) to rise to be divine: But both Jesus Himself and His disciples desired that His followers should believe not merely in His Godhead and miracles, as if He had not also been a partaker of human nature, and had assumed the human flesh which ‘lusteth against the Spirit’ [Gal 5:17]; but they saw also that the power which had descended into human nature, and into the midst of human miseries, and which had assumed a human soul and body, contributed through faith, along with its divine elements, to the salvation of believers, when they see that from Him there began the union of the divine with the human nature, in order that the human, by communion with the divine, might rise to be divine, not in Jesus alone, but in all those who not only believe, but enter upon the life which Jesus taught, and which elevates to friendship with God and communion with Him every one who lives according to the precepts of Jesus. 123

These few examples from Origen show us that Origen, in all his “scientific” research, remains a theologian and witness to the tradition of his Church. Even if he identifies the discrepancies and contradictions in the 119 120 121 122 123

Origen, Cels. 3.25 (ANF 4:473). Ibid. Ibid. 3.24 (ANF 4:473). Ibid. 3:28 (ANF 4:475). Ibid.

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Bible as a problem for the exegete, he is far from responding to this problem in the way modern critics do.

7 Eusebius of Caesarea (ca. 263‒339) Eusebius of Caesarea, known as the Father of Church History, “was one of the first authors in antiquity with no claim of other first hand witness or oral tradition to write an account of the life of Jesus.”124 What we find on this topic in Eusebius of Caesarea, especially in the first book of his Church (or Ecclesiastical) History,125 is worthy of examination. The extrabiblical information he collects, mainly in the first book of his History, on Jesus, Jesus’ family, His apostles, the Gospels and their authors, and so forth, is of much interest for the historian, even if Eusebius has found severe critics of his historical reliability. In any case, what Eusebius’s historiography clearly teaches us is that the historical Jesus cannot be reconstructed from extra-scriptural testimony alone, for the true nature of Christ can be comprehended only through divine revelation.126 Nevertheless, Eusebius appeals to extra-canonical evidence in order to confirm the factual accuracy of the Gospel accounts, something which is of interest for Jesus’ history. How reliable is the history of Eusebius as a font of historical facts? Scholarly estimations vary widely. His historical reliability has been severely criticized, and he has been accused of suppressing facts, of negligence, and of falsehood due to his apologetic purposes127 or to the influence of his patron, Emperor Constantine the Great.128 Some offer more moderate judgments,129 or even recognize Eusebius as a serious historian.130 124 J. Armstrong, “Eusebius’s Quest for the Historical Jesus: Historicity and Kerygma in the First Book of the Ecclesiastical History,” Them 32 (2006): 44‒45. 125 See ibid., 44‒56. 126 “I think then,” Eusebius, Dem ev. 3.5 (The Proof of the Gospel, [vol. 1; trans. W. J. Ferrar; New York, 1929; repr., Grand Rapids, 1981], 140‒141), confesses, “that it has been well said: ‘One must put complete confidence in the disciples of Jesus, or none at all.’” 127 For R. Grant, “Eusebius and His Church History,” in Understanding the Sacred Text: Essays in Honor of Mort. Enslin (ed. J. Reumann; Valley Forge 1972), 235, “it seems highly probable that under the influence of his apologetic purposes Eusebius suppressed, neglected, or falsified a good deal of the historical information available to him.” 128 “Pro-Constantinian bias is responsible for much of Eusebius’ falsification of facts” (R. Grant, “The Case against Eusebius: or Did the Father of Church History Write History?,” in StPatr 12 [1975]: 416). 129 The same R. Grant writes a few years after the judgment quoted above (cf. Grant, “Eusebius” [n. 127], 127): “And whether or not one agrees with every detail of the por-

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The history of Jesus in Eusebius is clearly dependent on his theology. His account of the life of Jesus is introduced by a theological prolegomenon, with clear echoes of his classic apologetic motifs in Preparation for the Gospel and The Proof of the Gospel.131 For Eusebius, the prehistory of Christianity is the history of the mysterious activity of the pre-incarnate Christ. Eusebius’s presupposition in writing Jesus’ history is clearly that of His preexistence and divinity: “My work will begin, as I have said, with the dispensation of the Saviour Christ – which is loftier and greater than human conception –, and with a discussion of His divinity.”132 The next chapter (II) of the first book, in the edition I quote, has this title: Summary View of the Pre-Existence and Divinity of Our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ.133 In Christ, says Eusebius, “there is a twofold nature”: the divine one “resembles the head of the body,” while the human nature “may be compared with the feet, in so far as He, for the sake of our salvation, put on the human nature with the same passions as our own.”134 “After his thoroughgoing theological prolegomenon,” writes Jonathan Armstrong, “one would assume that Eusebius’s portrait of Jesus would be nothing but an uncritical recitation of the Gospel tradition. It is therefore surprising to discover that he does not mention any of the miracles of Jesus, the crucifixion, or the resurrection except in citation from extrabiblical sources.135 Eusebius indeed affirms the essentials of the apostolic preaching, but never from the Gospel alone. In this way he evidences an trait of Eusebius that begins to emerge, it is at least a picture of a human being, neither a saint nor intentionally a scoundrel” (R. Grant, Eusebius as Church Historian [Oxford, 1980], 164). 130 So, for example, T.D. Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius (Cambridge 1981), 104, addressing the accusation that Eusebius wrote from the standpoint of a religio-political apologist, states, “He did not compose his major works under the influence of Constantine, nor was he primarily an apologist who wrote to defend the Christian faith at a time of danger. As Eusebius grew to manhood, the peaceful triumph of Christianity seemed already assured. Eusebius began as a scholar, made himself into a historian, and turned to apologetics only under the pressure of circumstances.” Barnes defends the integrity of Eusebius as a historian and says that the alleged contradictions in his Ecclesiastical History are inauthentic. 131 For the apologetic method and motifs of Eusebius, see, for example, E.V. Gallagher, “Eusebius the Apologist: The Evidence of the Preparation and the Proof,” StPatr 26 (1993). 132 Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 1.1.8 (NPNF2 1:82). 133 Ibid. 134 Ibid. 2.2.1 (NPNF2 1:82). 135 In Book I, the miracles of Jesus, His crucifixion, and resurrection are mentioned in two passages, once in a quotation of the Testimonium Flavianum (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 1.11.7‒8 (NPNF2 1:98) and once in a quotation from the correspondence of Jesus and Abgarus, the prince of Edessa (ibid., 1.18.19 [NPNF2 1:102]).

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acute awareness of the religious persuasion of the authors whose works he incorporates into his reconstruction of the life of Jesus.”136 Eusebius cites St. Luke as being “among our writers,”137 but in his treatment of episodes of Jesus’ life, he also draws from Julius Africanus (whom he presents as “no common writer,”138 i.e., “no ordinary historian”), from the supposed correspondence of Jesus with King Abgarus,139 and extensively from Flavius Josephus, who proves to be Eusebius’s principal source.140 Information from the Gospels, however, has the weightiest authority, and Eusebius feels compelled to force the information coming from Josephus to fit even if it differs from the Gospel account. For example, in his narrative of the birth of Christ, Eusebius positions the account chronologically by claiming that the census under Quirinius was administered during the same year as Jesus’ birth, in accordance with St. Luke’s story (2:1–2).141 In the infancy narrative, Eusebius quotes the testimony of Josephus in order to confirm the Gospel accounts. Relying chiefly on Matthew, Eusebius retells the story of Jesus’ birth, the visit of the Magi, and the flight to Egypt in a single paragraph;142 he then gives details concerning the horrific death of Herod the Great as presented by Josephus,143 but with his own comments which remind the reader that Herod had provoked the divine judgment in his desperate attempt to exterminate the infant Christ.144 Eusebius’s usual method of determine the chronology of the public ministry of Christ is worth mentioning. Following St. Luke, Eusebius deter136 137 138

Armstrong, “Quest” (n. 124), 48‒49. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 1.5.3 (NPNF2 1:89). Ibid. 1.6.2 (NPNF2 1:89). Eusebius uses information coming from Africanus while treating the discrepancies between the Matthean and Lukan genealogies (ibid. 1.7.2‒16 [NPNF2 1:91‒94]; cf. ibid. 1.6.2 [NPNF2 1:89]). 139 Ibid. 13.6‒20 (NPNF2 1:100‒102). 140 Eusebius copies almost ten times more material from the Antiquities of the Jews and the Jewish War than from the Bible. “In the Loeb Classical Library edition of The Ecclesiastical History, translated by Lake and Oulton, counting from the commencement of the main narrative (1.5.1) until the conclusion of the life of Jesus (1.13.22), Eusebius quotes a total of 126 Greek words from Scripture and 1092 from Josephus” (Armstrong, “Quest” [n. 124], 49, n. 18). 141 Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 1.5.2 (NPNF2 1: 88). 142 Ibid. 1.8.2 (NPNF2 1:94). 143 Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 1.8.5‒8 and 9‒15 (NPNF2 1:94‒95), copies both of Josephus’s parallel passages on Herod’s death, that from the Jewish Antiquities (17.168‒170) and that from the Jewish War (1.656‒660, 662f.). 144 “This section of Eusebius’s history is disproportionately focused upon incidental evidence drawn from Josephus, for the chapter is almost entirely consumed with Herod’s wasting disease and eventual demise. Eusebius’s insistence on incorporating every possible collaborating text from Josephus nearly overwhelms the advancement of his own narrative” (Armstrong, “Quest” (n. 124), 50‒51).

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mines that the baptism of Jesus occurred approximately fifteen years after Tiberius had become Caesar. He interprets Luke 3:2, according to which St. John the Baptist began his ministry “in the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas,” as indicating that Jesus commenced preaching while Annas was high priest and that He was crucified during the high priesthood of Caiaphas.145 For this strange understanding, he again seeks confirmation from Josephus: he enumerates the four high priests who functioned in office after Annas and before Caiaphas, and convinced that the high priest’s term expired annually, he estimates that the ministry of Jesus was extended over a period of four years.146 Eusebius underlines the accuracy of Josephus’s testimony on St. John the Baptist.147 It is possible that the way Josephus writes on the controversial (for the Jews) figure of St. John the Baptist gives to Eusebius confidence that the same Josephus could indeed offer positive witness to Jesus. Eusebius is the first author in antiquity who quotes the Testimonium Flavianum (Antiquities, XVIII,63f).148 He also quotes this passage in two other writings, both times in contexts where, like in this chapter of the Church History, he is defending the historicity of the Gospels.149 For Eusebius,

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 1.10.1‒2 (NPNF2 1:96‒97). Ibid. 1.10.4‒6 (NPNF2 1:97). 147 Ibid. 1.11.3 (NPNF2 1:97‒98). 148 Ibid. 1.11.7‒8 (NPNF2 1:98): “After relating these things concerning John, he makes mention of our Saviour in the same work, in the following words: ‘And there lived at that time Jesus, a wise man, if indeed it be proper to call him a man. For he was a doer of wonderful works, and a teacher of such men as receive the truth in gladness. And he attached to himself many of the Jews, and many also of the Greeks. He was the Christ. When Pilate, on the accusation of our principal men, condemned him to the cross, those who had loved him in the beginning did not cease loving him. For he appeared unto them again alive on the third day, the divine prophets having told these and countless other wonderful things concerning him. Moreover, the race of Christians, named after him, continues down to the present day.’” 149 Eusebius, Dem. Ev. 3.5 (PG 22:333–409); Theoph. 5.44 (PG 24:628) (cf. Armstrong “Quest” [n. 124], 52, n. 30). No author after Eusebius will mention the Testimonium Flavianum up to Jerome, in his Vir. ill. 13.5 [NPNF2 3:366], a work composed almost a century later and which derives much of its information from Eusebius. Some scholars think that this passage in Josephus’s Antiquities was interpolated entirely by Eusebius or by another Christian author (for example K.A. Olson, “Eusebius and the Testimonium Flavianum,” CBQ 61 [1999]: 322) or that he or another Christian writer intervened with minor interpolations in an essentially authentic text (for example J.P. Meier, “Jesus in Josephus: A Modest Proposal,” CBQ 52 [1990]: 90; see also N.T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God [Minneapolis, 1992], 354; N.T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God [Minneapolis, 1996], 439). There are also scholars who defend Eusebius’s scholarly integrity, based mainly on the very fact that he quotes this passage from Josephus not only once but three times; it is unbelievable that somebody would treat in such a 145 146

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Josephus’s information on John the Baptist and the Testimonium are of great value, for written by a Jewish historian, they objectively confirm the correctness of the Gospel narratives: Since an historian, who is one of the Hebrews themselves, has recorded in his work these things concerning John the Baptist and our Saviour, what excuse is there left for not convicting them of being destitute of all shame, who have forged the acts against them? 150

Josephus is for Eusebius not so much an independent source – for, in his view, the apostolic kerygma was sufficient to prove the truth of the Gospel – but merely a confirmatory voice for the witness of the apostles. In his reasoning, the disciples would not die for an unambiguous lie.151 The “forged acts” are the spurious Acts (or Memoranda) of Pilate, antagonistic to Christ and to the Church, the work of imperial, anti-Christian propaganda, which has already been discussed in this paper. “It appears, in fact, that the Acts of Pilate was precisely the counter-tradition against which Eusebius positioned his reconstruction of the life of Jesus.”152 Eusebius discovered in these Acts the incorrect information that Pilate became prefect over Judea in the seventh year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius (and not in the twelfth, as Josephus records), and on this basis he immediately dismisses the Acts as a blatant and vicious forgery.153 In his Church History, Eusebius actually recounts little of the Gospel material on Jesus’ life. Nothing is said, for example, about His virgin birth, His burial in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, or on the circumstances or the nature of His miracles. He does, however, expound upon the historical

way his own fraud (J.M. Wallace-Hadrill, “Eusebius of Caesarea and the Testimonium Flavianum [Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, XVIII, 63f.],” JEH 25 [1974]: 361‒362). 150 Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 1.11.9 (NPNF2 1:98). 151 Eusebius, Dem. ev., 3.5 (PG 22:333–409). 152 Armstrong, “Quest” (n. 124), 54. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 9.5.1 (NPNF2 1:359) comments on those spurious Acts of Pilate: “Having therefore forged Acts of Pilate and our Saviour full of every kind of blasphemy against Christ, they sent them with the emperor’s approval to the whole of the empire subject to him, with written commands that they should be openly posted to the view of all in every place, both in country and city, and that the schoolmasters should give them to their scholars, instead of their customary lessons, to be studied and learned by heart.” 153 Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 1.9.2‒3 (NPNF2 1:98): “Accordingly the forgery of those who have recently given currency to acts against our Saviour is clearly proved. For the very date given in them shows the falsehood of their fabricators. For the things which they have dared to say concerning the passion of the Saviour are put into the fourth consulship of Tiberius, which occurred in the seventh year of his reign; at which time it is plain that Pilate was not yet ruling in Judea, if the testimony of Josephus is to be believed, who clearly shows in the above-mentioned work that Pilate was made procurator of Judea by Tiberius in the twelfth year of his reign.”

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veracity and the theological significance of Jesus’ miracles in the Demonstratio Evangelica and in the Theophania.154 For Eusebius, any attempt to reconstruct the portrait of Jesus, the true spirit of His personality and work, apart from the interpreted tradition of the Gospels is ultimately futile.155 “One must put complete confidence in the disciples of Jesus, or none at all,” he says,156 and he adds, “And if we are to distrust these men, we must distrust all writers.”157 ♦ The economy of a conference paper requires that we bring our discussion to a rather abrupt close. The exploration of later Church Fathers’ approach to Jesus’ history would surely be of much interest. Although their attention focuses on Christology from the perspective of dogmatics, they also try to describe as precisely as possible Jesus’ humanity, which also includes His history. This research, we hope, will be continued in the near future.

154 Eusebius, Dem. ev. 3.4‒5 (PG 22:247–409); Theoph. 5.41‒45 (PG 24:624–628). In both these texts, Eusebius draws his argument for the miracles of Jesus to a climax with the quotation of the Testimonium Flavianum (Dem. ev. 3.5 [PG 22:333–409]; Theoph. 5.44 [PG 24:628]). Cf. Armstrong, “Quest” (n. 124), 55. 155 Ibid., 56. 156 Eusebius, Dem. ev. 3.5 (PG 22:333–409); cf. Armstrong, “Quest” (n. 124), 56. 157 Ibid.; cf. n. 41.

Jesus in the View of Luke EKATERINI G. TSALAMPOUNI

1 Introduction In a short but very informative article presenting the major trends and contours in Lukan studies during the second half of the previous century, W. C. van Unnik concluded that Luke’s writings (the third gospel and the Acts of the Apostles) had become “a storm center” and predicted that they would remain so for a long time.1 The great bulk of dissertations, monographs, and articles published during the second half of the twentieth century and in the first decade of the twenty-first can easily confirm the validity of van Unnik’s perceptive remark. These new approaches actually challenged the previous consensus regarding Luke-Acts and highlighted the complex and fascinating nature of the Lukan narrative. One of the major issues in this phase of the research has been the theological message and purpose of Luke’s writings. While in the period prior to the first half of the twentieth century the emphasis had been laid on the historical value of Luke’s writings (especially Acts) as well as on their apologetic character, the emergence of redaction-criticism and the application of this method to Luke-Acts brought out its theological significance and purpose. Redaction-criticism led to the conclusion that the evangelists should no longer be regarded as compilers of previous material but as theologians in their own right who creatively selected, adapted, and interpreted their sources following their own distinctive theological schemes and programs. Therefore, Luke could not be regarded as a mere historian simply set in the context of ancient historiography, but rather must be approached either as a theologian or, from the more moderate perspective advocated by I. H. Marshall,2 as both a theologian and a historian. The present paper also adopts this latter position, namely, that Luke was not interested in “record1 W.C. van Unnik, “Luke-Acts: A Storm Center in Contemporary Scholarship,” in Studies in Luke-Acts: Essays Presented in Honor of Paul Schubert (ed. L.E. Keck et al.; London, 1968), 15‒32, esp. 29. 2 I.H. Marshall, Luke: Historian and Theologian (3d ed.; Exeter, 1988).

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ing the history for its own sake,” but rather “in indicating its significance as the means of salvation”3 and in basing his theological message about Jesus on history. Within scholarly discussion, Jesus and the way he was perceived and presented by Luke occupied a prominent place. This particular aspect of Lukan theology will be the subject of the present paper as well.

2 Some Methodological Considerations One important issue that determines the nature and the extent of any analysis of the theological message and program of Luke’s work is that of the possible unity of the Gospel and Acts. It has been a matter of a longestablished consensus that there is continuity and cohesion between these two New Testament texts.4 Despite the fact that this consensus has been challenged by Mikeal C. Parsons and Richard I. Pervo,5 the scholarly conviction of Luke-Acts’ unity remains in the main unshaken.6 However, Parsons and Pervo were right in pointing out, first, that the question of unity is closely related to the issue of Lukan theology and, second, that the extent and the nature of this unity should be investigated and not taken for granted.7 Any thorough analysis of the problem, however, is beyond the scope 3 4

Ibid., 19. This unity has been firmly established especially since Henry Cadbury’s study, The Formation of Luke-Acts (London, 1927). However, the certainty that both works were written by the same author had already been expressed by many early Christian authors, e.g., by Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and the author of the Muratorian Fragment. For a different assessment of the patristic evidence, though, see A. Gregory, The Reception of Luke and Acts in the Period Before Irenaeus (WUNT 2/169; Tübingen, 2003), esp. 352– 54. Marshall, Luke: Historian (n. 2), 157, presents four models that deal with the relationship between Luke and Acts. Cf. also the beautiful comparison proposed by M.D. Hooker, Endings: Invitations to Discipleship (London, 2003), 52: “For Luke, however, his two books were rather like one of those continental trams, made up of two carriages, separate and yet firmly linked together, with both carriages heading inextricably for the same destination.” 5 M.C. Parsons and R.I. Pervo, Rethinking the Unity of Luke and Acts (Minneapolis, 1993). 6 For the reactions of the scholarly community and the implications that the debate could have on Lukan studies and esp. on the study of Lukan theology, see M.F. Bird, “The Unity of Luke-Acts in Recent Discussion,” JSNT 29 (2007): 425‒48. See also P. Walters, The Assumed Authorial Unity of Luke and Acts: A Reassessment of the Evidence (SNTSMS 145; Cambridge, 2009), for the most recent dispute of the single authorship of Luke’s Gospel and Acts on stylistic grounds. 7 See, however, the critique of their position by J. Verheyden, “The Unity of LukeActs: What Are We Up To?,” in The Unity of Luke-Acts, (ed. J. Verheyden; BETL 142; Leuven, 1999), 3–56.

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of this presentation. Following, therefore, the cautious remarks of Ben Witherington8 and the general consensus,9 a methodological presupposition of this paper is the narrative, theological, and authorial unity of Luke’s gospel and Acts. Furthermore, in the present essay, the “typological reading” of LukeActs, as it was developed by the recently deceased Michael Goulder, is adopted as a further elaboration of the above-mentioned presupposition. According to this understanding of the connection between the two texts, the events of Jesus’s life narrated in the Gospel are types of the future events described in Acts and of the life of the community that is the recipient of Luke’s work.10 As will be shown later in this paper, this particular conception of the unity of Luke-Acts has important theological implications for the relationship between the two books and for the role of Jesus in both of them. In current research on Lukan Christology, different major trends can be discerned. The interest is either focused on a discussion of the individual Christological titles or on an analysis of the overall structure of the Lukan picture of Jesus. Scholarly attention has also been gradually shifting from a diachronic redactional approach to a more synchronic, literary one. 11 Building on the conclusions of this research, this paper will focus, for practical reasons, primarily on the evidence from the Gospel, although there will be some brief references to the book of Acts. This paper a) will present the major Christological themes and ideas of the third gospel, b) will search for a possible interconnection between them within the narrative and theological structure of the Gospel, and c) will discuss the role of Jesus within the overall theological scheme of the Gospel.

8 According to B. Witherington III, The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary, (Grand Rapids, 1998), 5: “We must be careful when we use the terminology Luke–Acts to make clear what sort of unity we have in mind by this term. Does the term Luke–Acts refer to authorial or compositional or narrative or generic or theological or thematic unity or several of these sorts of unity all at once?” 9 Esp. R.C. Tannehill, The Gospel According to Luke (vol. 1 of The Narrative Unity of Luke-Acts: A Literary Interpretation; Philadelphia, 1986). 10 M.D. Goulder, Type and History in Acts (London, 1964), 1‒2 and esp. 34: “Αcts is not straightforward history but typological history, the life of Jesus providing the types of the life of the Church. All of the life of Jesus is matter typical of his Church’s history.” 11 F. Bovon, Luke the Theologian: Fifty-five Years of Research (1950‒2005) (2d ed.; Waco, 2005), 481–82.

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3 Studies on the Christology of Luke’s Gospel: An Overview The significance of the third gospel’s message about Jesus seems to have been acknowledged in the ancient Church. It can be no coincidence that Cyril of Alexandria, an active participant in the Christological debates of the fifth century, interpreted Luke’s Gospel Christologically and found in it evidence that supported his arguments against his opponents.12 Although Cyril’s interpretations may admittedly appear somewhat arbitrary from our modern historical-critical perspective, his remarks regarding Luke’s implicit or explicit statements about Jesus seem to be to the point. However, Luke’s testimony about Jesus did not always play a prominent role in the scholarly discussion of early Church Christology. Until 1950, it was rather Acts that was regarded by scholars as a faithful reproduction of the primitive Christology of the early Church going back to the eyewitnesses, while the testimony of the gospel was treated with suspicion and was thought to be the product of the gospel writer’s elaborate theological redaction of the source material he had at his disposal.13 The work, however, of some advocates of redaction-criticism (e.g., of Philipp Vielhauer,14 Martin Dibelius,15 or Ernst Haenchen) led to the conclusion that the material found in Acts (and especially that of the speeches) had also undergone a complete editing by the writer and that it reflected a situation later than that of the apostles.16 Admittedly, the dissertation of Hans Conzelmann was a milestone in the studies of Lukan Christology in the twentieth century.17 According to him, the main concern of Luke was the delay of the parousia, which led him to a reinterpretation of Jesus’s teaching and life; Luke shifted the parousia and the manifestation of God’s Kingdom to the future, while at the same time he emphasized the role of the Church in the present and its place within the history of salvation. For Conzelmann, Luke placed theological emphasis 12 13 14

Cyrill of Alexandria, Commentary on Luke (in catenas) (PG 72: 476‒949). F. Bovon, Luke the Theologian (n. 11), 139. Ph. Vielhauer, “Zum Paulinismus der Apostelgeschichte,” EvT 10 (1950–1951):

1–15. 15 M. Dibelius, Die Reden der Apostelgeschichte und die antike Geschichtsschreibung (SHAW.PH 1; Heidelberg, 1949). 16 See, for example, E. Haenchen’s remark in idem, Die Apostelgeschichte neu übersetzt und erklärt (KEK; Göttingen, 1956), 81–82: “Man hat Lukas gelegentlich gelobt, weil er die primitive Theologie der christlichen Anfangszeiten so treu darzustellen vermocht habe. Aber es ist seine eigene schlichte Theologie (die er mit seiner Gemeinde teilte), welche er überall voraussetzt und die man aus den Predigten, Gebeten, liturgischen Wendungen und gelegentlichen Bemerkungen in der Apg entnehmen muss.” 17 H. Conzelmann, Die Mitte der Zeit: Studien zur Theologie des Lukas (3d ed.; Tübingen, 1960).

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on God’s plan of salvation, and Jesus’s role should be understood from this standpoint.18 Conzelmann divided history into three parts: a) the age of Israel, the Law, and the prophets; b) the age of Jesus, and c) the age of the Church and the Spirit. In this tripartite concept of history, Jesus occupied the central place (die Mitte der Zeit). In Conzelmann’s view, however, the main person in this history remains God and not Jesus, who actually acts as his instrument and is subordinate to God.19 Jesus’s earthly ministry is perceived within its historical context, and it is the memory of his works and words and the presence of the Holy Spirit that constitute the community and guarantee its existence.20 In the age of the Church, Jesus remains present as “der Lebendige im Himmel” and “der Vergangene durch das Bild, das man in der Tradition über ihn besitzt” (“as the one who is alive in Heaven and as the departed one through the picture that one has of him in the tradition”).21 Conzelmann’s ideas decisively influenced the development of Lukan studies and triggered a fruitful discussion that continues. Although his tripartite division of salvation history and his attributing to Jesus a mediatorial and secondary role in this history has been criticized, his major theses and especially his identification of salvation as the main theological concern of Luke have been accepted and have become undisputed points of reference in the study of Lukan theology. Those who criticized Conzelmann’s salvation-history model argued, however, that Luke was eager to bear witness to salvation itself ‒ not to salvation-history ‒ as it was revealed by Jesus and proclaimed by the Church.22 Additionally, Jesus was not just a minor character in this salvation drama but the protagonist and bringer of salvation (σωτήρ) who is present and active in this role both in the Gospel and in Acts.23 Jesus’s redemptive role and his designation as Savior has been the subject of the studies by Arland J. Hultgren24 and Gerhard Voss.25 A.J. Hult18 19

Ibid., 158. Ibid., 162–66. The idea of Jesus’s subordination is further developed by E. Kränkl, Jesus der Knecht Gottes: Die heilsgeschichtliche Stellung Jesu in den Reden der Apostelgeschichte (BU 8; Regensburg, 1972). 20 Conzelmann, Mitte der Zeit (n. 17), 174: “Die Existenz der Gemeinde ist nach dieser Auffassung nicht nur durch die Taten des Geistes konstituiert, sondern auch durch die geschichtlichen Taten Jesu zu Lebzeiten und seine Worte.” 21 Ibid. 22 W.C. Unnik, “The ‘Book of Acts’ – The Confirmation of the Gospel,” NovT 4 (1960): 26‒59, here 53; Marshall, Luke: Historian (n. 2), 19, 85‒86. 23 See, for example, E. Lohse, “Lukas als Theologe der Heilsgeschichte,” in Die Einheit des Neuen Testaments (GTA 26; Göttingen, 1973), 159‒164. 24 A.J. Hultgren, Christ and His Benefits: Christology and Redemption in the New Testament (Philadelphia, 1987).

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gren introduced the term “redemptive Christology” in order to describe Luke’s main theological concern, which is the realization of God’s redemptive plan in Jesus’s person and work. He rejected Conzelmann’s distinction between the age of Jesus and that of the Church, because he saw Jesus performing his salvific work both in his earthly ministry in the Gospel and in his exaltation in Acts. Hultgren also moderated the redemptive importance of the cross; it is not the decisive act of atonement but only one necessary event among others, namely, Jesus’s passion, death, resurrection, and ascension.26 The main purpose of Jesus’s life is not therefore the cross but his glorification and the fulfillment of the Scriptures. Like Hultgren, G. Voss, too, rejected the idea of Jesus’s subordination and stressed his divine sonship. Moving to more dogmatic grounds, he also argued that Luke underlined Jesus’s humanity against docetism, and at the same time, he found evidence in the gospel that attested to the two natures of Christ. Through an analysis of the terms “σωτὴρ” and “κύριος” ‒ both ascribed to Jesus by Luke ‒ Voss concluded that Jesus acted as a messenger of the unique God and as savior in place of his Father.27 Voss also argued that redemption is an ontological reality and gives expression to one’s commitment to Jesus. Joel B. Green also discussed the redemptive role of Jesus, which he related to Isaiah’s servant of Yahweh.28 In fact, he argued that the idea of Jesus’s servanthood permeates Luke’s work and is especially apparent in Jesus’s death and exaltation. Acting as a faithful and obedient servant, Jesus accomplished God’s plan by offering himself on the cross, and because of this obedience, he was exalted by God and made salvation available to all people. Along the same lines, Frieder Schütz connected Luke’s Christological message to Jesus’s suffering, which he regarded as an important part of God’s plan, and spoke of a Lukan “Christology of the cross.”29 He explained that Luke’s emphasis on Jesus’s suffering is an indication that his own community was facing opposition and persecution (probably by the Jews) and that Luke tried to comfort them by stressing the place of Jesus’s cross and suffering within the history of salvation and by pointing out how 25

G. Voss, Die Christologie der lukanischen Schriften in Grundzügen (SNT 2; Paris

1965). 26 The same idea can also be found in G. Schneider, Verleugnung, Verspottung und Verhör Jesu nach Lukas 22, 54–71: Studien zur lukanischen Darstellung der Passion (SANT 22; Munich 1969), 174–76. 27 Voss, Christologie (n. 25), 60. 28 J.B. Green, “The Death of Jesus, God’s Servant,” in: Reimaging the Death of the Lukan Jesus (ed. D.D. Sylva; BBB 73; Stuttgart, 1990), 1‒28, 170‒73. 29 F. Schütz, Der leidende Christus: Die angefochtene Gemeinde und das Christuskerygma der lukanischen Schriften (BWA[N]T 5/9; Stuttgart, 1969).

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their situation was analogous to his. Like Hultgren and Green, however, Schütz pointed out that the cross is only a step – though an important one ‒ that leads to exaltation. In the model of Schütz, the concept of Jesus as Savior fades away while at the same time the exemplary significance of Jesus’s life and work is underlined.30 For Geoffrey W.H. Lampe, too, Jesus’s role as an example for the community was the main theological concern of Luke.31 In his twovolume work, Luke tried to demonstrate the close bond between Jesus and his Church, which is established through the Holy Spirit and the name of Jesus. According to Lampe, the Gospel presents those facts of Jesus’s life that could help his followers to imitate him, a concept that is further developed in Acts. Other scholars attempted to locate in Luke’s presentation of Jesus one particular theological leitmotif, which occupies a prominent position and somehow overshadows all other Christological motifs that are present in Luke’s narrative. For David P. Moessner, for example, Jesus ‒ especially in Luke’s travel narrative ‒ is paralleled with Moses as he is depicted in Deuteronomy, that is, as the rejected messenger of God.32 Moessner interpreted the Lukan Jesus typologically and looked for common elements between him and Moses in the transfiguration pericope as well as in the speech of Stephen in Acts. Like Moses, Jesus is the messenger of God who will lead Israel to the promised salvation and will be rejected by them. This rejection, in turn, will eventually bring punishment upon them. The prophetic role of Jesus in the third gospel has been highlighted by F. Gill,33 P.S. Minear,34 and Ioannes Panagopoulos.35 For all three scholars, Jesus is the messianic prophet of the new covenant who brings the old one to an end. For Gill, in particular, Jesus stands in the line of the Old Testament nabis. His title as a “prophet” goes back to Jesus himself – a position also held by Panagopoulos ‒ although it was later abandoned by the early Church. Jesus is also paralleled with Elijah and Moses, and the relation of Jesus to the Spirit is also established through the reference to Isaiah’s prophecy (Luke 4:1–4, 16–27).

30 31 32

Cf. also Schneider, Verleugnung (n. 26), 189. G.W.H. Lampe, “The Lucan Portrait of Christ,” NTS 2 (1955): 160‒75. D.P. Moessner, Lord of the Banquet: The Literary and Theological Significance of the Lucan Travel Narrative (Minneapolis, 1989). 33 F. Gils, Jésus prophète d’après les Evangiles synoptiques (OBL 2; Louvain, 1957). 34 P.S. Minear, To Heal and to Reveal: The Prophetic Vocation According to Luke (New York, 1976). 35 I. Panagopoulos, Ὁ προφήτης ἀπὸ Ναζαρέτ: Ἱστορικὴ καὶ θεολογικὴ µελέτη τῆς περὶ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ εἰκόνος τῶν εὐαγγελίων (Athens, 1973).

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E. Earle Ellis stressed Jesus’s messianic nature as the main Christological theme of Luke’s gospel.36 According to him, this idea permeates LukeActs and actually determines the structure of the Gospel. It is also Jesus’s messianic mission that brings salvation to all people. While Ellis combined Jesus’s messiahship with the other Christological motifs of the Gospel (e.g., with Jesus’s parallelism to Moses and to the prophets, with the idea of the Servant of Yahweh, and even with Jesus’s relation to Adam), Mark L. Strauss argued that the Lukan Jesus had more in common with the Davidic Messiah of Isaiah than with the Moses of Deuteronomy. 37 It is Jesus’ resurrection, however, that removes from his Davidic messianic profile any political claims and traits.38 For A.C.R. Leaney, the main Christological concern of Luke was the establishment and maintenance of Jesus’s reign.39 In order to achieve this, Luke portrays Jesus as a king, underlines the kingly quality of forgiveness of sin, and accentuates his glorification instead of his return. Luke also is convinced that the mission of the Church in the present is to proclaim the gospel of forgiveness. One of the main trends in the studies of Lukan Christology is to focus on the prominence given to the Lordship of Jesus. The monographs and articles that deal with this aspect of Luke’s Christology are numerous.40 Among them, those of E. Franklin41 and most recently of C. Kavin Rowe42 are quite representative of the trend. Franklin based his own work on the previous research regarding the use and the content of the word “κύριος” in Luke-Acts. He argued that Luke’s focus on the lordship of Jesus must be related to some crisis situation that his community was experiencing. Therefore, Luke stressed the title of “κύριος” in order to comfort his audience and to rekindle their faith in Jesus as the Lord of the Church’s present. All other Christological ideas and themes play a secondary and complementary role in Luke’s work. One important aspect of Luke’s theologi36 37

E.E. Ellis, The Gospel of Luke (NCBC; Grand Rapids, 1981). M.L. Strauss, The Davidic Messiah in Luke-Acts: The Promise and Its Fulfillment in Lukan Christology (Sheffield, 1995). 38 For the connection between resurrection and Davidic legitimacy, see also the study of C. Burger, Jesus als Davidssohn: Eine traditionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung (FRLANT 98; Göttingen, 1970). 39 A.R.C. Leaney, The Gospel According to St. Luke (BNTC; London 1966). The royal status of Jesus is also stressed by A. George, “La Royaute de Jesus solon l’Évangile de Luc,” ScEccl 14 (1962): 57‒69. 40 Bovon, Luke the Theologian (n. 11), 216‒20, offers a very good overview of the studies in the 1950s and 1960s. 41 E. Franklin, Christ the Lord: A Study in the Purpose and Theology of Luke-Acts (London, 1975). 42 C.K. Rowe, Early Narrative Christology: The Lord in the Gospel of Luke (BZNW 139; Berlin, 2006).

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cal thought is the close relation between the Old Testament prophecies and Jesus’s ministry. Through a typological reading of the OT, Luke presented Jesus as the last and greatest in Israel who acted as God’s chosen instrument and would bring redemption not only to Israel but to all people as well. C.K. Rowe challenged the widespread scholarly opinion that the κύριος-material found in the third gospel stems from different and sometimes contradictory traditions. Through an analysis based on narrativecriticism, Rowe argued that the Lukan picture of Jesus as Lord (κύριος) is not only coherent, but it also works cohesively within the Lukan narrative. Among other contributions, Rowe introduced the idea of the “narrative identity” of Jesus as the Lord and of “ambiguity” (or “shared identity”) regarding the use of “κύριος” for both God and Jesus. Darrell Bock also attempted to detect the particular Lukan strategy that kept all Christological elements together.43 Like Franklin and other scholars before him, he claimed that the OT offers the framework within which Luke’s Christological notions could be better understood. He criticized, however, the previous scholarly appreciation of Luke’s hermeneutical method regarding the OT, especially the analysis of Martin Rese.44 Instead of the more apologetically oriented model of “proof from prophecy,” Bock introduced the model of “proclamation from prophecy and pattern.” According to Bock, Luke’s interpretation of the OT allowed him to present Jesus as a Messiah-Servant of royal status and to emphasize his revelation as Lord, which is the “supreme christological concept” of Luke’s work. While in the earlier stages of the study of Lukan Christology (and theology in general) more analytical and diachronic approaches were preferred, studies like those of D. Bock or C.K. Rowe display a tendency toward more synthetic, intertextual, or synchronic readings of Luke-Acts. This is also apparent in H. Douglas Buckwalter’s work,45 where the author attempts to discover “a single overriding concern” that could explain the character and purpose of Luke’s Christological statements. Buckwalter rightly asks whether any of the leitmotifs isolated as the main theological concern of Luke could explain the purpose of his two-volume work and solve the problem of harmonizing divergent and often contrasting Christological ideas. He is also probably right when he assumes that Luke presupposes a much wider array of Christological ideas and themes, which he shared with his audience, but actually reveals only a part of what he knows about Jesus. In fact, he selected those elements that could strengthen his 43

D.L. Bock, Proclamation from Prophecy and Pattern: Lucan Old Testament Christology (JSNTSup 12; Sheffield, 1987). 44 M. Rese, Alttestamentliche Motive in der Christologie des Lukas (Gütersloh, 1969). 45 H.D. Buckwalter, The Character and Purpose of Luke’s Christology (SNTSMS 89; Cambridge, 1996).

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own point of view, namely, that the “corollary to the Lord Jesus’ servanthood is Christian discipleship.”46

4 Diversity and Coherence The scholarly treatment of the subject, whether analytical or synthetic, brought to the surface some very important issues regarding: a) the diversity of the Christological material found in Luke’s work, b) its probable provenance and redaction, c) the possible existence of a unifying or allinclusive motif or notion that could actually connect these divergent theological motifs and threads, d) the continuity between the Gospel and Acts regarding Jesus’s image and role, and e) the possible purpose of Luke’s inclusion of these different themes and motifs in his composition. Even a cursory reading of the Gospel of Luke (or of Acts) leaves little doubt that a variety of ideas or motifs related to the person of Jesus are embedded in Luke’s narrative. It is also obvious that these play an important role in the plot and even influenced the way Luke structured his story. This is evident, for example, in the first two chapters of the Gospel or in Jesus’s preaching in the synagogue of Nazareth (4:16–21), as will be shown later. This diversity, however, certainly poses the question of Luke’s sources as well as their redaction. For example, Luke reproduces almost all Markan passages where the term “Son of Man” (υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου) occurs,47 and he also uses it in contexts that he shares with Matthew, although in some of these cases Matthew did not use the term.48 There are also some cases where the term appears only in the Lukan text, although then it is not always clear whether Luke found the term in his sources or whether he inserted it himself under the influence of parallel passages where the term also appeared.49 Regarding the content of the image of the Son of Man, Luke follows the established tradition; the term is only used by Jesus himself, and it disappears in the post-resurrection period, with the only excep46 47

Ibid., 281. 5:24; 6:5; 9:22; 9:26; 9:44; 21:27; 22:69. 48 Together with Matthew: 7:34; 9:58; 11:30; 12:10, 40; 17:26; 18:31. In contexts common with Matthew, who, however, did not use the term: 6:22; 12:8; 17:30. 49 17:22, 24; 18:8 (the general consensus is that this is a Lukan addition although its provenance is not quite clear; see J. Nolland, Luke 9:21-18:34 [WBC 35B; Dallas, 2002], 870); 19:10; 21:36 (the verse is probably Luke’s reworking of vv. 27-28 where the Son of Man also appeared as judge, see J. Nolland, Luke 18:35-24:53, [WBC 35C; Dallas, 2002], 1013); 22:48 (however, the idea of the Son of Man being handed over to sinners is Markan as well, cf. 14:46); 24:7 (however, Luke here refers to the previous passion predictions that he shares with Mark and where the term “Son of Man” also appears).

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tion being Acts 7:56.50 In spite of Luke’s dependence on the earlier tradition, it is also possible to discern some features that are particularly developed by Luke, such as the connection of the Son of Man to faith and prayer (18:8; 21:36) or his presentation as a figure of authority (6:5). Luke’s reception and use of the Christological title “Son of God” (υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ) displays the same mixture of fidelity to his source material as well as theological creativity in integrating it into his story. In Luke’s Gospel, the notion of Jesus being the Son of God appears in the passages that Luke took from Mark (e.g., 3:30; 9:35; cf. also Luke 22:70) but also in his own material (e.g., 1:35; 2:49; 4:41; 22:70). Luke 1:32-35 offers a good example of Luke’s utilization of the existing traditional material in his own narrative structure. In these three verses, some of the traditional Christological features appear side by side as is made apparent when these Christological motifs are highlighted: 32 οὗτος ἔσται µέγας καὶ υἱὸς ὑψίστου κληθήσεται καὶ δώσει αὐτῷ κύριος ὁ θεὸς τὸν θρόνον ∆αυὶδ τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτοῦ, 33 καὶ βασιλεύσει ἐπὶ τὸν οἶκον Ἰακὼβ εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας καὶ τῆς βασιλείας αὐτοῦ οὐκ ἔσται τέλος. 34 εἶπεν δὲ Μαριὰµ πρὸς τὸν ἄγγελον·πῶς ἔσται τοῦτο, ἐπεὶ ἄνδρα οὐ γινώσκω; 35 καὶ ἀποκριθεὶς ὁ ἄγγελος εἶπεν αὐτῇ· πνεῦµα ἅγιον ἐπελεύσεται ἐπὶ σὲ καὶ δύναµις ὑψίστου ἐπισκιάσει σοι διὸ καὶ τὸ γεννώµενον ἅγιον κληθήσεται υἱὸς θεοῦ.

These traditional elements, however, are not cited en bloc without any editorial re-working.51 On the contrary, Luke seems to have combined different traditional trends leading through a fine parallel arrangement of the two parts of Gabriel’s answer (e.g., vv. 32b and 35b) to a culmination. In the first part, Jesus is presented as the Son of the Highest God, an idea that is combined with his Davidic messianic role in vv. 32b‒33; the allusion here to Ps 2:752 introduces the motif of the elevation of the king to the status of God’s son through his enthronement.53 This is not an original Lukan con50 51

The same idea as in Acts is also found in Luke 22:69. See, for example, P.S. Minear, “Luke᾽s Use of the Birth Stories,” in Studies in Luke-Acts: Essays Presented in Honor of Paul Schubert (eds. L.E. Keck et al.; London, 1968), 112: “... that conviction [i.e., that there are sources behind the birth narratives of Jesus] does not entitle us to treat them in their present location as blocs of pre-Lucan tradition, relatively free of editorial revision. We may also be convinced, as I am, that the stories are thoroughly Lucan and are fully congenial in mood and motivation to his perspectives as a whole. But this does not entitle us to treat them as an ad hoc composition, first produced by Luke to introduce the two volumes. Luke’s typical fusion of tradition and redaction is of such an order that neither of the above conclusions is tenable.” 52 Cf. Acts 13:33 and Heb 1:5 where the Psalm verse is also cited. 53 P. Pokorný, Theologie der lukanischen Schriften (FRLANT 174; Göttingen, 1998), 112.

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cept and can be found in other early Christian texts, for example, in Rom 1:3‒4 (where it refers to Jesus’s resurrection) or in Mark 1:11 (the characterization of Jesus as Son of God through the voice from heaven in the baptism pericope). The second part of Gabriel’s answer (v. 35) also contains elements of a tradition already found in other early Christian texts: Jesus’s divine sonship is combined with the Spirit of God in Rom 1:4 (where all three elements of the Lukan passage can also be found, i.e., God’s dynamis, the Spirit, and Jesus’s sonship), and Jesus’s life (and resurrection) is closely related to the Spirit in Rom 8:11; 1 Tim 3:16; and other passages. The proclamation that Jesus is God’s son through the Spirit’s descent points to Mark 1:10‒11, a text that is also taken over by Luke. What is original, however, in Luke’s presentation is that instead of placing this proclamation at the beginning of Jesus’s earthly mission, he moves it back into Jesus’s “pre-history” and highlights the coming of the Holy Spirit on his mother (an idea that is not present in Matt 1:18‒25).54 P. Schubert’s remark, therefore, that Luke was able to combine the conventional and the original and to utilize the existing traditional materials for his own “structural-literary propensities,” seems justified.55 Luke’s tendency to accumulate different Christological motifs in the same context and his sometimes flexible or even ambivalent use of them can be traced in his references to Jesus as the “Lord” (κύριος). Various studies have already drawn our attention to the prominence of this Christological term in Luke’s gospel. The term appears 104 times in the Gospel and 107 in Acts, while in Mark and Matthew it seems to play a minor role. It is striking, however, that the term does not consistently designate Jesus, but it is used either for him,56 or for God / Yahweh,57 or in a secular sense for a master.58 Luke probably found this title in his sources59 and apart from those cases where the term is used in the vocative – and therefore probably in a nontechnical sense − the term is usually applied in a narrative context; it seems 54 55

M. Wolter, Das Lukasevangelium (HNT 5; Tübingen 2008), 93. P. Schubert, “The Structure and Significance of Luke 24,” in Neutestamentliche Studien für R. Bultmann (ed. W. Eltester; BZNW 21; Berlin, 1954), 165. See also his observation on p. 170 that Luke was able “to fit larger units of tradition ... as well as little bits of information ... into his account, and to make them subservient to his over-all literary intentions and theological purposes.” 56 In the vocative, where it is not always certain whether it is used as a Christological acclamation or in a secular sense: 5:2; 7:6; 18:41; 19:8b; for the risen Lord: 24:3, 34; during his earthly ministry: 7:13, 19; 10:1, 39, 41; 11:39; 12:42a; 13:15; 17:5, 6; 18:6; 19:8a, 31, 34; 22:61a, b; and before his birth: 1:43; 2:11. 57 E.g., 1:6, 9, 15, 16, 17, 25, 28, 32, 38, 45, 46, 58, 66, 68; 2:9b, 15, 22, 23a, b, 24, 26, 39; 3:4; 4:8, 12, 18, 19; 5:17; 10:21, 27; 13:35; 19:38; 20:37, 42a. 58 13:25; 20:13, 15; 10:2; 12:36–37, 42b–47; 13:8; 14:21–23; 16:3, 5, 8; 19:16–25. 59 F. Hahn, Die christologischen Hoheitstitel (4th ed.; Göttingen 1964), 88–91; Marshall, Luke: Historian (n. 2), 166, n. 3.

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that Luke avoided presenting the disciples or other humans describing Jesus as the Lord before the resurrection.60 There is, though, an interesting exception in 1:43, where Elizabeth describes Mary as the “the mother of my Lord” (ἡ µήτηρ τοῦ κυρίου µου), which points towards the ambiguity and flexibility of Luke’s use of the term. It is remarkable that throughout ch. 1 the term “κύριος” refers to God (1:6, 9, 15, 16, 17, 25, 28, 32, 38, 45, 46, 58, 66, 68), in contexts where the tone reminds one of the Septuagint, whereas only here and in v. 76 does it seem to refer to Jesus. Although it is not impossible that here the designation of Jesus as “κύριος” could be understood as the kind of address that a person of lower social status would use to greet someone superior,61 it is more probable that Luke here transfers the title “κύριος,” which up to that moment he reserved for God, to Jesus, thereby implying that he is also God.62 This interpretation is in accord with Gabriel’s revelation to Mary regarding her unborn child, namely, that he will be given by “κύριος ὁ θεὸς” the throne of David and that this child will be “υἱὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ,” that is, a “κύριος” himself as well. This interpretation is also supported by v. 78, in which Zachariah prophesies that his newborn child will be called “προφήτης ὑψίστου” and that he will “go before the Lord to prepare his ways.” The allusion is here to Mal 3:1 where the Lord is Yahweh. Through the same strategy of ambiguity – since the original OT text referred to God while at the same time the gospel’s readers know that John is the messenger who came before Jesus ‒ Luke succeeds in succinctly ascribing to Jesus the divine title of “κύριος” and making an important Christological statement.63 In the following table, the highlighted elements show the Lukan strategy of a culminating and at the same time implicit revelation about Jesus: Luke 1: 16‒17 16 καὶ πολλοὺς τῶν υἱῶν Ἰσραὴλ ἐπιστρέψει ἐπὶ κύριον τὸν θεὸν αὐτῶν. 17 καὶ αὐτὸς προελεύσεται ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ ἐν πνεύµατι καὶ δυνάµει Ἠλίου, ἐπιστρέψαι καρδίας πατέρων ἐπὶ τέκνα καὶ ἀπειθεῖς ἐν φρονήσει δικαίων, ἑτοιµάσαι κυρίῳ λαὸν κατεσκευασµένον.

60 61 62

Luke 1: 32, 35 32 οὗτος ἔσται µέγας καὶ υἱὸς ὑψίστου κληθήσεται καὶ δώσει αὐτῷ κύριος ὁ θεὸς τὸν θρόνον ∆αυὶδ τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτοῦ, 35 πνεῦµα ἅγιον ἐπελεύσεται ἐπὶ σὲ καὶ δύναµις ὑψίστου ἐπισκιάσει σοι διὸ καὶ τὸ γεννώµενον ἅγιον κληθήσεται υἱὸς θεοῦ.

Luke 1:76 76 Καὶ σὺ δέ, παιδίον, προφήτης ὑψίστου κληθήσῃ· προπορεύσῃ γὰρ ἐνώπιον κυρίου ἑτοιµάσαι ὁδοὺς αὐτοῦ

Ibid., 167. Wolter, Lukasevangelium (n. 54), 98. Rowe, Christology (n. 42), 40–42. and esp. 45: “the dramatic moment of 1:43 in the narrative bespeaks a kind of unity of identity between YHWH and the human Jesus within Mary’s womb by means of the resonance of κύριος.” 63 See also Wolter, Lukasevangelium (n. 54), 116, who notices that this statement is a typical feature of Lukan Christology.

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Commenting on Luke’s narrative strategies, L.T. Johnson noticed that Luke likes retelling the same story many times, adding new elements in each new version.64 Perhaps a similar pattern could be detected in the Lukan statements about Jesus, as the analysis of the terms “Son of God” and “Lord” in the first chapter of the Gospel has shown. Through intertextual connections and the reiteration of motifs, to which each time a new element is added, Luke discloses important truths about Jesus, and at the same time, he advances the plot of his story. In the use of “κύριος,” the tendency of combining different Christological themes can also be detected. A good example is 2:11, where the angel announces to the shepherds that a child is born today, who is “Savior” and who is “Christ the Lord” and comes “from the city of David.”65 This verse is important in many respects: It is the only time in the Gospel that the title “σωτήρ” is applied to Jesus,66 although the idea of Jesus bringing salvation is one of the main theological ideas of the Gospel (2:29–30; 8:50; 19:9–10; cf. also Acts 5:31; 13:23). Furthermore, the explicit combination of all major Christological themes (savior, messiah, Lord, Davidic royal descent) that have been already mentioned in ch. 1 is unique not only in Luke’s Gospel but in the New Testament as well.67 It is highly probable that this verse is an example of Luke’s ability to combine traditional material (i.e., the various Christological titles) and to produce a new and original composition that fits in his narrative and theological program.68 This assumption is strengthened by the aforementioned presence of all these Christological features in the first chapter of the Gospel and by the tendency of Luke to return to the material of earlier passages and use it again to enhance and further develop previous theological ideas. The discussion of the three Christological motifs, the Son of Man, the Son of God, and the Lord, demonstrates on the one hand the variety of Christological terms and themes that can be found in Luke’s gospel and, 64 65

L.T. Johnson, The Gospel of Luke (SP 3; Collegeville, 1991), 399. The word “σήµερον” usually denotes in Luke’s Gospel the beginning of the messianic era, cf. 4:21; 5:26; 12:32–33; 19:5, 9; 23:43, although here it could also be understood literally on one level (so I.H. Marshall, The Gospel of Luke: A Commentary on the Greek Text [NIGTC; Exeter, 1978], 109), without excluding the possibility of it being metaphorical on a second level. 66 However, the term was applied to God in 1:47. It is also rare in the New Testament: John 4:42; Acts 5:31; 13:23; Eph 5:23; Phil 3:20; 2 Tim 1:10; Tit 1:4; 2:13; 3:6; 2 Pet 1:1, 11; 2:20; 3:2, 18; 1 John 4:14. 67 The rare formulation of the two nominatives (“χριστός” and “κύριος”) should probably be understood as a parataxis of equivalent titles. For arguments in favor of this interpretation see Wolter, Lukasevangelium (n. 54), 129, and Marshall, Gospel of Luke (n. 65) 110. 68 J. Jeremias, Die Sprache des Lukasevangeliums: Redaktion und Tradition im nicht-Markusstoff des dritten Evangeliums (KEK, Sonderband 3; Göttingen, 1980), 81.

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on the other, Luke’s competence to combine them and to integrate them in broader contexts. It remains, however, open to discussion whether Luke has a particular theological scheme in mind when he adopts and integrates this diverse material.

5 Towards a Unifying Lukan Strategy? For some scholars, this question must be answered negatively. S. G. Wilson’s position, frequently cited in the discussion of the Lukan Christology, is the most representative: The abiding impression left by our survey of the Lucan writings is that Luke has used diverse, and often ancient, Christological traditions without integrating them into any particular scheme. This leads to a certain lack of uniformity, a disjunction between different strands of material which stand side by side. ... The use of Christological titles is somewhat haphazard. They represent the terminology of Luke’s day but, in many cases, the belief of the early Church as well.69

And he continues: Luke, it appears, was a somewhat indiscriminating collector of Christological traditions who transmits a variety of traditional terms and concepts without reflecting upon them individually or in conjunction with each other. 70

Wilson’s critical assessment of Luke’s compositional achievement rightly sums up the awareness gained through the review of the literature on the Christology of the third gospel, namely, the existence of different Christological directions within Luke’s gospel. The variety of this Christological material also makes it clear that it is anachronistic to talk about a “Christology” of Luke in a systematic sense. This conclusion does not, however, need to indicate that Luke has no “point of view” in his writing or that he does not follow a particular scheme. The tendency, discussed above, of Luke to rework his material in ways that differentiate his message from that of his sources or of the other Synoptics may indicate the opposite. The question, therefore, is whether it is possible to detect a tendency in his work towards a coherent depiction of Jesus.71 As demonstrated by the brief review of the literature on Luke’s Christology in the first part of this paper, discussion of the matter has focused largely on particular aspects of Luke’s depiction of Jesus and has tried to identify an inclusive idea or a prominent 69 70 71

S.G. Wilson, Luke and the Pastoral Epistles (London 1979), 79. Ibid., 80. Cf. the same questions regarding New Testament Christology generally in F. Hahn, Die Einheit des Neuen Testaments (vol. 2 of Die Theologie des Neuen Testaments; 2d ed.; Tübingen, 2005), 257–59.

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Christological motif that connects the various other motifs within Luke’s narrative. There is, however, always a danger of overemphasizing a particular theological motif (leitmotif) and ignoring the whole or much worse failing to find possible connections with the other concepts.72 Although the concentration on one or more “key” Christological titles would provide some useful information regarding the Christological beliefs of the early Christian communities, it could be exclusive and therefore onedimensional, leaving out of the discussion parts of the textual evidence where this “standard” Christological terminology is not used. One must also consider the particular nature of Luke’s work; Luke’s gospel is not a doctrinal treatise organized into thematic units like “Christology,” “soteriology,” “pneumatology,” and so forth. Its theological ideas do not come to us directly and in a systematic way, but they are embedded within Luke’s story in a way that is perhaps not entirely traceable any more. Thus, instead of a systematic theological discussion in Luke’s Gospel, we could talk of a “narrative theology,” that is, of the presence of particular theological notions and conceptions woven into a story. The story does not work, however, as a mere narrative framework holding them together; the story’s arrangement is also decisively determined by these concepts. This perspective, however, would by no means lead to an ahistorical approach to the text that would not take into consideration the developments behind it. Without ignoring the sources or the redactional process of the gospel, the discussion is now focused on answering how and why the gospel writer adopted and integrated his traditional material into his own work. In this particular approach to the Gospel’s Christological material, it is more important to locate the evidence and try to offer a coherent explanation for all of it.73 Instead of scrutinizing the text in order to detect the presence of the Christological idea or title assumed to be prominent, the different Christological ideas / motifs that are present in each part of the Lukan narrative will be highlighted and an attempt will be made to detect their interrelationship as well as the possible unifying strategies that the writer employed in order to connect them and give coherence to his narrative. In the first two chapters of his Gospel, Luke narrates Jesus’s “prehistory,” his birth and his childhood. The theological significance of this part has already been highlighted. Apart from functioning as an introduction to the whole narrative in which its protagonist, Jesus, is presented, these two chapters present most of the major Christological ideas of the

72 Cf. also I.H. Marshall’s critique of Lukan studies from Conzelmann onwards where he detects a possible confusion between Luke’s theological purpose and the underlying motif of his theology, (Marshall, Luke: Historian [n. 2], 84). 73 I.H. Marshall, I Believe in the Historical Jesus, (Grand Rapids, 1977), 99.

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third gospel: Jesus’s divine sonship, his royal Davidic ancestry, his messianic quality, his Lordship, his role as a Savior in God’s plan of salvation. In the last part of this section (2:41–52), a new feature of Jesus is introduced, that of his wisdom and his understanding. The twelve-year-old Jesus causes the admiration of the Jewish teachers and scribes because of his answers and his insight; the text therefore implies that he is a great teacher, much more powerful than his educated audience. This feature of Jesus will be present in the next sections of the Gospel as well. Jesus is called “διδάσκαλος” elsewhere in the Gospel (7:40; 8:49; 9:38; 10:25; 11:45; 12:13; 19:39; 20:39; 21:7; 22:11) - always by people who do not belong to his disciples (with the exception of 22:11) and in contexts where his wisdom and insight are made evident. Jesus is even called “ἐπιστάτης” (master), a way of addressing Jesus found only in Luke (5:5; 8:24, 45; 9:33, 49; 17:13), always used by his disciples and principally in miracle stories, denoting his authoritative position within the group of his disciples.74 His ministry is also from its outset connected to his teaching (διδάσκειν) as is evident in 4:15 and in the incident of the Nazareth synagogue (4:16–22). The temple as the setting of his teaching will be found again in 19:47–48. The difference will now be that the priests and the scribes will not admire his wisdom but will try to kill him as his fellow citizens tried to do in the Nazareth incident at the very beginning of his ministry (4:28). The motif of Jesus’s authoritative teaching therefore connects this introductory part to the other parts of the Lukan narrative. Furthermore, the passage is connected with the other Christological ideas found in the first chapter; the answer of Jesus to his mother in 1:49 that it should have been obvious to her that he could be found “in the house of his Father,” that is, in the temple,75 could be related to Gabriel’s revelation in 1:32, 35 regarding Jesus’s true identity. Jesus’s answer also clearly corrects Mary’s reference to Joseph as Jesus’s father (2:48) and explains further Jesus’s astonishing wisdom. In the second part of the Gospel, namely, in 3:1‒4:14 (the beginning of Jesus’s mission), some of the previous Christological features can be found again while a new one – that was probably only suggested in the introductory part – appears in Jesus’s genealogy. Two of the main persons of the previous section are also present: John the Baptist and Jesus. The position of the former within God’s plan of salvation as well as his relation to Jesus 74 O. Glombitza, “Die Titel διδάσκαλος und ἐπιστάτης für Jesus bei Lukas,” ZNW 49 (1958): 275‒78. 75 The phrase “ἐν τοῖς τοῦ πατρός µου” is a much disputed phrase; see the detailed discussion in R. Laurentin, Jésus au temple: Mystère de Pâques et foi de Marie en Luc 2.48–50 (EtB; Paris, 1966), 38‒72. It has been proposed that the phrase should be translated, “be engaged in the affairs of my Father”; however, the context makes the identification of “τὰ τοῦ πατρός µου” with the Temple more probable; cf. Wolter, Lukasevangelium (n. 54), 150.

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is one of the main issues of the first part of this section. In a similar way, a subtle comparison between them was at play in ch. 1. Their stories ran in parallel lines, and although there was no intention to downgrade John, it was also evident that he had a very particular place within God’s redemptive plan as God’s messenger and Jesus’s forerunner, whereas Jesus is actually the Davidic Messiah and God’s son (cf., for example, the way Gabriel describes the identity and role of each unborn child: 1:13‒17 / 1:31‒ 35; the summaria describing the growth of the two children: 1:80 / 2:40, 52). The same line is picked up in the first part of this new section (3:1‒ 22), which describes John’s preaching and activity in the desert (3:1‒14) and highlights his role as the forerunner of the Messiah. Through the citation of a prophecy of Isaiah (40:3‒5), as well as a brief description of the contents of his preaching, John is described like an Old Testament prophet. Luke also presents John himself correcting the misunderstanding that he was the Messiah and stressing once more his preparatory role in God’s plan. Luke here probably bases his narrative on Q material, and he deviates from the Markan course of events by mentioning first John’s imprisonment and then describing Jesus’s baptism.76 This compositional decision is consistent with the particular place that John occupies according to Luke in salvation history. He is important merely because of his relation to Jesus, and he should be regarded as the bridge between the old and the new era.77 The new element that appears in this section of the gospel is Jesus’s genealogy, which is carried back to Adam (3:23‒38). Matthew also provides his readers with a genealogy of Jesus which is totally different.78 The structure and the content of the Lukan genealogical list cannot be discussed in detail. However, two important differences from the Matthean genealogy should be mentioned. The first is the different Davidic lineage of Jesus. Luke omits any reference to Solomon and the royal dynasty of the Southern Kingdom, and he mentions only Nathan, a rather unimportant son of David who is followed by nineteen unknown ancestors of Jesus. It is highly probable that Luke wants to emphasize Jesus’s relation to David, a Christological feature that has already been presented in the introductory 76 John appears once more in 7:18–19. when he sends two of his disciples to Jesus and in 9:9 where his decapitation is briefly mentioned. Wolter, Lukasevangelium (n. 54), 167, cites the brevitas ideal explained by Lucian, Hist. Conscr. 56, and explains that the murder of John is not mentioned because a good historian should avoid mentioning the less important things. If Luke has this principle in mind, then this is an additional indication of the place that John occupies in the Lukan narrative. 77 Marshall, Gospel of Luke (n. 65), 132; Conzelmann, Mitte der Zeit (n. 17), 17, expresses a quite different opinion; he argues that John in Luke’s Gospel marks the end of the old era to which he belongs. 78 For a comparison of the two genealogies, see.J. Nolland, Luke 1:1–9:20 (WBC 35A; Dallas 2002), 167–170.

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section of the gospel.79 The other peculiarity of Luke’s list is Jesus’s genealogy from Adam and God. For some commentators this is an implicit statement of Jesus’s divine sonship,80 while others think that this is a subtle comparison between the disobedient son of God (Adam) and the obedient Son of God (Jesus).81 Nowhere in Luke’s gospel, however, does the idea appear of Jesus being the second Adam. Additionally, it seems rather improbable that Luke’s intention here is to stress Jesus’s divine sonship. This Christological motif is present in this section elsewhere, especially in the baptism pericope (3:22). It is therefore more probable that Luke carries Jesus’s genealogy back to Adam and to God to stress the relation of God to the whole of humankind, in which Jesus plays an important role.82 The universal dimension of Jesus’s role has already been implied in 2:14, 32 and remains a distinct tendency throughout the whole Lukan narrative; it will appear again in 24:47, and it will be one of the main themes of Acts. In the following section (4:14 – 9:50), Luke describes Jesus’s Galilean ministry. Most of the motifs that played a prominent role in the previous sections withdraw and some new ones appear in the foreground. In this regard, the incident at the synagogue in Nazareth plays a key role for Jesus’s identity and work. Furthermore, Jesus’s speech in the synagogue of his hometown is the first self-presentation of Jesus’s ministry in the Gospel. On the one hand, the incident is closely connected to the summarium in vv. 14–15. where Jesus’s teaching activity (in synagogues) is mentioned. On the other hand, it stands in contrast to it. While v. 15 claims that Jesus had been glorified in the various synagogues in Galilee, the reaction of his fellow villagers in Nazareth was far from friendly. The narrative and theological importance of the pericope is also evident by its placement at the beginning of Jesus’s public ministry. Mark preserves a much simpler version of the incident at a later stage of Jesus’s mission (Mark 6:1-6 followed by Matt 13:53-58; in both cases the exact content of Jesus’s sermon is not given). Although there is no scholarly unanimity regarding its provenance,83 it is generally accepted that its place in the third gospel is probably not the original one but that it was deliberately moved forward in order 79 80

Wolter, Lukasevangelium (n. 54), 175. M.D. Johnson, The Purpose of the Biblical Genealogies (SNTSMS 8; Cambridge, 1988), 235–39. 81 J. Jeremias, “Ἀδάµ,” TDNT 1:141. 82 Marshall, Gospel of Luke (n. 65), 161. 83 R. Bultmann, Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition (4th ed.; Göttingen, 1958), 31, 122, 134, speaks for a Lukan redaction of the Markan story and argues that it served the anti-Jewish polemic of the Gentile Church. According to H. Schürmann, Das Lukasevangelium (HTKNT 1; Freiburg, 1969), 241‒44, vv. 17‒21 and 25‒27 are preLukan additions and probably came from Q. For further discussion of the problem, see F. Bovon, Das Evangelium nach Lukas I (EKKNT 3; Zürich, 1989), 206‒08.

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to serve the theological purpose of Luke and has, therefore, a programmatic significance. As in the summaria that frame the Nazareth incident (4:14– 15 and 4:31–32), one of the significant motifs here is that of Jesus as an authoritative and powerful teacher, which was first introduced in 2:41–47. To this a new feature, that of the prophetic status of Jesus, is being added. Jesus in the Lukan version of the incident freely cites a text from Isaiah which is a combination of Isa 61:1‒2 and 58:6. It is certainly a construction with a particular theological significance that offers insight into Jesus’s mission and identity. In its original OT context, the prophecy referred to the prophet’s self-consciousness that he was called by God to bring the good news of God’s help to his people. The prophecy pronounced by Jesus has more or less the same meaning.84 By applying it to himself, Jesus seems to understand himself and his mission in terms of the Old Testament prophets and to proclaim the fulfillment of the prophecies in his person along with the breaking in of a new era, that of salvation. The Christological motif of Jesus’s prophetic status is repeated later in the same passage where Jesus compares himself with Elijah and Elisha (4:24‒27). This motif also occupies a prominent place within this section of Luke’s narrative as, for example, the miracle at Nain indicates, where through intertextual allusions Jesus is compared with Elijah and Elishah85 (7:11‒17; see also the acclamation of the people in v. 16 that Jesus is a great prophet). Jesus as an eschatological prophet teaches with authority (ἐξουσία) and expels demons with power (δύναµις). A unique Lukan feature86 is the combination of “δύναµις” and “ἐξουσία” (4:36; 9:1), which denotes Jesus’s superiority over his adversaries (demons or the scribes). In this section of the Gospel, Jesus is frequently presented as confronting the demons. This new aspect of Jesus’s earthly mission had been prepared in the previous section in the temptation pericope where Jesus as a true Son of God rejected Satan’s proposals and defeated him. The battle with Satan is now intensified as Jesus proclaims the advent of God’s Kingdom, demanding and liberating those under the rule of Satan, who invaded what used to be God’s territory and occupied it with demonic powers. Jesus’s victory, although nowhere proclaimed as definite, is a sign of the new era and the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah that Jesus used in his sermon at Nazareth (cf. also 10:18).87 According to C.-P. März, Luke 4:17–29. provides a 84 R. Albertz, “Die ‘Antrittspredigt’ Jesu im Lukasevangelium auf ihrem alttestamentlichen Hintergrund,” ZNW 74 (1983): 198. 85 Marshall, Gospel of Luke (n. 65), 286. 86 However, the connection of λόγος / διδασκαλία with δύναµις is also attested in Mark, e.g., 1:21–22. 87 In this regard, the period of Jesus’s ministry should not be regarded as a “Satanfree” period as 11:16 and 22:28 also indicate; cf. Marshall, Luke: Historian (n. 2), 87–88, n. 4.

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prophetic summarium of Jesus’s work and reveals his end; Jesus’s rejection by the inhabitants of Nazareth foreshadows his rejection by Israel and his death.88 The theme of Jesus’s passion is introduced again in his response to Peter’s confession that he is the “χριστὸς τοῦ θεοῦ” (9:22) and in the story of the transfiguration (9:28‒36). Regarding the latter, Luke fills in the gap of the Markan version by informing his audience that Jesus talked with Moses and Elijah, two eschatological figures in the Jewish tradition, about his “departure” (ἔξοδος), which can either mean his death or his departure from this world.89 In this episode, some other motifs appear again: the epiphany of God’s glory (δόξα) that was earlier mentioned in 2:9 and the pronouncement of Jesus as the Son of God in a manner similar to that in the story of the baptism. In the ensuing section (9:51‒13:21), Jesus’s travel to Jerusalem is described. In it, Jesus’s relation to his Father (which is also highlighted by the description of Jesus praying to him, cf. 11:1) becomes a prominent Christological theme. Since Jesus is approaching Jerusalem, Jesus’s passion and death are mentioned more explicitly (11:29–33) and his conflicts with his Jewish opponents become more frequent. In this section, many of the previous Christological ideas, like Jesus’s authority or the dawn of the new era since the demons are besieged, are also present. The next section (13:22–21:38), which includes Jesus’s last days in Jerusalem, repeats some of the major themes of the previous section. Luke’s material in this section comes from both Q and his own source. As in the previous sections of the gospel, Luke integrates his diverse material into his narrative scheme and highlights some particular themes, like Jesus’s interest in finding and saving the lost (especially in the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the Prodigal Son) and his work as a teacher. Luke 16:16 preserves an interesting saying of Jesus. According to it Jesus seems to divide history into two parts: the period of the Law and the prophets and that of preaching the good news (εὐαγγελίζεσθαι) of God’s Kingdom. In this bipartite division of history, it remains ambiguous whether John belongs to the old or to the new era.90 Linguistically, both interpretations are 88 C.-P. März, “Jesus als ‘Lehrer’ und ‘Heiler’: Anmerkungen zum Jesusbild der Lukasschriften,” in Jesus als Bote des Heils: Heilsverkündigung und Heilserfahrung in frühchristlicher Zeit: Detlev Dormeyer zum 65. Geburtstag (ed. L. Hauser et al.; StBBeitr 60; Stuttgart, 2008), 153. 89 Wolter, Lukasevangelium (n. 54), 353. 90 For Conzelmann, Mitte der Zeit (n. 17), 17, it is obvious that John does not belong to this new era; see, however, W.G. Kümmel, “‘Das Gesetz und die Propheten gehen bis Johannes’ ‒ Lukas 16,16 im Zusammenhang der heilsgeschichtlichen Theologie der Lukasschriften,” in: Das Lukasevangelium (ed. G. Baumann; WdF 280; Darmstadt, 1974), 398–415.

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valid. His role remains ambivalent when one examines the internal evidence of the Gospel as well. Jesus quite clearly inaugurates the beginning of this new period of the Kingdom (4:43; 8:1; 9:2.60; cf. also 7:28). Notably, however, Luke begins his story with John (as Mark also did, though in a different way), and in Acts there is also evidence that John is somehow related to Jesus and the beginning of his ministry (Acts 1:22). One solution that could combine both interpretations is that John acts like a bridge between the two periods; John represents the end of the long line of OT prophets, and with his eschatological preaching, he ushers people into the new period of God’s Kingdom. In the final section of the Gospel, Jesus’s death, resurrection, and ascension are related. Significantly, in the crucifixion Luke underlines two points that are important for the present discussion. The first is that Jesus is crucified as the Christ (23:35), and the second is that his death on the cross is perceived as closely related to his βασιλεία (23:42). The pledge of the criminal functions as an indirect assurance of Jesus’s resurrection and ascension,91 which is reaffirmed by Jesus’s reply. Even at the darkest point of Jesus’s story, Luke allows his audience to have a reassuring glimpse into the glorious outcome of this story, which he will present in the next chapter. The cross does not seem to occupy the same place as in Mark; rather, it is put into the perspective of Jesus’s resurrection and ascension, and it functions therefore as a necessary step that leads to Jesus’s glorification (24:26).92 This brief presentation of the major Christological themes and motifs in Luke’s Gospel demonstrates that Luke preserves and utilizes the divergent Christological material at his disposal, while at the same he does not seem to promote one particular idea or motif as an overarching concept that integrates all others. On the contrary, all his major Christological notions are present throughout his story, although they either come to the foreground or stay in the background in each part of the story. An interesting pattern of his narrative strategy also emerges. Luke tends to accentuate shortly before the beginning of each new section those features that will play a prominent role in his ensuing story. This pattern is particularly evident, for example, in the case of his Galilean mission where one of the two key themes, the advent of the Kingdom of God and the victory over the demon91 For a discussion of the two variants attested in 23:42, εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν σου, which could be understood as hinting at Jesus’s resurrection and ascension, or ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ σου, which points rather in the direction of the parousia, see Nolland, Luke 18:35–24:53 (n. 49), 1150, and Wolter, Lukasevangelium (n. 54), 761. 92 Therefore, F. Hahn, Die Vielfalt des Neuen Testaments (vol. 1 of Die Theologie des Neuen Testaments; 2d ed.; Tübingen, 2005), 566, speaks of a theologia resurrectionis et exaltationis.

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ic powers, has already been announced in the previous section (the other theme, Jesus acting as a powerful teacher, was introduced a little earlier at the end of the first section). Likewise, in the case of the travel narrative, the major theme of Jesus’s death and resurrection has already been disclosed earlier in the story of the transfiguration. Although in M.C. Tuckett’s words Luke remains a “conservative redactor,”93 interfering as little as possible with his source material, the simple compositional techniques described in the previous two parts of this paper enable him to keep his material together and to construct a coherent narrative that communicates his own theological message. Furthermore, the analysis has demonstrated that the emphasis should not be laid on the distinct Christological titles or motifs but on those stories within the Lukan narrative construction that offer the narrative perspective through which Jesus’s life and work can be understood and interpreted.94 In addition to these literary techniques, however, two important theological ideas that permeate Luke’s narrative require brief discussion as well. First, the Holy Spirit plays a role throughout Luke’s story from the very beginning up to the last verses of the Gospel (24:49) and continues to play a role in the book of Acts.95 The Holy Spirit remains present in all stages of Jesus’s life and mission (in his “pre-history,” his childhood, his preparation for his mission, and his public mission), but it is also present in the Church after Jesus’s ascension. The Spirit not only acts as a link that connects various parts of the Gospel with each other but also creates intertextual bridges between the Gospel and the book of Acts. References to the Spirit in the Gospel are fulfilled in the second part of Luke’s work where the life of the early Church is described. For example, John prophesies that the one who will come after him “will baptize them in the Spirit and in fire” (3:16), and the resurrected Jesus promises that he will send upon them the “promise of his Father” and that his disciples “will be clothed with power from heaven.” The immanent presence of the Spirit in the Gospel, furthermore, indicates that in Luke’s thought Jesus and the Spirit are

93 M.C. Tuckett, “The Lukan Son of Man,” in Luke’s Literary Achievement: Collected Essays (ed. M.C. Tuckett; JSNTSup 116; Sheffield, 1995), 198‒217. Cf. also I.H. Marshall’s estimation that Luke is a “conservative theologian rather than an innovator,” (Marshall, Luke: Historian [n. 2], 19). 94 C.-P. März, “Die theologische Interpretation der Jesus-Gestalt bei Lukas: Anmerkungen zur theologischen Intention des lukanischen Doppelwerks,” in: Gedenkt an das Wort: Festschrift für Werner Vogler zum 65. Geburtstag (ed. Chr. Kähler; Leipzig, 1999), 137, speaks of “erzählerische Standorte.” 95 Hahn, Vielfalt (n. 92), 560‒61.

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closely related to each other,96 a fact that led F. Hahn to conclude that Luke develops a “Geistchristologie.” A good example of this connection is the striking parallel of Luke 12:11–12 and Luke 21:14–15, where a functional parallel between Jesus and the Spirit is evident: Luke 12:11‒12 11 Ὅταν δὲ εἰσφέρωσιν ὑµᾶς ἐπὶ τὰς συναγωγὰς καὶ τὰς ἀρχὰς καὶ τὰς ἐξουσίας, µὴ µεριµνήσητε πῶς ἢ τί ἀπολογήσησθε ἢ τί εἴπητε 12 τὸ γὰρ ἅγιον πνεῦµα διδάξει ὑµᾶς ἐν αὐτῇ τῇ ὥρᾳ ἃ δεῖ εἰπεῖν.

Luke 21:14‒15 14 θέτε οὖν ἐν ταῖς καρδίαις ὑµῶν µὴ προµελετᾶν ἀπολογηθῆναι 15 ἐγὼ γὰρ δώσω ὑµῖν στόµα καὶ σοφίαν ᾗ οὐ δυνήσονται ἀντιστῆναι ἢ ἀντειπεῖν ἅπαντες οἱ ἀντικείµενοι ὑµῖν.

The second idea that is present in all parts of the Lukan two-volume work is the fulfillment of the Scriptures in the person of Jesus and in his proclamation of God’s Kingdom. In fact, this theological theme appears to be the thread that runs through all the theological “beads” of the Gospel connecting them in a coherent entity.97 In G. Schneider’s opinion, Luke reveals his intention to present the events of Jesus’s life from the perspective of Old Testament promises in the prologue of his gospel when he announces that he will present the facts about Jesus “καθεξῆς” (1:3). According to Schneider, this word not only denotes the chronological sequence of the events but also their presentation in a way that can lead to their proper understanding and to the discernment of their connection to Old Testament prophecies.98 Even if Schneider reads too much into the word “καθεξῆς,”99 the Christological interpretation of Scripture in the third gospel justifies his interpretation to some degree. Significantly, in Luke’s gospel Jesus understood his mission as being the answer to Old Testament expectations and promises. In the sermon at the Nazareth synagogue, for example, Jesus cited freely two Isaianic pas96 Buckwalter, Character (n. 45), 182, states that Luke actually created a parallel between Jesus’ relation to the Spirit and that of Yahweh and the Spirit in the Old Testament. 97 Even Wilson, Luke (n. 69), 79, concedes that a “rather clumsy attempt to subsume them under the scheme of prophecy and fulfillment” can be detected. For such an interconnection and reiteration of motifs within the general narrative frame and the role ch. 24 plays in this, see A. Puig i Tàrrech, “La finale de Luc: une synthèse ouverte” in Analyse narrative et Bible: deuxième colloque international du RRENAB, Louvain-la-Neuve, avril 2004 (ed. C. Focant et al.; BETL 191; Leuven, 2005), 223–39. 98 G. Schneider, “Zur Bedeutung von καθεξῆς im lukanischen Doppelwerk,” in Lukas, Theologe der Heilsgeschichte: Aufsätze zum lukanischen Doppelwerk (ed. G. Schneider; BBB 59; Bonn, 1985), 34. 99 There is no evidence in the ancient sources of the word “καθεξῆς” bearing the meaning Schneider ascribes to it. The word is used, however, in ancient historiographical texts with the meaning, “in a logical and chronological sequence”; cf. Thucydides 5,26,1.

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sages in order to describe the purpose and the content of his mission (4:17). He did the same later, replying to the inquiries of John’s disciples regarding his identity (7:22). Luke explicitly states that Jesus used the Scriptures in order to predict and explain the necessity of his passion and resurrection. This is first implied in the transfiguration story, for in the Lukan version, the two OT figures, Moses and Elijah, discussed Jesus’s “exit,” namely, his death and resurrection. It is later repeated three times in the last chapter of the gospel (24:6, 26‒27, 44-48) that Jesus’s passion and resurrection have been predicted (in the first case by Jesus himself, in the other two by Moses and the prophets). Luke adds, however, that the Scriptures (Moses and the prophets) also talked generally about him and about the preaching of his name among the nations. In the following table, the gradual additions to the initial connection between Scripture and the passion and resurrection can be seen. Through his favorite technique of repeating a previous passage and adding new facts to it, Luke creates a link not only between the life of Jesus and the words of the prophets and Moses but also a connection between them and the mission of the Church. On a literary level, this connection also allows Luke to introduce the second part of his work. Luke 24:6‒8 … µνήσθητε ὡς ἐλάλησεν ὑµῖν ἔτι ὢν ἐν τῇ Γαλιλαίᾳ (7) λέγων τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου δεῖ παραδοθῆναι εἰς χεῖρας ἀνθρώπων ἁµαρτωλῶν καὶ σταυρωθῆναι καὶ τῇ τρίτῃ ἡµέρᾳ ἀναστῆναι. (8) καὶ ἐµνήσθησαν τῶν ῥηµάτων αὐτοῦ.

Luke 24:25‒27 … ὦ ἀνόητοι καὶ βραδεῖς τῇ καρδίᾳ τοῦ πιστεύειν ἐπὶ πᾶσιν οἷς ἐλάλησαν οἱ προφῆται·(26) οὐχὶ ταῦτα ἔδει παθεῖν τὸν χριστὸν καὶ εἰσελθεῖν εἰς τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ; (27) καὶ ἀρξάµενος ἀπὸ Μωϋσέως καὶ ἀπὸ πάντων τῶν προφητῶν διερµήνευσεν αὐτοῖς ἐν πάσαις ταῖς γραφαῖς τὰ περὶ αὐτοῦ.

Luke 24:44‒48 Εἶπεν δὲ πρὸς αὐτούς· οὗτοι οἱ λόγοι µου οὓς ἐλάλησα πρὸς ὑµᾶς ἔτι ὢν σὺν ὑµῖν, ὅτι δεῖ πληρωθῆναι πάντα τὰ γεγραµµένα ἐν τῷ νόµῳ Μωϋσέως καὶ τοῖς προφήταις καὶ ψαλµοῖς περὶ ἐµοῦ. (45) τότε διήνοιξεν αὐτῶν τὸν νοῦν τοῦ συνιέναι τὰς γραφάς (46) καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς ὅτι οὕτως γέγραπται παθεῖν τὸν χριστὸν καὶ ἀναστῆναι ἐκ νεκρῶν τῇ τρίτῃ ἡµέρᾳ (47) καὶ κηρυχθῆναι ἐπὶ τῷ ὀνόµατι αὐτοῦ µετάνοιαν εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁµαρτιῶν εἰς πάντα τὰ ἔθνη. ἀρξάµενοι ἀπὸ Ἰερουσαλὴµ (48) ὑµεῖς µάρτυρες τούτων.

Luke also refers frequently to Old Testament texts and figures, thereby creating connections between Jesus and the past of Israel. It is important, however, to establish the particular techniques that Luke employs to achieve this. First, Luke directly cites Old Testament texts ‒ mostly prophecies ‒ that are applied to Jesus or the persons related to him. A good example is the citation of the two Isaianic passages in the Nazareth incident (4:17) or Jesus’s reply to the inquiring disciples of John the Baptist regarding his identity (7:22). Luke, however, differs in his use of the scriptural texts from Matthew where direct scriptural citations abound. Apart from the use of the verb “δεῖ,” which according to C.H. Cosgrove “expresses the

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necessity of God’s plan, as expressed in Scripture,”100 Luke does not insert any fulfillment formula as Matthew usually does. Luke uses his texts in a very free manner, often omitting parts of them, combining more than one different text and thus creating a new one, or even quoting them freely. Most of the Lukan references to OT texts are allusions that are found woven into his narrative.101 For example, in 1:32–33, where Gabriel reveals the real identity and mission of the unborn Jesus, Luke uses various phrases or motifs that can be found in the Old Testament and which he ascribes to Jesus, thereby creating a chain of intertextual links between Jesus and the Old Testament which can mutually interpret one another. The fact that Gabriel ascribes to Jesus all these OT titles helps the gospel readers understand the OT text properly, and the OT texts provide the necessary context within which those features of Jesus can be better understood. Luke, however, employs two even more subtle techniques in order to build connections between Jesus and scriptural prophecies. First, Luke attributes to Jesus features that belong to particular OT figures. By means of these interfigural connections (i.e., interrelations between characters of different texts),102 Luke’s readers can make associations that will help them draw the right conclusions about Jesus’s identity. One good example is the miracle at Nain where the contact between the Lukan text and that of the raising of the widow’s son by Elijah in 1 Kings 17:10 leads the gospel readers to recognize a parallel between Jesus and Elijah and to identify Jesus with the great prophets of Israel’s past (cf. also 7:16).103 The other strategy employed by Luke is that of imitating the style and language of the Septuagint without actually quoting from it.104 This tendency is most apparent in the first two chapters of Luke’s gospel. This Lukan literary device fits very well into the broader context of Luke’s use of Scripture in his gospel narrative. By imitating the Septuagint, Luke creates the impression that his text is part of Israel’s scriptural texts, and therefore, the events that he relates are somehow connected to the events in the history of 100 101

C.H. Cosgrove, “The Divine ∆ΕΙ in Luke-Acts,” NovT 26 (1984): 173‒74. Bock, Proclamation (n. 43), 269. 102 I borrow the term from W.G. Müller’s interesting study where the various techniques of interfigurality are also described; W.G. Müller, “Interfigurality: A Study on the Interdependence of Literary Figures,” in Intertextuality (ed. H.F. Plett; Research in Text Theory / Untersuchungen zur Texttheorie 15; Berlin, 1991), 101–21. 103 Nolland, Luke 1:1-9:20 (n. 78), 321. See also J. Verheyden, “Calling Jesus a Prophet as Seen by Luke” in Prophets and Prophecy in Jewish and Early Christian Literature (ed. J. Verheyden et al.; WUNT 2/286; Tübingen, 2010), 177‒210, esp. 184–86. 104 For a discussion of Luke’s Septuagintalisms, see F.L. Horton, “Reflections on the Semitisms of Luke-Acts,” in Perspectives on Luke-Acts (ed. C.H. Talbert; Edinburgh, 1978), 1‒23.

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Israel. Thus, the scriptures of Israel and Luke’s narrative belong together, and in this continuum, Jesus occupies a distinct place. The way Luke uses scriptural texts and integrates them into his own narrative leads to the conclusion that the model “proof from prophecy” is too narrow, and its linear understanding does not do justice to Luke’s multi-dimensional approach to Scripture or to his profound use of Scripture in his testimony to Jesus.105 For Luke, the Scriptures bear witness to Jesus’s place within the history of God’s people and to his role in the divine plan of salvation of all nations.

6 Jesus, die Mitte der Zeit? In the concluding part of the present paper, we return to Conzelmann’s main thesis about the tripartite division of history and question the validity of this scheme as well as the place of the Lukan Jesus within it. As a result of Conzelmann’s thesis, Luke has often been criticized for sacrificing the early Christian kerygma for the sake of early catholicism106 and for transforming Jesus into a figure of the past by his conception of Heilsgeschichte. The question, however, is whether these accusations are justified. The foregoing discussion demonstrates the important place that, according to Luke, Jesus occupies within God’s redemptive plan. All the Christological titles and motifs attributed to him actually exemplify his key role in the redemption of all people. It would, however, do an injustice to Luke to pigeonhole his theological thought in this static scheme of a Heilsgeschichte where each of its compartments seems to be water-tight according to Conzelmann’s conception. In the preceding analysis of the Lukan use of the OT as well as in the discussion of the ambiguous placement of John the Baptist, it became evident that Conzelmann’s hypothesis cannot hold for the first two parts of this history; rather, the old era of the prophets somehow flows into that of Jesus. The question is, therefore, whether this cannot also be said of the relation between the age of Jesus and that of the Church. According to Luke 8:1, Jesus “travelled from town to town, preaching and announcing the good news of the Kingdom of God, and the Twelve were with him.” The proclamation of the Kingdom begins with Jesus, as the sermon at Nazareth shows, and is carried out by him during his earthly ministry. After his ascension, however, it is carried on by his disciples as the speeches of Acts demonstrate. The book of Acts ends with a very interesting statement that Paul stayed in Rome “proclaiming the kingdom of 105 106

See also the critique of Minear, “Use” (n. 51), 119‒20. Wilson, Luke (n. 69), 80.

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God and teaching the truth about the Lord Jesus Christ.” The Kingdom of God and Jesus himself are now the content of the early Church’s preaching. In both eras, Jesus remains part of the proclamation of God’s Kingdom. In the Gospel of Luke Jesus is “the prophetic messenger and the agent of the kerygma; in Acts he becomes its messianic subject and theme (Acts 19:13).”107 Furthermore, in Acts Jesus speaks through his agents (e.g., through Ananias in the story of Paul’s conversion) or appears occasionally (e.g., to Saul). It cannot, therefore, be assumed that Jesus remains inactive and distant in the age of the Church. One could rather suggest that history should be divided into two interconnected parts: the age of the prophets and the Law and that of Jesus and his Church. This understanding is supported by Jesus’s own statement in 16:16. In this understanding of time and history, Jesus remains “die Mitte der Zeit” not because he occupies the middle of the eras but because he is the one who gives meaning to all of them.

107 O. Betz, The Kerygma of Luke,” in Jesus der Messias Israels: Aufsätze zur biblischen Theologie (Tübingen, 1987), 259.

“… because the Father is greater than I” (John 14:28) Johannine Christology in Light of the Relationship Between the Father and the Son REIMUND BIERINGER

The Gospel of John has been well-known for its “high Christology.” Jesus is certainly the central character in the gospel, and Christology is the central theological concern of the Fourth Evangelist. Due to the assertion of the preexistence of the Logos, the characterization of the Logos and the risen Christ as God, the I AM sayings, and many other features of John’s presentation of Jesus, many scholars still assume today that the Gospel of John emphasizes Jesus’s divinity at the cost of his humanity. In this context, there is one statement of the Johannine Jesus that is particularly surprising – namely, “… because the Father is greater than I” in John 14:28. This verse played an important role in the early Trinitarian controversies. It is also a statement that has been interpreted differently in Eastern and Western Christianity throughout the tradition. Moreover, from the perspective of exegetical studies, 14:28 can be seen as a key to the Johannine presentation of Jesus. In this contribution, we will present an exegesis of John 14:28 in its immediate context in the farewell discourse in 13:31‒ 14:31, with special attention to 14:25‒31.

1 Exegetical Problems of John 14:28h The statement “because the Father is greater than I” is the last clause of a verse with eight clauses and occurs in the concluding part of what has often been called the first farewell discourse. We propose the following sense-line presentation of the Greek text and an English translation: Joh 14:28 N27 14:28a ἠκούσατε 14:28b ὅτι ἐγὼ εἶπον ὑµῖν· 14:28c ὑπάγω

14:28 NRSV (adapted) You heard that I said to you, “I am going away,

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14:28d καὶ ἔρχοµαι πρὸς ὑµᾶς. 14:28e εἰ ἠγαπᾶτέ µε 14:28f ἐχάρητε ἂν 14:28g ὅτι πορεύοµαι πρὸς τὸν πατέρα, 14:28h ὅτι ὁ πατὴρ µείζων µού ἐστιν.

and I am coming to you.” If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I.

The words of the Johannine Jesus, ὁ πατὴρ µείζων µού ἐστιν (14:28h),1 seem rather simple and straightforward. If we want to know the exact meaning of the words, however, we are confronted with a series of challenging issues. This statement is a comparison between two persons. We first ask who is compared to whom. The answer is “the Father” is compared to the person who speaks in the first-person singular, Jesus. Unlike some other passages, Jesus does not speak here in the third-person, which would have resulted in “the Father is greater than the Son.” The statement, however, is not formulated entirely in the first-person form either, for in that case it should have been “my Father is greater than I” (ὁ πατὴρ µου µείζων µού ἐστιν).2 The form in which we find the statement in 14:28h is a mixture of a first-person and a third-person statement. This is even more surprising when one considers the fact that absolute ὁ υἱός and absolute ὁ πατήρ are usually used together in the Fourth Gospel and are thematically closely related.3 We note that the other four occurrences of ὁ πατήρ in 14:25-31 are also absolute. Three of these can be seen as parallel to 14:28h because of the presence of first-person singular constructions.4 Likewise, in 10:30, the absolute use of ὁ πατήρ is combined with a self-reference of Jesus in the first-person singular: ἐγὼ καὶ ὁ πατὴρ ἕν ἐσµεν. The fact that Jesus is present in 14:28h in the first-person singular pronoun is responsible for a certain ambiguity which has been of decisive importance for the interpretation of this verse. The question is whether the “I” refers to the Son as the incarnate λόγος or to the eternal Son. The an1 In this study, the text of the Greek New Testament is quoted from Kurt Aland et al., Novum Testamentum Graece (Stuttgart, 271993; 8th printing 2001). Unless otherwise noted, the biblical quotations in English are taken from The Holy Bible Containing the Old and New Testaments with the Apocryphal/Deutero-Canonical Books. New Revised Standard Version (New York et al., 1989). 2 In this form, the statement is attested in ‫ *א‬.2 D2 Θ 0250 f13 majority text, etc. Compared to the attestation of the statement without µου (‫ א‬1 A B D* etc.), this reading has a weaker attestation. 3 See R. Schnackenburg, Das Johannesevangelium (HThK 4; vol. 2: Kommentar zu Kap. 5‒12; Freiburg et al., 1971), 156‒157: “Wenn man wieder diese Aussagegruppen und Motivkreise überschaut und mit den Stellen vergleicht, die von ‘dem Sohn’ handeln, dann bestätigt sich nicht nur die äußere Verflochtenheit der beiden Redeweisen, sondern auch ihre innere gedankliche Zusammengehörigkeit.” 4 In none of these cases does the critical apparatus of N 27 mention variant readings with µου.

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swer can only be found in the context. The immediately preceding statement helps to clarify who is meant by “I” in 14:28h. In 14:28g we read: πορεύοµαι πρὸς τὸν πατέρα. Thus we could paraphrase 14:28h in light of 14:28g: the Father is greater than I who am in the process of going to him. The Jesus who speaks here is clearly someone who has not yet returned to the Father. This does not, however, prove that when Jesus says, “the Father is greater than I,” he wants to restrict this to his incarnate state. There are scholars who propose such a restriction on the basis of the immediate context. According to them, Jesus suggests that the disciples should rejoice that he is going to the Father because at his return his inferiority to the Father will end and he will have more authority and power, which will also benefit the disciples.5 The logical relations between the rejoicing of loving disciples, Jesus’s return to the Father, and the Father’s being greater than Jesus are, however, not spelled out clearly in the text.6 The question discussed in the previous paragraph is also linked to the issue of whether the present-tense ἐστιν in 14:28h refers to the present period the incarnation or to an eternal now of the pre- and post-existence of Jesus. The most straightforward interpretation is that ἐστιν refers to the moment when Jesus is speaking and is contemporary to the other three present tenses ἔρχοµαι, ὑπάγω, and πορεύοµαι in 14:28. However, there are also instances in the Fourth Gospel where the present tense of the verb εἰµί is used to express the eternal realm that transcends time. One of the most prominent examples is: εἶπεν αὐτοῖς ̓Ιησοῦς· ἀµὴν ἀµὴν λέγω ὑµῖν, πρὶν ̓Αβραὰµ γενέσθαι ἐγὼ εἰµί (8:58; cf. 8:28). Here it would certainly be 5 See E.C. Hoskyns, The Fourth Gospel (ed. by F.N. Davey; London, 1942; 2nd ed. 1947), 464: “The humiliation of the Son involved in some real sense a separation from the Father. His glorification and return to the Father restores to Him a position from which He can communicate to His disciples greater power.” Hoskyns interprets 14:28 in light of 14:12. See also R. E. Brown, The Gospel According to John: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (vol. 2: John XIII-XXI; Garden City, N. Y., 1970), 655: “Jesus is on the way to the Father who will glorify him. During his mission on earth he is less than the One who sent him, but his departure signifies that the work that the Father has given him to do is completed. Now he will be glorified with that glory that he had with the Father before the world existed. This is a cause of rejoicing to the disciples because when Jesus is glorified he will glorify his disciples as well by granting them eternal life (xvii 2).” Cf. C. Hoegen-Rohls, Der nachösterliche Johannes. Die Abschiedsreden als hermeneutischer Schlüssel zum vierten Evangelium (WUNT 2/84; Tübingen, 1996), 64‒65: “Grund zur Freude nämlich besteht deshalb, weil Jesus mit seinem Abschied in den Raum des Vaters zurückkehrt, der ‘größer’ ist als der vorösterlich begrenzte Rahmen, in dem die Jünger Jesus erlebt haben. Jesu nachösterliche Existenz beim Vater selbst kann daher das Prädikat des ‘Größeren’ tragen.” There is, however, no basis in the text for what Hoegen-Rohls calls “Raum des Vaters” since the text speaks about the Father and not the space of the Father. 6 See below, p. 202-203.

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wrong to determine the time dimension of εἰµί in ἐγὼ εἰµί in connection with the present tense of λέγω in the same verse. Moreover, in 10:30 (ἐγὼ καὶ ὁ πατὴρ ἕν ἐσµεν), the time dimension of ἐσµεν clearly transcends the present situation in which Jesus states this. It is true in the present situation because it is always true. The temporal scope of ὅτι ὁ πατὴρ µείζων µού ἐστιν in 14:28h is also dependent on the meaning of ὅτι. Of the three meanings of this conjunction, only one makes sense in this context ‒ namely, “because.”7 More difficult is the question of the referent of ὅτι. Does the ὅτι of 14:28h give the motivation of πορεύοµαι πρὸς τὸν πατέρα in 14:28g or of the whole previous sentence: “If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father”? Is the reason why Jesus is going to the Father that the Father is greater than he?8 Or is the affirmation that “the Father is greater than he” the reason why the disciples should rejoice over Jesus’s return to the Father?9 Excursus: The Meaning of µείζων in the Gospel of John The most important aspect of an exegetical study of ὅτι ὁ πατὴρ µείζων µού ἐστιν in 14:28h is the specific nuance of meaning of µείζων. This comparative form is used most frequently in the Fourth Gospel. John is the only evangelist who uses µείζων concerning Jesus and God, a practice which can also be observed in 1 John. The 13 occurrences in John are spread over the whole gospel. Already in 1:50, Jesus announces to Nathanael that he will see “greater things than these” (ἀπεκρίθη Ιησοῦς καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ· ὅτι εἶπόν σοι ὅτι εἶδόν σε ὑποκάτω τῆς συκῆς, πιστεύεις ̀ µείζω τούτων ὄψῃ). The “greater things” which are announced here are not qualified further. It remains open in which regard they are greater. In 14:12 Jesus tells the disciples that those who believe in him will do the works he does and that they will do even greater works (καὶ µείζονα τούτων ποιήσει). Here again it remains unspecified in which regard these works will be greater than the ones of the earthly Jesus.10 The adjective µείζων is also used when John says in 15:13 that the love of those who give their lives for their friends is greater than the love of others. Here the greatness of the love is obviously found in its durability and faithfulness. 11 In 4:12 the Samaritan woman asks Jesus whether he is greater than “our father Jacob.” In the logic of the story, the Samaritan woman compares the Jew Jesus (cf. 4:9) with “our father Jacob” for their comparative abilities of providing water. The question of Jesus 7 The ancient and modern versions that I was able to check translate ὅτι as “for” or “because.” 8 This is the way M. M. Thompson, The God of the Gospel of John (Grand Rapids, Mich. and Cambridge 2001), 94, understands it. 9 This position is defended by D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John (Leicester and Grand Rapids, Mich., 1991), 507. 10 Hoegen-Rohls, Der nachösterliche Johannes, 64‒65, holds that the dimension of µείζων is a characteristic of the post-Easter period. On p. 130, she states explicitly that the works of the disciples are called greater in 14:12 because of their durability (“in ihrer dauerhaften Wirkung”). 11 In 19:11 Jesus speaks of the greater sin of the one who hands Jesus over to Pilate.

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being greater than Jacob comes up in connection with a seeming claim of getting water out of a deep well without a bucket. As the ensuing conversation in 4:13‒15 reveals, Jesus’s being greater has nothing to do with the technicalities of how to get water but rather with the ability of providing the salvation which is symbolized by the water (see also 4:42). Even though it is not stated explicitly, in 6:1‒51 Jesus is presented as greater than Moses (cf. 6:32‒34) and greater than manna (6:47‒51) because those who ate the manna died and those who will eat the bread of life which he is will not die. In 8:53 the opponents of Jesus are asking, “Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? The prophets also died. Who do you claim to be?” As in chapter 6, Jesus’s being greater than Abraham and the prophets has to do with Jesus’s claim of having power over death (see 8:51: “Very truly, I tell you, whoever keeps my word will never see death”). In 5:36 we are told that Jesus has a testimony that is greater than John’s. The continuation of v. 36 clarifies in which way it is greater: “The works that the Father has given me to complete, the very works that I am doing, testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me.” The works, which Jesus received from the Father and which he is doing, testify to his being greater. This refers to the entire salvific and revelatory mission of Jesus. 12 The Fourth Evangelist does not intend to devalue John by calling Jesus’s testimony greater than that of John, who according to 1:7 is also sent by God. He is appreciated as a “burning and shining lamp” (5:35), but not as the light. In 13:16, Jesus compares slaves and masters as well as messengers and senders (ἀµὴν ἀµὴν λέγω ὑµῖν, οὐκ ἔστιν δοῦλος µείζων τοῦ κυρίου αὐτοῦ οὐδὲ ἀπόστολος µείζων τοῦ πέµψαντος αὐτόν). This is the only place in John where µείζων occurs in a negated sentence. To state “the lord is greater than the slave” would be a tautology. In the negated form from the point of view of the slave, 13:16a is formulated specifically for its preceding context of the foot washing. The comparison refers to Jesus as the Lord (cf. the use of κύριος with regard to Jesus in 13:13) and the disciples as the slaves. 13 In 13:14‒15 Jesus says, “So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.” By not doing as Jesus has done, by not imitating his example and washing one another’s feet, the text suggests, the disciples would behave as if they were greater than Jesus their Master. What was meant here by considering the lord or master as greater than the slave is obviously the social status and the concomitant access to privileges. In context, this saying is considered self-evident in the symbolic universe of the sociocultural milieu presupposed by the narrative. The rules of this presupposed symbolic universe are clearly not shaped by the values of Jesus but are being challenged by the foot washing narrative, the very narrative in which they are used. It is noteworthy that the negative formulation, “the slave is not greater than the lord,” does not require the slave to be less than the lord but would also be satisfied by equal status. Even this is already an implicit undermining of the presupposed hierarchy. John 13:16a is explicitly taken up again in 15:20 in the context of the shared fate of persecutions. “Remember the word that I said to you, ‘Servants {Gk [Slaves]} are not greater than their master’. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also.” In 13:16 and 15:20, the measure of greatness seems to have to do with social privilege.

12 13

See Schnackenburg, Johannes, II, 173. R. Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (trans. by G.R. Beasley-Murray et al.; Philadelphia, Penn., 1971), 477, n. 3, points out that since 13:16 is a parabolic saying, “the disciples are not really thought of as Jesus’ slaves.” See also John 15:15.

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As can be seen from the above discussion, 13:16a would be sufficient in the context. This makes 13:16b, οὐδὲ ἀπόστολος µείζων τοῦ πέµψαντος αὐτόν, superfluous for the line of thought (but cf. the theme of mission in 13:20).14 13:16a has synoptic parallels in a dominical saying in Mt 10:24 and Lk 6:40, but for 13:16b there are no synoptic parallels.15 For our purposes here, it suffices to ask in which way the sender might be greater than the messenger. This hierarchy is presupposed here as socially agreed upon and selfevident. This is somewhat surprising if one considers the principle found in Rabbinic literature: “The one who is sent by a man is as the man himself.” 16 The remaining three uses of µείζων in John (5:20; 10:29, and 14:28) have to do with the relationship between Jesus and God. In 5:20 Jesus speaks about the Father and the Son in the third person and states that the Father will show the Son “greater works than these” (ὁ γὰρ πατὴρ φιλεῖ τὸν υἱὸν καὶ πάντα δείκνυσιν αὐτῷ ἃ αὐτὸς ποιεῖ, καὶ µείζονα τούτων δείξει αὐτῷ ἔργα, ἵνα ὑµεῖς θαυµάζητε). This could be linked to the “greater things” which Jesus promises to Nathanael in 1:50 and to the greater works those who believe in Jesus will do in 14:12. But in the context of 5:21‒22, the greater works are the raising of the dead and the exercising of judgment. These are greater, it seems, because they are exclusive prerogatives of God. This is confirmed by the fact that the Son, by sharing in them, should receive the same honor as the Father (5:23). µείζων here refers to something that is greater because it is more exclusively divine. The second use of µείζων that involves the relationship between Jesus and God is found in 10:29a. Because of its closeness in meaning to 14:28, we need to examine it more closely. The textual transmission of this sentence is extremely varied. We distinguish four major readings with subforms 17: Reading 1: Reading 2.a: Reading 2.b: Reading 2.c: Reading 3.a: Reading 3.b: Reading 3.c: Reading 3.d: Reading 4.a: Reading 4.b:

ὁ πατήρ µου ὃ δέδωκέν µοι πάντων µεῖζόν ἐστιν B* VL (except d) vg bo Ambr Hier ὁ πατήρ µου ὃ δέδωκέν µοι πάντων µεῖζων ἐστίν ‫א‬c L W Ψ ὁ πατήρ ὃ δέδωκέν µοι πάντων µεῖζων ἐστίν ‫א‬ ὁ πατήρ µου ὁ δέδωκώς µοι πάντων µεῖζων ἐστίν D ὁ πατήρ µου ὃς δέδωκέν µοι µεῖζων πάντων ἐστίν F Κ ∆ Π f1 2 28 33 157 565 700 1071 pm sy Adamantius Cyr Al. Chrys al. ὁ πατήρ µου ὃς δέδωκέν µοι αὐτὰ µεῖζων πάντων ἐστίν f13 ὁ πατήρ µου ὃς ἔδωκεν µίζων πάντων ἐστίν P 66* ὁ πατήρ µου ὃς ἔδωκεν µοι µίζων πάντων ἐστίν P 66c ὁ πατήρ µου ὃς δέδωκέν µοι µεῖζον πάντων ἐστιν Α Θ (Χ) sypal ὁ πατήρ µου ὃς δέδωκέν µοι πάντων µεῖζόν ἐστιν Bc

14 See, however, Bultmann (ibid.), who reconstructs the text so that 13:20 follows 13:16 immediately, where he considers the mission saying to be original. 15 For rabbinical sayings that are similar, cf. Str.-B. ad loc. and I 577f. on Mt 10:24‒ 25. Midrash Rabbah lxxviii 1 on Gen 32:27: “The sender is greater than the one sent.” Due to the problems of chronology, the value of these parallels for the interpretation of John 13:16 cannot be properly assessed. 16 Str.-B. I 590; II 167, 466, 558. 17 R. J. Swanson, ed., New Testament Greek Manuscripts: Variant Readings Arranged in Horizontal Lines Against Codex Vaticanus: John (Sheffield and Pasadena, Calif., 1995), ad loc.

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The major difference between these readings is whether ὁ πατήρ µου is the subject of the main clause (Readings 2), of the relative clause ὃ δέδωκέν µοι (Reading 1), or of both (Readings 3). This can be seen in the use of a masculine or neuter form of the comparative adjective µεῖζων, ον. Consequently, the text either says that the Father is greater than all (πάντων is masculine) (Readings 2‒3) or that “what the Father has given me” is greater than all else (πάντων is neuter) (Reading 1). In the case of Reading 1, the meaning is closer to 5:20; in the case of Readings 2 or 3, the meaning is closer to 14:28. From the point of view of external criticism, none of the readings is clearly better attested than the others, as virtually all the major witnesses have a different reading. Since Codex Vaticanus always needs to be considered seriously, Reading 1 has a slight preference, but we cannot simply overlook the fact that Codex Vaticanus is the only Greek manuscript that witnesses to this reading. Considering internal criticism, we note that Reading 4 is grammatically incorrect since the subject is masculine and the predicate complement µείζον is neuter. 18 Bruce M. Metzger also considers Reading 2.a to be “impossible Greek,”19 something one might say the copyist of D tried to correct by changing the indicative δέδωκεν into the participle δέδωκως. Metzger suggests convincingly that at the origin of all the major textual variants is the “unexpected sequence of neuter relative pronoun after ὁ πατήρ µου.”20 Changing the neuter relative pronoun ὅ into the masculine form ὅς would have been an attempt to correct this.21 Consequently, all the readings which contain ὅς need to be considered as secondary. The change of ὅ into ὅς would have required that replacing of the neuter form µείζον by the masculine µείζων. 22 Readings 2 and 4 might have resulted from partial attempts to correct the change with the help of a better examplar. This leaves us with Reading 1 as the preferred reading. Internal criticism also needs to examine how variant readings fit within the immediate context. Readings 2 and 3 need to read 10:29 in close continuity with 10:27‒28. The unexpressed direct object of ὃς δέδωκέν µοι would then be the sheep (or Jesus’s ability to protect the sheep?) mentioned in 10:27‒28. The function of saying “My Father who has given [the sheep or the ability to protect] to me is greater than all” in 10:29 would be to confirm that Jesus is indeed able to prevent the sheep from perishing and from being snatched out of his hand (v. 28), because Jesus was enabled and continues to be supported by the Father who is greater than anyone who might threaten the sheep. 23 The parallelism between καὶ οὐχ ἁρπάσει τις αὐτὰ ἐκ τῆς χειρός µου in 10:28c and καὶ οὐδεὶς

18

Schnackenburg, Johannes, II, 386 n. 2, correctly refutes Barrett’s arguments in favor of Reading 4. 19 B. M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (Stuttgart, 1971; 2nd ed. 1994; 2nd printing 1998), 198. It seems that Metzger’s judgment is correct, even if Schnackenburg, Johannes, II, 386, considers Reading 2.a to be the one that is most likely original. He sees it as the lectio difficilior and translates it: “Mein Vater ist, was die betrifft, die er mir gab, größer als alle” (ibid., 382). Schnackenburg fails to give any justification for translating ὃ δέδωκέν µοι as “concerning those whom he gave me.” 20 Metzger, A Textual Commentary, 198. 21 This change would also explain why, in the readings with ὄς, the verb δέδωκεν does not have a direct object. 22 Bc might be evidence of an attempt to change the relative pronoun without realizing the subsequent need to adapt the gender of the predicate complement. 23 See Schnackenburg, Johannes, II, 385: “Die behütende Macht Jesu aber ist die des Vaters, der größer ist als alle, welche die Herde Jesu bedrohen. Der Rekurs auf den Vater … gibt der Zusicherung Jesu größeres Gewicht.”

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δύναται ἁρπάζειν ἐκ τῆς χειρὸς τοῦ πατρός in 10:29b would support this interpretation. This would also explain why the Johannine Jesus stresses the unity between him and the Father in 10:30. Jesus can give life and protect from perishing because he is one with the Father. According to this interpretation, the meaning of µείζων is “stronger,” “more powerful.” Reading 1 requires more of a break between 10:27‒28 and 10:29‒30. When the Johannine Jesus says, “What my Father has given me is greater than all else,” the focus is not on the Father, but on what the Father has given to Jesus. This does not refer to the sheep but ‒ as it is qualified as being greater than all else 24 ‒ to the divine ability to give eternal life (10:28a; cf. 5:20‒21.26). καὶ οὐδεὶς δύναται ἁρπάζειν ἐκ τῆς χειρὸς τοῦ πατρός in 10:29b is then not understood as closely parallel to καὶ οὐχ ἁρπάσει τις αὐτὰ ἐκ τῆς χειρός µου in 10:28c but as stressing the gift character of what the Father has given Jesus (cf. 3:35). No one can snatch it in the sense of usurp it, but it can only be received as a gift. In this reading, the unity between Jesus and the Father is stressed in 10:30 in order to underline that Jesus shares in the same divine prerogatives as the Father, which he has received as a gift. As in 5:20, what the Father has given to Jesus is greater than all else because it shares in the divine prerogatives. At the end of this excursus in which we examined how the Fourth Gospel uses µείζων, we need to synthesis what we have learned for a better understanding of this word in 14:28. It has become clear that most of the uses of µείζων in the Fourth Gospel are about Jesus and how he relates to others, to the patriarchs (Abraham in John 8, Jacob in John 4, Moses in John 6), to the prophets (in John 8), to John (“the Baptist”) in John 5, to the post-Easter disciples in 14:12, and finally to the Father in 14:28. The meaning of µείζων is not static. It expresses a wide range of meanings and nuances. In our analysis, we come to the conclusion that it is not focused on hierarchy, subordination, or even devaluation.

2 A Brief Overview of the Scholarly Debate Concerning John 14:28h With this background, we turn to the use of µείζων in 14:28h in order to determine in which respect the Father is presented here as greater. Since Patristic times, there have been two types of positions: those who think that µείζων refers to the inner Trinitarian relations between Father and Son and those who understand µείζων to only apply to the duration of the incarnation. These interpretations are often less interested in the immediate context in 14:28 and more interested in later Christological and Trinitarian debates.25 Nevertheless, even among more exegetically based interpreta24 25

Here πάντων is understood as a neuter plural form. See Brown, John, II, 654‒655. Cf., e.g., B. F. Westcott, The Gospel According to St. John. The Authorized Version with Introduction and Notes (Grand Rapids, Mich. 1958; orig. 1889), 210: “It appears to be unquestionable that the Lord here speaks in the fullness of His indivisible Personality. The ‘I’ is the same as in viii.58, x.30. The superior greatness of the Father and the Son must therefore be interpreted in regard to the absolute relations of the Father and the Son without violation of the one equal Godhead.”

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tions there are those who want to restrict the meaning of “the Father is greater than I” to the time of Jesus on earth, whereas others think it expresses something fundamental about the relations between the Father and the Son before, during, and after the incarnation. The latter group understands the Father to be greater than the Son in so far as the Father is the origin26 and the Son the originated (cf. µονογενής in 1:14,18; 3:16,18). To support this view, one might also refer to 5:26: “For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.” The element of oneness and equality is expressed here in the fact that both Father and Son have life in themselves, but the Father is greater in so far as he gave to the Son to have life in himself. This latter aspect is not reciprocal. The discussion in this group centers on the question of whether or not the Father’s being greater is to be understood in a “subordinationist” way. Those who find subordinationist Christology in the Gospel of John often base their views on an understanding of John’s presentation of Christ as living in “absolute dependence” on the Father. The Johannine Jesus is seen here as dependent on the Father for his power, knowledge, instructions, message, life, authority, love, glory, testimony, disciples, gift of the Spirit, guidance, union, communion, and all other gifts. This dependence is also seen as manifesting itself in Jesus’s obedience to the Father, which these scholars think they can discover in the Gospel of John.27 C. K. Barrett acknowledges that there are “those notable Johannine passages that seem at first sight to proclaim most unambiguously the unity and equality of the Son with the Father.” However, according to Barrett, they “are often set in contexts which if they do not deny at least qualify this theme, and place alongside it the theme of dependence, and indeed of subordination.”28 While Marianne M. Thompson agrees that “the Father is greater than I” refers to the Son’s origin in the Father, she is opposed to understanding 26 See C.K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St John. An Introduction with Commentary and Notes on the Greek Text (London, 1955; 2nd ed. 1978), 468: “The Father is fons divinitatis in which the being of the Son has its source.” See also more recently Thompson, The God of the Gospel of John, 94: “It is the origin of the Son’s very being that ‘the Father is greater than I.’” 27 See the extensive presentation of alleged evidence for the “absolute dependence” of Jesus on the Father in J. E. Davey, The Jesus of St. John: Historical and Christological Studies in the Fourth Gospel (London, 1958), 90‒156. This book has formed the basis of much of the later discussion. See esp. its influence on the very influential study of C.K. Barrett, “‘The Father is greater than I’ (Jo 14,28): Subordinationist Christology in the New Testament,” in Neues Testament und Kirche. FS R. Schnackenburg (ed. J. Gnilka; Freiburg et al., 1974), 144‒159. The dependence theory is also defended by C. Cowan, “The Father and the Son in the Fourth Gospel: Johannine Subordination Revisited,” JETS 49 (2006): 115‒135. 28 Barrett, “The Father is greater than I,” 148.

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their relationship as hierarchical and considers the label subordinationism as “at best misleading.”29 Her main argument runs as follows: “Since John stresses the function of the Father as the one who gives life to his offspring, rather than the role of the Father as the one who instructs or disciplines, statements such as ‘the Father is greater than I’ ought not to be read against a backdrop of patriarchal hierarchy.”30 She also finds support for her views in the context of John 14:28, where “the Father is greater than I” provides the motivation for the return of Jesus31 as the agent to the Father as the sender. According to her, this serves “to shift attention to the Father who sends the Son.”32 Similarly, Thompson is opposed to interpreting Jesus’s relation to the Father in terms of “obedience.” She points out that John never uses this terminology. She insists that the statements about the Johannine Jesus doing the will of the Father (4:34; 5:30; 6:38.39) or the works of the Father (5:36; 10:25.37) express “the harmony of the Son’s will with the Father’s interpreting the Son’s obedience as enactment of the Father’s will, rather than as submission or acquiescence to it.”33 Submission and therefore obedience are not necessary, not because Jesus has no will, but because Jesus’s will is in full harmony with the Father’s will. We have thus seen that those who interpret “the Father is greater than I” as applying to the entire relationship between the Father and the Son are divided. According to one wing, µείζων expresses a hierarchy that implies subordination under the one who is qualified as greater. µείζων is thus understood as having a strong meaning and a general domain of application. It is a matter of submission under the greater one in all aspects of existence. The other wing of this group assigns a much weaker sense to µείζων, 29 Thompson, The God of the Gospel of John, 94. Cf. E. Käsemann, Jesu letzter Wille nach Johannes 17 (Tübingen 1966; 4th ed. 1980), 31: “Isoliert man die Formeln von der Sendung durch den Vater und der Einheit mit ihm, kommt man zum Subordinationismus oder Ditheismus.” 30 Thompson, The God of the Gospel of John, 94. 31 See above, p. 184, notes 7−8, for a discussion of the referent of ὄτι in 14:28h. 32 Ibid. 33 Ibid., 95. See also Bultmann, The Gospel of John, 249‒250 (not an “act of moral obedience,” but an aspect of “the authorization of his mission”); Käsemann, Jesu letzter Wille, 46. See also J. Blank, Krisis: Untersuchungen zur johanneischen Christologie und Eschatologie (Freiburg i. Br., 1964), 113, n. 12: “Eine einseitige Orientierung am Gehorsams-Gedanken … trifft die Sache nicht.” Similarly P. W. Meyer, “‘The Father’: The Presentation of God in the Fourth Gospel,” in Exploring the Gospel of John. FS Dwight Moody Smith (eds. R. A. Culpepper and C. C. Black; Louisville, Ky., 1996), 257‒273, 260‒261: “the correspondence of action between Son and Father has been misunderstood as obedience within a patriarchally structured relationship … Jesus’ constancy in doing the Father’s will … does not produce unity with the Father – as would be the case if it were understood as obedience – but is grounded in, and springs from, the prior unity of Jesus with the Father.”

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with a more limited domain of application. Unfortunately, none of the proponents in this group explicitly reflects on the meaning they have implicitly assigned to µείζων. None of the above positions is convincing, since they do not make the effort to demonstrate how their interpretation is in keeping with a close reading of 14:28h in its context. Thompson in particular seems to ignore the meaning of “the Father is greater than I” as it does not fit into her overall interpretation of the Father-Son relationship. Those who understand “the Father is greater than I” as a qualification of the relationship of the pre-existent, eternal Son with the Father also assume that the being greater applies to the Father’s relationship with the incarnate Son. There are, however, many (mainly Western) scholars who interpret “the Father is greater than I” in 14:28h as referring only to the earthly Jesus. The question of the nature of the pre-existent or post-existent relationship between Father and Son remains then completely untouched by the statement “the Father is greater than I.” The being greater is usually limited to the Father being greater than the incarnate Son. It can be assumed that from a theological point of view, the Father is greater than the Son in many, if not all, regards. Most scholars, however, focus on one or at most a couple of aspects. The most common among these is the aspect of being sender and messenger. Starting from the statement of Jesus in 13:16, “Very truly, I tell you, servants {Gk [slaves] } are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them,” scholars assume that in so far as the earthly Jesus has received a mission from the Father, the Father is greater.34 It is considered to be self-evident that the messengers cannot expect the focus of attention to be on them but rather on the one who sent them. It is not certain, however, that in the world of the Fourth Evangelist one would assume that the sender is greater than the messenger.35 Moreover, if 14:28h were intended to be analogous to 13:16, the Johannine Jesus would be expected to say, “I am not greater than the Father.” For these two reasons, we caution against reading 14:28h in light of 13:16. In light of John 17:5 and Jesus’s request to be glorified by the Father “with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed,” some scholars have understood the Father’s being greater as related to Jesus’s being human, his humiliation during the incarnation, and thus his lack of

34

Brown, John, II, 655; Schnackenburg, Johannes, II, p. 98; Carson, John, 508; G.R. O’Day, The Gospel of John. Introduction, Commentary, Reflection (NIB 9; Nashville, Tenn, 1995), 752, and E. Zingg, Das Reden von Gott als “Vater” im Johannesevangelium (HBS 48; Freiburg et al., 2006), 208. 35 See above, p. 185-186.

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glory.36 Jean Zumstein understands “the Father is greater than I” as an articulation of the relationship between Father and Son in the order of revelation. The Father is greater than Jesus in as much as Jesus’s actions have no other finality than the revelation of God’s salvific reality. 37 Wes Howard-Brook holds that “the Father remains greater, for Jesus’s particularity cannot encompass God’s universality.”38 In the incarnational understanding of “the Father is greater than I,” µείζων is implicitly understood as “having more authority or power,” as “being the focus of attention,” as “having greater power to accomplish salvation.” The statement about the Father᾽s being greater is thus occasioned by the intrinsic limitations of the incarnation in time and space. But in 14:28, the primary focus is not on the fact that the earthly Jesus is less than the Father. Rather, it is on the fact that – after the return of the Son – the Father will share with him his greater power, which will enable him to be more for the disciples than he could be for them during his earthly ministry. In this subsection, we gave a brief overview of the scholarly debate concerning the interpretation of “the Father is greater than I” (John 14:28h). In the process, we realized that whether scholars support the inner-Trinitarian or the incarnational interpretation, their positions are based on parallels and analogies from outside the immediate literary context. Therefore, they are hardly convincing. In the next subsection, we will propose an interpretation of “the Father is greater than I” (John 14:28h) in its literary context.

3 John 14:28h in the Broader Context of the Farewell Discourse Like “The Father and I, we are one” in 10:30, “the Father is greater than I” in 14:28h easily lends itself to being taken out of context. In this section, we will read 14:28h in the broader context of 13:31‒14:31 before moving to the more specific context of 14:25‒31.

36 Hoskyns, John, 464: “His glorification and return to the Father restores Him to a position from which He can communicate to His disciples greater power.” Cf. Brown, John, II, 655: “Jesus is on the way to the Father who will glorify him”; Carson, John, p. 508, and Bultmann, John, pp. 629‒630. 37 J. Zumstein, L᾽évangile selon Saint Jean (13‒21) (Commentaire du Nouveau Testament 4b; Genève, 2007), 86 and 86 n. 8. 38 W. Howard-Brook, Becoming Children of God: John᾽s Gospel and Radical Discipleship (The Bible and Liberation; Maryknoll, New York, 1994), 327. Cf. Hoegen-Rohls, Der nachösterliche Johannes, 64.

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We will examine the “farewell discourse”39 in 13:31‒14:31 as the context in which the statement “the Father is greater than I” needs to be understood. In doing so, we will pay special attention to the narrative construction of the relationship between Jesus and the Father in the discourse. The major theme of 13:31‒14:31 is the departure of Jesus to the Father and Jesus’s return to the disciples. This theme is discussed in light of the disciples’ lack of understanding and troubled hearts. Scholars usually agree that 13:31‒3840 is the introduction and 14:25‒3141 the conclusion to the discourse. However, scholarly opinion is divided as far as the subdivision of 14:1‒24 is concerned. Schnackenburg, for instance, suggests a division into two parts, the first about Jesus’s departure (14:1‒17) and the second about his coming back (14:18‒24).42 But the return of Jesus is already prominent in 14:3. Brown divides the discourse according to the themes of believing (14:1‒14) and of loving (14:15‒24).43 While these themes are important, we are not convinced that they are the main themes of the farewell discourse. We suggest that the four successive interjections by disciples of Jesus serve as the basis of the discourse’s structure: by Simon Peter (in 13:36), by Thomas (in 14:5), by Philip (in 14:8), and by Judas (in 14:22). It is an important structural marker that each one of them is introduced by λέγει αὐτῷ + name and that they all address Jesus with κύριε. Because of thematic continuity, the sections on Peter’s and Thomas’s questions belong together, and in a similar way, the sections on Philip’s and Judas’s concerns also belong together. We consider the section on the reciprocal glorification of God and Jesus to be a kind of prologue to the farewell discourse. The actual discourse begins in 13:33 with the address τεκνία – the only one of its kind in the Fourth Gospel – and with the announcement, “I am with you only a little longer.” This leads us to the following subdivision: subdivision 13:31‒32 13:33‒14:7 13:33‒35

content prologue: reciprocal glorification of God and Jesus part one: departure, return, and re-departure introduction of the farewell discourse: definitive departure

39 We are using here the established terminology. In our discussion below, we shall bring out the fact that the discourse is structured by four questions and remarks of four interlocutors. As we shall see, there is not much real dialogue going on here. Nonetheless, the input of the interlocutors does have an influence on the direction the discourse takes. 40 Schnackenburg, Johannes, III, 53–63. 41 There is some debate as to whether the beginning of this concluding section is to be seen in v. 24, 25, or 27. 42 Schnackenburg, Johannes, III, 64. 43 Brown, John, II, 623. Cf. Bultmann, John, 612: “The Love-relationship to the Son and to the Father: 14.15‒24.”

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Reimund Bieringer Simon Peter: why can I not follow you now? Thomas: show us the way to the Father part two: mutual indwelling and love Philip: the request “show us the Father” and the greater works of the disciples Judas: why do you reveal yourself to us and not to the world? epilogue

We will now briefly examine each section. The prologue (13:31‒32) follows immediately after Judas has left the farewell dinner to betray Jesus. Jesus speaks about the reciprocal glorification of God (ὁ θεός) and the Son of Man. These verses are highly repetitive with five uses of the verb δοξάζω in five successive main clauses. This emphasizes the importance of glorification as an interpretive category for what later in this discourse will be called “going to the Father.” Glorification is presented as the mutual glorification of God and the Son of Man. We note, however, that it is not a completely reciprocal glorification, since the text here never says explicitly that the Son will glorify the Father but that the Father is glorified in/through the Son. In the entire gospel, we only find parallels to the statement that the Son of Man was glorified (11:4; 12:16, 23), never before 13:33‒35 that he glorifies God or even that God is glorified in/through him (but note 14:13: ἵνα δοξασθῇ ὁ πατὴρ ἐν τῷ υἱῷ). For the first main part (13:33‒14:7) of the Farewell Discourse, we suggest the following subdivision: 13:33‒35 13:36‒14:7 13:36‒14:4 13:36ab 13:36cd 13:37 13:38 14:1‒3 14:4 14:5‒7 14:5 14:6‒7

introduction: definitive departure and love commandment for the disciples part one: departure, return, and re-departure dialogue with Peter and the disciples Peter’s first question: where are you going? Jesus’s answer (restatement of 13:33d) Peter’s second question: why can I not follow you now? Jesus’s answer concerning Peter’s denial Jesus addresses all the disciples: inclusion of the disciples Jesus: you know the way dialogue with Thomas Thomas’s question about the way Jesus’s answer: exclusive access to the Father through Jesus

As we said above, we see the beginning of the actual farewell discourse in 13:33. Jesus (psychologically?) prepares his disciples by telling them that after his departure they will be looking for him and will be missing him (ζητήσετέ µε). The departure of Jesus will mean a definitive separation,

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since the disciples cannot come where Jesus is going (13:33). This point is also underlined in Jesus’s gift of a new commandment that puts the focus clearly on the relationship of the disciples with each other. After his departure, Jesus wants the disciples to love one another according to the model of Jesus’s love for them. When Peter in 13:36‒38 insists that he wants to follow Jesus where he will be going, it is clear that he missed the point of Jesus’s commandment. By associating departure with laying down one’s life and with Peter’s denial of Jesus, the evangelist for the first time gives the reader some clues that glorification and departure are interpretive categories for Jesus’s death and resurrection. The conversation with Peter is followed in 14:1‒4 by additional clarifications by Jesus about his departure that are intended to give the disciples peace of heart (14:1). Jesus explains that his departure is a going to the Father and that this is inclusive of the disciples, in so far as he is going to the Father to prepare a place for them in the house of the Father (14:2‒3). That is why they cannot follow him now. Thus Jesus’s leaving the disciples is not an abandonment (see also 14:18); even under these circumstances, he wants to include them. He announces that he will come again and will take them along with himself. The goal is that where he is, they may also be (14:3). Clearly, Jesus and God are equal here since the disciples are invited to believe in both of them with the same words: πιστεύω εἰς (14:1b). Moreover, Jesus is the active one who prepares rooms in the Father’s house to which he obviously has free access. In the context of 13:36‒14:3, it is a complete surprise that Jesus now adds in 14:4: “And where I am going, you know the way.” If they cannot come with him (13:33), what good is it to know the way? If Jesus will come back to take them along with him to the Father’s house, what need is there for them to know the way? Thomas responds to Jesus: “We do not know where you are going, how can we know the way?” (14:5) The irony is, that Jesus had just said where he was going. Obviously, Thomas did not understand or did not listen to what Jesus had just said about going to the Father’s house. In reply to Thomas, Jesus emphasizes that he himself is the exclusive access to the Father and that in knowing him they know the Father, in seeing him they see the Father. Here again, the equality between the Father and the Son seems to be emphasized. There is no allusion to submission or subordination. For the second major section (14:8‒24) of the Farewell Discourse, we suggest the following subdivision: 14:8‒24 14:8‒21 14:8‒11 14:8

part two: mutual indwelling and love how Jesus shows the Father seeing Jesus is seeing the Father the request of Philip: show us the Father

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14:15‒17 14:18‒21 (14:20) 14:22‒24 14:22 14:23‒24

Jesus’s answer to Philip: the mutual indwelling of Father and Son Jesus addresses all the disciples: the mutual indwelling of Father and Son how Jesus’s works continue after his earthly ministry Jesus addresses the disciples about their greater works the gift of the Paraclete Jesus’s self-revelation to those who love him and not to the world; mutual indwelling of Father and Son as well as the disciples and Jesus Judas’s question about Jesus self-revelation to the world Judas’s question: why do you only reveal yourself to us and not to the world? Jesus’s answer: Jesus and the Father will make their home in the one who loves Jesus

In 14:8 the conversation continues with Philip saying, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” This indicates that Philip either did not listen to what Jesus had just said, that he did not understand, or that his remark was a deliberate slap in the face of Jesus. The latter seems to be suggested by the wording “… and it is enough for us,” as well as by Jesus’s perturbed reaction in 14:9b: “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me?” and in 14:9de: “How do you [dare to] say: ‘Show us the Father’?” The provocative question gives the Johannine Jesus the opportunity to repeat what he had just said to Thomas in 14:7: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (14:9c). When we consider the way this is stated in the context, it seems to imply: There is nothing more to show or to see. The point is emphasized by a double statement of the mutual indwelling of Father and Son in 14:10 and 11: “I am in the Father and the Father is in me,” first introduced by the question, “Do you not believe me?” and then by the invitation, “believe me.” Again, nothing indicates a hierarchy with regard to the mutual indwelling. Significantly, when Jesus says, “The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works” (14:10de), this statement is framed by the “Immanenzformel.” This chiastic structure (“Immanenzformel” – not ἀπ᾽ ἐµαυτοῦ – “Immanenzformel”) shows that, for the Fourth Evangelist, the statement that Jesus does not speak ἀπ᾽ ἑµαυτοῦ is not an indication of dependence or hierarchy, as many exegetes claim. Rather, the statement serves to underline that in Jesus we see and know the Father. The same is true about the statement “the Father who dwells in me does his works.” At the end of this section in 14:11d, the Johannine Jesus adds an exception clause: εἰ δὲ µή, διὰ τὰ ἔργα αὐτὰ πιστεύετε. Despite the empha-

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sis on Jesus as the only access to the Father in 14:6, here Jesus’s works, rather than his person, appear to be what counts. Beginning in 14:12, the focus is no longer on the relationship between the Father and Jesus but on the disciples after Jesus’s departure. There are several ways in which Jesus is trying to show the disciples how they can remain connected to him: first, by faith and doing the works which Jesus does (14:12); second, by asking Jesus and being assured that whatever they ask he will do (14:13‒14); third, by loving Jesus and keeping his commandments (14:15a); fourth, by the Paraclete whom the Father will give to them at Jesus’s request (14:15b‒17); fifth, by being assured that Jesus will not leave them orphans, but that he will come to them (14:18); sixth, by being assured that they will see Jesus (14:19ab), that they will share in his life (14:19c), and that they will be in Jesus as he is in them – that is, they will participate in the mutual indwelling of Father and Son (14:20). The last verse of this subsection, 14:21, begins with a repetition of what Jesus said earlier in 14:15a about loving him and keeping the commandments. But we should not overlook the subtle change. 14:21 is no longer formulated in the second person plural as was 14:15 – and indeed the whole section since 14:11 – but rather in the third person singular. This means that Jesus is no longer speaking to the disciples directly but more generally about anyone who loves him. 14:21 is thus a transition to the next section where Jesus also speaks in 14:23-24 about loving and keeping his word in the third person singular (cf. τις in 14:23). 14:15 ̓Εὰν ἀγαπᾶτέ µε, τὰς ἐντολὰς τὰς ἐµὰς τηρήσετε·

second person plural

14:21 ὁ ἔχων

τὰς ἐντολάς µου καὶ τηρῶν αὐτὰς ἐκεῖνός ἐστιν ὁ ἀγαπῶν µε· third person singular

14:23

14:24

ἐάν τις ἀγαπᾷ µε τὸν λόγον µου τηρήσει

ὁ µὴ ἀγαπῶν µε τοὺς λόγους µου οὐ τηρεῖ·

third person singular

third person singular

In 14:12-21 references to the relationship between the Father and Jesus are present in Jesus’s announcement, “I am going to the Father” in 14:12c, in the goal that the Father should be glorified in the Son in 14:13b, in Jesus’s promise that he will ask the Father to give another Paraclete to the disciples (14:16), in a reference to Jesus’s indwelling in the Father (14:20b), and in the statement that those who love Jesus will be loved by the Father (14:21). All these references occur as Jesus depicts how the disciples will

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be able to stay connected with him after his departure to the Father. The references to the Father in 14:12-21 serve to show how Jesus’s relationship with the Father enables him to stay connected with the disciples even after his departure. As in part one, here also a longer section, which was initiated by a disciple’s interaction with Jesus, is followed by a shorter section introduced by a question from a different disciple who picks up on something Jesus said at the end of the previous section. In 14:22 Judas, not Iscariot, reacts to Jesus’s words about his self-revelation to anyone who loves him (14:21). He uses the same verb ἐµφανίζω, which Jesus had used in the previous verse and which only occurs in these two places in the Fourth Gospel. Judas asks, “Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?” ἡµῖν is in a very emphatic position at the beginning of the clause. Judas, however, seems to have missed that Jesus did not say that he will reveal himself to the disciples in 14:21 but to those who love him. One might consider this observation to be introducing exaggerated distinctions. However, in his reaction to Judas’s question, after the solemn introductory phrase ἀπεκρίθη Ἰησοῦς καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ,44 Jesus does not speak about the disciples but about those who love him (14:23‒24). One may consider this response as simply a more or less synonymous variant or a broadening of the concept. In light of 14:28d, however, the shift from the second person plural to the third person singular may also cast some doubts on the love of the disciples. In what at first seems like an effort to avoid giving an answer to his question, Jesus would be saying to Judas: “When I say κόσµος I am thinking of people who do not love me. I cannot reveal myself to anyone who does not love me. I did not say that I will reveal myself to the disciples, for it is not by being a disciple but by loving me that one qualifies for receiving my revelation.” In this context, the Johannine Jesus makes another statement which is of utmost importance for the characterization of the relationship between the Father and the Son. In 14:23de he says, “We will come to them and make our home with them.” This statement takes up, with some variations, the references to indwelling in the previous section in 14:20 (cf. 14:10‒11), where it was addressed to the disciples. The section ends with a reference to the Father who sent Jesus (14:24c).

44 Note that Jesus’s reactions to Peter, Thomas, and Philip in the previous parts of the farewell discourse were simply introduced by λέγει.

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4 Reading John 14:28h in its Immediate Context: 14:25‒31 This brings us to 14:25‒31, the immediate context of the statement “the Father is greater than I” in v. 28. As stated earlier, I consider this section to be the epilogue of the discourse. This is already indicated by the introductory formula ταῦτα λελάληκα ὑµῖν παρ᾽ ὑµῖν µένων (14:25). Because of the perfect λελάληκα, the demonstrative pronoun ταῦτα can only be anaphoric, introducing a retrospective statement with regard to the preceding farewell discourse. In this regard, ταῦτα λελάληκα ὑµῖν παρ᾽ ὑµῖν µένων is as much the conclusion of what precedes as it is the introduction to what follows. The clause “while I am still with you” is a reminder that Jesus’s departure is near, which will be made explicit in 14:30‒31. His “dialogues” with the four disciples do not offer much evidence of progress to deeper insight or to their being consoled by Jesus’s words. Hence, it is no surprise that Jesus now promises the Paraclete again (14:26) and in 14:27d literally repeats µὴ ταρασσέσθω ὑµῶν ἡ καρδία from 14:1a and intensifies it by adding µηδὲ δειλιάτω.45 For the troubled and fearful hearts, Jesus not only promises the Paraclete but also offers the gift of his peace, emphatically presented in fourfold repetition. 14:28 begins with another retrospective (ἠκούσατε ὅτι ἐγὼ εἶπον ὑµῖν), recalling Jesus’s announcement of his departure and return in 13:33, 36; 14:2‒3, 12, 18, 23. What is new here is that Jesus adds: “If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father.” The irrealis states what in the speaker’s opinion is contrary to fact. Jesus thus implies that the disciples do not rejoice that Jesus is going to the Father. Their hearts are rather troubled and fearful (see 14:27ef), as has been evident from the ways the four disciples reacted to Jesus’s announcement of his departure. The Johannine Jesus interprets the disciples’ lack of joy as a lack of love for him. At first sight, at least, it is an enigma why their being troubled and fearful because of Jesus’s departure is a sign of their lack of love for Jesus. Is it not exactly their love for Jesus that makes them sad because of the impending separation? Significantly, a few verses later, Jesus will say, “I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father” (14:31). He wants the world that does not love him46 to know that he loves the Father. He demonstrates this love by doing as the Father commanded him. In 10:18 the Fourth Evangelist had already spelled out the commandment of the Father for Jesus: οὐδεὶς αἴρει αὐτὴν ἀπ᾽ ἐµοῦ, ἀλλ᾽ ἐγὼ τίθηµι αὐτὴν ἀπ᾽ ἐµαυτοῦ. ἐξουσίαν ἔχω θεῖναι αὐτήν, καὶ ἐξουσίαν ἔχω πάλιν 45 46

This verb is a hapaxlegomenon in the New Testament. See above, p. 197‒198.

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λαβεῖν αὐτήν· ταύτην τὴν ἐντολὴν ἔλαβον παρὰ τοῦ πατρός µου.47 The Father commands Jesus to lay down his life and to take it up again.48 In 14:31 this connection is expressed in the narrative by the very fact that “I do as the Father has commanded me” is followed immediately by “Rise, let us be on our way,” presumably to meet “the ruler of the world” (see 14:30b). Jesus had already strongly emphasized the link between loving and keeping commandments in 14:14 and 21 (see also 14:23‒24), albeit in the context of Jesus’s commandments for the disciples (cf. 15:11). If we look at 14:28ef in this light, we come to the conclusion that the disciples’ separation anxiety is presented as evidence not of love, but of selfishness.49 If they put not their own but Jesus’s well being foremost in their minds, they would rejoice that Jesus accomplishes his work and that through the glorification and exaltation of the cross, through resurrection and ascension, he will be restored to be with his Father. As we have seen, the preceding farewell discourse makes exceedingly clear that in this process the disciples will not lose out. They need not be jealous of the fact that Jesus will be with the Father and not with them, for Jesus includes the disciples in all that is accomplished by his return to the Father. In our search to understand ὅτι ὁ πατὴρ µείζων µού ἐστιν, we also need to analyze the context that immediately follows, especially 14:29. This verse is parallel to 14:25: 14:25 ταῦτα

λελάληκα ὑµῖν παρ᾽ ὑµῖν µένων

14:29 καὶ νῦν εἴρηκα ὑµῖν πρὶν γενέσθαι, ἵνα ὅταν γένηται πιστεύσητε.

14:29 looks like a repetition of 14:25 with different emphases. In v. 29 the time “now,” “before it happens,” is emphasized. Moreover, in v. 29 the purpose of the discourse is given – namely, “in order that you believe.” 47 Brown, John, I, 399: “It is the Father who willed that the death of Jesus should lead to resurrection and return to Himself.” 48 Cf. 12:49‒50: ὅτι ἐγὼ ἐξ ἐµαυτοῦ οὐκ ἐλάλησα, ἀλλ᾽ ὁ πέµψας µε πατὴρ αὐτός µοι ἐντολὴν δέδωκεν τί εἴπω καὶ τί λαλήσω. 50 καὶ οἶδα ὅτι ἡ ἐντολὴ αὐτοῦ ζωὴ αἰώνιός ἐστιν. ἃ οὖν ἐγὼ λαλῶ, καθὼς εἴρηκέν µοι ὁ πατήρ, οὕτως λαλῶ. 49 See Carson, John, 508: the disciples are self-centered – they should have rejoiced about his gain!

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Whereas 14:25 focuses on the time when Jesus is still with the disciples, v. 29 shifts attention to the time when “it” happens in the near future. 14:29 does not contain a direct object (cf. ταῦτα in v. 25) since πρὶν γενέσθαι and ὅταν γένηται clarify implicitly what the object of the verb is. In both verses, a verbum dicendi is used in the perfect tense. It is difficult to detect a difference in meaning between λαλέω (λελάληκα) and λέγω (εἴρηκα) in these verses. On the basis of these observations, we assume that 14:29 also refers back to the entire farewell discourse that precedes, not only to v. 28. Of course, the main thing that Jesus told the disciples would happen soon is his departure, which is also emphasized in v. 28 and which is about to happen when Jesus says: ἐγείρεσθε, ἄγωµεν ἐντεῦθεν in the next verse. This is again a reminder that Jesus’s going to the Father includes his violent death. What can the surprising addition of ὅτι ὁ πατὴρ µείζων µού ἐστιν add in this context? Is it not superfluous at this point? And does it not contradict the strong emphasis on the unity and equality of Father and Son which, as we have seen, characterizes the preceding verses of the farewell discourse? ὅτι ὁ πατὴρ µείζων µού ἐστιν in the immediate context provides the motivation for the disciples to rejoice that he is going to the Father.50 This leaves no doubt that the Father is described as being greater first and foremost because Jesus benefits from the Father’s being greater. Only secondarily and by way of implication may the Father’s being greater also be interpreted as something that benefits the disciples, even though most scholars take such a reading of the text for granted. They assimilate 14:28 to 16:7, a procedure that is not sound methodologically. Even if the text implicitly assumes that the disciples will also benefit because the Father is greater than Jesus, this point is not explicit and is certainly not the focus of 14:28. Rather, the focus is on Jesus’s benefit. How does Jesus, while going to the Father, benefit from the Father’s being greater than he? On the basis of the results of our investigation so far, we see the benefit for Jesus in the assurance that the Father – as greater than Jesus who will lay down his life on the cross in the process of going to the Father – will be the guarantor of Jesus’s resurrection. Because the Father is greater than Jesus and as such guarantees that death will not have the final word, the disciples, if they loved Jesus and wanted the best for him, would rejoice that Jesus is going to the Father, even though this will include Jesus’s violent death on the cross. The Father who has life in himself (see 5:26) has given Jesus the ἐξουσία to take up his life again after laying it down. Jesus is ἡ ἀνάστασις καὶ ἡ ζωή (11:25). In 2:19 the Johannine Jesus says: λύσατε τὸν ναὸν τοῦτον καὶ ἐν τρισὶν ἡµέραις ἐγερῶ αὐτόν and in 20:9 the narrator tells us: ὅτι δεῖ αὐτὸν ἐκ νεκρῶν ἀναστῆναι. 50

See above, p. 183‒184.

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Nevertheless, like some earlier strands of the New Testament tradition, the Gospel of John can also speak about Jesus having been raised from the dead by God (see ὅτε οὖν ἠγέρθη ἐκ νεκρῶν in 2:22). On the basis of our analysis of the immediate context of 14:25‒31 as well as the entire farewell discourse, we propose that ὅτι ὁ πατὴρ µείζων µού ἐστιν compares the Father to Jesus in so far as he passes through crucifixion and death on his return to the Father. That Jesus nevertheless arrives at the Father due to resurrection and ascension is due to the Father being greater than he.51 Even though Jesus is presented in the Fourth Gospel as immortal life in person (ἡ ζωή) and as the one who is in control amidst his dying and rising, the gospel has preserved the awareness that all this is ultimately granted by the Father to the Son (cf. 5:26). It is precisely this ever-so-subtle point that ὅτι ὁ πατὴρ µείζων µού ἐστιν makes in its context. Somewhat simplified, one might paraphrase 14:28h as follows: “because the Father is greater than the crucified Son.” This is the reason why, if the disciples loved Jesus, they would rejoice that he is going to the Father, even though that means passing through crucifixion. It is at the same time the ultimate consolation for the disciples, even though in context this benefit is only a side effect. Despite the very limited scope that we suggest for ὅτι ὁ πατὴρ µείζων µού ἐστιν in its immediate context, what the text says about the Father being greater than the crucified Son can only be true if the statement also applies to the incarnation as a whole and to the pre-existence as well as the post-existence. It is related to the nonreciprocal statements in the immediate context – namely, the Father sending the Son (14:24) and the Father giving commandments to the Son (14:31). However, the Fourth Gospel does not yet reflect on all this in a systematic way.

5 Conclusion Who Jesus is in the Gospel of John depends largely on his relationships with the Father, with other significant figures of the biblical tradition, and with the disciples. The word µείζων plays an important role in the characterization of these relationships. As we have seen, the specific nuance of meaning of this comparative form of the adjective µέγας depends on the context in which it is used. In none of the Johannine contexts in which it is used did we find that it had a hierarchical or subordinationist meaning. We 51 Cf. K. Wengst, Das Johannesevangelium (ThKNT 4.2; vol. 2: Kapitel 11‒21; Stuttgart et al., 2001), 134: “Erst sein Weggang in den Tod vollendet sein Werk, weil mit diesem Tod sich der größere Vater identifiziert und ihn so nicht bloßes Ende des Lebens Jesu sein lässt, sondern ihn zum Leben wendet.”

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presented a detailed analysis of the farewell discourse in 13:31‒14:31 as the broader context of ὅτι ὁ πατὴρ µείζων µού ἐστιν in 14:28h. The challenging questions and requests posed by four named disciples in the face of Jesus’s definitive departure forced Jesus to reconceptualize his relationship with the Father in light of this new situation. Jesus does this primarily through strong expressions of the intimate unity and the uncompromising equality between him and the Father. In the midst of these expressions of reciprocity and equality between the Father and the Son, the fact remains that many images used to describe this relationship are not reciprocal, the Father-Son image not being the least among these. When these nonreciprocal images, such as the Father sending the Son or the Father giving a commandment to the Son, are used in the farewell discourse, they are not exploited to emphasize submission or subordination. Rather, they demonstrate the authority and reliability of the Son. When interpreters emphasize the Son’s obedience to and dependence on the Father, they overlook precisely the Father’s divine capacity to be the origin but not to exploit this capacity to make others dependent. The Father can share his divine prerogatives of giving life and of judging with the Son to such an extent that these prerogatives truly become Jesus’s own. It becomes impossible to exploit them for hierarchical relations. Despite its generalizing diction, in this study we were guided by the conviction that the clause ὅτι ὁ πατὴρ µείζων µού ἐστιν should be read primarily in its broader and immediate context. In so doing, we attempted to demonstrate the coherence of various elements that at first sight seem disparate. In this way, we also came to the conclusion that ὅτι ὁ πατὴρ µείζων µού ἐστιν in John 14:28h has a very specific meaning pointing to the Father’s guarantee that death will not have the final word when Jesus suffers a violent death on the cross. The Father’s being greater and thus able to guarantee that life will have the last word has its foundation in a fundamental difference between the Father and the Son, which is not limited to this specific situation or even to the incarnation. This fundamental level is the basis for the contextual statement. Whatever goes beyond that would be the work of future theologians of later centuries. We realize that the findings of this study should be tested by studying the Father-Son relationship in the entire Fourth Gospel – especially “the Father and I, we are one” in 10:30 and the ἀφ᾽ ἑαυτοῦ/ἀπ᾽ ἐµαυτοῦ statements – as the context for understanding 14:28h. There are also a number of more or less parallel statements in the continuation of the farewell discourse in chapters 15 and 16 (esp. 16:7) which could be studied, but which, in a first approach, we left out of our considerations for methodological reasons. Another important investigation would be a comparison of our

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findings concerning 14:28 with 20:17. All of these are beyond the scope of this article and will be topics for further study. Appendix reference 1:50 4:12 5:20 5:36 8:53 10:29 13:16 14:12 14:28 15:13 15:20 19:11

‘A’ greater future events Jesus works testimony of Jesus Jesus what the Father has given me lord sender works of the one who believes in Jesus Father love of those who give their lives for their friends lord sin of the one who hands Jesus over to Pilate

verb see be show have be be be be do

than ‘B’ Jesus’s miraculous foreknowledge our father Jacob? than these testimony of John our father Abraham? all slave one sent works of Jesus

be

I (Jesus, Son) love of others

be be

slave Sin of Pilate

Beyond Jesus the Jew: Old Visions Meet Modern Challenges1 KONSTANTINOS TH. ZARRAS

On their way to Caesarea Philippi, Jesus asked his disciples, τίνα µε λέγουσιν οἱ ἄνθρωποι εἶναι; (“Who do people say that I am?”). The answer came that some said he was John the Baptist, others that he was Elijah, and others that he was one of the prophets (Mark 8:27−30). He asked them again, ὑµεῖς δὲ τίνα µε λέγετε εἶναι; (“But who do you say that I am?”), and Peter’s answer followed swiftly: σὺ εἶ ὁ χριστός (“You are the Christ”) – and Matthew 16:16 adds, ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ ζῶντος (“the Son of the living God”).2 If we were to ask the very same question today, we would probably receive an even wider variety of answers. Yet one of them would probably prevail; it is an answer that the disciples would never even think to offer: Jesus was a Jew,3 just like each and every one of them. According to our Holy Writ, everything began when this Jew shed his blood atop a rocky hill of Roman-occupied Jerusalem. Or, in a more mysterious way, when the Son of God put on earthly garments and was born a man, an Israelite, only a few miles south of the “city of peace.” It was only in the mid to late twentieth century, initially with only a few Judaists, that scholarship took an inevitable turn, declaring that if we are to understand the person and his work, there is no other way than to dive into his world.4 Scholars had to 1 This essay was initially read at the SNTS/EELC Conference, held at Minsk in September 2010, under the title “The Incarnation of God’s Son in Israel.” 2 It is in this specific passage (Matt 16:13–20) that the founding and the beginning of the Church (ἐκκλησίαν) is traditionally found (also Matt 18:17; Eph 1:22; Col 1:18). The Latin church (middle English chirche) might derive from circus (for the “circle”) or from the Greek phrase Kyriake Oikia (for “Lord’s House”). 3 It is astonishing how this simple and obvious fact escaped or eluded our attention − or was simply played down ‒ for nearly two thousand years. On the other hand, even in our days, there are Jews who believe that Jesus was a “Christian”! Cf. G. Vermes, Jesus in His Jewish Context (Minneapolis, 2003), 1. 4 Amy-Jill Levine writes, “the failure to understand the Jewish Jesus within his Jewish context has resulted in the creation and perpetuation of millennia of distrust, and

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have a thorough familiarity not only with Second Temple but with Rabbinic Judaism, too.5 The sources for the period called New Testament times are now more abundant than ever.6 The writings of Philo and Josephus, the apocalyptic works, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Gnostic texts, the Rabbinic corpus, I would also add the Hekhalot and the Cairo Genizah material,7 together with the Testaments and the works from Greek and Roman authors, all present a multicolored tapestry that was never before viewed by scholars in the past.8 Not surprisingly, a holistic approach is the most suitable. With a clear understanding of the limitations inherent in such an attempt, and acknowledging all of the justifiable reservations about the dating of the rabbinic material,9 I begin by moving from the periphery to the worse, between church and synagogue”; see A.-J. Levine, The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus (New York, 2007), 21; also, see J.H. Charlesworth, ed., Jesus’ Jewishness: Exploring the Place of Jesus in Early Judaism (New York, 1991). 5 For example, see H.L. Strack and P. Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch (6 vols.; München, 1922–1961); G.F. Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era: The Age of the Tannaim (3 vols.; Cambridge, 1927– 1930); C.G. Montefiore, Rabbinic Literature and Gospel Teachings (London, 1930); for the second half of the twentieth century, see S. Safrai et al., eds., The Jewish People in the First Century: Historical Geography, Political History, Social, Cultural and Religious Life and Institutions, (CRINT 1.1–2; 2 vols.; Assen and Philadelphia, 1974–1976); E.P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, (London and Philadelphia, 1985). For the works of Geza Vermes see below. 6 From this point of view, the statement that “the Bible is no longer the basic text” (though the statement was made with regard to the Gospel of Matthew) holds more weight than one may at first think; see U. Luz, “The Gospel of Matthew: A New Story of Jesus, or a Rewritten One?” in Studies in Matthew (trans. R. Selle; Grand Rapids and Cambridge, 2005), 32. 7 The Sepher haYetzirah and the Greek Magical Papyri are also useful for understanding the Hellenistic-Roman world and its intellectual adventures before and after the end of the Second Temple Period. 8 At this point I would like to extend my gratitude to SNTS/EELC for inviting me to the conference to present on this important theme; I am truly thankful for the opportunity to participate in a symposium that aims to bring closer all those who should never have been apart. My gratitude also goes out to Professor Ulrich Luz for some very useful comments, especially on the issue of the use of the term “religion” for first century Judaic cultic praxis, but also for his inspiring studies on Matthew (to mention but a few); to Professor Peder Borgen, for the discussions on Philo and his helpful articles I was privileged to receive; to Professor Carl Holladay, for precious comments and discussions after the presentation and – of course – for his practical and successful seminar during the days of the conference; and last but not least, to Professor Joel Marcus for his comments and long conversations that followed (I learned a good deal), the material he generously shared, and the songs he gracefully sang (a true Mensch in this world). 9 On this difficult issue, see A.J. Saldarini, “Rabbinic Literature and the New Testament,” ABD 5:602–604; B.H. Young, Meet the Rabbis: Rabbinic Thought and the Teachings of Jesus (Peabody, 2007), 108–109. Jacob Neusner’s work on the pre-70 Pharisaic

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center, and then back again; that is, a very brief taste of Jesus’s environment and its people will follow, then a look at the person and some aspects of his life and work, and finally, an overall, though cautious, evaluation of the material presented.10 For most of Jesus’s lifetime, Tiberius (14–37 C.E.), the adopted son (and a stepson) of Augustus sat on the throne of the empire at Roma quadrata. He appointed the rather brutal Pontius Pilate to the office of the prefect of Judaea in 26 C.E. (until 36 C.E.). According to Josephus and Philo,11 but contrary to the witness of the Gospels, Pilate was a harsh and stubborn person who readily used violence for imposing his will on the people.12 His office was previously held by Valerius Gratus (15‒26 C.E.).

traditions is deemed of capital importance, too; see J. Neusner, The Rabbinic Traditions about the Pharisees before 70 (3 vols.; Leiden, 1971). 10 In this essay, I prefer the synchronic approach. I think it works best for bringing forth some of the questions to be discussed later on in our conversation. I chose not to delve into issues of textual criticism, for it would lead my thought – and pen – down other narrow paths and away from the problematic areas to which I wish to draw attention here. For example, the debate as to whether Matt 28:19 (πορευθέντες µαθητεύσατε πάντα τα έθνη) is an interpolation is a very serious issue, but not my primary interest at the moment. For this essay, I am mostly concerned with the undeniable reality of the text as it was passed down to us through the centuries and with the formative agents that shaped the history of the Christian movement during its early phases. Like many others, I cannot agree with R. Bultmann’s statement (Jesus and the Word [New York, 1962], 14) that there can be no quest for the “historical Jesus”; even if the Gospels are not historiography per se, as I say later on in this paper, one can still find precious information both about the person and his epoch. Valuable historical information can be deduced even from non-historical documents; see also, Vermes, Jesus (n. 3), 2. 11 Philo is only “whispering” about Pilate in his Epistle to Gaius (perhaps because Philo lives earlier than Josephus?). He depicts him as headstrong and quick tempered; see Philo, Legat. 299‒305. Perhaps it is not without meaning that his name, Pilatus, probably comes from the term for the Roman spear (pilum). 12 Yet, Luke 13:1 speaks of the massacre of Galilean pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem with sacrificial offerings for the temple; the verse implies that the responsibility for their blood was on Pilate (περὶ τῶν Γαλιλαίων ὧν τὸ αἷµα Πιλᾶτος ἔµιξεν µετὰ τῶν θυσιῶν αὐτῶν). See Josephus, J.W. 2.169–177 and Ant. 18.35–89. It was Tiberius who ordered his praefectus, Pilate, to remove the votive shields with the Emperor’s name on them from the palace of Herod, showing his tolerance for the customs of the conquered people in Jerusalem; see Philo, Legatio, 299. On the other hand, the material about Pilate by Tertullian (in Apol. 21:24, he seems to believe that Pilate was one of the first Christians, keeping his faith secret) or the so called Acts of Pilate should be taken as purely legendary. It was material of this kind that led the Coptic Church in Egypt to elevate this Roman to the status of a saint. Similarly, it should be noted that, in all probability, the custom of setting free one Jewish prisoner one day before the Passover belongs to the same sphere of legend ‒ a Christian haggadah. Unfortunately, this type of amnesty is nowhere to be found in ancient texts, Jewish or Roman.

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It was Gratus who removed Annas, or Ananus (6‒15 C.E.),13 from the office of high priest in 15 C.E., and as is recorded, the former high priest played an important role in the trial of Jesus. After Annas, came three more high priests,14 but only for a brief, unimportant interval. Finally came the longest-serving high priest at that time, the son-in-law of Annas, Joseph Caiaphas (18‒36 C.E.), the Caiaphas15 known from the Gospel narratives for being instrumental in sending Jesus to Pilate.16 He presided over the Jerusalem Sanhedrin, and he was the leader of the Sadducees.17 As for the Pharisees, it was the time of the great Houses of Hillel18 and Shammai19 and their debates on halakhic issues.20 Perhaps the greatest 13 Annas was also known as Hanan ben Sethi, and he was appointed by Quirinius in 6 C.E. For this figure, see Josephus, J.W. 5.506; Ant. 18–26 (34). 14 Actually, Gratus was in the habit of replacing the high priests now and then, perhaps more than any other governor. The high priests he appointed were Ishmael ben Phiabi (15‒16 C.E.), Eleazar ben Ananus (16‒17 C.E.), Shimon ben Kamithus (17‒18 C.E.), and finally Joseph Caiaphas. Gratus returned to Rome in 26 C.E. See Josephus, Ant. 18.33–35. 15 See Josephus, Ant. 18–26; J.W. 5.506. 16 Matt 26:3, 57; John 11:49; 18:13‒14, 24, 28. 17 The third chapter of Luke (3:2) mentions that in the days of John the Baptist there were two high priests in Jerusalem, Annas and Caiaphas, but this is contrary to the ancient Jewish custom of having only one high priest in this most significant office (for example, see 1 Kings 22:4; 2 Kings 12:11 and 23:4; Ezra 7:5; Neh 3:1). But then, one asks, what is wrong with Luke? The riddle is solved when we have a closer look at the life and deeds of Annas. He was the most influential high priest in the first century C.E. and in all probability the true power behind his son-in-law, Caiaphas. Perhaps that is why in John 18:13–24 Jesus is shown as taken first to the house of Annas to be interrogated by him. Annas is also mentioned with Caiaphas, and the other members of the high priestly family, when the Sanhedrin interrogates Peter and John in Acts 4 (see verse 6). It is impressive that he managed to lead a real pontifical dynasty, for five of his sons, his son-in-law Caiaphas, and one of his grandsons, kept the office for half a century, from 16 to 66 C.E. The high priest was also called hakohen hamashiach (“the anointed priest”). For the title and the office of ἀρχιερεύς, see G. Schrenk, “archiereús,” TDNT 1:265‒283. 18 Hillel was a Babylonian by birth who came to Jerusalem to advance his knowledge of the Torah. Eventually, he became the greatest expert among the Pharisees and the scribes there and the founder of a line (or, a method) of interpretation that took his name. The great darshanim Shemaiah and Avtalyon were thought to be his teachers. See y. Pesah. 33a; y. Qidd. 75a; Pesiq. Rab. 70b. Also see E.E. Urbach, The Sages: The World and Wisdom of the Rabbis of the Talmud, (4th ed.; trans. I. Abrahams; Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1995), 576–593; L. Jacobs, The Jewish Religion (London and New York, 1973), 240–242. 19 Shammai came from Palestine. By profession he was a builder. He had a harsh and strict character, though he was kind at heart. He was elected as the av bet din, next to Hillel at the Sanhedrin, and became Hillel’s greatest opponent in debates on halakhic (legal or nomic) issues, and founded a school that took his name. See m. Avot 1:15; b. Šabb 31a; b. BB 134b; b. Sukk 28a; b. Yoma 77b. Also, G. Foot Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era: The Age of the Tannaim (vol. 1; Cambridge, 1927),

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teachers in the Pharisaic circles, Hillel the Elder and Shammai the Elder (ha-Zaken) must have been alive in the first decades of the first century C.E. Hillel’s influence21 and merit, however, reached far beyond his time,22 for he was counted as the authentic ancestor of Rabbinic Judaism itself.23 The debates24 between the schools of Hillel and Shammai persisted for 79; E.E. Urbach, The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs (Cambridge and London, 1995), 589–590, 592. 20 On their debates and the relations between the two schools, see, for example, Moore, Judaism (n. 19), 72‒82. 21 A true founding father of the rabbinic academies of study, the Yeshivot, Hillel was the first one reported in the sources to make use of the seven rules of interpretation. See t. Sanhedrin 7 (the ending remarks). 22 Surprisingly, the greatest Jewish historian of the first century C.E., Josephus, preserves nothing on this most important person! But the same goes for another great Pharisee, one who played a major role in the events after the destruction of the temple by the Romans at 70 C.E.: Rabban Yohannan ben Zakkai, a celebrated figure and well-known in the rabbinic sources. It is a real mystery, but there are some clues that may lead to its solution. After having surrendered to the Romans under very shady conditions, Josephus portrayed himself as prophesying the ascent of Vespasian to the throne of Rome. When his words came true, he won the trust of the Romans and followed them in their enterprises, trying to persuade the Jews to come to peaceful terms with the situation. Finally, he even took the family name of the Flavians (see Josephus, J.W., 3.400‒403; 3.110– 111). In rabbinic sources, however, a very similar incident is mentioned for Yohannan ben Zakkai, when he left Jerusalem and sought to see the Roman commander. As reported, Yohanan ben Zakkai’s purpose was to save Jerusalem and the temple, but if he failed, he wanted at least to save Yavneh and the Sages; the Romans granted him his wish (see b.Giţ. 56a‒b; also: A.J. Saldarini, “Johanan ben Zakkai’s Escape from Jerusalem: Origin and Development of a Rabbinic Story,” JSJ 6 (1975): 189‒204; J. Neusner, First-Century Judaism in Crisis (KTAV; New York, 1982), 145–47; Moore, Judaism (n. 19), 83). Is it possible that Josephus “stole” the incident, as he heard it, and used it for his own purposes, deceiving his own people about his behavior as a leader of the army who defended the passes in Galilee, and that is why he never even mentions the great Rabban Yohannan ben Zakkai? Or, conversely, was it the Rabbis who heard about the incident and used it as the “founding myth” for the newborn Rabbinic Judaism? In Yohannan’s flight to Yavneh, Daniel Boyarin finds a parallel to the flight of the Christians from Jerusalem to Pella; see D. Boyarin, Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity (Pennsylvania, 2004), 62 (still, 46–47); idem, Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism (Stanford, 1999), 136, n. 9. 23 So N.N. Glazer, Hillel the Elder: The Emergence of Classical Judaism (Washington, 1959). Even so, it is significant that neither of the two great Sages is called by the title Rabbi in the Mishnah or the Talmud. When a mishnah is attributed to them, it is always “Beth Hillel” or “Beth Shammai” (or, rarely, ha-zaqen) that takes the credit. See, for example, m. Miqw. 4:1 and 5:6; m. Pe’ah 3:1; m. Demai 6:3; m. Kil. 2:6; m. Ter. 1:4; m. Ma‘as. Š. 3:6; b. Ber. 10b–11a and 52a–b; b. Šabb. 13b and 14b; b. Pesah. 3a and 8b; b. Yoma 61b and 71b. 24 Mahloket was a polemical discussion between two sages on a specific topic that often proved to be quite creative. On the issue and process of a dispute on halakhic matters as a typical, set procedure, see N. Deutsch, “Mahloket,” Incognita 2.2 (1991): 241‒250.

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most of the first century, until the Rabbis finally decided in favor of the milder, Hillelian approach.25 Another leading Pharisee was the kind and meek Gamaliel the Elder (νοµοδιδάσκαλος τίµιος παντὶ τῷ λαῷ),26 who spoke in favor of the apostles when they were brought to the Sanhedrin.27 Paul takes pride in the fact that he was introduced to the intricacies of the Torah at the feet of this teacher.28 Gamaliel was none other than Hillel’s grandson.29 Following Hillel’s mild approach to halakhic matters, Gamaliel took initiative for the intercalation of the year, mentioned in the Tosefta,30 and for ordinances seriously improving the status of women in his time.31 Significantly, rabbinic sources indicate that Gamaliel was the head of the Jerusalem Sanhedrin and the first to receive the honorific title of Rabban (meaning “great teacher” or “lord”).32 His son was one of the leaders of the rebellion against Rome in 66 C.E.33 For Josephus, it was the Zealots who brought the catastrophe and all evils upon the Jews.34 The Zealot movement, however, started in the 25 According to y. Ber. 3b, a bat kol, a heavenly voice, declared the value of both Houses as “words of the living God,” but decided for the House of Hillel as the one to follow. 26 Acts 5:34. 27 Gamaliel persuaded the council to let them go and let God decide what would happen to them and not to risk becoming θεοµάχοι (that is, fighting against God; Acts 5:39). 28 Acts 22:3: παρὰ τοὺς πόδας Γαµαλιὴλ πεπαιδευµένος κατὰ ἀκρίβειαν τοῦ πατρῴου νόµου. 29 Gamaliel’s father was Simon, son of Hillel and president of the Sanhedrin. The fact that later Rabbis deem his work so important, as aiming at the “restoration of the world” (the famous teaching on the tiqqun ha-olam, that later would reach mythic or epic proportions in the medieval and Lurianic Kabbalah), betrays their deepest respect for the man and his service; see m. Giţ. 4:1–3, on the get (“bill of divorce”) and the Ketubah (“marriage contract”), where he favors women (see the following footnotes, too), and m. Roš Haš. 2:5, on the examination of witnesses. In the same spirit, when he passes away, it is stated that all piety, purity, and glory of the Torah ceased to exist (m. Soţah 9:15). Unfortunately, the information on his person is scant. See b. Šabb.15a, where his “patriarchate” (‫“ – נשיאותן‬their patriarchate”) is put in line with the patriarchate of the others. 30 See t. Sanh. 2:6. 31 See m. Giţ. 4:2‒3; m. Yebam. 16:7. 32 Like Hillel, he took the epithet ha-Zaken, too. Gamaliel I is also mentioned as sending epistles to Galilee and the Diaspora Jews, elucidating legal issues. See t. Sanh. 2:6; y. Sanh. 18d; b. Šabb. 15a; Pesiq. Rab. 88b. 33 Even so, his daughter was married to a priest; see t. ‘Abod. Zar. 3:10. 34 Josephus, Ant. 18.6‒10; also, J.W. 2.413, 7.7.253. Also, see M. Hengel, The Zealots (Edinburgh, 1989), 53‒59; M. Smith, “Zealots and Sicarii: Their Origins and Relation,” HTR 64 (1971): 1‒19; L.L. Grabbe, Judaic Religion in the Second Temple Period: Belief and Practice from the Exile to Yavneh (London, 1999), 283–284; G.W.E. Nickelsburg and M. Stone, eds., Faith and Piety in Early Judaism: Texts and Documents (Minneapolis, 1983), 39–40; I.M. Zeitlin, Jesus and the Judaism of His Time (Cambridge and

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North, in Upper Galilee, where the spirit of rebellion flourished against all rulers, Hasmonean and Roman alike.35 According to Josephus, the Galileans were fearless and brave and inclined to war from their infancy.36 Ezekias the arch-mugger (Ἑζεκίαν τὸν ἀρχιλῃστήν)37 and leader of a wild bunch of irregulars who roamed all over Galilee, was thwarted and executed by the young Herod (47 B.C.E.).38 Judas from Gamala, a founder of the Sicarii hit squad, came from the Golan Heights with his sons and terrorized the whole region.39 John40 from Gush Halav and his company of followers

New York, 1995), 29–30; P. Kingdon, “Who were the Zealots and their Leaders in AD 66?,” NTS 17 (1970): 68‒72; R.A. Horsley, “The Zealots: Their Origin, Relationships and Importance in the Jewish Revolt,” NovT 28 (1986): 159‒192. 35 The defense of Galilee, during the first phase of the 66 C.E. revolt, was entrusted to Josephus (Joseph ben Matthias), the future historian and close friend of the family of Nero (especially of his wife, Poppaea, since 64 C.E., when he traveled to Rome). At first, Josephus was against the idea of a rebellion against Rome, but then he changed over and found himself the leader of the rebels in Galilee (one of the most crucial areas for both sides; see his J.W. 3.6–69). It should also be noted that, in all probability, he came to Galilee only after Cestius Gallus had been chased by the rebels. On the news that Vespasian was approaching with an army 60,000 strong, most of the rebels constituting Josephus’s force fled in all directions. As is known, under circumstances that remain unclear, Josephus made mountainous Jotapata his stronghold, but soon he succumbed to the Roman forces (67 C.E.), and finally he was taken captive (J.W. 3.141–408). Thenceforth, he became a friend to the Romans and tried to persuade his compatriots to give in to Vespasian, the commander appointed by the Senate for the breaking of the revolt. There are some points that need to be stressed by the unbiased historian: After the Roman army entered the city, he was one of the few survivors, hidden “in some deep pit” (J.W. 3.341 εἴς τινα βαθὺν λάκκον). While almost all of his companions killed each other in pairs, Josephus found himself in the last lot (J.W. 3.387–391), and somehow he persuaded his comrade to avoid fulfillment of the agreement. Later on, he took the family name of the Flavians and finally, in his narration of the events in Galilee, he proceeds to a lengthy praise of the ethos (customs to imitate) of the Roman army (J.W. 3.70‒107), in order to dissuade any other similar revolt in the future (J.W. 3.109 εἰς ἀποτροπὴν τῶν νεωτεριζόντων). When seen together, these facts might be quite revealing of his personality. See J.W. 3.110–408; also, see below. For a brief history of Galilee, S. Freyne, “Galilee and Judaea in the First Century,” The Cambridge History of Christianity 1:38‒ 40. For the war in Galilee, see E. Schürer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 B.C.–A.D. 175) (vol. 1; eds. G. Vermes and F. Miller; Edinburgh, 1973), 491–496. 36 Josephus, J.W. 3.41. 37 Josephus, Ant. 14.159. 38 Josephus, J.W. 1.204, 256; Ant. 14.157‒167. 39 Also called Judas the Galilean, in 4 B.C.E. he started a rebellion when the arsenal from the garrison at Sepphoris came into his hands, but when the Roman governor from Syria, Varus, came to the spot, Judas decided to hide and wait for a better chance. This came in 6 C.E., when with the help of a Pharisee, Zaddok, he gave Zealotism the face of a strictly nationalistic, political party. See Josephus, J.W. 2.118, 443; Ant. 18.4‒10, 23‒25.

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emerged; they were all from and for Galilee.41 Even worse, it was believed that those northerners were not so very interested in halakhic issues and not so very fond of being patronized by the Pharisees.42 Theirs was a piety not refined by long debates on the minutiae of the Torah. Therefore, their religiosity was dependent neither on the scholarship of the Pharisees nor the authority of the priests.43 As a result, among the learned in Jerusalem, the Galilean was usually characterized as an uneducated peasant, often called by the not-so-very laudatory phrase Gelili shoteh – that is, “a stupid Galilean.”44 Moreover, away from the influence of the priests and unwilling to be controlled by the Pharisees, the simple, yet straightforward, piety of Galileans frequently emphasized the miraculous. Perhaps the best exemplars of this type of piety were charismatics like Honi haMe’aggel (Onias the righteous or the circle-drawer, ca. 65 B.C.E.),45 Abba Hilkiyah, and the younger contemporary of Jesus, Hanina ben Dosa,46 who were Hasidim and miracle workers at the same time. Those who truly aim to understand Jesus and his work should also steep themselves in the culture and customs47 of those rather uncompromising Northerners. The Pharisees were not the only ones who desired to present a detailed and thorough approach to the piety emanating from the precepts in the To40 Also known as John from Gischala, he was one of the first leaders of the rebellion against Rome. Starting from Galilee and moving on to Jerusalem in 67 C.E., he ended up marching in chains at Titus’s victory triumph with a life sentence for his deeds – definitely luckier than Shimon bar Giora, who at the end of the road lost his head due to aspirations for the crown. See Josephus, J.W. 2 and 4‒7. Of course, Josephus’s witness could be biased, for he did not have the best possible relations with John (see J.W. 2.614–619). 41 See Josephus, J.W. 4.558–565. Also see Vermes, Jesus (n. 3), 4. 42 Nevertheless, after the destruction of 70 C.E. and surely after 135 C.E. (they are believed not to have taken part in this one), Galilee became the seat of both Rabbis and priestly families, even harboring the Sanhedrin in different cities (like Usha, Tiberias, and Sepphoris; this should come as no surprise, since the last two cities were pre-Roman in the first war). On the Sanhedrin, see E. Schürer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 B.C.–A.D. 135) (vol. 2; eds. G. Vermes and F. Miller; Edinburgh, 1979), 199–226 and especially, 209–210; also: G. Alon, The Jews in their Land in the Talmudic Age (Cambridge, MA, 1989), 462–465, and for its history 185–205. 43 On the other hand, and on archaeological and literary grounds, “the argument for a pagan Galilee is poorly supported” (Freyne, “Galilee” [n. 35], 41). 44 Vermes, Jesus (n. 3), 4‒5. 45 Josephus, Ant. 14.22–29; m. Ta‘an. 3:8; b. Ta‘an. 23a; Gen R 13:7. Also, see G. Vermes, Jesus the Jew: A Historian’s Reading of the Gospels (New York 1973), 51‒53. 46 m. Ber. 5:1; t. Ber. 2:20; m. Soţah 9:15; m. Avot 3:9–12; y. Ber. 9a, 9d; b. Ber. 33a, 34b, 61b; b. Hag. 14a; b. Ta‘an. 24b. Also see Vermes, Jesus the Jew (n. 45), 53‒ 60; idem, “Hanina ben Dosa: A Controversial Galilean Saint from the First Century of the Christian Era (I),” JJS 1 (1972): 28‒50; idem, “Hanina ben Dosa: A Controversial Galilean Saint from the First Century of the Christian Era (II),” JJS 1 (1973): 51‒64. 47 For the cultural identity of the land, see Freyne, “Galilee” (n. 35), 41–42.

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rah. The Essenes, in their various sects and branches,48 presented an even more demanding way, enthusiastic and perhaps more impressive.49 As is shown in the scrolls found in the nearby caves, those at the Dead Sea site were awaiting divine intervention and a judgment that would condemn the corrupt priesthood in Jerusalem and reinstate the true Israel, the temple, and the city. Though no record exists, it is almost unimaginable that at least John the Baptist, who was baptizing by the banks of Jordan and preaching teshuvah (“repentance”) and the imminent judgment, had never heard, met, or talked with them.50 The Qumranites followed the paradigm set by their first leader, the Teacher of Righteousness,51 sometime in the first half of the second century B.C.E. In character, they were genuine sectarian mystics,52 with a special dedication to the concept of the community both as a temple and as a vehicle for their journey to heaven.53 In light of the preceding paragraphs, it must be emphasized that Jesus was a Galilean Jew. He came from Lower Galilee,54 from the small village of Nazareth, a place otherwise unimportant, since neither Josephus nor the Rabbinic corpus mentions it at all. The ruler of the region was none other 48 There were probably at least four types or stages in the evolution of the Essenes, with the Qumranites as the “most pious and strict group within early Judaism”; see J.H. Charlesworth, Jesus within Judaism: New Light from Exciting Archeological Discoveries (New York, 1988), 63–65. 49 Living both in towns and villages, as well as secluded areas like Qumran inhabited by apocalyptic ascetics, they had a piety of their own that so impressed the young Josephus that he devotes in his works more space to their practices than to his fellow Pharisees. See Josephus, J.W. 2.119‒161; Ant. 13.171‒172, 18.18‒22. 50 On their probable influence on Jesus see Charlesworth, Jesus (n. 48), 54–75. 51 On this most mysterious person, see M.G. Abegg, Jr., “Who Ascended to Heaven? 4Q491, 4Q427, and the Teacher of Righteousness,” in Eschatology, Messianism, and the Dead Sea Scrolls (eds. C. Evans and P. Flint, Grand Rapids 1997), 61–72; M.A. Knibb, “Teacher of Righteousness,” Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls 918–919. Also, see P. R. Davies, “Qumran Beginnings,” in Behind the Essenes: History and Ideology in the Dead Sea Scrolls (BJS 94; ed. P.R. Davies; Atlanta, 1987), 15–31. 52 At the same time, another type of a mystic, Philo, perhaps fulfilling the vision of earlier Diaspora Jews, was attempting his own synthesis of Greek philosophy and Jewish religion at Alexandria (Egypt), and still puzzles his readers around the globe today. Who would ever maintain that first century Palestine – and the Near East – was a boring place to live? On Philo, see P. Borgen, “Philo of Alexandria,” in Jewish Writings in the Second Temple Period, Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, Qumran Sectarian Writings, Philo, Josephus (CRINT 2; ed. M.E. Stone; Philadelphia, 1984), 233‒282; also, D. Winston, Logos and Mystical Theology in Philo of Alexandria (Cincinnati, 1985). 53 For example, see the material in the Angelic Liturgy and the Miqsat Maaseh haTorah text; see C. Newsom, “Merkabah Exegesis in the Qumran Sabbath Shirot,” JJS 38 (1987): 11‒30; J.J. Collins, Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls (London, 1997), 141–143. 54 The name “Galilee” means “the circle” (Freyne, “Galilee” [n. 35], 38).

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than the tetrarch Herod Antipas (4 B.C.E.–39 C.E.), ever anxious to receive the title of king from the Roman Emperor. Definitely not by chance, Jesus’s55 name was not a Greek one, like those in wide use at the time (like Nicodemus, Philip, Jason, or Alexander); it was a rather usual Jewish name with a special meaning.56 Unfortunately, we know very little about most of his life. If we bypass the apocryphal and rather legendary material, and we should do so, we know almost nothing about his childhood and the years of his adolescence. The episode in Luke 2:41‒51, in which the twelve-yearold Jesus stays for three days at the temple asking and receiving questions like a very bright, young talmid, is an exception.57 Similarly, in his Life (9), Josephus boasts that when he was about fourteen years old, he was well-known for his love of letters, while high priests and leading men of the city often asked for his advice περὶ τῶν νοµίµων (“on legal issues” or “on issues of the Law”).58 Returning to Jesus, enigmatically there is not even one bit of information about him between the twelfth and the thirtieth year of his life. Similarly, nothing is known about his education, the persons with whom he came into contact, possible influences to which he was subjected, or his likes and dislikes until the time he started his public ministry.59 With a few exceptions,60 he seldom left Galilee, and it seems that he passed almost all of his life in his homeland. To be sure, after he had started his public ministry, he was well-known among his Galilean com-

55 Jesus derives from the Latin and Greek transcriptions of Joshua. Jesus or Yeshua was such a common name that Josephus mentions twenty people with this name; see D. Flusser, Jesus (3d ed.; Jerusalem, 2001), 24. 56 The name Jesus means “God saves,” and it is derived from the older Joshua and Hosea; see Num 13:8, 16. 57 For this incident, Flusser, Jesus (n. 55), 29, calls him “a young talmudist.” 58 Josephus, Vita 8–10. 59 As is known, Jesus initiated his public ministry when he was baptized by John (Luke 3:23). At that time, he is said to have been approximately thirty years old. Jesus’ baptism should have taken place immediately after the fifteenth year of Tiberius’s reign – that is, around 27‒29 C.E. On issues of chronology, however, see the work of M. Dibelius, From Tradition to Gospel (New York, 1965). For the connection or relationship between Jesus and John (especially on the grounds of Mark 1:7), see J. Marcus, Mark 1–8: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 27; New York, 2000), 150– 157; idem, “John the Baptist and Jesus,” in When Judaism and Christianity Began: Essays in Memory of Anthony J. Saldarini: Christianity in the Beginning (vol. 1; eds. A.J. Avery-Peck, D. Harrington and J. Neusner; Leiden, 2004), 179‒197. 60 According to the Synoptics and leaving aside the brief trips to Phoenicia and to Peraea, the only time he left his land was for the journey to Jerusalem – a real turning point that led to the drama that followed. Even according to the Gospel of John, his stays in Judea were brief. See also Vermes, Jesus (n. 3), 4.

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patriots61 and easily recognized wherever he went, according to Mark 6:54‒56.62 Evangelists never mention a wife, implying that Jesus was unmarried. Though contrary to the age-old custom63 and to the exhortation of many Rabbis to marry and to procreate,64 many a time a very pious person would either not marry at all or decide to abstain for very long periods of time.65 When, at the end of the first century of the Common Era, R. Shimon ben Azzai66 remained unmarried and received some comments from his colleagues, he exclaimed, “What can I do? My soul is in love with the Torah! The world can continue to exist with the help of others.”67 It is passed down that even the great Rabbi Akiba ben Yoseph stayed away from his wife for forty years in order to become an expert in the Torah.68 Like the Essenes at Qumran and their branch in Egypt, the Therapeutae,69 Philo maintained that Moses, as a prophet always ready to receive his heavenly message, kept himself pure, having no intercourse with women at all.70 In the Talmud,71 too, Moses is said to have terminated his cohabitation with 61 Even at the rumour that he would visit a place, crowds would arrive from everywhere in the hope of seeing him. See, for example, Mark 1:45; 2:1, 13; 3:20; 4:1; 5:21; Luke 5:15; 7:11. 62 By the lake Gennesaret or at Capernaum, he seemed to exert an enormous influence and to have been widely accepted. On the healings and miracles at Capernaum, see also Mark 1:33‒34. 63 See the exhortation in Gen 1:28 to be fruitful and to multiply. 64 See the mishnah in m. Yebam. 6:6, where one is not to neglect the commandment of Gen 1:28; in the same mishnah, the House of Shammai favors the one who has two sons, while the House of Hillel favors one son and one daughter (also b. Yebam. 64a). 65 An example of this practice is presented in the person of Rabban Gamaliel II, the grandson of Rabban Gamaliel the Elder, the Apostle Paul’s teacher, who left his wife waiting on their wedding night in order to fulfill his religious duties. When he was criticized by his disciples, he answered, “I will not listen to you, so as to cast off from myself the Kingdom of Heaven even for a moment!” The religious duty mentioned is the recitation of the Shema. Gamaliel the Younger, already a rabbi, is reported as having many disciples even before his marriage. See m. Ber. 2:5. 66 R. Shimon ben Azzai was an eminent talmid of R. Joshua ben Hananiah; see m. Yad. 3:5 and 4:2; t. Qidd. 3:9; b. Sanh. 17b. 67 Cf. t. Yebam. 8:7; also, b. Yebam. 63b. It is impressive that, even though he practiced otherwise, R. Shimon ben Azzai used to teach his talmidim about the benefit of marriage! 68 See b. Hag. 12a; b. Pesah 49b; b. Ned. 50a; Gen R 1:14. Also, H. Nahman Bialik and Y. Hana Ravnitzky, eds., Sefer haggadah: Legends from the Talmud and Midrash (Schocken, 1992), 232; J. Nadich, Rabbi Akiva and his Contemporaries (New Jersey, 1998), 1‒16. 69 See Josephus, J.W. 2.120; Philo, Apol. 3; Contempl. 68; Pliny the Elder, Nat. 5.15, 73. See also Vermes, Jesus the Jew (n. 45), 100. 70 Philo, Mos. 2.68–69. 71 See b. Šabb. 87a.

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Zipporah,72 for he had to stay in constant dialogue with God.73 According to the Mishnah,74 Phinehas ben Yair,75 another second century C.E. rabbi, Hasid, and wonderworker from Galilee, clearly connected strict purity with holiness, the resurrection of the dead, and the prophet Elijah.76 Christian tradition, based mostly on Mark 6:377 and Matthew 13:55,78 holds that by profession, Jesus followed his earthly father, Joseph the carpenter; that is, he was a τέκτων. That is why his audience is reported as being in shock at the wisdom and the powers he displayed when he taught at the synagogue of his hometown.79 Jesus and his people spoke Aramaic.80 It should be noted, however, that the Aramaic term for the Greek τέκτων is

72 73

Also, Vermes, Jesus the Jew (n. 45), 100‒101. In one early rabbinic commentary on the book of Numbers, when Moses’ sister, Miriam, asks about the neglected appearance of Zipporah, the wife answers, “Your brother does not care about the thing.” And when other elders, Eldad and Medad, make a similar choice, Miriam overhears Zipporah whispering, “Woe to the wives of these men.” See Sifre on Num 12:1 (99). 74 See m. Soţah 9:15; also, b. Soţah 49b. 75 A Tanna of the second century, Phinehas ben Yair lived and taught at Lydda. He was known more for his piety and honesty than for his halakhic teachings. In y. Demai 1:3, he is mentioned as passing the overflowing river Ginnai, which was split in front of him, without getting his clothes wet as he went to the House of Meeting. See also b. ‘Abod. Zar. 20b; b. Šabb. 33b; b. Soţah 49a–b; Deut R 3:1 and 7. 76 For the Hasidim of that time, the prophet Elijah was a model to follow; see A. Buchler, Types of Jewish-Palestinian Piety from 70 B.C.E. to 70 C.E.: The Ancient Pious Men (London, 1922; repr., New York, 1968), 42‒65; also, Vermes, Jesus the Jew (n. 45), 102. Note that at the Transfiguration episode next to Jesus stands Moses and Elijah (Mark 9:4; Matt 17:3; Luke 9:30). Moreover, sometimes Jesus – and even John the Baptist – is thought to be a kind of reincarnation of the prophet Elijah (Mark 6:14‒15; 8:28; Matt 16:14; Luke 9:7‒9, 19). For the identification of John the Baptist (with the prophet Elijah) and Jesus (with Elisha) “at an early stage of Christological reflection,” see the important material presented by Marcus, “John the Baptist” (n. 59), 187–188. Also see Chr. Karakolis, Ἡ θεολογική σηµασία τῶν θαυµάτων στό κατά Ἰωάννην Εὐαγγέλιο (Thessaloniki, 1997), 313‒328. For the “prototype of Elisha’s call by Elijah,” see M. Hengel, The Charismatic Leader and his Followers (trans. J.C.G. Greig; Edinburgh, 1981), 16–18. 77 Mark 6:3: οὐχ οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ τέκτων, ὁ υἱὸς τῆς Μαρίας καὶ ἀδελφὸς Ἰακώβου καὶ Ἰωσῆτος καὶ Ἰούδα καὶ Σίµωνος; 78 Matt 13:55: οὐχ οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ τοῦ τέκτονος υἱός; 79 There is “archaeological evidence of at least three pre-70 synagogues in Judea and Galilee, namely at Masada, the Herodium, and Gamla.” The Theodotus inscription, too, proves the existence of “a Jerusalem synagogue roughly contemporaneous to Jesus” (Charlesworth, Jesus [n. 48], 108‒109). 80 For another view, see J. M. Grintz, “Hebrew as the Spoken and Written Language in the Last of the Second Temple,” JBL 79 (1960): 32‒47.

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naggar, and in early Jewish texts, naggar (‫)נגר‬81 is used sometimes in a metaphorical way, meaning the “learned man” or the “scholar.”82 More specifically, the Jerusalem Talmud states, in the form of a proverb, “This is a thing that no carpenter, son of carpenters, can explain.”83 And in the Babylonian Talmud, “There is no carpenter, nor a carpenter’s son, to explain this.”84 If this proverb was in use in the first century, the two evangelists might have tried to imply here more than the Greek text can reveal to the modern reader.85 Contrary to the notion of Jesus as a simple, uneducated peasant,86 in the Gospels he has a perfect command both of the Scriptures and of the oral traditions of his time. He seems to feel so very much at home with them that he does not hesitate to meet the doctors of the Torah face to face, and several times he corrects or rebukes them. As is easily inferred, he holds Wisdom in high esteem,87 and he is shown as a truly wise man.88 That is exactly how Josephus describes him in the Testimonium Flavianum.89 Although the text is suspected of being touched up by later Christian copyists, the expression Ἰησοῦς σοφὸς ἀνήρ90 is believed to belong to its earlier 81 Naggar, probably from the Akkadian naggaru. See also M. Jastrow, Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Bavli, the Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (London and New York, 1903), 876. 82 Also, see Flusser, Jesus (n. 55), 33; Vermes, Jesus the Jew (n. 45), 21. 83 y. Yebam. 9b; y. Qidd. 66a. 84 b. ‘Abod. Zar. 50b. Also, Vermes, Jesus the Jew (n. 45), 22. 85 Nonetheless, according to the material presented in the Gospels, after Jesus started his public ministry he seemed to devote all of his time to the task at hand, leaving no room for practicing his former occupation. He seems to teach always and almost everywhere. See, for example Mark 1:21; 4:1; 6:6, 34; 12:35; Matt 4:23; 11:1; 21:23; 26:55; Luke 4:15; 6:6; 21:37; 23:5; John 8:2. 86 This position is mostly held by scholars in the Jesus Seminar. For example, see J.D. Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (San Francisco, 1991), esp. 421–422. 87 Jesus often uses wisdom language or presents himself as speaking/embodying Wisdom; see Luke 11:49; 10:22; 11:31; Matt 11:19, 28‒30; 12:42. Also see the material presented by B. Witherington III., Jesus the Sage: The Pilgrimage of Wisdom (Minneapolis, 2000), esp. 147–150. 88 See B.B. Scott, “Jesus as a Sage: An Innovating Voice in Common Wisdom,” in The Sage in Israel and the Ancient Near East, (eds. J.G. Gammie and L.G. Perdue; Winona Lake, 1990), 399‒415; R. Riesner, “Jesus as Teacher and Preacher,” in Jesus and the Oral Gospel, (ed. H. Wansborough; Sheffield, 1991), 185‒210; L.G. Perdue, “The Wisdom Sayings of Jesus,” Forum: The Academic Journal of the Westar Institute 2 (1986): 3‒35. 89 Josephus, Ant. 18.63–64. 90 Josephus, Ant. 18.63.1. Josephus also calls Daniel (∆ανίηλος in Ant. 10.237) a “wise man,” along with King Solomon (Ant. 8.53), Elisha (Ant. 9.182), Esra (Ant. 11.121), and Honi (Ant. 14.22). See also, Vermes, Jesus (n. 3), 92‒93. Especially Daniel,

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stratum.91 What is of value to us, is that Josephus’s depiction of Jesus as a “wise man” ‒ that is, as a sage ‒ is in total accordance with the way early rabbinic texts describe Torah experts who taught well and practiced well as Hakhamim (sing. ‫ ָח ָכ ם‬, “sage,” “wise”).92 Like any other rabbi93 during his time94 or later, Jesus followed the norm by making frequent use of meshalim (“parables”) when teaching.95 Undeniably, Jesus displayed nearly all the characteristics of a typical, faithful, observant Jew96 – at times, a rather conservative one. He called his audience to fulfill all the commandments of the Torah (Matt 5:19), he frequented the synagogue,97 read from the scroll of the Torah, taught at the temple, and prayed98 on almost every occasion possible. He even wore a tallit (a “prayer shawl”) with tzitziyot (“tassels”).99 When the woman with the issue of blood approached him (Matt 9:20‒22),100 she wanted to touch who was taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar, was able to know things only known to God (δεινὸς εὑρεῖν τὰ ἀµήχανα καὶ µόνῳ τῷ θεῷ γνώριµα, Ant. 10.237.5‒6). 91 So Flusser, Jesus (n. 55), 30; Vermes, Jesus the Jew (n. 45), 51, 79; idem, “The Jesus Notice of Josephus Re-examined,” JJS 38 (1987): 2‒10; Zeitlin, Jesus (n. 34), 68. 92 The hakham was the third after the nasi and the av bet din at the Sanhedrin. Initially, it was a title given to learned men, but after the introduction of the semikhah (“leaning” of hands) it was given to scholars and rabbis who were experts on the Torah. See t. Yebam. 4:6; b. B. Meši‘a 67b–68a; b. Qidd. 49b. The disciple was called talmid hakham (“disciple of a sage”) and talmid was the equivalent to the Greek µαθητής; see Young, Meet the Rabbis (n. 9), 30. 93 Though in his time he could have been called “Rabbi,” the appellation must have had a different meaning in the context of late first or second century Judaism; see Hengel, Leader (n. 76), 42‒43. 94 Jesus has been compared with Hillel, and some of his teachings have parallels with those of his older contemporary. See the useful collection of articles in J.H. Charlesworth and L.L. Johns, eds., Hillel and Jesus: Comparisons of Two Major Religious Leaders, (Minneapolis, 1997), and especially the contributions of Part One: 3‒107. 95 The mashal was one their favorite techniques to teach their talmidim – especially in the so-called “king” parables. In the Synoptics, no less than 247 meshalim have been counted (see Witherington III., Jesus [n. 87], 156). In the Talmud there are more than 4,000 “king” meshalim to be found. For exegesis before 70, see I. Brewer, Techniques and Assumptions in Jewish Exegesis before 70 C.E. (Tübingen, 1992). For the teachings of the Rabbis, see J. Neusner, “The Teaching of the Rabbis: Approaches Old and New,” JSJ 27 (1976): 23–35; idem, “The History of Earlier Rabbinic Judaism: Some New Approaches,” HR 16 (1977): 216–236. 96 See Zeitlin, Jesus (n. 34), 46–47. 97 Mark 1:21; Mark 6:2; Luke 4:15, 31. 98 See Mark 1:35; 6:46; 12:40; 14:32‒41; Matt 6:5‒6; 14:23; 26:36‒44; Luke 5:15; 6:12; 20:47; 22:41‒45. 99 According to Num 15:37‒41 and Deut 22:12, tassels should be attached to the corners of every Jew’s prayer shawl. On Jesus wearing a tallit, see also Levine, Jew (n. 4) 23‒24. 100 Also in Mark 5:25‒34 and Luke 8:43–48.

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the κρασπέδου101 τοῦ ἱµατίου αὐτοῦ (“fringe of His cloak”; Matt 9:21).102 Although there is no reference to Jesus wearing the tefillin (φυλακτήρια – phylacteries), it is quite probable that he did so. When in Matt 23:5 he criticizes the Pharisees and the scribes and condemns those who πλατύνουσιν γὰρ τὰ φυλακτήρια αὐτῶν καὶ µεγαλύνουσιν τὰ κράσπεδα (“they broaden their phylacteries,103 and lengthen the tassels of their garments”), he is not actually opposed to the habit of putting them on; rather, he preaches against the hypocrisy and the excessive show of piety (πρὸς τὸ θεαθῆναι τοῖς ἀνθρώποις) – a practice well-known in his time.104 Even in the Talmud105 there is a reference to a Jerusalemite who took the name Ben Tzitzit Hakeset because his tzitziyot (“tassels”) were so long as to literally sweep the ground behind him; as is mentioned, he enlarged the tzitziyot as an act of deep piety. In the same spirit of following the everyday religious norm of his people at the time, Jesus is also described as offering blessings106 during some of his routine activities. Thus, he blessed the loaves and the fish (Luke 9:16), he blessed the bread (εὐλογήσας),107 and gave thanks (εὐχαριστήσας) over the cup.108 What, then, of his encounters with scribes and Pharisees, the harsh words in the most Judaic Gospel of all (Matt 5‒6), the so-called antitheses, and his ‒ sometimes sharp ‒ criticism of their ways? To be sure, the disputes mentioned in the Gospels have all the characteristics of intrafamilial

101

When translating the term tzitzit (‫ )ציצת‬in Num 15:37‒41, the Septuagint seems to apply the Greek κράσπεδον. 102 In Matt 14:36, too, people who are sick or in need also want only to touch the κρασπέδου τοῦ ἱµατίου αὐτοῦ and be saved, and so it happens. See also Mark 6:56. 103 They were small boxes tied with leather straps to the left arm and the forehead; inside the boxes were placed tiny parchments where verses from Exodus (13:1‒10, 11‒16) and Deuteronomy (6:4‒9; 11:13‒21) were written. The tefillin were worn according to the mitzvah in Deut 6:4‒9 and 11:18‒21, symbolizing the remembrance of God’s commandments; they were used during prayer, and they were thought to be small amulets. 104 Levine has written (quite appropriately, I might add), “Jesus does not have to be unique in all cases in order to be profound” (Levine, Jew [n. 4], 23). 105 Cf. b. Giţ. 56a: ‫בן ציצית הכסת‬, ‫שהיתה ציצתו נגררת על גבי כסתות‬. 106 Following Deut 8:10 and according to the general rule, everything that gave joy to an observant Jew required a blessing. Therefore, a devout Jew should say a blessing before – and sometimes after – almost every single activity of his daily life: before and after reading the Torah, eating a meal, meeting a great rabbi; when he saw lightning, a shooting star, a storm; when building a house; or when immersing himself in a mikveh, to list only a few; see b. Ber. 35a, 60b. 107 See also Acts 27:35, where Paul does the same. 108 He also blessed the bread during the Passover meal, too, when he ate with the disciples (Matt 26:26) and when he sat down to eat with the two on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:30). It was only then that their eyes were opened, and they understood it was the Lord who was walking with them.

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conflicts.109 The frequent opposition between Jesus and the Pharisees110 is not accidental at all; they speak on the same issues to the same people. Moreover, there is no passage or verse where Jesus inveighs against the Torah. Actually, one may also maintain that he never transgressed the precepts of the Law. Even the episode of the disciples crossing the field and plucking the heads of grain during Sabbath (Luke 6:1‒5)111 did not break the commandment.112 For the sake of brevity, I will present material only on this debate, as it is considered to be the most significant episode handed down. Perhaps, it is more than revealing that a Galilean Sage, R. Judah, not only accepted collecting the fallen heads of grain, but he even permitted rubbing them in one hand.113 The rationale behind what the disciples did is presented in the Synoptics114 in connection with the incident concerning King David and his soldiers, when they ate the bread of Presence.115 I would also add the case of Mattathias116 the priest, who annulled the high day of Sabbath for the Maccabean rebels,117 lest they all perish under the attacks of Antiochus’s army. Therefore, preserving one’s life was a task more important than keeping the Sabbath rest and in fact, as a custom, came from an earlier period. Thus, Jesus declares in Mark 2:27, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” In a quite similar manner, in a Tannaitic midrash,118 R. Shimon ben Menasiah taught, “The Sabbath is delivered up to you, and not you to the Sabbath.” Jonathan ben Yoseph (2nd century C.E.) exclaimed, “Beware, for life overrules the 109 It has also been maintained that Jesus and the New Testament emerged from a totally Pharisaic background; see the more daring H. Falk’s Jesus the Pharisee: A New Look at the Jewishness of Jesus (New York 1985); L. Swidler, “Yeshua and His Followers Were Not Christians ‒ They Were Jews,” RelTr 12 (1989): 77–78; also, P.J. Hartin, “The Pharisaic Roots of Jesus and the Early Church,” Neot. 21 (1987): 112–124; M. Hollingsworth, “Opponents and Brothers,” TBT 28 (1990): 287. 110 On this issue, see A. Finkel, The Pharisees and the Teacher of Nazareth (Leiden, 1964), esp. 123‒128. 111 Also at Mark 2:23‒28 and Matt 12:1‒8. 112 In m. Šabb. 7:2 there are “forty save one” ( ‫“ )ארבעים חסר אחת‬classes of work” discerned as breaking the Sabbath mitzvah; see also b. Šabb. 6b, 70a, 96b, 97b. Notice that when Paul speaks of the afflictions he has suffered in 2 Cor 11:24, he uses the same phrase, “forty save one” (τεσσεράκοντα παρὰ µίαν), for the lashes he received. 113 Provided that no utensil was used. See b. Šabb. 128a; also, Flusser, Jesus (n. 55), 58. 114 Mark 2:25‒26; Matt 12:3‒4; Luke 6:3‒4. 115 See Lev 24:5‒9; 1 Sam 21:1‒7. 116 According to Josephus, it was Mattathias who persuaded them. As is mentioned, the custom of the Jews fighting on the Sabbath to protect their lives comes from that time. See Ant. 12.274‒278. 117 See 2 Macc 2:32‒42. 118 Mekhilta de Rabbi Ishmael on Ex. 31:13‒16 (J.Z. Lauterbach, Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael [vol. 2; Philadelphia, 2004], 494).

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Sabbath.”119 The master manual of halakhic rulings, the Mishnah, sets the principle for all to follow: “Whenever there is doubt for the safeguarding of a life, this [situation] supersedes the Sabbath.”120 Jesus, therefore, is not out of line when in Matthew 12:12 he says, “It is lawful to do good during Sabbath.”121 In my opinion, the whole debate has been rightfully characterized as “a storm in a teacup.”122 Nonetheless, Jesus is certainly depicted accusing the Pharisees and the scribes because “they teach, but they don’t practice,” “it is good to hear their words, but not to follow their examples.”123 That is why he proposed to his audience, “do as they say, but not as they do.”124 In this way, he does not condemn all Pharisees but only those whose acts were not consistent with their teaching. Jesus is presented as a true paradigm of that type of piety in which word and deed meet with an uninterrupted consistency,125 able to inspire and to motivate. Accordingly, in the story of Jesus the gap between theory and practice is bridged, and the sometimes distorted image of a teacher who sounds like a noisy brass or a clanging cymbal is healed. Of course, as is shown in the Gospels, too, not all Pharisees were of the same stock.126 Even in the Talmud, seven types of Pharisees are men119 See b. Yoma 85b. Thus, a Jew may pull his son or his ox out of a well or a pit during Sabbath, without breaking the rule (Matt 12:11‒12; Luke 14:5). 120 See m. Yoma 8:6. 121 For a really informative study on the most easily discernible elements of Jewish exegesis in NT books, see J.W. Doewe, Jewish Hermeneutics in the Synoptic Gospels and Acts (GTB 24; Assen 1954). 122 G. Vermes, The Religion of Jesus the Jew (London, 1993), 23, where the whole issue is examined and source material is presented. 123 Along the same lines and of special importance for understanding Jesus’s rejection by the religious leaders of the people (namely, some of the Pharisees) is Matt 22:41–46. When asked by Jesus about Psalm 110, they fail to explain why ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ∆αυίδ (“the son of David”) is called κύριος (“Lord”). In this way, Matthew, through Jesus, wishes to point to the inadequacy of those Pharisees’ ability to interpret the very texts on which they were supposed to be experts (also, U. Luz, “Matthean Christology Outlined in Theses,” in Studies in Matthew [n. 6], 87). The consequences of this brief interchange are of enormous proportions. Not only are those specialists in the Law found to lack the proper understanding of their Scriptures, but as is shown in the following verses (ch. 23), they also fail to open their minds and eyes to the living hermeneia standing right in front of them. Ultimately, almost everything in Matthew seems to end up as a battle of hermeneiai – that is, warring interpretations. In this episode, two more elements are perceptible: first, some of the Pharisees are shown as shrugging off the tradition they were bound to serve; second, through Jesus, it is the Christian communities that now may lay claim to that very same tradition and continue from that point on as Israel. 124 See Jesus’ exhortation in Matt 23:3. 125 See Matt 5:17–19; 7:21–27. 126 In Acts 15:5, there are members from the sect of the Pharisees who believed in the gospel of Jesus: Ἐξανέστησαν δέ τινες τῶν ἀπὸ τῆς αἱρέσεως τῶν Φαρισαίων

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tioned.127 Some of them are clearly connected to hypocrisy, while only the seventh is a real Pharisee of love, the one dearest to God.128 To be sure, Jesus was not the only one who called for a stricter or more conscious observance of the precepts of Torah. John the Baptist spoke with similar fire, and so did the Qumranites.129 Theirs was perhaps the fiercest reading and the most demanding practice, too. Were they outside of the Torah? As for the Essenes and the Qumran Covenanters, issues of the proper interpretation of the Scriptures were raised,130 but no one claimed that they had departed from the Law. Likewise, concerning his miraculous healings, Jesus seems to be at home with other pious Jews (Galileans or not) who are found in the sources healing in ways quite similar to his own.131 Abba Hilkiyah and Hanina ben Dosa are mentioned as influencing the elements of Nature, healing with prayer even from afar, calling upon God as “Father,” and being called “sons” in response. Indeed, a heavenly voice calls Hanina “my son.”132 Hanan “the hidden”133 and Honi “the circle-drawer”134 reflect the same qualities. πεπιστευκότες λέγοντες ὅτι δεῖ περιτέµνειν αὐτοὺς παραγγέλλειν τε τηρεῖν τὸν νόµον Μωϋσέως. So also for the scribes; not all of them were hostile to Jesus. In Mark 12:28‒ 34, one of them is deemed by Jesus himself as being close to the Kingdom of God. 127 y. Ber. 9:7 (14b); these seven types of Pharisees are the following: the showy, the haughty, the bookkeeper, the parsimonious, the repaying, the fearing, and the loving (in J. Neusner’s translation, 9:5). It is possible that the number of Pharisaic types is in connection with the seven firmaments mentioned earlier in the same Tractate (9:1). 128 Also see y. Soţah 5:7 (20c); b. Soţah 22b; ’Abot R. Nat. A 37 (B 45). 129 See CD iv 2, where Qumranites are presented as the pioneers of the restoration of Israel; more impressively, in 1QS v 7‒12 there is a reference to “hidden laws” (nistarot) and “revealed laws” (niglaot) in the Torah and the need for the new members of the sect to return to the Torah of Moses. Actually, they also had to obey the teachings of the prophets, too (1QS i 2‒3). Attention should also be paid to the so-called “reworked” Pentateuch in 4Q158 and 4Q364‒367 and to the restating of part of the Deuteronomistic halakhah in the Temple Scroll (11Q19‒21). 130 Only the members of the “new Covenant,” founded by the Teacher of Righteousness, knew the proper ways to interpret the Torah; actually, it is stated that only they possessed “the last interpretation of the Law” (see 4Q266 xi and 270 vii 2). 131 For views contra to Vermes – and partially to mine, too – see D. Jaffé, “L’identification de Jésus au Modèle du Hasid Charismatique Galiléen: Les Thèses de Geza Vermes et de Shmuel Safrai Revisitées,” NTS 55 (2009): 218‒246; W.S. Green, “Palestinian Holy Men: Charismatic Leadership and Rabbinic Tradition,” ANRW 19.2:619–647. For a conversation on Vermes’s influential approach, K.T. Zarras, “Η Θεωρία του ‘Γαλιλαίου Χασίντ’: Τα Όρια της Εφαρµογής,” in ∆ιακονία – Λειτουργία – Χάρισµα: Πατερική καί σύγχρονη ἑρµηνεία τῆς Καινῆς ∆ιαθήκης: Τιµητικός τό µος πρός τόν Ὁµότιµο Καθηγητή τοῦ Πανεπιστηµίου Ἀθηνῶν Γεώργιο Ἀντ. Γαλίτη (eds. I. Galanis et al.; Levadeia, 2006), 595‒615. 132 See m. Ber. 5:5; b. Ber. 34b; b. Ta‘an. 23a, 24b.

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Some Pharisees may well have felt uncomfortable with Jesus’s Galilean ways. When Nicodemus comes to Jesus’s aid, disapproval is expressed by the question, “Are you a Galilean, too?” When some people claim, “This is the Christ,” others ask in surprise, “Surely the Christ is not going to come from Galilee, is He?” The final comment is, “no prophet arises out of Galilee” (John 7:40‒52).135 Quite similarly, Rabbinic texts scowl at the Galilean Hasidim for their disregard of ritual purity laws.136 After eighteen years of serving in the Galilean town of Arav (around 50 C.E.) and witnessing poor results despite his efforts, the great Pharisee Yohannan ben Zakkai exclaimed, “Oh Galilee, Galilee, you have hated the Torah!”137 Significantly, in the Gospels Jesus is nowhere shown as passing on his teachings in a Sage’s name. His ἠκούσατε ὅτι ἐρρέθη τοῖς ἀρχαίοις (“You have heard that the ancients were told”), ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω ὑµῖν (“But I tell you”)138 came in dire contrast with what was the norm in Torah teaching at the time.139 Whereas the custom was that the talmid140 received his knowledge from his teacher, Jesus is portrayed as speaking in the name of no man, claiming a 133 In one instance, children approach Hanan and grab the hem of his cloak, and calling him “Abba,” they ask him to give them rain. Hanan replies, “Ruler of the universe, do this for the sake of those who cannot distinguish between a Father (Abba) who can give rain and a father who cannot.” See b. Ta‘an. 23b; also, Flusser, Jesus (n. 55), 114‒115. 134 See Josephus, Ant. 14.22‒24; m. Ta‘an. 3:8. 135 There is a special way the Gospel of John uses the term Ἰουδαῖοι (“Jews,” some sixty-five times in this gospel alone), “in distinction from Jesus and his Galilean disciples”; see D. Rensberger, “Anti-Judaism and the Gospel of John,” in Anti-Judaism and the Gospels (ed. W.R. Farmer; Harrisberg, 1999), 122–125. Also see the very useful collection of studies by R. Bieringer, D. Pollefeyt and F. Vandecasteele-Vanneuville, eds., Anti-Judaism in the Fourth Gospel (Louisville, 2001). 136 See y. Šabb. 16:8 (15d); b. Sukkah 27b; Abot R. Nat. 1:27. Could this be one of the reasons why Gamaliel I is reported as often sending epistles on halakhic issues to Upper and Lower Galilee, written by the pen of his scribe Yohanan? See, for example, y. Sanh. 1:2 (18d) and b. Sanh. 11b. 137 See y. Šabb. 16:8 (15d), where the dictum is passed in the words of R. Ulla. Despite his eighteen years of service in Arav, R. Yohannan was asked only twice for a halakhic decision. In the rabbinic texts, Yohannan ben Zakkai is portrayed as a pacifist; see J. Neusner, A Life of Yohanan ben Zakkai (2d ed.; Leiden, 1970), 145–195; J. Neusner, First-Century Judaism in Crisis: Yohanan ben Zakkai and the Renaissance of Torah (rev. ed.; New York, 1982), 135–175. 138 See Matt 5:21‒22, 27‒28, 31‒34, 38–39, 43‒44. 139 As is evinced throughout the rabbinic writings, when someone referred to a teaching, he did so in the name of the one who gave it first or in the name of one of his disciples. 140 Attention should be paid to Martin Hengel’s remarks, too, that “the rabbinic model does not explain ‘following after’ and ‘discipleship’”; “there are no rabbinical stories of ‘calling’ and ‘following after’ analogous to the pericopae in Mark and Q, nor did the summons ‘follow me’ resound from any rabbinical teacher in respect of entry into a teacher-pupil relationship”; Hengel, Leader (n. 76), 50‒51.

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direct and heavenly origin for his teachings.141 The issue is not insignificant at all, since it circumvents the backbone principle upon which Rabbinic Judaism was later founded as a system.142 Not surprisingly, there were various responses to Jesus’s ministry. Some believed and followed him; others were impressed but skeptical; some were indifferent and others so hostile as to work for his doom.143 Still others never heard either of him or of his teaching. In short, his effort was not so successful among his people and led to his crucifixion.144 The Gospels present Jesus’s rejection on two levels: a. his ministry is denied by the leaders of the people,145 b. his ministry is rejected by all Israel.146 But cau141 See Matt 11:27 and Luke 10:22. Moreover, in Matt 15:1–6 Jesus is shown as being critical of the Pharisees and the scribes who “invalidated the word of God” for the sake of “your tradition” (διὰ τὴν παράδοσιν ὑµῶν – v. 6); “your tradition” refers to the “tradition of the elders” (τὴν παράδοσιν τῶν πρεσβυτέρων – v. 2) and most probably to oral interpretations of the Torah that were in circulation among Pharisaic circles at that time. 142 See m. Abot 1:1–5, where, starting with Moses, the chain of those passing down the Torah to the next generation is mentioned. No priests are mentioned in this line. For the pre-70 traditions, see the very useful collection in J. Neusner, The Rabbinic Traditions (vol. 1; Leiden, 1971), 11–23. 143 And here Israel seems to be quite consistent with her own story concerning her relationship with those sent by God in the past; they were scorned, ignored, abandoned, and even executed. When looking at the story as a whole, one can easily discern that the enmity and the strife with the various groups and their leaders was inevitable. By and large, the story of Jesus the Jew, as presented in the Gospels, is one of conflict with his own people. From the early phases of his ministry, the rancor was escalating to the dramatic plot that led to Golgotha. See the masterly presentation by U. Luz in his “Anti-Judaism in the Gospel of Matthew as a Historical and Theological Problem: An Outline,” in Studies in Matthew (n. 6), 244–245. For Luz, “the conflict was inevitable” (U. Luz, “The Significance of Matthew’s Jesus Story for Today,” in Studies in Matthew [n. 6], 372). 144 Matt 9:2‒8; 9:32‒34; 21:23‒23:39; 27:62‒66. Yet, even the tension between Jesus and the Pharisees and the scribes found in Matthew, which is more Jewish than any other Gospel, betrays that these conflicts – heated as they were – presented not instances of strife among strangers but rather fierce debates on grounds common to both. Therefore, they all point to an intra-Judaic environment and issue. Luz finds the anti-Judaism in Matthew arising from a “family conflict” (Luz, “Anti-Judaism” [n. 143], 250). 145 For example, see Mark 11:18; 14:1; Luke 19:47; 20:19; 22:52. Even so, other importunate Jews were reported as flagellated, too. Josephus mentions a Jesus son of Ananus who in the days of Governor Albinus was crying and weeping every day for the fate of Jerusalem. He was such a nuisance that the priests brought him to the Romans, and he was flogged until his bones were almost visible. He endured the atrocious punishment without complaining or crying (ἔνθα µάστιξι µέχρι ὀστέων ξαινόµενος οὔθ᾿ ἱκέτευσεν οὔτ᾿ ἐδάκρυσεν); see J.W. 6.304, and for the whole narrative, 6.300‒309. 146 In the disputed Matt 27:25 it is the whole people (πᾶς ὁ λαός) that is shown as responsible for his crucifixion. In Acts 2:23, it is all the people of Israel that are said to have crucified Jesus; also, see in Acts 4:10: γνωστὸν ἔστω πᾶσιν ὑµῖν καὶ παντὶ τῷ λαῷ Ἰσραὴλ ὅτι ἐν τῷ ὀνόµατι Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ Ναζωραίου ὃν ὑµεῖς ἐσταυρώσατε, ὃν ὁ θεὸς ἤγειρεν ἐκ νεκρῶν, ἐν τούτῳ οὗτος παρέστηκεν ἐνώπιον ὑµῶν ὑγιής. See also 1

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tion is advised on this delicate issue. The evangelists may project back in time their context of acrimonious disputes between the church and the synagogue.147 In conclusion, the way that Jesus teaches, debates, heals, and lives is in accordance with the ways of his compatriots at that time. Nonetheless, as a typical Galilean Jew, a truly pious man, there was every reason for him to be a nuisance, both on religious and political grounds, to some of the more sophisticated nomocentric Pharisees and the aristocratic leaders of the priesthood in the south. Of course, Roman authorities would not risk the chance of any kind of upheaval. It should be mentioned, however, that in the Synoptics no Pharisees are mentioned as present during the final tragic hours.148 High priests and the Sadducean aristocracy were the primary ones anxious to hand him over to the Romans.149 One fact needs to be stressed here: as is shown in the Old Testament, God chose Israel and kept to this choice in spite of all the iniquities and the relapses of the chosen one.150 In some mysterious way, Israel was precious to God, no matter what.151 What is more, during this rather long process, Israel was called “son of God.”152 God loved Israel so much as to act as a Father to him,153 and Israel was adopted by God and destined for a glorious future. Israel did not comply.

Thess 2:15. Notice that in the Gospels, the various audiences that reject the teaching of Jesus are called by specific names (scribes, Pharisees, etc.), but they are not called by the collective “Israel.” It should also be noted that terms like “true Israel” or “new Israel” are not to be found in the Gospels. 147 Jews and Christians are found to be in conflict in b. ‘Abod. Zar. 4a–b; b. Pesah 85b; b. Yebam. 102b; b. Yoma 56b; b. Soţah 38b; b. Ta‘an. 20a. 148 It might be important to note that Paul the Apostle, writing well before the Evangelists, himself a Pharisee (Phil 3:5), has nothing to say against his former brethren. 149 See J.H. Charlesworth, “Christians and Jews in the First Six Centuries,” in Christianity and Judaism: Α Parallel History of Their Origins and Early Development (ed. H. Shanks; London, 1993), 312–313. 150 See, for example, Gen 18:19; Deut 7:6‒8; 14:2; also, Josh 24:21‒28 where the choice and the obligations towards God are reaffirmed. 151 Even under the direst of situations, God does not reject them (see Lev 26:39‒45). Israel’s precedence is certified in the Gospels, too; for example, see Mark 7:24‒29 and Matt 10:5‒6. 152 Of course, the title refers to selected individual Israelites, too, but it also has a collective tint; see Exod 4:22, when God himself calls Israel “my firstborn” (‫;)ישראל בני בכרי‬ Deut 14:1; Jer 39:9; Isa 43:6; Hos. 1:10‒11. For the title “son of God” in ancient Judaism, see M. Hengel, The Son of God: The Origin of Christology and the History of Jewish Hellenistic Religion (Eugene, 2007), 41–42. 153 In the Gospel of John, it is written that God so loved “the world” as to give his only Son (3:16). According to St. Athanasius, [Apoll.] 4, 8, it was the denial of God on the part of human beings that caused his descent and the Incarnation.

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At least in my mind, Jesus’s act of coming to Israel, as an Israelite, indicates and emphasizes Israel’s specific significance. The more Israel moves away from the Covenant, the closer God seems to come. At a basic level, the Incarnation of the Son leads to certain conclusions of preeminent importance and deserve mention here: The Incarnation is addressed to Israel. Through the Incarnation, God reaffirms the election of Israel in a more dynamic and dramatic way than ever before, but Israel is now a composite entity, too far away from the uniformity sought for in the Torah and the Prophets. Moreover, by the Incarnation God accepts Israel again, even in her present, fragmented state154 and acts for its salvation nevertheless. God seems to believe in Israel much more than Israel believes in God. Some meaningful questions now emerge. What is so special about this Israel? Why insist so much on what has been – so far – an unfortunate choice? After all, the ‘romance’ seemed to be rather one-sided most of the time. Even in the Talmud, when the rabbis are conversing about Israel’s election to receive the Torah, they speak both of Israel’s worth and of its failure to keep the Covenant.155 In the Old Testament, Israel kept bouncing back and forth, profaning itself with the idolatrous practices of the nations.156 Is this the reason why the Godhead “humbles” Himself so much as to receive the human form? What was the message that this unique act was supposed to convey to the Jew living next door at Nazareth? What is the message for me now? Is there any difference between what I perceive of this unthinkable event that, according to our Holy Writ, took place 2000 years ago and what a faithful Jew perceived at that time? 154 On the complex nature of Second Temple Judaism, see J.D.G. Dunn, “Jesus and Factionalism in Early Judaism: How Serious was the Factionalism of Late Second Temple Judaism?” in Charlesworth and Johns, eds., Hillel (n. 94), 156–175. For Judaism as “a complex of competing and conflicting opinions and beliefs” also see C. Rowland, Christian Origins: The Setting and Character of the Most Important Messianic Sect of Judaism (2d ed.; London, 2002), 61–79, esp. 63; for the birth and the causes of ancient Jewish sectarianism, A.I. Baumgarten, The Flourishing of Jewish Sects in the Maccabean Era: An Interpretation (Leiden, 1997), see the Introduction (1–41), esp. 18–23. 155 Actually, Israel is mentioned as the last people to whom the offer was extended. In other traditions, Israel is found as the only people worthy or strong enough to receive the “fiery law” (in b. Beṡah 25b), or Israel is even threatened by God until it finally accepts the Torah! See b. Abod. Zar. 2b; b. Šabb. 88a; b. Pesah. 68b; Exod R 27:9; Lev R 13:2. On the other hand, for St. Athanasius, [Apoll.] 12, the Law was not addressed only to the Jews but to all. The Jews were meant to be a “sacred school” (12.5: διδασκάλιον ἱερόν), so that other peoples would come nearer to God and live according “the state of the soul” (τῆς κατὰ ψυχὴν πολιτείας). 156 These practices were manifest even in the temple of Jerusalem, too. King Manasseh was instrumental in their installation there (2 Kings 21:2‒9), while in the book of Ezekiel, women are mentioned weeping for Tammuz at the north gate of the temple (Ezek 8:14; see also 16:17‒24).

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What is more, since Jesus comes to a fragmented Israel, could it be that his teaching had as a main purpose to heal and unite the various sects and tendencies in the very same way that in the call of the twelve157 disciples he symbolically reaffirmed and ‘united’ Israel once more?158 Yet instead of healing Israel from its fallen and shattered state, Jesus’s presence brought more strife and further schisms until the final “parting of the ways”159 – and even long after that, too. Should we attempt a kind of macro-hermeneia, I believe that our attention should focus on the following questions: What is the purpose of all this? The holy drama, as presented in the Gospels, whom does it serve? What is the lesson I am supposed to absorb today? Are the event and message of the Incarnation addressed to all? What does Jesus’s story teach me about my relationship with Judaism and the Jews, now and in the past? And I, as a Christian with the task of following and imitating my Lord, am I not to “humble” myself in my dialogue with the “others”? What does the Incarnation of the Son as a Jew mean to me as a Christian today in my dialogue with the Jews? Furthermore, if Israel lay then in a fallen state, when I look around today, as an Orthodox theologian, am I happy or content with what I see in my Church? There are two points to which I would like to call our attention here. First, the Gospels are stories.160 They were addressed to specific audiences for a specific purpose. The Gospels are not historiography, and Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John are definitely not Herodotus or Thucydides. Therefore, their authors did not just intend to inform their readers about events that took place in the recent past. Rather, the evangelists strive to unfold 157 In Mic 2:12 and Zeph 3:11‒13, God will gather all those that remain faithful and constitute the “remnant.” See E.P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (London, 1999), 96, and on the call of the twelve by Jesus, 98–99. 158 It is Jesus himself who names them as “apostles” (Luke 6:13). It is also very important that Jesus and the disciples are presented as calling everyone to the new message, not only the simple people of the land, not only Pharisees or Sadducees, but all. The twelve disciples (see Mark 3:16‒19; Matt 10:2‒4; Luke 6:13‒16; Acts 1:13) are taken as symbolizing the twelve tribes, and – of course – the issue is hotly debated among scholars. The image of the twelve sitting on thrones and judging the twelve tribes of Israel (in Luke 22:30) strengthens the metaphor. 159 On this greatly debated issue, see, for example, J.D.G. Dunn, ed., Jews and Christians: The Parting of the Ways A.D. 70 to 135, (Grand Rapids and Cambridge, 1999). In an atavistic way, so to speak, Christianity came to be as fragmented as Israel was in the first place – and perhaps, even more. One could say that this is an undeniable paternity test passed and confirmed. In addition, see Joel Marcus’s useful remarks (especially the concluding paragraph, 101‒102) on the first decades of the new movement in his “Jewish Christianity” in The Cambridge History of Christianity 1:87‒102. 160 For the narrative in Matthew’s Gospel as Jesus’s story, see U. Luz, “Matthew the Evangelist: A Jewish Christian at the Crossroads,” in Studies in Matthew (n. 6), 14–17.

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before their readers’ eyes an ever-present drama that invites them to act ‒ that is, to participate in a meaningful δρώµενον the promise of salvation and admission to the Kingdom of God. Consequently, from the authors’ point of view, the Gospel is not just a text, and its proper hermeneia involves not only the mind but the whole being of the reader in an experiential process wherein all find their appropriate place and all fit together.161 It is not the text itself that finds its proper interpretation in the skillful hands of the student, but the lives of the believers that are interpreted in the light of Jesus’ story. That is why this text invites ‒ and ignites ‒ the reader, carrying a message for all; that is why its authors constructed it as an instrument that leads to practice for the metamorphosis of its audiences. By awakening the interpreter within, the relationship of the pious with the holy text moves to a deeper level. Thus, the commandment would become what it was initially meant to be: a vehicle. In this light, the Jesus story seems to point more to the life of the reader than to the exact and detailed events that took place in approximately 30 C.E. By diving into the text, readers find their own lives illuminated and interpreted. The text as a literary artifact, as a source, is closed and concluded, but its interpretation and the quest for meaning never ends.162 The second point I would like to focus on is the extremely important filial relationship between Jesus as Son (Matt 11:25‒27; 26:42) and the heavenly Father. As the Son of God163 sent by the Father, he intercedes on behalf of the community by bringing the one close to the other and activating a long-lost link between Creator and human beings as sons of God κατά χάριν. Actually, Jesus not only designates himself as the Son164 but also reworks the image of the Father in his disciples by teaching them how to regain and enact their identity as sons of God. From my point of view, nothing seems to be more important than that. The prayer he is asked to teach them starts with the invocation of the Father: Πάτερ ὑµῶν (Matt 161 Luz calls this type of story an “inclusive” story, since it “includes” both the experiences of the communities to whom it is addressed and of their individual members (Luz, “Significance” [n. 143], 371–372). 162 Perhaps in a rhadamanthine way, Luz rightfully insists, “Matthew tells of Jesus” (ibid., 375). 163 This title is not used only by him but also by the disciples and others, too (Matt 14:33; 27:54). For the application of the title, see C.G. Atmatzidis, Από τη Βιβλική Έρευνα στην Πίστη της Εκκλησίας: Συνοπτική Θεολογία της Καινής ∆ιαθήκης (vol. 1; Thessaloniki 2010), 533‒534; 557‒558. 164 James Dunn writes, “it is becoming increasingly probable that the Son of God language of early Christianity has its roots within Jesus’ own ministry” (J.D.G. Dunn, Unity and Diversity in the New Testament: An Inquiry into the Character of Earliest Christianity [3d ed.; London, 2006], 47). Yet, in the authentic letters of Paul, one must note that “whereas he [Paul] uses ‘Kyrios’ 184 times, we only find ‘huios theou’ 15 times” (so Hengel, Son of God [n. 152], 7).

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6:9).165 As Son of God, Jesus projects this icon of sonship on his disciples and actually teaches them to act like him, to be “sons of God.”166 In such a way, Jesus – like the prophet Ezekiel before him ‒ proposed a more intimate approach to God as a Father, and his teaching is characterized by a strong, personal tone.167 While directing his followers on their path leading to the Father, he nonetheless reveals his own unique status as “one with the Father” through this work.168 His name, Immanuel (µεθ’ ἡµῶν ο θεός – Matt 1:23), discloses the mystery both of the divine Presence among men and of his true identity. When Jesus is called Immanuel, the unutterable acquires a name and the imperceptible lies within human reach.169 God prepares a face for himself,170 and this face is the face of a Jew. By the use of this name, the Evangelists re-narrate or retell the story of the relationship between God and Israel in the light of Jesus’s story. What they develop is a more intimate and personal way of relating and being with God.171

165 Notice the striking similarity with the first two petitions in the Kaddish prayer (especially, the “half” or shorter Kaddish). For the various versions, A.Z. Idelsohn, Jewish Liturgy and Its Development (New York, 1932; repr., New York, 1995), 84–86 and in relation to the Lord’s prayer, 307–308; also, I. Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy: A Comprehensive History (trans. R.P. Scheindlin; Philadelphia and New York, 1993), 80‒84. 166 The so-called “Son of God” text, scroll 4Q246 found in the Dead Sea caves, proves that the use of titles or terms like “son of God” and “son of Most High” (4Q246 2:1) comes from a time earlier than Jesus. Dating to the last decades of the first century B.C.E. and written in Aramaic, it presents some striking similarities to Luke 1:32–35 in its messianic nuances. Cf. J.J. Collins, “The Son of God Text from Qumran,” in From Jesus to John: Essays on Jesus and New Testament Christology in Honor of Martinus de Jonge (ed. M.C. de Boer; JSNTSup 84; Sheffield, 1993), 65‒82; E. Puech, “Fragment d’un Apocalypse Arameen (4Q246 = pseudo-Dand) et le ‘Royaume de Dieu,’” RB 99 (1992): 98‒131; Z. Zimmermann, “Observations on 4Q246 – The ‘Son of God,’” in Qumran – Messianism: Studies on the Messianic Expectations in the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. J.H. Charlesworth; Tübingen, 1998), 175‒190. 167 This brings to mind the words of the prophet Ezekiel (Ezek 14:13‒14; 18:21‒23), when he was insisting on the personal dimension of the responsibility of Israel in the face of God. Thus, each and every Israelite, as a person and as a people, was responsible for keeping the commandments. Returning to Jesus, two things should not pass unnoticed here: a. although he teaches in public, Jesus calls persons, the twelve disciples, to come and follow him; b. contra to the custom, his disciples are not coming to him to ask for his teaching, as was the norm for the talmidim, but it is he who calls them in ways similar to how God used to call the prophets in the OT. 168 Along the same lines, Jesus is also shown as the preexistent Son and the only begotten one; he himself is God “having all that the Father has” (Matt 11:27; Luke 10:22). 169 See also Luz, “Significance” (n. 143), 376‒377. 170 Ibidem, 376. 171 Again, Luz writes, “The ‘inclusive’ Jesus story requires a holistic hermeneutics in which faith and life, theology and practice come together” (ibidem, 377).

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Only this time, God is not simply with Israel; now, through Jesus, God is Israel.172 As a result, the rejection of Jesus shown in the Gospels brought in the long run a most undesirable consequence: the children of Israel were accused of deicide and were collectively characterized as “enemies of God.”173 A tragic history followed. In time, with Emperor Constantine, Christianity became victorious and the once persecuted gradually found themselves in places of power. The rosebud that was to bloom in Israel’s soil now spread its aroma in the lands of the nations.174 However, their acceptance of his divine mission and gospel, combined with their rejection of his Jewish identity,175 sometimes gave rise to a distorted image of his life and teachings, widening the rift between the reality of his earthly “tent” and his expansive vision. At the same time, the church and the synagogue were on a one-way trip to complete alienation from one another.176 As a result, the dialogue between the two took a sudden and sometimes a violent turn. Like Esau in the Book of Genesis,177 the “firstborn” lost the birthright, and like Jacob, the younger offspring found himself in the place once reserved for the other. And like the story of the two brothers, nothing 172 For J.D.G. Dunn, Christology in the Making: A New Testament Inquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation (2d ed.; Grand Rapids 1989), 49, “one of the most striking features of Matthew’s Son of God christology is his clear identification of Jesus with Israel (Mt 2.15; 4.3, 6)”; also, see the ambiguous John 1:51. 173 See, for example, Rom 11:28, where they are called ἐχθροί (“enemies”). In addition, see Melito of Sardis (around 190 C.E.) de Pascha (1.534‒539, 543, 1:578‒579); or, see John Chrysostom’s (ca. 347–407) Adv. Jud. (PG 48:847–850) and the Apostolic Constitutions (2.61 where συναγωγὴ χριστοκτόνων “synagogue of Christkillers” is mentioned) and where extremely harsh words are written, influencing many in a negative way and for a very long time. 174 On the other hand, M. Theobald (Der Römerbrief [EdF 294; Darmstadt, 2000], 271) observes that since the paths of Israel and the nations met because of Jesus, it is not possible now to examine them separately; found in Atmatzidis, Θεολογία (n. 163), 445, 533‒534. 175 Note that neither the Nicene nor the Apostolic Creed mentions that Jesus was a Jew. Of course, caution is advised here because in the days of Jesus the terms Ἰουδαῖος and Ἑβραῖος did not have the same meaning as the term “Jew” that is in wide use today. In addition, the “Jewishness” of Jesus is not central at all in the catechism or the Nicene Creed of the Church; see Levine, Jew (n. 4), 18‒19. 176 The “collective guilt” attributed to all Jews for the crucifixion of Jesus made the rift even wider. See M.R. Wilson, Our Father Abraham: Jewish Roots of Our Christian Faith (Grand Rapids, 1989), 94. For a discussion on the hotly debated issue of anti-Judaism in the Gospels, see the volume of W. Farmer, ed., Anti-Judaism and the Gospels (Valley Forge, 1999) and especially the article of Levine, “Anti-Judaism and the Gospel of Matthew,” 9‒36; also interesting are the conclusions in the same volume by E.P. Sanders, “Reflections on Anti-Judaism in the New Testament and in Christianity,” 265‒286. 177 See Gen 25:24‒34; 27:1‒40.

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passed easily or uncontested. As is known to all, there are many bitter episodes in the relationship between the two in the centuries that followed. Their precious common ground, the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament,178 instead of bringing them closer, became a blazing battlefield.179 Somehow, we would like to keep the text but do away with the people who produced it. Some Christians,180 in order to expand the role played by the high priests and other circles in the conspiracy against Jesus, used the exact same rationale adopted earlier by the priests themselves, who, in the times of the tabernacle and later when the temple had been build, claimed to be representatives of the people.181 According to the books of Exodus (28‒29) and Numbers (8; esp. 8:18–19), all Israel was represented, expiated, and atoned for through the priesthood and the courses of service at the temple. Now, all of the people were held responsible for the doings of some of their leaders. This retroaction, empowered by the irrevocable denial of Jesus Christ by the Jews,182 played a major role in the victimization of the Jewish people with long-lasting consequences until the twentieth century. Perhaps no other people has been dispersed, persecuted, ghettoed, pogromed more than the Jews.183 Perhaps no other book has ever been “caressed” more tenderly by the flames than so frequently the Talmud.184 178 See the comprehensive study edited by R. Brools and J.J. Collins, eds., Hebrew Bible or Old Testament? Studying the Bible in Judaism and Christianity (Notre Dame, 1990). 179 The common roots in the OT, together with the acceptance of “Jesus the Jew,” may become a solid base for a prolific new beginning. Studying the texts together may also become a valuable enterprise, wherein lines and boundaries will be redrawn and the process of knowing each other may safely flourish. Sometimes, important details unknown to most provide excellent food for thought. For example, the traditions woven around the origins of Hanukkah are preserved by Christians. Also see Levine, Jew (n. 4), 3‒4. 180 See, for example, in Adv. Jud. (PG 48:911, also its adjacent verses) by John Chrysostom. Here the holy father accuses their priests of not being priests at all but rather actors on some kind of a stage. Again, perhaps as an echo, Melito of Sardis seems to play a very significant role with long lasting ‒ alas! negative ‒ effects. 181 For St. Athanasius the Great (Inc. 40), the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 70 C.E. was used as a point to show that the Messiah really came and that the prophecies were fulfilled; therefore, there were no more kings, visions, prophecies, and no more wait. 182 For the possible reasons why Jews rejected Jesus and for the implications of this fact, see D. Klinghoffer, Why the Jews Rejected Jesus: The Turning Point in Western History (New York, 2005). On the other hand, there are many Jews today who are proud to think that Jesus was one of them. See Levine, Jew (n. 4), 8. 183 The first ghetto designated by law was founded in Venice in 1516 and the last one in Rome was abolished in 1870 by the king of Italy, Victor Emmanuel. The term referred to a specific place wherein all Jews should reside. For the etymology of the term and the first occurrence, see E. Crouzet-Pavan, “Venice Between Jerusalem, Byzantium and Divine Contribution: The Origins of the Ghetto,” in: Mediterranean Historical Review 6

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The twentieth century was an interesting, yet sometimes frightful, place to live. Because of the tragic events that took place in its first half, theologians in the West entered into a fruitful period of self-criticism, asking again the age-old questions and working on some inspiring answers for us all. I strongly believe that we in the Orthodox world should take advantage of the progress made and the process initiated by our sisters and brothers in the West in order to reexamine the meaningful reality that dawned upon Israel and all of humanity some two thousand years ago. Wise and mature, in the spirit of true tolerance and reconciliation, it is time to move on to attitudes that do justice to our common ancestry.185 The Second Vatican Council and the Nostra Aetate declaration with its “Decretum de Judaeis’’ was a decisive step in the right direction.186 History paved the way; scholars paved the way. The call for orthopraxy may be more demanding now than ever. In very beautiful language, Maximus the Confessor maintains that God loves to be incarnated in those who have faith and that His redeeming act has a continuous effect.187 Irenaeus of Lyons (130–220 C.E.), writing in a period when the conflict between the two brothers was rising high, refers in his work Elenchus to some logia of the Apostles saved and passed on by their direct disciples. One of the teachings that he claims to preserve is quite impressive and rather to the point: when the Son of God extended his arms upon the ξύλον (the cross), he did so in order to show his will for the (1991): 163–179. Pogrom is a Russian term for “devastation” and points to a practice that originated in late nineteenth century Russia, involving attacks against persons and whole communities. 184 Within the span of several centuries, the Talmud was burned no less than twentytwo times – most of them during the uneasy period of 1553–1559. Many a time, a king (Louis IX in 1244 and Philip the Fair in 1299 and 1309), a Pope (John XXII in 1322, Julius III in 1553), a Cardinal (Carlo Borromeo in 1554), or a Bishop (Dembowski in 1757 Poland) played a major role in the process. Sadly enough, sometimes Maimonides’s works (the Book of Knowledge and the Guide for the Perplexed) were also banned and thrown into the fire in 1232. According to the eminent Maimonidean David Kimchi, however, the informant to the Dominicans and the Cardinal of Montpellier was none other than an opponent of Maimonides, Solomon ben Abraham; see D.J. Silver, Maimonidean Criticism and the Maimonidean Controversy 1180–1240 (Leiden, 1965), 153–155. 185 The following are useful collections of articles on the early period with substantial material concerning the common roots: A.J. Avery-Peck, D. Harrington and J. Neusner, eds., Christianity in the Beginning (vol. 1 of When Judaism and Christianity Began: Essays in Honor of Anthony J. Saldarini; Leiden, 2004); also, B. Chilton, C.A. Evans and J. Neusner, eds., The Missing Jesus: Rabbinic Judaism and the New Testament (Leiden, 2002). 186 See the useful sequence of events sketched out in the publication of the World Council of Churches, The Theology of the Churches and the Jewish People: Statements by the World Council of Churches and Its Member Churches (Geneva, 1998). 187 Maximus Confessor (580–662), Myst. (PG 111:377‒402).

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two people, the Synagogue and the Church, to be united under one God.188 The “children of Abraham” are now once again looking up to Calvary. When we as Christians ‒ Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant ‒ are able to produce some really deep, well-reasoned, and honest answers of the heart to these questions, we will have covered a great part of the path that unites us all. At the same time, we will have achieved an understanding more profound both on the message and the messenger that changed us all.

188 Irenaeus, Haer. 5.16.10–18. The direct disciples who passed on these logia Irenaeus calls “the elders,” and he preserves their names as John the Elder and Aristion. Of course, his magnum opus was addressed mainly against Valentinian Gnostics who abounded in the Rhône district, and this tradition seems to echo Ephesians 2:14‒18. As is well known, in the past, when tension occurred in the churches at Asia Minor, time and again Irenaeus had acted as a true peacemaker (after his name Εἰρηναῖος).

Jesus the Jew in Recent Western Scholarship JOEL MARCUS

1 Introduction Nearly twenty years ago, John P. Meier published the first volume in a work on the historical Jesus that now runs to four volumes and over three thousand pages and is still incomplete; the little matters of the passion narrative and resurrection stories remain to be treated.1 Critical reaction has been, for the most part, positive, but a rather negative review of the first volume written by Martin Goodman, a distinguished scholar of ancient Judaism, appeared in the New York Times Book Review.2 Goodman’s chief complaint was with Meier’s title and the attitude he thought it symbolized; for Goodman, Jesus was not a marginal figure but an integral part of the rich pluralism of Jewish religious life in the first century. Calling Jesus marginal, for Goodman, risked perpetuating “the ancient canard” that in the end the mass of Jews turned against Jesus, and that this led to his death. I wrote a letter to the Book Review supporting Meier and objecting to Goodman’s implication that Meier’s book was anti-Semitic. My letter was one of two subsequently printed, along with Goodman’s response. The most interesting upshot was a conversation I subsequently had with Meier. He confided that, before his first volume was published, he was indeed worried about how its title would be received, but that he had been concerned about flak coming from another quarter: he was afraid that conservatives within his own Roman Catholic church would object to his calling Jesus a Jew. He never dreamed, he said, that he would instead take fire from a Jewish critic for applying the adjective “marginal” to Jesus. Rereading Goodman’s review now, I still don’t agree with its implication of anti-Semitism, but in other ways I find it less objectionable than I 1 J. P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (ABRL; New Haven, 1991). 2 M. Goodman, “Who Was Jesus?,” New York Times Book Review, 22 December 1991, 3, 23.

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did in 1991. Indeed, in one way it seems prescient, since for the past twenty years, the tendency to emphasize the diversity of ancient Judaism, which was already pronounced in 1991, has only increased. This applies not only to study of pre-70 C.E. Judaism but also to recent characterizations of the Judaism(s) that emerged from the ashes of the Temple’s destruction. As Shaye Cohen has quipped, the new orthodoxy has become that there was no orthodoxy. There has been pushback against this pluralistic position from scholars such as Cohen,3 Ed Sanders (who speaks of a “common Judaism” centered on Law and Temple before 70),4 and Adiel Schremer.5 But the net effect of “diversifiers”6 such as Goodman,7 Seth Schwartz,8 and especially Daniel Boyarin,9 has been to shift the goal-posts and to raise serious questions about just how marginal Jesus and the movement he spawned were within a hetereogeneous Judaism. We shall need to return to this subject presently. First, however, I would like to survey quickly the history of the ways in which modern Western scholars have applied the terms “Jew” and “Jewish” to Jesus. Although I have not studied the matter exhaustively, my impression is that the growth of this ascription during the past two centuries has stemmed primarily from three overlapping causes. First, there has been the attempt of Christian scholars to free study of the Bible in general and of the historical Jesus in particular from the dogmatic constraints of the church.10 For example, the famous dictum of Julius Wellhausen that “Jesus 3

S. J. D. Cohen, “The Significance of Yavneh: Pharisees, Rabbis, and the End of Jewish Sectarianism,” HUCA 55 (1984): 27–53. The quip is one that Cohen made in conversation at a Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting several years ago. 4 E. P. Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief 63 BCE-66 CE (London/Philadelphia, 1992). 5 A. Schremer, “Seclusion and Exclusion: The Rhetoric of Separation in Qumran and Tannaitic Literature,” in Rabbinic Perspectives: Rabbinic Literature and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Proceedings of the Eighth International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, 7–9 January, 2003 (ed. S. D. Fraade, A. Shemesh and R. A. Clements; Leiden/Boston, 2006), 127–145. 6 This is my revision of the terminology of Shaye Cohen, who divides scholars of ancient Judaism into “separators” and “unifiers”; see Shaye J. D. Cohen, “The Modern Study of Ancient Judaism,” in The State of Jewish Studies (ed. Shaye J.D. Cohen and Edward L. Greenstein; Detroit, 1990), 58–66. 7 M. Goodman, State and Society in Roman Galilee, A.D. 132–212 (Totowa NJ, 1983). 8 S. Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society, 200 B.C.E. to 640 C.E. (Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World; Princeton/Oxford, 2001). 9 D. Boyarin, Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism (Stanford Calif., 1999); D. Boyarin, Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity (Philadelphia, 2004). 10 It is also important, however, to realize that the undermining of church dogma was not only a motivation for but also, sometimes, a result of historical inquiry; sometimes, in

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was not a Christian but a Jew” is related to a desire to pursue historical inquiry wherever it leads, even if this sort of analysis challenges traditional theology on sensitive issues such as Christology.11 It should be noted that, in the case of Wellhausen and several other nineteenth- and early twentieth century Christian scholars, identification of Jesus as a Jew was compatible with theological anti-Judaism. For these scholars, Jesus lived and died as a Jew – he was certainly not a pagan – but his commitment to the Jewish people and the Law were husks that in subsequent generations easily fell away from the vital movement he had spawned.12 As the Jewish scholar Leo Baeck showed in a devastating review of Adolf von Harnack’s Das Wesen des Christentums, for example, although Harnack referred to Jesus as a Jew, he tended to contrast Jesus’ simple, healthy, compassionate spirit with the callous, joyless, casuistic scribalism of the Pharisees, which for him represented the essence of Judaism. Through example after example, Baeck demonstrates that Harnack’s dark picture of ancient Judaism is distorted: that the highest ethical ideals of Jesus, such as the Golden Rule, actually come from or have parallels in ancient Judaism; that Jesus uses methods of instruction, such as parables, that are virtually identically to those of the rabbis; that, when treating ancient Judaism, Harnack reduces it to halakhah (legal strictures) and almost completely ignores the great treasure-house of haggadah (homiletics), which is full of inspiring lessons; and that he applies a differential standard to Judaism and Christiantiy, comparing the most refined representatives of the latter with the most dubious representatives of the former. The climax of the review comes when Baeck pointedly concludes, “Whoever renders judgments of the sort that Herr H. does, either knows nothing about a great area of Jewish spiritual life, or else has forced himself to know nothing about it.”13 other words, scholars did not set out to undermine the regnant theology but found themselves doing so against their will. An example is Johannes Weiss, who acknowledged that he did not know how to make theological sense of the apocalyptic Jesus that his studies uncovered. 11 On Wellhausen’s dictum, see H. D. Betz, “Wellhausen’s Dictum ‘Jesus Was not a Christian, but a Jew’ in Light of Present Scholarship,” ST 45 (1991): 83–110. 12 See for example E. Renan, The Life of Jesus (1863; repr., Great Minds Series; Amherst NY, 1991). 13 “Wer wie Herr H. urteilt, der weiss von einem grossen Gebiete des damaligen jüdischen Geisteslebens nichts oder er zwingt sich, nichts davon zu sehen.” L. Baeck, “Harnack’s Vorlesungen über das Wesen des Christenthums,” Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums 45/N.F. 9 (1901): 110. Cf. J. L. Martyn, “Leo Baeck – Introduction,” in Jewish Perspectives on Christianity: Leo Baeck, Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, Will Herberg, and Abraham J. Heschel (ed. F. A. Rothschild; New York, 1990), 25. Harnack, however, was not a racist anti-Semite or an incipient Nazi; and his son and nephew were executed for resisting Nazism; see R. Stackelberg, review of

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Besides the desire of Christian scholars to separate Jesus from the dogmatic categories of the church, a second catalyzing factor in identifying him as a Jew has been the phenomenon epitomized by Baeck himself: the entry of Jewish scholars into mainstream European and North American society and therefore into university life, and, in some cases, study of the historical Jesus. Many of the Jewish scholars who turned their attention to Jesus did so partly out of an apologetic desire to demonstrate to Christians that the deep Jewish roots of Jesus and Christianity make Christian antiSemitism illogical and even un-Christian,14 as in the Jewish response to the anti-Semitic couplet, “How odd of God To choose the Jews” – “Yet not so odd / As those who choose / A Jewish God / Yet spurn the Jews.” Some, however, also had a Jewish audience at least partly in mind; they thought that Jesus had important things to say on issues that still concerned the Jews of their own time, such as love for the outcast and the superiority of inward intention to outward conformity.15 In our day, similarly, it is commonplace to hear liberal rabbis refer to Jesus as “the first Reformed Jew.” During a year-long sabbatical in Israel twenty-two years ago, I was surprised to encounter reflections of this sort of idea even in the secular press; more than once I saw positive allusions to the Matthean Jesus’ attacks on the Pharisees as burden-imposing, gnat-straining, camel-swallowing, hypocrites. These secular Jewish writers used Matthew’s attacks on the Pharisees to back up their own denunciations of the oppressiveness and corruption of ultra-orthodox Jewish religious leaders, who were just then beginning to muscle their way into political power. Besides the entry of Jews into the academy and the effort to free study of Jesus from the dogma of the church, a third factor in the rise to prominence of Jesus the Jew has undoubtedly been the murder of millions of European Jews in the Nazi Holocaust. Even before World War II, there were Christian scholars who admired and learned a lot about Judaism,16 but their ranks have grown since the war; I need only mention the trend-setting works of my two predecessors at Duke, W. D. Davies and Ed P. Sanders.17 Harnack, Marcion und das Judentum: Nebst einer kommentierten Edition des Briefwechsels Adolf von Harnacks mit Houston Stewart Chamberlain in H-German, H-Net Reviews (May 2007). 14 Besides Baeck, see for example the work of Abraham Geiger, on which see S. Heschel, Abraham Geiger and the Jewish Jesus (Chicago/London, 1998). 15 See for example C. G. Montefiore, The Synoptic Gospels (2nd ed.; London, 1927); J. Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth: His Life, Times, and Teaching (1925; repr., New York, 1929). 16 See for example G. F. Moore, “Christian Writers on Judaism,” HTR 14 (1921): 197–254. 17 W. D. Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism: Some Rabbinic Elements in Pauline Theology (New York/Evanston, 1948); W. D. Davies, The Setting of the Sermon on the

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A part of the motivation for this broad Western Christian reassessment of Judaism has been the perception that theological anti-Semitism, which underlay many of the negative portrayals of Jesus’ Jewish environment in pre-war scholarship, helped pave the road to the death camps.18 In a horrified and self-critical reaction to this history, there has been a tendency in recent Western Christian scholarship not only to situate Jesus and the early Christian movement within first-century Judaism, but also to view this location in a positive way – not, therefore, as a husk to be shucked off as quickly as possible, but as part of the kernel of the teaching of Jesus and the earliest church, something that the later church lost touch with to its own detriment. Indeed, some recent scholars of early Christianity from both Jewish and Christian backgrounds have gone out of their way to minimize the tension between Jesus and Paul on the one hand, and their Jewish contemporaries on the other, and even to suggest that those who see such tension are anti-Semitic.19

2 Jesus and the Torah But this brings us back to the question: where did Jesus stand amongst his Jewish contemporaries? Exactly how marginal was he? Much of the debate on this subject has turned on Jesus’ attitude towards the Mosaic Law, since the Torah was, of course, of central importance in defining ancient Judaism, both in terms of the self-conception of Jews and in terms of outsiders’ image of them. If ancient Gentiles knew anything about Jews, they knew about their Torah-observance: that they abstained from certain meats, especially pork; that they practiced male circumcision; that they abstained from work one day a week; that they worshipped only their own God, in Mount (Cambridge, 1966); E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion (Philadelphia, 1977); E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia, 1985). 18 On the role of anti-Semitism in pre-World War II German theology, see R. P. Ericksen, Theologians Under Hitler: Gerhard Kittel, Paul Althaus, and Emanuel Hirsch (New Haven, 1985); S. Heschel, The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany (Princeton, 2008). 19 See J. G. Gager, The Origins of Anti-Semitism: Attitudes Toward Judaism in Pagan and Christian Antiquity (New York/Oxford, 1985); J. D. Crossan, Who Killed Jesus? Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Story of the Death of Jesus (San Francisco, 1991); P. Fredriksen, “Did Jesus Oppose Purity Laws?” BibRev 11 (1995): 18–25, 42–47; P. Fredriksen, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews: A Jewish Life and the Emergence of Christianity (New York, 1999); M. D. Nanos, The Mystery of Romans: The Jewish Context of Paul’s Letter (Minneapolis, 1996); A.-J. Levine, The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus (San Francisco, 2006).

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contrast to the cheerful polytheism of the rest of the ancient world; and that they refused to marry outsiders.20 But where did Jesus stand on such questions? In trying to answer this question, we immediately encounter the crucial issue thrown up by the critical scholarship of the past two hundred and fifty years: to what extent do the Gospels give us access to the historical Jesus, and to what extent do they put us in touch with a Jesus reshaped by the theology and experience of the church and of the authors who penned the Gospels? I myself take what I would call a moderate position on this question: I believe that all the Gospels have their origin in memories about things that Jesus said and did – even the Gospel of John, which shows the most evidence of post-Easter insight. But the image of Jesus in each Gospel differs in small and big ways from the Jesus of the other Gospels, and some of these differences reflect the different crises that the Gospels’ authors have survived and the different theologies that have emerged in their wake. So, for example, the Jesus of Matthew’s Gospel is more strongly committed to Torah-observance than the Jesus of Mark’s Gospel. But which of them is closer to the historical Jesus? We will be better able to understand the complexity of this problem by taking a look at an example. One of the most important sections of the Gospels for plumbing Jesus’ attitude towards the Torah is Mark chapter 7 and its parallel in Matthew 15. This chapter starts out as a dispute between Jesus on the one hand and the Pharisees and scribes on the other about whether or not it is necessary to wash one’s hands before eating (Mark 7:2‒5). Such a dispute is more or less believable in the context of the historical Jesus. 21 The Bible itself does not demand that laypeople wash their hands before eating, only that priests should do so before offering a sacrifice. But the Pharisees, as the first20 See M. Whittaker, Jews and Christians: Graeco-Roman Views (Cambridge Commentaries on Writings of the Jewish and Christian World 200 BC to AD 200; Cambridge, 1984), 3–130. 21 I say “more or less” believable because Jesus’ interlocutors in this Galilean setting are described as “the Pharisees and [some of] the scribes,” and indeed in Mark the Pharisees generally pop up when the setting is Galilee. Scribes in Galilee are not a problem; there would have needed to be experts in writing all over the country, and Daniel Schwartz (Judaism, 170‒182) and E. P. Sanders (“Scribes and Pharisees, Hypocrites: Who are the ‘Scribes’ in the New Testament,” in Studies in the Jewish Background of Christianity [WUNT 60; ed. D. Schwartz; Tübingen, 1992], 89‒101)have argued independently of each other that the scribes were probably priests, who again were probably scattered all over the country. But Pharisees in Galilee pose something of a problem, because the Jewish historian Josephus describes them almost always in Jerusalem contexts; the only Pharisees that he pictures in Galilee have been sent there from Jerusalem (J.W. 2.569; Vita, 189-198; see A. J. Saldarini, Pharisees, Scribes and Sadducees [Wilmington, Delaware, 1988], 147). Still, we should not necessarily assume that, where Mark and Josephus differ, Josephus must be right and Mark wrong.

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century Jewish historian Josephus tells us, in addition to observing biblical laws, also had many traditions handed down to them from their elders, which they also considered to be binding (Ant. 13.297). This is more or less what Mark himself says, though in a polemical way, in 7:3‒4: Pharisaic handwashing is one of the “traditions of the elders,” which are not specified in the legal portions of the Pentateuch (“the commandment of God”). But it is a matter of interpretation whether or not these supererogatory regulations involve an abandonment of biblical principles, as the Markan Jesus charges in 7:8 and 7:13. The Pharisees themselves doubtless saw things differently, viewing their distinctive traditions as logical and inspired extensions of the biblical commandments. But outsiders did not necessarily agree, as we can see from the Qumran scrolls , which refer to the Pharisees as “seekers after smooth things” (4QpNahum 1:2, 7; 2:2, 4, etc.); for the sectarians at Qumran, therefore, the Pharisaic tradition was suspect because it made observance of the Law too easy. Since the Pharisaic traditions were controversial with other Jewish groups, it is logical that a Pharisaic demand for handwashing before eating would not be accepted by all.22 But I chose my words carefully when I said that the dispute in Mark 7 begins as one about Pharisaic handwashing rules. That is not, however, the way it ends. For after denouncing Pharisaic biblical interpretation as a human tradition that vitiates the commandment of God (Mark 7:7‒8) – as we have seen, a plausible charge for one Jewish sectarian to make against another – the Markan Jesus tops off his denunciation by calling the crowd (7:14) and instructing them that there is nothing from the outside that can come into a person and render him unclean (7:15). What truly defines purity and impurity is what proceeds from within. This summoning of the crowd is already a little suspicious on literarycritical grounds: why do the onlookers rather than the scribes and Pharisees need to hear this conclusion? The sudden introduction of the crowd seems rather to be Mark’s way of underlining the importance and general applicability of what is to follow. And if the historical Jesus did say something about what comes into a person vs. what goes out of him, on this or another occasion, it may have been something more like Matthew’s milder version, “It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person but what comes out of the mouth” (Matt 15:11). And that might simply be a hyper22 This discrepancy between the scriptural basis and the Pharisaic demand may provide a key to the rationale of the latter: the Pharisees, it has been suggested, saw their purpose as extending to the laity the rules that the Pentateuch applies only to the priests. As Jacob Neusner famously put it, “That the Pharisees required an act of purification before eating suggests that Pharisaism saw the act of eating as a cultic rite and compared the table to the altar, the home to the Temple, and the private person to the priest” (J. Neusner, The Idea of Purity in Ancient Judaism [SJLA 1; Leiden, 1973], 3).

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bolic way of saying,“ It is not so much what goes into the mouth as what comes out of the mouth that defiles,” an example of what Heinz Kruse calls the Semitic idiom of “dialectical negation”23 – just as “I desire mercy and not sacrifice” in Hos 6:6 probably means “I desire mercy more than I desire sacrifice,” as the parallelism with the next line in the verse shows (“and the fear of the Lord more than burnt offerings”). Daniel Boyarin cites an interesting modern analogy: an early modern rabbi, Menachem Mendel of Kotzk (1787–1859), used to say, “Too many Jews are concerned about a blood-spot on an egg and not a blood-spot on a ruble.” But, as Boyarin points out, despite this dichotomous way of putting it, every egg in R. Mendel’s house was punctiliously checked for bloodspots.24 Similarly, Jesus’ saying that the only thing that matters is internal purity could be his hyperbolic way of saying that it’s the most important thing. As in some of the polemics against the Pharisees in Matthew 23, then, Jesus may in Mark 7:15 and its parallels have been pronouncing on the relative degree of impurity caused by ritual and moral transgressions, to adopt the terminology of Jonathan Klawans.25 But he was probably not openly questioning the idea that some of the things one puts in one’s mouth have the power to defile. If he had done so, and had acted on his convictions, there would almost certainly be a stronger trace of this in the Jesus tradition – some story in which Jesus and/or his disciples were challenged for consuming non-kosher food. But that is exactly what does not happen in the tradition. While Jesus himself probably opposed Pharisaic handwashing rules, then, he probably did not attack outright the idea of distinguishing between clean and unclean foods – a distinction which, after all, is clearly stated in the Old Testament in passages such as Leviticus 11:46‒47. But the interesting thing is that, although it is unlikely that the historical Jesus challenged the kosher laws in a fundamental way, Mark acts as though he had. Mark treats the dispute about handwashing, and Jesus’ response to it, as if it implied that no foodstuffs were unclean – thus engaging what was to become a huge issue as the emerging church tried to define itself in relation to Judaism. In the appended scene that follows Jesus’ dispute with the Pharisees and comment to the crowd, Mark’s Jesus segregates himself with his disciples in a house – a typical Markan device for taking up puzzling matters of concern to the church – and addresses their 23

See H. Kruse, “Die ‘dialektische Negation’ als semitisches Idiom,” VT 4 (1954): 385–400. 24 D. Boyarin, A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity (Contraversions 1; Berkeley, 1994), 288, n. 16. 25 See J. Klawans, Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism (Oxford, 2000).

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bewilderment about what he has just said about defilement (7:17‒18a). And, in reply to their question, Jesus according to Mark declares all foods clean (7:18b‒19; see especially the italicized clause). But notice that this is Mark’s interpretation, not one that he puts into Jesus’ mouth. And Matthew, in his parallel to this passage, omits the italicized phrase about “declaring all foods clean.” Not only that, but at the end of the passage, Matthew adds to his Mark an source the half-sentence, “but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a person” (Matt 15:20) – thus limiting the issue to the special Pharisaic regulation of handwashing and prescinding from the larger question raised in Mark about whether or not the biblical food laws remain in effect. I think this is probably because, for Matthew, these food laws do maintain their force – along with, perhaps, sabbath observance, circumcision, and the rest of what is often called the ritual law of the Old Testament. An interesting support for this view comes from another Matthean alteration to the text of Mark, where he adds the phrase “or on the Sabbath” to the Markan Jesus’ instruction not to flee during the time of eschatological testing if it is winter (Matt 24:20; cf. Mark 13:18). Matthew, in other words, belongs to that section of the church which, like Jesus’ brother James and the Jerusalem Christian community that he headed, shared the Jewish belief that the Mosaic Law remained in effect and was still in some sense the starting point for doing theology. Of course, the question of the exact contours of that Law was a hot issue amongst Jews, and the Matthean Jesus does not hold back from wading into this fray and expressing himself in a firm, didactic, and authoritative manner. But he does not seem to view himself as above the Law that he promulgates, as becomes clear for example in his programmatic statement about it near the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount: “I have not come to destroy, but to fulfill” (Matt 5:17‒19). Mark, on the other hand, is, I believe, from a different wing of the church – one that did not always get along well with the Torah-observant wing headed by James. In an article published ten years ago, I presented arguments for reviving the old theory that Mark comes from the Pauline sphere of influence.26 The most striking similarities between Mark and Paul have to do with the issue we were just discussing – the role played by the Law in the life of the people of God. Paul, as the Apostle to the Gentiles, thinks that it is no longer the determinative factor, that the followers of the Jewish Messiah no longer need to keep the Mosaic Law, because God’s new age has come in which humanity has been freed from the heavy-handed taskmaster of the Law (see e.g. Gal 3:23‒25). And one implication of this liberation, is, as Paul says in Romans 14, that “all things are clean” and that nothing is unclean or “common” (Rom 14:14, 20) – all 26

J. Marcus, “Mark – Interpreter of Paul,” NTS 46 (2000): 1–15.

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foods, in other words, may be eaten. And this strikingly resembles Mark’s but not Matthew’s version of what Jesus said privately to his disciples: nothing coming from outside a person can make him “common” or unclean, a pronouncement that Mark interprets as “cleansing all foods.” As in the story of Peter’s vision of the sheet in Acts 10, where similar terminology is used (Acts 10:14), καθαρίζων here probably does not mean declaring that these foods have always been clean – an interpretation that would directly contradict Old Testament passages such as Leviticus 11 – but declaring them now to be clean by the eschatological authority vested in the Messiah.

3 Jesus and the Nations So who has gotten Jesus right – Mark, who sees him as having declared all foods kosher, or Matthew, who presents him as limiting his comment to the good Jewish principle that inward purity is more important than conformity to outer regulations? We have already seen some reasons for thinking that, on one level, the answer is Matthew, since it is unlikely that the historical Jesus openly flaunted the biblical food laws. On the other hand, Jesus’ proclamation that inner purity trumps outward purity (Mark 7:15//Matt 15:11) is at least ambiguous, and it is open to Mark’s more radical interpretation that it was pointing to an abrogation of the food laws, as well as to Matthew’s more conservative interpretation. Perhaps Jesus was being deliberately vague, as teachers in traditional societies often are when they are trying to get people to rethink reigning values.27 Moreover, it is probably significant, and points to a possible ramification of Jesus’ saying about purity, that in both Mark and Matthew, the discussion about food regulations is immediately followed by the story of Jesus’ encounter with a Gentile woman who begs him to heal her demonpossessed daughter (Mark 7:24‒30//Matt 15:21‒28). The story of this encounter, I would argue, probably goes back to a historical incident. It is unlikely that it was invented by the early church since, uniquely for Gospel stories, it pictures Jesus’ interlocutor beasting him in argument. While Jesus intially refuses to heal this woman’s daughter, on the principle that the “children” = Jews must be fed before the “dogs” = Gentiles are, her witty reply about the dogs under the table eating the childrens’ crumbs causes him to reverse course and grant her request. This plot development, by the 27 For a similar case of ambiguity, the answer to the question about tribute to Caesar, see J. Marcus, “Idolatry in the New Testament,” in The Word Leaps the Gap: Essays on Scripture and Theology in Honor of Richard B. Hays (ed. J. R. Wagner, C. K. Rowe and A. K. Grieb; Grand Rapids, Mich., 2008), 114–20.

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way, is similar to biblical and rabbinic stories in which a bright woman outwits a male authority figure; in 2 Samuel 14, for example, the wise woman from Tekoa maneuvers King David into reversing his banishment of his son Absalom, and in the Babylonian Talmud (b. ‘Erub. 53b), R. Joshua introduces some anecdotes about his rhetorical failures by saying, “No one has ever gotten the better of me except a woman, a little boy, and a little girl.” Beyond its form-critical similarities to rabbinic and biblical tales, however, the story about Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman is also striking for what it says about Jesus’ attitude toward non-Jews, and how this may have changed over time. The narrative pictures Jesus as starting out from a standpoint that could fairly be called one of Jewish ethnocentrism or even chauvinism. Using terminology that was as insulting in ancient times as it is today, Jesus says in effect that his ministry is limited to God’s children, the Jews, and does not extend to Gentile “dogs” like the Syrophoenician woman and her daughter. As the great early twentieth-century Jewish scholar Joseph Klausner said with justifiable passion, “If any other Jewish teacher of the time had said such a thing, Christians would never have forgiven Judaism for it.”28 The contemporary Christian exegete, Gerd Theissen, adds that the saying seems morally offensive, as though a doctor should refuse to treat a foreign child; and he points out the incongruity that Jesus couches his refusal to help a child in a parable about the necessity of attending to children.29 A straightforward reading of Jesus’ initial refusal as stemming from Jewish parochialism, however, has proved so offensive to exegetes that they have adopted any number of methods to try to get away from it. Vincent Taylor, for example, hypothesizes that when Jesus said “it is not right to give the children’s bread to dogs,” he was talking to himself, not the woman; Floyd Filson suggests that his facial expression or tone of voice may have tipped her off that his refusal was not final; and J. Ireland Hasler speculates that he may have winked!30 The novelist Dan Brown may wish to combine this last suggestion with his own popular theory about Jesus and say that the wink led to the woman becoming a disciple, changing her name to Mary Magdalene, and finally marrying Jesus.

28 29

Klausner, Jesus, 294. G. Theissen, The Gospels in Context: Social and Political History in the Synoptic Tradition (Minneapolis, 1991), 61, 65. 30 V. Taylor, The Gospel According to Saint Mark (2nd ed.; 1950; repr., Grand Rapids Mich., 1981); F. V. Filson, A Commentary on the Gospel According to St. Matthew (Black’s New Testament Commentaries; London, 1960); J. I. Hasler, “The Incident of the Syrophoenician Woman (Matt XV,21–28; Mark VII,24–30),” ET 45 (1934): 459–61.

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If we do not want to go down such a speculative route, we may be forced to conclude that Jesus the Jew was also, at one point in his development, Jesus the Jewish chauvinist – not that all Jews were chauvinistic and found it difficult to empathize with outsiders, but that some were – and Jesus amongst them.31 But the shrewd humor and feistiness (!) of a Gentile, Greek-speaking woman from the Phoenician section of Syria made Jesus think twice about this attitude and become more open to Gentiles than he had previously been. There is even a sort of theological logic to this view. If Jesus, according to Luke 2:40 – a verse that was extremely important in patristic and medieval debates about his humanity – grew in wisdom and the grace of God, perhaps one of the ways that he did so was by shedding his early preconceptions about those outside his natal group – the sort of prejudices that all of us have, in one way or another, and that seem to be an intrinsic part of the human life. We see, then, a Jesus who was led to the place where, at least for a moment, he accepted a Gentile woman just as she was, without demanding that she convert to Judaism – and this may be closer to Mark’s Pauline theology than to Matthew’s Torah-observant one.

4 Conclusion What does all of this say about the Jewishness of Jesus in history, scripture, and tradition? Is the Jesus of Matthew’s Gospel more Jewish than the Jesus of Mark’s? The answer, I think, depends on exactly how Jewishness is defined. On the face of it, the consumption of non-kosher food would seem to be an un-Jewish practice – but many Jews today cheerfully do so. To be sure, they usually do not call themselves religious or traditional, but one very religious Jew, the former Lubavitcher Rebbe, the revered leader of the most dynamic Hasidic group in the world, came very close to the messianic logic of Mark 7. In some of his eschatological discourses, notably, the Rebbe said that, in the age-to-come, when death was destroyed and the cosmos transformed, the unclean nature of the pig would also be altered, and it would become a pure animal. Not only that, but the Rebbe, like the Markan Jesus and Acts 10, connected this messianic transformation of unclean food with the messianic transformation of unclean peoples, taking the coming change in the status of the pig as a symbol for the

31 On the range of ancient Jewish attitudes towards Gentiles, see T. L. Donaldson, Judaism and the Gentiles: Jewish Patterns of Universalism (to 135 CE) (Waco, 2007).

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coming eschatological purification of the seventy non-Jewish nations of the world.32 But comparing the Markan Jesus’ attitude toward Jewish food laws with that of the Lubavitcher Rebbe does not really solve the question of the Jewishness of the Markan Jesus, since while the Rebbe was (and still is) revered by many of his followers worldwide as a great sage and even as the Messiah, he is considered by other religious Jews to be a false prophet precisely because of the striking similarity of some of his teachings to Christianity.33 The crucial question, then, is how one defines the word “Jewish,” and it is apparent that some Jews regard the Jewishness of the Rebbe as marginal. Other Jews, of course, take him to be Judaism incarnate. The parallels with Jewish attitudes towards the marginality or otherwise of Jesus are obvious. But this comparison of Jesus to the Lubavitcher Rebbe opens up one final can of worms, since it points to the eschatological undergirding of Jesus’ thought. If Jesus eventually came to the conviction that it was now all right to give the children’s bread to the dogs, this was probably something more than a simple change of mind initiated by an encounter with a feisty woman. It probably also had something to do with his base conviction that the time of eschatological advent had arrived – a conviction that may have been encouraged by surprising encounters with insightful Gentiles such as the Syrophoenician woman. In the new age, according to some Jewish eschatological beliefs, the Gentile world would be converted to the God of Israel and there would therefore be a shattering of the cosmos-structuring division between Jews and Gentiles.34 For Jesus, that age had now come, or was beginning to dawn. This means that it is important not only to say that Jesus was a Jewish thinker, but also to ask what sort of Jewish thinker he was; and the answer of much late-nineteenth and twentieth-century scholarship has been that he was an apocalypticist, one who believed that God’s new age was breaking in in his own ministry.35 And, as was the case 32 See E. R. Wolfson, Open Secret: Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision of Menaḥem Mendel Schneerson (New York, 2009). 33 See D. Berger, The Rebbe, the Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference (The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization; London, 2001). 34 See J. Jeremias, Jesus’ Promise to the Nations (Philadelphia, 1958). 35 The crucial figure here, of course, is Albert Schweitzer, who sums up and extends the work of predecessors such as Johannes Weiss in A. Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus: First Complete Edition (Minneapolis, 2001 [orig. 1901]); more recently see especially Sanders, Jesus and Judaism and many of the works of Dale Allison, e.g. D. C. Allison, The End of the Ages Has Come: An Early Interpretation of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus (Philadelphia, 1985); D. C. Allison, “A Plea for Thoroughgoing Eschatology,” JBL 113 (1994): 651–68; D. C. Allison, Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet (Minneapolis, 1998).

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with the Lubavitcher Rebbe, as is the case with apocalyptic thinkers generally, for Jesus this belief in eschatological advent seems to have involved the corollary that, since the beginning of the end had now happened, the end of the end would occur soon, and world history would soon wrap up with the advent of “the dominion of God come in power.”36 Indeed, that event was so close that some of Jesus’ immediate audience would see it before they died (Mark 8:38‒9:1). But the Lubavitcher Rebbe has been dead for over a decade now, and Jesus has been dead for close to two thousand years. Jesus’ faithful followers, of course, do not believe that he really died, or rather they believe that he came to life again – as some of the Rebbe’s followers also believe about him. But even if one accepts that premise with regard to Jesus, one is still faced with the problem that Jesus seems to have been wrong about the timing of the end. Of course, the church has resisted this conclusion, for example by linking “the kingdom come with power” in Mark 9:1 with the Transfiguration, which immediately follows, or with Jesus’ resurrection, which resembles the Transfiguration in a number of ways. I think that this sort of realized eschatology is partly true to the theology of Mark and even of Jesus; Jesus did think, for example, that his own exorcisms were a sign of the advent of the dominion of God, as is shown for example by Luke 11:20. But he also seems to have thought that the consummation of that advent would be accomplished in his lifetime, or very shortly thereafter, as implied by “some standing here” in Mark 9:1 and “this generation will not pass away” in Mark 13:30. And in that conviction, many Western Christian scholars would say – though not, perhaps, without considerable agonizing – he was wrong. Can we believe in a Messiah who did not know the time of the arrival of God’s kingdom, as he himself says in Mark 13:32, or who was even wrong about it? It may actually be a comforting reflection to think that Jesus did not possess a detailed, infallible guide to coming attractions in God’s world, since we ourselves don’t know what the future holds, and it may be reassuring to reflect that he didn’t know either – that he lived in the same sort of uncertainty and temptation to anxiety, and that he needed the same sort of faith, that we do. Yet he persevered and made it through, though he had to pass through the valley of the shadow of death – and maybe somehow we can make it through too, with his help. So, like Jesus’ agony in 36 In various publications, Nicholas T. Wright has argued against this millenarian interpretation of apocalyptic language; see especially N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God (London, 1992), 281–338. But see also the devastating critique by Dale Allison: D. C. Allison, “Jesus and the Victory of Apocalyptic,” in Jesus and the Restoration of Israel: A Critical Assessment of N. T. Wright’s Jesus and the Victory of God (ed. C. C. Newman; Downers Grove Ill., 1999), 126–41.

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Gethsemane in the Synoptics and his cry of dereliction in Mark and Matthew, the saying in Mark 13:32 that no one, not even the Son, knows the hour of final consummation, may turn out to be good news, since it points to the extremity to which God was prepared to go to participate in our humanity. Our investigation of Jesus’ Jewishness, therefore, has ultimately led to a renewed appreciation for his humanity; and that is fitting, since the former is an essential part of the latter. And so I conclude by inviting you to contemplate this image painted during the dark days of the Nazi persecutions by the Jewish artist Marc Chagall, who was born in Belarus – an image that superbly portrays both the suffering humanity of Jesus and his indelible identification with the Jewish people who, whether they know it or not, mysteriously share in his fate.

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III Contributions from the Seminars

Interpreting the Parables of Jesus A Test Case: The Parable of the lost Sheep* ARMAND PUIG I TÀRRECH

1 Recent research and the question of the historical Jesus Research on the parables has been dominated in the last decade by the concept of “polyvalence.” Since the work of M. A. Tolbert (1979), perhaps the first scholar to use it in her approach, and J. D. Crossan (1980), this key concept has been spreading through recent scholarship and has become a fixed point of reference in most research on the parables.1 J. Liebenberg (2001) concluded his contribution by stating that, in contrast with earlier research, the polyvalence of the parables invalidates all attempts to identify an original context or an original meaning.2 In other words, the mainstream of historical-critical exegesis from A. Jülicher until our time has failed to reconstruct the historical situation in which Jesus told his parables, in spite of its enormous efforts. It would, therefore, be unwise to continue walking along a path that has been proved so fruitless. This is one of the points of departure of the Kompendium der Gleichnisse Jesu, a recent collaborative work from the German-speaking area, coordinated by R. Zimmermann (2007).3 On behalf of “openness of interpreta* I thank Dr. John Elwolde of the United Bible Societies for his valuable help in correcting my manuscript and giving to it the flavour of the true English language. 1 M. A. Tolbert, Perspectives on the Parables: An Approach to Multiple Interpretations (Philadelphia, 1979); J. D. Crossan, Cliffs of Fall: Paradox and Polyvalence in the Parables of Jesus (New York, 1980). It seems that, thirty years later, the concept of polyvalence has convinced not a few recent Germans scholars (cf. n. 3). 2 J. Liebenberg, The Language of the Kingdom and Jesus: Parable, Aphorism, and Metaphor in the Sayings Material Common to the Synoptic Tradition and the Gospel of Thomas (BZNW 102; Berlin/New York, 2001), 508–513. 3 R. Zimmermann, ed., Kompendium der Gleichnisse Jesu (Gütersloh, 2007). The contributors are 46 scholars, mainly from Germany (the co-editors are D. Dormeyer, G. Kern, A. Merz, C. Münch and E. E. Popkes). In the Introduction to this large volume (1101 pages), the main editor declares that in English-speaking research on parables

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tion,” the concept of “climax” (Zuspitzung), related either to ethical principles (Jülicher) or to a specific historical situation in Jesus’s ministry (Dodd, Jeremias, Dupont), seems to be dismissed, at least in the Introduction to the work (pp. 3–45).4 Interpreters should instead enter into the parable’s world of understanding and find out its meaning for themselves. This would be the only way to respect the language of images – and a parable is, of course, a linguistic image – so that no external (exegetical or ecclesiastical) factors determine the meaning of a text. Exegesis should be left with the sole task of showing readers “possible ways of understanding.”5 A historical interpretation of Jesus’s parables causes the reader to lose the sense of novelty and of impact on life. A reconstructed parable would not have the power to awaken in the reader or hearer a personal response and would not lead to a true process of understanding. The reader should only accept the results of the historical reconstruction and learn from them some “lessons” for his or her own life. In any case, it is not the intention of the Kompendium that history be left out of exegetical analysis. Although it makes no sense to try to ask for the meaning Jesus might have given to a specific parable, the “historical plausibility” of the linguistic images which constitute a parable or an aphorism has to be demonstrated. Parables are rooted in Palestinian soil and in the biblical and Jewish world. There are also clusters of metaphors found in the Scriptures and other Jewish literature which mark out some fields of meaning, and such fields cannot be put aside. Thus, history and philology, or better, social history and semantic fields, contribute to the process of understanding and are like a fence enclosing the territory where all interpretations are legitimate. Zimmermann concludes, “The space for understanding may be regarded as a field that lies between openness and obligation.”6 The first, or last, consequence of the choices made by the authors of the Kompendium is a systematic refusal to deal with the question of the mean“polyvalence” is a concept broadly agreed upon (p. 42). This statement should be limited to the USA, and even there agreement is lacking. For instance, K. R. Snodgrass, in an extensive volume (Stories with Intent: A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of Jesus [Grand Rapids/Cambridge, 2008], 846 pages), explicitly criticizes Tolbert’s approach (591, n. 120) and stresses that “the general context of Jesus” (his italics) is “the only determiner of meaning” of his parables (26). 4 Zimmermann, Kompendium, 42. 5 Exegesis should point out “mögliche Verstehenswege” (Zimmermann, Kompendium, 42), which would help every reader to discover a personal meaning of the text in relation to faith and life. This is the only way for readers to be included in a process of understanding (Verstehensprozess) that reflects the striking, metaphorical character of the parables. 6 Zimmermann, Kompendium, 43: “ein Feld zwischen Offenheit und Verbindlichkeit.”

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ing of the parable that lies behind the extant sources, namely, at the level of the historical Jesus. Accordingly, there is no critical approach to the parabolist Jesus as such in the Kompendium.7 Listed according to the sources, 104 units are analysed according to the same pattern: (a) linguistic and narrative analysis (Kompendium, no. 3), (b) sociohistorical analysis (Kompendium, no. 4), (c) semantic fields (Kompendium, no. 5), (d) interpretation (Kompendium, no. 6 and 7).8 These units are ordered flexibly from what is presumably the oldest source onwards,9 namely “from the beginning of the synoptic tradition.”10 According to the Kompendium, there has been a shift since the work of H. Weder (1978).11 Whereas Weder set out from the Synoptic tradition and tried to arrive at the historical Jesus’s ministry and activity, the Kompendium avoids speaking about “going back” to the so-called Jesus level. But in fact the interpretation of the parable at this level is quite often dealt with and is included in the so-called “Summary Interpretation (Horizons of Meaning)” (Zusammenfassende Auslegung [Deutungshorizonte]), while its interpretation at the level of the Synoptic Gospels and Thomas comes under “Parallel Tradition” (Parallelüberlieferung). Indeed, it would be rather anomalous to follow the tradition process and leave aside its origin; the Jesus tradition begins with him and exegetical difficulties and uncertainties do not justify avoiding critical questions with regard to him. This is probably one of the main contributions made by the so-called “Third Quest of the Historical Jesus”. It is nonetheless obvious that all the material found in the Synoptic sources and Thomas cannot be attributed directly to the historical Jesus. Critical discussion of the parables leads to the conclusion that they include some literary features that belong, with a high degree of probability, to the oral and written tradition process that developed after Jesus’s life. The interpreter cannot ignore this finding of historical criticism. One should not, however, dismiss any and all relationship between the Synoptic parables and Jesus by arguing that the exact wording of Jesus cannot be reached. It is true that, as K. Snodgrass says, “any attempt to reconstruct the original version [i.e. Jesus’ own expression of his parables] is misguided,” but this 7 In spite of that, some authors do briefly mention the question. For instance, in the Parable of the Ten Virgins, the author, Moisés Mayordomo, recognizes that it is possible to go back to the historical Jesus, although, he says, it is not possible to know the structure and context that the parable could have had at that stage (Zimmermann, Kompendium, 495). 8 See Zimmermann, Kompendium, 33. 9 The order is as follows: Q, Mark, Matthew, Luke, John, Thomas, Agrapha. 10 This was the choice already made by Liebenberg in 2001. 11 H. Weder, Die Gleichnisse Jesu als Metaphern: Traditions- und redaktionsgeschichtliche Analysen und Interpretationen (FRLANT 120; Göttingen 1978; 4th ed. 1990).

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statement expresses the problem, not the solution.12 The interpreter has to deal with the question of whether the parabolic material may be used to draw a profile of the historical Jesus. Otherwise, according to the figures given by Snodgrass, thirty-five percent of Jesus’s teaching found in the Synoptic gospels should be excluded from the exegetical agenda. In spite of the difficulties regarding the interpretation of Jesus’s parables, parabolic material represents an additional area of research relating to the quest for the historical Jesus, and the criteria of access to that historical Jesus must be applied to it also. Although some recent research rejects the possibility of asking critical questions about Jesus’s parables at the level of the parabolist himself, the difficulties interpreters face should not be regarded as conclusive. The main aim of the research should not be the reconstruction of a text that has never existed; a parable could have been told more than one time by Jesus himself and retold many times by those who heard him. The main purpose should consist rather in identifying any elements that indicate that the process of transmission of a parabolic unit has been alive and secure from the very beginning because it lies upon a plausible foundation within the Jesus tradition.13 Above all, it is necessary to analyse the narrativity of the extant material and to consider this material in the context of Jesus’s ministry. As narrative, a parable possesses and expresses a metaphorical character, both in the story it tells as a whole and in some of that story’s elements. Jesus did not tell his parables as if they were aesthetic objects intended to arouse new intellectual or emotional reactions; his parables are related to God and his Kingdom and at the same time to Jesus himself and his message. This means that Jesus’s message and the message of his parables are not separate things. The parabolist speaks of God and from God. Thus, God and Jesus become the two basic points in the exegesis of the parables. In what follows, we will discuss the seven steps that, in my opinion, articulate the process for interpreting Jesus’s parables. My proposal places itself between the way opened by J. Dupont, who represents a major contribution to the topic after C. H. Dodd and J. Jeremias, on the one hand, and the contribution of P. Ricɶur on metaphor and hermeneutics on the other.14 The seven steps are as follows:15 (1) transmission analysis, which 12 13

Snodgrass, Parables, 25. On this, see my study “Jesus Tradition,” in Jesus, an Uncommon Journey: Studies on the Historical Jesus (WUNT II/288;Tübingen, 2010), 1–43. 14 Cf. P. Ricɶur, “Biblical Hermeneutics,” Semeia 4 (1975): 29–145; La métaphore vive (Paris, 1975); J. Jeremias, Die Gleichnisse Jesu (Göttingen, 1947; 17th ed. 1998); C. H. Dodd, The Parables of the Kingdom (London, 1935; 17th ed. 1965); J. Dupont, Pourquoi des paraboles? La méthode parabolique de Jésus (Paris, 1977). On Dupont’s contribution to the study of the parables, see my article “L’approccio di J. Dupont alle parabole: problemi di metodo e prospettive spirituali,” in Un maestro senza scuola? Ai

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enables us to demonstrate a story’s “narrative outline”; (2) sociohistorical analysis, that is, analysis of the social conditions that confirm the plausibility of the “narrative outline”; (3) semantic-field analysis, which identifies the metaphorical and symbolic conventions employed within the “narrative outline”; (4) narrative analysis (a story’s narrativity) and metaphorical transfer, which allows us to move from the world of literary images to that of the first hearers; (5) situation analysis in the context of Jesus’s ministry, which yields the first, foundational sense of the “narrative outline”; (6) Jesus-tradition analysis, which shows the continuity and discontinuity of the story’s “narrative outline” and its oldest interpretations;16 (7) the history of interpretation up to present-day readings of the text (Wirkungsgeschichte).17 I have chosen the parable of the Lost Sheep (Matt 18:12–14; Luke 15:4– 7; Gos. Thom. 107:1–3) as an example of how to deal with these seven steps in the process of interpreting Jesus’s parables.

dieci anni della morte di P. J. Dupont (1998–2008) (ed. L. Saraceno; Torino, 2009), 93– 125. See also my book La parabole des Dix Vierges (Matt 25,1–13) (Analecta Biblica 102; Rome, 1983), 227–262. Besides the recent Kompendium, I will consider some other interesting contributions to the research made in the last decades. See Weder, Die Gleichnisse Jesu als Metaphern (see note 11), H. J. Klauck, Allegorie und Allegorese in synoptischen Gleichnistexten (NTA.NF 13; Münster, 1978; 2d ed. 1986); E. Rau, Reden in Vollmacht: Hintergrund, Form und Anliegen der Gleichnisse Jesu (FRLANT 149; Göttingen, 1990); B. B. Scott, Hear then the Parable: A Commentary on the Parables of Jesus (Minneapolis, 1989); A. J. Hultgren, The Parables of Jesus: A Commentary (Grand Rapids/Cambridge, 2000); K. R. Snodgrass, Stories with Intent (see note 3). 15 The Kompendium speaks of “ein integratives Modell” (p. 14). I agree with this formula. Historical, literary, and hermeneutical approaches must be combined in one single method of analysis. I propose “narrativity” as the link and the clue that makes it possible to relate the three approaches to each other, so that the interpretation can be the final result of a single perspective from different backgrounds. The interpretation of a parable of Jesus should combine unity and diversity, so that the meaning will not be limited to one interpretation, and every interpretation, to be legitimate, will have to respect the one common perspective built upon the three approaches we have mentioned. 16 I call the “oldest interpretations” those that are found in the Synoptic Gospels and Thomas (see 2.6). 17 Steps 1, 4, and 5 correspond to the process of interpretation proposed by Norman Perrin: “textual criticism” (= 1), “literary criticism” (= 4), and “historical criticism” (= 5) (cf. Norman Perrin, Jesus and the Language of the Kingdom: Symbol and Metaphor in New Testament Interpretation [Philadelphia, 1976] 89).

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2 The seven steps in the interpretation of the parables 2.1 Transmission analysis: towards the “narrative outline” Clearly, one must begin with a survey of the material that comprises the transmission process. Although it is impossible to reconstruct the “wording of the original parable” – as the Second Quest tried in various ways to do – comparison of the material sheds light upon the process by which the “narrative outline” of the story told, and quite often retold, by Jesus was transmitted.18 This comparison also reveals the trends or elements which might have been introduced during the process of transmission. We have to distinguish identification of a “narrative outline” from reconstruction of the “text” of the so-called sayings source (Q). Although since 2000 a “Critical Edition of Q” has been available, debate about the wording of this source shows how difficult it is to reach a consensus.19 Nobody would consider the text printed in this work as the text of Q, but only a scholarly proposal that remains a hypothesis. In the same way, our goal is not to establish a “text” but to suggest a “narrative outline,” the validity of which does not depend on the exact wording (which can change from one transmitter to the other) but on the general narrative shape of the story (which must be retained, unless the one story is turned into two different stories). Redaktionsgechichte is a critical tool that cannot be disregarded.20 In the parable of the Lost Sheep, the first impression is that we are faced with two versions (Matt 18:12–14 and Luke 15:4–7) of the same story, which certainly was in Q, whereas in Thomas (logion 107), it is not certain whether the parable is an elaboration of the account extant in the Synoptic

18

In the case of material that presumably belongs to Q, this analysis enables the interpreter to verify whether the material attests to one or two “narrative outlines.” 19 Cf. J. M. Robinson, P. Hoffmann, and J. S. Kloppenborg, The Critical Edition of Q: Synopsis including the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, Mark and Thomas with English, German and French Translations of Q and Thomas (Hermeneia Suppl. Series; Minneapolis/Leuven, 2000). 20 Even in the case of a parable attested by a single source (e.g., the Ten Virgins, Matt 25:1–13), a “narrative outline” must be proposed, with the eventual help of a careful redaktionsgeschichtlich analysis. Otherwise, there is a risk of straying into nonsense, as sometimes happens with a structuralist exegesis that works with a closed synchronic method. For example, J. Delorme claims that v. 13, a logion attached by “Matthew” to the narrative, should be included in the answer the bridegroom gives to the young girls who had gone to buy oil for their lamps and had remained outside asking to be let in. Cf. J. Delorme, “La parabole des dix vierges (Matt 25,1–13): Essai de synthèse historicolittéraire,” in Les paraboles évangéliques: Perspectives nouvelles, XIIe Congrès de l’ACFEB, Lyon, 1987 (LeDiv 135; ed. J. Delorme; Paris, 1989) 349–360.

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gospels or of an independent tradition.21 So, the first task is to develop a “narrative outline” upon which the metaphorical process might be built up. Indeed, as has been stressed, trying to go back to Jesus’s ipsissima verba ends up with no definite results; Jesus’s words cannot be dug up, as if it were possible to clear away the text from the surrounding debris. Moreover, the comparison between Matt 18 and Luke 15 will lead back to Q, but not necessarily to Jesus.22 It is possible to move back into the origins of the tradition, but this move may only be done insofar as the Q parable is placed in the context of Jesus’s life and in the specific situation of Jesus’s ministry (step no. 5). However, the point of departure must be the “narrative outline,” namely, the narrative analysis and metaphorical transfer (step no. 4). Matthew 18:12–14 appears within a context devoted to the little ones: children (vv. 1–5) and those who believe in Jesus (vv. 6–14). The parable pursues the idea that somebody who has gone astray must be made to come back. Transposing the image to the community, one must look for the member who has gone astray, so that he/she may not perish. This is specified as being God’s will (v. 14). Therefore, it seems that in Matt 18 the entire weight of interpretation must fall upon v. 12, where two corresponding verbs are found: “go astray” (πλανάω) and “go in search” (ζητέω). This emphasis is confirmed by v. 14.23 Luke 15:4–7 is preceded by three verses (vv. 1–3), which belong to Luke, the author of the Gospel.24 Verses 1–2 underline Jesus’s commensality with sinners and tax-collectors, heavily criticized by scribes and Pharisees, the strictest observers of the Law. This duality, “sinners” – “righteous,” shapes the conclusion of the parable, too. The joy of heaven (God) is truly great when one sinner repents, even greater than the joy God feels for the ninety-nine righteous (v. 7). God’s attitude fully justifies Jesus’s attitude towards sinners – the topic of vv. 1–2. Thus, God’s acceptance of one sinner becomes a guarantee against those who would disregard Jesus’s acceptance of some sinners. 21 The following statement of Snodgrass is rather surprising: “Matthew and Luke have relatively little in common” (Snodgrass, Parables, 98). The parallelism of both texts is, in fact, striking. 22 In his analysis of the lost sheep, Dupont remarks that the aim is to reach the oldest form of the logion (“la plus ancienne forme accessible du logion”); J. Dupont, “Les implications christologiques de la parabole de la brebis perdue,” in Études sur les évangiles synoptiques (vol. II; Leuven, 1985) 647–666, here 653 = J. Dupont, Jésus aux origines de la christologie (Leuven/Gembloux,1975) 331–350. 23 In contrast, the joy of the flock’s owner, mentioned in v. 13, is not a central feature in Matthew’s version of the parable (also Dupont). But this does not mean that the rejoicing motif is to be excluded, since it appears broadly in the Lukan version. 24 Cf. I. H. Marshall, The Gospel of Luke: A Commentary on the Greek Text (NTGTC; Exeter, 1978) 598–599.

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So, we have two versions of the same story with two different points of emphasis in terms of the purpose of the text and its application to the community context. In Matthew the text refers to the troubles suffered by the “little ones” in the community, the weakest ones, who tend to be despised by the leaders (18:10) and dragged to ruin by those who scandalize them (18:6); the “little ones” “go astray” (18:12.13), that is to say, they follow wrong doctrines spread by “false prophets” (24:11; see 7:15), so that their love “grows cold” (24:12). The leaders must react to this dangerous situation and go out and seek those who have gone astray before they perish. In Luke, the purpose of the text is rather different. The subject is here the joy that fills God’s heart when God sees a sinner who repents (15:7), a sinner who has come near to Jesus as a response to the fact that Jesus has approached him and shared his table (15:1–2). This sinner – who is like a sheep that was lost and went alone through the wilderness – has been “found” and will now go and join in a joyful feast, like a sheep laid on the shoulders of the man who “went after him” (15:4). The text has two purposes, one in Matthew and another in Luke, and the application of the parable, Matt 18:14 and Luke 15:7, also differs in each Gospel. In Matthew God’s reaction focuses on the danger of destruction threatening the “little ones.” Note that the wording of v. 13 does not allow us to state that the lost sheep has been found!25 The emphasis is laid upon the necessity of searching for those who have taken the wrong direction and are still straying, lest they perish.26 In contrast, in Luke, God’s reaction is totally uninhibited. God makes a clear choice in favour of the sinner (just one!), whose “salvation” is celebrated by a joyful heaven as it is on earth, where friends and neighbours gather together for a large party at the man’s home, invited to celebrate the finding of this one (!) sheep.27 The joy of the finding fills up the whole text and its characters: the man (v. 5),

25

The phrase καὶ ἐὰν γένηται εὑρεῖν αὐτός (“and if it happens that [he] finds it”) (Matt 18:13) does not affirm that the sheep has indeed been found. In contrast, in the parallel verse (Luke 15:5), the text does not leave any doubt: καὶ εὑρῶν (“and when [he] has found [it]”). 26 The meaning of the verb ἀπόλλυµι (“perish”) is rather loose here. Certainly, at the level of the image, it is true that a sheep that has gone astray may die because of natural causes or from an external attack. At the level of the reality beyond the image, “perish” may indicate that the community is abandoned or perhaps that an alternative group, apart from the main one, influences the majority. 27 In the Lukan narrative (vv. 4–6), there is no mention of the other ninety-nine sheep. The figure comes out only at the end (v. 7), in the application, where they are referred to the “righteous.” As we will see, the Gospel of Thomas (logion 107) has perfectly understood the Lukan reading of the parable in his choice in favour of the “one” sheep.

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his friends (v. 6), and heaven (v. 7). Joy is at the centre of the Lukan parable of the Lost Sheep.28 The story of the lost sheep extant in Matthew and Luke provides enough information for us to sketch the parable’s “narrative outline,” which takes into account the “common” features uncovered in both texts. The result is only a “narrative outline,” a flexible literary composition that explains both Matthaean and Lukan characteristic features, since it arises from a comparison of the two sources. From a philological point of view, this “outline” is not regarded as a definitive result, as there are too many uncertainties regarding the transmission of tradition material. Hence, the “narrative outline” cannot be sketched out in Greek, like the reconstruction of the Greek text of Q in the so-called “Critical Edition” (cf. above note 19). Moreover, a narrative is fluent and, unlike a sentence or a proverb, has no definite edges. Thus, in research on the parables, it is useful to set up a “narrative outline” of the story. This “outline” does not necessarily lack precision. In fact, it will become more precise because one does not need to make a decision on every form of the wording in Greek – such a restoration would immediately be called into question in some or most of its aspects. Moreover, it is easier in this way to reach the first steps of the oral tradition. Such a “narrative outline” should be not far away from the first oral version, which we may attribute to the parabolist and to those who transmitted the parable that they heard. There are three narrative stages to the plot: (a) A man with a hundred sheep loses one of them. (b) He leaves the ninety-nine on the mountains / in the wilderness and goes after the one that has been lost. (c) The man finds the lost sheep, lays it on his shoulders, and rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that were not lost.

This proposal of a “narrative outline”29 considers as distinctively Matthaean the following elements: the opening interrogative formula (“What do 28 Joy is also a main feature in two other parables from Luke 15: the Lost Coin (vv. 8–10) and the Prodigal Son (vv. 11–32). It is widely recognized that the three parables have been placed in parallel by Luke (or by someone else during the transmission before him). Note that Luke 15:7 has probably been built upon a phrase similar to that of Matt 18:13. This phrase would belong to the traditional narrative outline. 29 See note 22. I would like to stress that this “narrative outline” does not differ very much from the proposal regarding the parable to be found in the Kompendium (p. 205). However, although most of the distinctive elements of the Matthaean and Lukan versions are identified in the analysis of the parable (see Zimermann, Kompendium, 213–217), there is no explicit justification of the “seminal” German text of the parable, placed at the beginning of the Kompendium article. The authors of the analysis (D. Dormeyer, A. Merz, C. Münch, and R. Zimmermann) (Kompendium, 205–219) use the Spanish pseudonym of “animosa oveja” (‘spirited sheep’). This is the only study of the volume done by

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you think?”) (v. 12), the verb “go astray” (πλανάω) (vv. 12.13), the phrase “and if it happens that he finds it” (v. 13), the application (v. 14). Specifically Lukan elements are considered to be as follows: the (v. 4), the invitation of the man who has found his lost sheep to friends opening τίς ἄνθρωπος formula and neighbours to rejoice with him (v. 6), the application (v. 7). 2.2 Sociohistorical analysis: the plausibility of the story Let us take the plot and the characters and their actions as they appear in the story. “A man.” Is this man the owner of the sheep? Or is the man somebody to whom the sheep have been entrusted? Note that Matthew and Luke avoid referring to the man as “shepherd” and to the sheep as “flock,” although at first glance such an identification would seem to be quite appropriate. The reason is to stress the personal relationship (“man” – “sheep”) and to supersede a relation based on role (“shepherd” – “flock”). It is not important whether the man is the owner of the flock or a simple worker engaged to care for the sheep; the story does not answer this point. In any case, the man is responsible for the hundred sheep and will behave as such throughout the story. With regard to the sheep, there is no other character to be taken into account. “A hundred sheep.” Are they enclosed in a space that is marked off by a wall? Or do they stay in an open place, in the fields, where there is plenty of grass to feed on? From a narrative point of view, it matters little whether one places the sheep on the mountains (Matt) or in the wilderness (Luke).30 The important question is exactly where they are when the man leaves them. Whether on the mountains or in a deserted place, the sheep may stay within a more protected area (e. g. a stone enclosure in the open air, or, less likely, since they are a flock of one hundred sheep, in a stone hut), or they may be scattered on the hills, with no protection at all (and in danger of becoming lost). In any case, danger cannot be avoided in either of the two possibilities, because the sheep will be left alone; nobody else is mentioned apart from the man. “He has lost one of them.” The man must take care of the hundred sheep, but unfortunately one sheep is lost. There is no mention of a reason for this incident. It is not said that the man failed because, for instance, he did not watch over the sheep with due attention, or that the sheep became

the editorial team, turning it into a kind of paradigmatic example of the methodology used in the volume as a whole (46 contributors). 30 Perhaps on the mountains of the wilderness: the mountains of the Judaean desert or the bare Gilead mountains eastward from the Sea of Galilee.

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lost because, for instance, it was too young, or nervous, or “free-minded,” or stupid. Nothing is said about why the sheep was lost. What happens belongs completely to the everyday life of the man or the sheep. Something actually happened that could have occurred anytime. “The man goes after the one.” The man decides to go in search of the lost sheep, and this means that he must leave the other ninety-nine. However, it is not said why the man goes out after the lost sheep, and there is no reference to the economic consequences of the choice. It is known that a sheep had a price of 8 denarii in the time of the Mishnah.31 So, ninetynine sheep would have been worth 792 denarii. Obviously, the man did not consider the losses he could have suffered if, while searching for the lost sheep, something happened to the other ninety-nine, left alone, apparently in deserted land.32 If the man was a worker and not the owner of the sheep, then he would have to pay according to the losses, and in this case the salary of eight days (one sheep costs 8 denarii) cannot be compared with the salary of more than two years (99 sheep cost 792 denarii, an amount that would be quite out of the question). We do not see any reference, either, to codes of shame and honour, so prevalent and active in the Mediterranean world, as social anthropology has shown. The motives for the man to go after the lost sheep are not explained. The only information the parabolist conveys is that the man went after the sheep. Nuda actio stays beforehand. Nothing more. The social characteristics of the story show that it is completely plausible. Nevertheless, the narrative is reduced to essentials. As is quite usual in the parables of Jesus, there are no indications of the reasons, motives, and intentions of the behaviour of the two active characters in the story: the main character (Hauptfigur) (“the man who goes seeking the sheep”) and the secondary character (Nebenfigur) (“a sheep that gets lost”).33 2.3 Semantic-field analysis: metaphorical and symbolic conventions It has been stressed that the story apparently chooses to use the terms “man” and “sheep” instead of “shepherd” and “flock.”34 In the Matthaean

31 32

mKer 5,2; mMen 13,8. Cf. Zimmermann, Kompendium, 208. It should be stressed that in the story there is no reference to any hypothetical help the man might have been given from another shepherd watching over the flock with him, as Jeremias supposes, quoting Luke 2:8 (Jeremias, Gleichnisse, 133). 33 In fact, the only really active character is the man who loses his sheep. The sheep, once lost, has a passive role: it must be found. 34 In contrast, in the version of the parable found in the Gospel of Thomas 107, the main character is called “a shepherd” (“The kingdom is like a shepherd who...”). This usage seems to point to a Christological interpretation (see 2.6), which reaches its peak in

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and Lukan versions of the parable, the main character is called a “man.” This observation cannot be simply passed over. Accordingly, it is not possible to deal immediately with the related metaphors of “shepherd” and “flock” – or other words or expressions that might have some metaphorical value – as if they were the key metaphors in the story. It is true that the expression “a man who has a hundred sheep” is apparently equivalent to “a shepherd,” but the story avoids this term. Because of that, it is not clear at all that we should mechanically apply Old Testament, Jewish, or GraecoRoman metaphorical usages of these terms to the parable of the Lost Sheep.35 In contrast, Jesus’s parable of the Tenants in the Vineyard, for instance, has to be understood against the background of a cluster of metaphors. Secondly, once we try to analyse the Old Testament metaphors proposed by different authors in relation to the parable of the Lost Sheep, we see no small number of differences between the Old Testament texts and the narrative outline of the parable. For instance, one wonders whether analysis of the semantic fields of our parable should begin with the common biblical identification of the flock’s owner and the flock with God and Israel, respectively.36 If so, the shepherd-Lord of the parable would be the one who abandons almost all his flock-people (99 %), looking only for the 1%, a small minority that has abandoned him!37 A second frequent statement regarding the parable is that it must imply, and convey as a central motif, a gathering of the scattered flock.38 The story, however, does not end by explicitly telling of a joyful gathering of the flock of one hundred sheep. Instead, the narrative maintains until the end a division between the one and the ninety-nine. The story ends with a definite statement: the finding of the sheep that was lost arouses the joyful reaction of the shepherd. the Gospel of Truth 31–32, where the parable begins: “He (= Christ) is the shepherd who...”. 35 I think that the narrative as such has the first and last word on the use of metaphors. It would be unwise to react to Jülicher’s sharp and unjustified exclusion of allegory and his introduction of metaphorical meanings to whatever words or expressions might be found in the parables of Jesus. The interpreter thus risks relinquishing controls of any kind. 36 “Zu denken ist vor allem an die Bildfeldtradition, die JHWH als den Besitzer und Hirten der ‘Herde Israel’ sieht” (Zimmermann, Kompendium, 209). 37 The purpose of the parable would be exactly the opposite of what we find in Deuteronomistic theology: the Lord abandons his people and places them in the hands of their enemies because they have left him and gone astray, worshipping other gods. In the parable, however, it is not said that the sheep that is lost has abandoned the shepherd. Secondly, as we will see, the parable is focused on the one lost sheep, not on the other ninety-nine. For the man, the problem is that one sheep has become lost. 38 “Das Sammeln zielt auf die Wiederherstellung der Herde und ihrer Gemeinschaft mit dem Hirten” (Zimmermann, Kompendium, 209).

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There is no mention of the whole flock. The ninety-nine sheep are only used in the narrative to underline how great is the joy for the sheep that has been found. A third frequent element in interpretation is represented by quotation of Psalm 23: “I have no fear, because you (the Lord) are beside me (the faithful one)” (v. 4). The problem is that this phrase does not fit either with the image of the sheep that was lost (she is not beside the shepherd any more) or with the other ninety-nine (who have been left by a shepherd who is beside them no more).39 Other texts and themes of the Old Testament that are usually associated with the parable or its context are somewhat alien to the narrative plot. In the parable, for instance, there is no attack by robbers (Jer 50:17–18). It is not said that the man had led his flock wrongly and is guilty of what has happened to the sheep (Ezek 34:1–6).40 Neither is it said that the sheep is guilty of having gone its own way (Is 53:6).41 There is only one text (Ezekiel 34:11–16) in which God appears speaking and acting like a shepherd in relation to all his sheep, namely, the people of Israel, who have been wandering scattered abroad on the mountains. God will “seek the lost (sheep)... and bring back the one that strays” (v. 16). This verse, which refers to the restoration of Israel scattered among the nations (v. 13), is very close to the “narrative outline” that has been drawn for the parable. However, the similarity of the metaphorical image does not imply that the use of the metaphor in the parable requires the same interpretation. Jesus might have told his parable in awareness of the metaphor of God who takes care of the lost sheep and brings it back, but the use of the metaphor has a different framework of understanding. Jesus could have been “inspired” by the metaphor of the lost sheep that appears in Ezek 34:16, but there are no traces of an understanding that would include 34:13 – the restoration of Israel – in the narrative outline nor in any of the later written versions (Matt, Luke, Gos. Thom.).42 It is God’s attitude towards the lost and straying sheep that is placed at the centre of the para39 After having analysed Bailey’s position (K. E. Bailey, Finding the Lost: Cultural Key to Luke 15 [St. Louis, 1992], 11, 67–92,194–212), K. Snodgrass rightly concludes that “the supposed parallels with Psalm 23 ... are just not there” (Stories with Intent, 106). 40 The vocabulary analogies between Ezek 34 and the parable of the Lost Sheep have pushed many interpreters to see a strong bond between these two episodes (e.g. Scott, Hear then the Parable, 412–413). 41 Moreover, the theme of going astray and worshipping idols in heathen shrines is unknown in Jesus’s ministry. Idolatry relates to Mammon (Matt 6:24). 42 A conclusion based on Ezek 34:13 (“die Metapher von den ‘verlorenen Schafen aus dem Hause Israel,’” Zimmermann, Kompendium, 210) would not suit the parable. This element must, rather, be traced back to Ezek 34:16 (God searching for lost and straying sheep, with no reference to Israel).

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ble told by Jesus and probably based on an association with Ezekiel 34:16. But neither in the narrative nor in the applications is there any reference to the restoration of Israel. 2.4 Narrative analysis and metaphorical transfer: towards the hearers’ world The interpreter should not forget that the first element of a story is the narrative as such, and every context develops within the primary framework of narrativity. This is the core of a process that leads towards the first understanding of a story and its successive readings and interpretations – the most ancient being established in a broadly accepted normative text (that of the gospels). Before entering into the parable, then, let us reflect on the connection between narrativity and metaphoricity. According to Adolf Jülicher, the founder of modern interpretation of the parables, there is a tertium comparationis (“the third element in the comparison”) that facilitates a transition (“transfer,” “Übertragung”) from image (Bild) to reality (Sachverhalt). In every parable a “point” must be elucidated. According to J. Dupont, however, what enables the transfer is not a single element, as Jülicher proposed, but the relationship of the different elements in the narrative. Were the interpretation to rest on a single element, this element could easily be “translated” into a theological or ethical concept or statement.43 If, however, the whole narrative forms the basis of interpretation, the interpreter has to start with narrative analysis (in the case of stories) or with linguistic analysis (in the case of figurative sentences or Bildwörter). Interpretation cannot be reduced to a “translation” of a single element but must lead to a “metaliterary sense” of the whole narrative.44 Hearers of a story are typically requested to identify themselves with the characters depicted in it. In Jesus’s parables this type of identification also applies to the parabolist himself and his attitudes, choices, and message. The parabolist’s point of view is introduced in the parable through a character found in the narrative. Thus, in the narrative there is a process of change through exchange; hearers are invited to change their point of view through an exchange, i.e., through a dialogue. A dialogue is always a posi43 It is enough to read the index of Jeremias’s book on parables to realize that he has “translated” them into concepts. One would be tempted to consider the parabolic story as secondary and retain only the “idea” allegedly conveyed by it. 44 When semantic fields are taken to determine the interpretation of the parable, the narrative as such is put aside and an external element becomes the central one. This is the problem that underlies interpretations proposed in the Kompendium (210–213), where there are three Deutungshorizonte (theological, called “traditional,” group-dynamic, and appellative), the last two being “translated” into an “idea”: “more courage to be different” (“Mehr Mut zu Abweichungen”) and “seek the lost” (“Sucht das Verlorene”).

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tive tool, peaceably persuading people to take another position without invoking coercive argumentation. People do not change their minds or hearts through brilliant dialectic but when attracted by convincing speech. Accordingly, dialogue is an appropriate tool for exchanging points of view and for making life-changing choices.45 Parables are aimed at the heart and are not a purely intellectual device. Of course, as happens with art in general, anybody may use a literary device from the past in a way that is contrary to or different from the way the literary piece was used at the beginning. Jesus, however, was not a simple storyteller but somebody who told his parables in the context of his message – a message that is mainly available now through written sources, the gospels.46 Dialogue belongs to both the inner and the interpretative structure of the parables. Parables are not weapons but tools.47 Because of this, dialogue has a central place in Jesus’s parables48 and has been embedded into the narrative wherever this was intended to have a dialogue structure. The whole text functions as a dialogue, at the narrative level and in the internal structure of the parable. Jesus understands his parables as dialogue because all his public activity is shaped by dialogue, either with his disciples or with his opponents. Two attitudes, two behaviours, two points of view, two opinions, two judgements – or sometimes three, one after the other, as in the Prodigal Son – are contrasted. One corresponds to Jesus, the other (or others) corresponds to his hearers, the parable’s addressees. In the most developed narratives, the dialogue can become a literary element, and the characters actually talk to each other. Jesus’s stories become a mirror of his overall attitude towards humankind and towards life. The dialogue of the parables has an element of “extravagance.”49 The metaphorical process, or transfer, facilitated by the exchange or dialogue that characterizes the whole narrative is achieved through this “extravagance,” that is to say, an element of surprise, lack of proportion, or paradox, an unexpected move in the plot, an “extraordinary” element that emerges from the “ordinary” context – where “ordinary” indicates that 45 Linnemann used the concept of Verschränkung (“crossing,” “croisement”). See Die Gleichnisse Jesu: Einführung und Auslegung (4th ed.; Göttingen, 1966). 46 It is true that Jesus might have told a story at different moments, but its basic meaning did not change. However, we cannot exclude the possibility that a story had different nuances according to the situation in which it was told, and this could even have influenced the interpretations that the parables received in the gospels. 47 W. Harnisch understood the parables as a kind of tour de force between Jesus the parabolist and his hearers, conceived quite often as opponents (Die Gleichniserzählungen Jesu: Eine hermeneutische Einführung [3rd ed.; Göttingen 1995]). 48 J. Dupont particularly stresses dialogue as the central element in the parabolic narrative structure. 49 This is the key word in Ricɶur’s interpretation of parables.

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Jesus’s parables are, strictly speaking, “realistic fictions.” A parable becomes “opened up” when the metaphorical process starts from the very core of its narrativity. In the narrative an “extravagant” element allows the interpreter to ask himself or herself about the sense of the story attached to it the first time it was told. The realistic fiction created by the parabolist is related to something that belongs to him and to his life experience. Nonetheless, a parable, like any other story, is told before a given audience and for the sake of this audience. The question of the first addressees, of the first context, is not artificial. Although the same story may be told more than once before different audiences, nothing indicates that the basic sense has changed from one occasion to another, in spite of the nuances underlined for this or that occasion. So, we may confidently speak about a “first sense,” which must be attributed to the first time or times the parable was told by the parabolist. Obviously, the first sense is neither the only one nor the last one, but it does have foundational value. Moreover, the first sense must necessarily be taken into account because interpretation cannot be a process without boundaries. The secular character of Jesus’s parables (stories taken from everyday life) does not preclude the primacy Jesus gave to God throughout his message and life. Parables are fertile soil that illuminates Jesus’s image of God and Jesus’s attitude towards God. Moreover, Christology is implicitly present in parables, insofar as Jesus identifies himself with what he understands God’s attitude towards the world and humankind to be. God’s design and Jesus’s choices in his ministry merge together in the parables. The first sense of a parable cannot be set aside in the name of a “plurality of meanings” (Mehrdeutigkeit). Ricoeur rightly insists that the first sense somewhat “controls” this plurality of other, new, readings of the parable. The first sense is not a relic of the past, an artefact of historicalcritical exegesis, but a necessary step in a history of interpretations that have continued down the centuries. Interpreters need to know the first sense of a parable. Otherwise, interpretations depend exclusively on new contexts and tend to be inadequate. The history of interpretation of the parables shows not only that new contexts produce new readings but also that those new readings may be totally different from each other and also from the first sense of the text. Narrativity and metaphoricity allow us to relate the interpretation of Jesus’s parables to the story and to the first sense it had. The Synoptic versions of the parables show that the first sense is not a closed one; Jesus chose to speak in parables, which means that he opted for an open and creative literary genre. Free speech runs in tandem with a plurality of interpretation. It may be said, then, that in a parable diversity of meanings is placed at the core of the choice made by Jesus. However, this

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diversity must be placed in the framework of his message, a framework constituted by the choices Jesus made.50 Let us turn now to the narrative outline of the parable of the Lost Sheep and see how narrativity and the metaphorical process are displayed in it. The behaviour of the man might initially seem unreasonable and even unjustified.51 The ninety-nine are left alone, with no reason given for this strange decision. Thus, the interpretation should avoid focusing on something that is completely lacking: the “reasons” of the man for making such a choice. Nothing is said about the internal goals of the characters – the man, in this case – or the external conditions that might justify his behaviour.52 Nothing is said, either, about the circumstances surrounding the loss of the sheep. At the beginning of the narrative the man makes a choice that apparently has nothing to do with love or hate or goodness or mercy. His decision may even have to do with pride: “I won’t loose any sheep!” (so speaks a flock owner). Or perhaps it is a matter or fear: “If I don’t find this lost sheep, I will be punished and will have to pay for it” (such could be the thoughts of a hired worker). We only know that the man is taking a real risk with the flock; he can go in search of one sheep, the lost one, only if he places in serious danger the other ninety-nine that are left alone. Moreover, he cannot be sure that he will find the lost sheep. His tremendous effort may result in nothing or in heavy losses, and in both cases, he exposes himself to mockery because of his foolish behaviour.53 In the oldest versions, those of Matthew and Luke, the story begins with a long rhetorical question that is meant to shake its hearers. The storyteller wants the hearers to share his point of view; a man who loses one of his sheep will not simply accept this but will do his very best to find the one that is lost. Obviously, if he decides to walk along hills and peaks and valleys and cliffs to reach the sheep, he has to take a great risk, because the ninety-nine are left in a lonely area, almost certainly inside a stone enclosure but with nobody watching them and prey to robbers and wild beasts.54 In any case, the man leaves the sheep not abandoned, but unattended, and

50 God must be “expressed” in a language embedded with images and analogies. This is the language Jesus found to be the most appropriate when speaking about God’s active presence in the world. 51 Hultgren qualifies this attitude as “nontypical” (Parables, 53). But it is more than that; it could end in fiasco. 52 For instance, the help of other shepherds who could have taken care of the ninetynine. 53 This word is used by Scott, who wonders rhetorically: “In taking such a risk to find the one, has the shepherd been a fool?” (Hear Then the Parable, 416). 54 Although it is not said where the ninety-nine are left, it is clear that they must be staying in the safest possible place: an enclosure or, perhaps, a hut with a large capacity.

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not scattered, but gathered,55 in the hope that he will find the lost sheep quite soon and that in the mean time the ninety-nine will not suffer any damage. The man’s decision is courageous but not easy to understand. He takes a risk for the sake of the one lost sheep because he wants to keep the hundred sheep with him, not just ninety-nine. Two positions are contrasted. A “debate” between them has been aroused by the parabolist. In both cases, a loss must be dealt with. If the man stays where he is and the lost sheep is not given any help, it will surely die. If the man goes searching for the sheep, the other ninety-nine might be attacked or injured. There is a real dilemma. Should the man stay with the ninety-nine, watching over them, and treat the lost sheep as definitely irrecoverable? Or, on the contrary, should he react in favour of the lost sheep and not allow himself to loose even one animal? The position Jesus takes is the second one. But which one will be that of his hearers, who are faced with this difficult question? So, the question that emerges from the parable seems to be whether the man – with the agreement of those listening! – will or will not decide to go after the lost sheep. The dilemma is also indicated by the use of an interrogative structure in the parable as it appears in both Matthew and Luke. There are arguments for and against each choice. In any case, it is clear that in the story the man seeks the lost sheep, because he has decided to find it and because he is ready to leave the other ninety-nine sheep unattended in a lonely area of the Judaean or Peraean countryside, two mountainous territories, and in so doing takes a real risk. The rhetorical question of the parabolist demands from hearers an affirmative response, but a negative answer would also be possible. The solution to the dilemma is far from evident. If things go well, the man will succeed in having one hundred sheep (the whole flock) again, but this implies that the lost one will have been found and the ninety-nine will be safe when the man comes back with the missing sheep. Two positions are contrasted in the first two movements of the plot – indicated as (a) and (b) in the narrative outline proposed (2.1). The parabolist makes a clear choice on behalf of the lost sheep but does not impose his position. He is simply suggesting that his opinion is the most appropriate. First of all, there is a good reason to seek the sheep: it is better to have a hundred sheep (the whole flock!) than only ninety-nine. The loss of just one sheep is not acceptable; this would be a restrictive position. So, the man of the parable is not the kind that makes do with what he has and is glad not to have lost more than just one sheep. He is rather a man who will not rest until the lost sheep becomes the found sheep. He feels he must 55 This is the opinion of N. Perrin, quoted and accepted by B. B. Scott (Hear Then the Parable, 415).

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search for the sheep that was lost. Only then, when the sheep is safe on his shoulders, will the joy of this man be complete. In the third movement of the plot, indicated by (c), the parabolist justifies his (and the man’s) choice with an argument that is appealing and convincing ‒ the image of the man coming home with the newly-found sheep. Suddenly, the plot captivates the hearers with the beautiful and tranquil picture of a man rejoicing, with the sheep on his shoulders and going back home.56 It is a picture full of peace and joy, which makes hearers identify themselves with the choice made by the man in the parable and as such by the parabolist. The argument the parabolist employs to persuade hearers to accept his own position is not a piece of conceptual reasoning but a picture of a joyful man. The second reason offered by the parabolist is not a concept but a striking image. The man has succeeded in finding the sheep and is now carrying it back on his shoulders. Notice that the story does not tell us that the man rejoices over the finding of the lost sheep but stresses the fact that he rejoices more over this sheep than over the ninety-nine sheep that were not lost. Here we have the third reason, the decisive argument, which succeeds in convincing hearers that the man’s decision to go after the lost sheep was the right one. The joy that comes from the finding of the lost sheep is greater than the joy the man would have felt if he had remained with the ninety-nine sheep that were not lost. There is a special joy and comfort and peace in the man when he brings back home the sheep that was lost, and this joy justifies the risk of leaving unattended the other ninety-nine. Accordingly, listeners feel able to adopt the parabolist’s point of view and to conclude that the man made the right decision. A man with a hundred sheep feels at peace with himself only when he is able to keep all his flock without the small exception that one sheep lost forever would represent. The metaphorical process sets out from narrativity. This process develops when an ordinary situation (a man loses a sheep from his flock of a hundred sheep) is contrasted with an extraordinary decision (the man leaves unattended the ninety-nine that were not lost and goes in search of the lost one). This decision is not at all an obvious one and at first sight has an undeniable extravagance, because it implies a clear risk and a real danger of losing some of the ninety-nine without any certainty of finding the lost one. But behind the choice lies the powerful conviction that one sheep is as important as the other ninety-nine and, therefore, must be found. The man has an inner desire that must be fulfilled. It is worth taking a risk with

56 The picture of the shepherd with a sheep on his shoulders, conveying a feeling of tenderness, is common in many cultures.

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the ninety-nine; the flock must not lose one of its members.57 The most compelling reason for this decision is simply the inner joy one feels when the lost sheep has been found. Other considerations about the safety of the ninety-nine are not regarded. The man’s decision to find the lost sheep is firm, and he does not turn back. Nobody must remain lost! The one responsible for the sheep will not allow it. The weight of the narrative is placed upon the decision underlying the whole story and made by the main character. Such a decision implies that the search for the lost sheep will be stubbornly maintained until it is found and that the risk of leaving the rest of the sheep alone is taken despite any practical calculations that might run counter to such a decision. The decision is taken by somebody who rules out any other possibility. The joy at the finding is the best reward. The behaviour is extravagant (one vs. ninety-nine!), but it is not lacking in sense; the finding of one lost sheep is worth the risk of endangering the other ninety-nine. This finding brings a deep joy, but the fact of keeping the other ninety-nine is not a source of any joyful feeling. Joy enters when what was lost is now found, not because something has not been lost. Ultimately, the choice to go in search of the lost sheep is the best one, since it envisages, and fights for, the possibility of having the whole flock and overcomes the real risk inherent in leaving the other ninety-nine sheep in a lonely area in the countryside. The metaphorical process focuses on behaviour that, in reaction to a loss, includes going after, seeking, finding, and being extremely joyful, in spite of the risk taken in regard to that which was not lost. The resulting picture of the man coming back to the flock with the missing sheep on his shoulders is an extremely powerful one and justifies the decision made. The metaphorical process culminates with a metaphor known to everybody and commonplace in literature and art ‒ the shepherd carrying a sheep that is (or was) in trouble. Here the narrative borrows an image common in many cultures but also gives it a background ‒ the shepherd who wanted to find this one lost sheep even though he had to leave the other ninety-nine unattended. It seems that such extravagant behaviour may only be explained as resulting from an attitude of love and care for the sheep that was lost. 2.5 Situation analysis in Jesus’s ministry: the first and foundational sense In the context of Jesus’s ministry, the best background for understanding the narrative of the man who lost a sheep is Jesus’s attitude towards sinners. The Gospel of Luke rightly expresses the point in the introduction to 57 A similar way of thinking is expressed in John 17:12: “I have kept in your name those that you have given me; I have guarded them, and none of them is lost”.

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the three parables of chapter 15, which are united by the topic of “losing” (a sheep, a coin, a son). The Pharisees and (their) scribes are depicted as murmuring against Jesus because of his behaviour towards the sinners: “This man receives sinners and eats with them” (v. 2). In the following parables, Jesus identifies his attitude towards sinners with God’s attitude of attention and care for them. We are not far away from the Old Testament metaphor of God as a shepherd who seeks the lost or straying sheep, which appears in Ezek 34 (particularly in v. 16).58 This chapter (Ezek 34) might have been the source of inspiration for Jesus. God shows there his merciful attitude towards the sheep, namely, the people of Israel, abandoned by its leaders, who do not look after them at all (vv. 2–8). Indeed, God is depicted as seeking the lost sheep (vv. 8–16). This expression (“seek the lost ones”), which is quite frequent in Ezek 34 (vv. 4, 10, 11, 16), provides the basic goal of the main character of the parable. However, as we have suggested (2.3), in the parable there are two elements that do not match Ezek 34. First and foremost, in the parable, only one sheep has been lost, whereas the majority of the flock (ninety-nine sheep!) stay together and do not have any problem. In Ezek 34, the situation is the exact opposite; all the sheep are lost or scattered or astray. The second difference is related to the first: the motif of the restoration of all Israel, pervasive in Ezek 34, plays no role in Jesus’s narrative, where the narrative focus is on one sheep, and the man’s behaviour towards this lost sheep points us to both Jesus and God. In contrast, Jesus’s opponents see him as “a friend of tax collectors and sinners” (Matt 11:19 par. Luke 7:34). This definition must correspond to a significant aspect of his life, since it is expressed by those who do not accept him, and Jesus himself does not contradict it when he quotes the opinion of his opponents. It seems clear, then, that Jesus liked to be considered a “friend” of the outcast and rejected. The examples of two tax collectors, Levi, from Galilaea, and Zacchaeus, from Judaea, indicate quite clearly the purpose of Jesus’s friendship. Jesus shares their meals and their homes, in spite of the Pharisees’ questions regarding Levi and other tax collectors (Matt 9:11 par. Mark 2:16 par. Luke 5:30, where the question is part of the “murmuring”) and in spite of the common people’s complaining about Zacchaeus (Luke 19:7: “they murmured”).59 The commensality of Jesus and sinners becomes a typical and identifying feature of somebody called “rabbi” by friends and opponents. No other rabbi known from the first cen58

In the books of the prophets, the metaphor of God as shepherd is quite common (see Isa 10:11; 49:10–11; Jer 31:9; Zech 9:16), but the subject of the lost sheep appears exclusively in Ezek 34. 59 For other Jewish sources about the people’s negative attitude towards tax collectors, see for instance Genesis Rabba 86.

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tury regularly eats with public sinners, as Jesus does. His fellowship with people who wear a label of rejection places Jesus in a unique position. Thus, it would seem that Jesus made a special and personal choice: to be a “friend” of the rejected tax collectors (Matt 11:19 par. Luke 7:34), those who are “lost” according to the Law’s commandments. Jesus’s friendship with outcasts does not depend on their capacity to repent and convert. He approaches them with no previous conditions, just as God does. We might say that God and Jesus are both concerned about sinners in a very personal way; sinners should repent, but God’s searching will not depend on their decision about conversion.60 Likewise, in the parable of the Prodigal Son, the father does not wait for the son’s conversion to accept him back at home, but as soon as the son comes back, he goes out running just to embrace him; there are no prior conditions. The man’s actions towards the sheep that were not lost (the large majority) imply an equally surprising behaviour of God and Jesus in relation to those who have kept their religious commitments. The main aim of the man is recovery of the sheep that is lost. But the ninety-nine should not be lost either.61 The emphasis is on the one sheep because it is the one that is lost, the weakest one, the one that is in greatest danger.62 This does not mean, however, that the sheep that are not lost have no significance. The relation Jesus holds with the righteous (those who are not lost) and the sinners (the lost ones) is well expressed in Mark 2:17 (par. Matt 9:12–13 par. Luke 5:31–32). Here the metaphor, introduced from the field of health, helps us understand that Jesus does not reject the righteous; however, since they are “healthy,” they have no need of a physician. “Those who are sick,” by contrast, must be cared for. There is, then, an absolute preference, grounded in the urgency of their situation, for those who need healing. So, using a hyperbolic expression, Jesus can say, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17). The emphasis is on the second part 60

It is widely accepted that the reference to conversion in Luke 5:32 (εἰς τὴν µετάνοια) has been added by Luke himself (compare Luke 5:32 with Matt 9:13 par. Mark 2:17). See F. Bovon, Luc le théologien: Vingt-cinq ans de recherches (1950–1975) (Le Monde de la Bible; 2d ed.; Genève, 1988), 299, 304. 61 Dupont rightly stresses that the man is concerned about one sheep, the lost one. Apparently, the other ones do not merit any attention on his part. The story does not tell us explicitly what happened to them. But the story would fail if the hearers were to understand that some of the sheep that were not lost (ten, twenty?) disappeared. It would be foolish to find one sheep and, meanwhile, to lose half the flock. Thus, it is clear that the man wants to keep the whole flock of one hundred sheep. For him, all are equally important, though one of them urgently needs his help and attention. Dupont writes: “dans cette circonstance, un compte plus que quatre-vingt dix-neuf” (“La brebis perdue,” 640). 62 In Thomas 107 the situation is exactly the opposite, for the shepherd goes in search of the “largest,” most beautiful, sheep.

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of the statement (the calling of sinners) because the primary (but not the only!) targets of Jesus’s ministry are the sick and the sinners, not the healthy and the righteous. This does not imply that the righteous are not considered. The parable of the Prodigal Son ends with the scene of the elder son, who is also invited to share in the banquet with the father and the lost son. Likewise, the ninety-nine sheep of our parable cannot be excluded from the interests of the man. The situation in Jesus’s ministry seems clear. The parable attempts to justify an attitude resulting from a choice that is not shared by all. In the Scriptures, God speaks quite often of his commitment to sinners.63 However, in Jesus’s ministry, care for sinners is a basic, and even a new, choice, for sinners are the first to whom Jesus’s attention is turned. He goes in search of them; he does not want them to stay lost. Jesus’s attitude towards them is pro-active. He does not wait for them to convert but seeks them out. It can also be said that in this way his activity is inclusive, because it includes tax collectors and sinners, that is, the whole of Israel.64 Jesus’s behaviour is related to God’s own emotions when a “lost sheep” is found. Behind Jesus’s attitude is God’s awareness of and concern for sinners, and, of course, there is a great joy when they are found and brought to friendship with Him. It is possible that God’s reaction, expressed as the nimshal or application in Matt 18:14 (par. Luke 15:7), belonged to the parable as told by Jesus. There are several elements in this nimshal that fit in with the third and last movement of the narrative outline (c) as proposed above (2.1): The man finds the lost sheep, lays it on his shoulders, and rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that were not lost.

If the two versions of the nimshal are combined and the elements belonging to the specifically Matthaean or Lukan writings are set aside,65 it is possible to suggest an application that takes up the wording of this last narrative moment: So there will be more joy in heaven over somebody who was lost and then found than over ninety-nine who were not lost. 63 See, for instance, Ezek 18:23: “Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, says God, the Lord, and do I not prefer that he should turn from his way and live?” 64 Israel’s restoration is not conceived by Jesus as a “national religious matter,” but as an invitation addressed to those who are on the fringes of Israel. The result is that the whole of Israel will be given the opportunity to hear the message of the Kingdom. 65 The expressions “will of my Father,” “little ones,” and “perish” may confidently be attributed to the Matthaean tradition and its reworking of the parable. Regarding specifically Lukan features (“sinner,” “righteous,” “repent,” and “repentance”), all are related to Luke 15:1–2 (see also Luke 5:32) and to Lukan interest in stressing the need for repentance before God.

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If this proposal is correct,66 the narrative would finish with an application that reflects Jesus’s inner conviction concerning his affinity with God, the Father. Jesus’s mission is so linked with the closeness of the Kingdom that it becomes a sign of the divine presence that is breaking out in the world.67 The parable of the Lost Sheep not only justifies Jesus’s attitude towards sinners but shows how in the Kingdom sinners receive preferential attention, in order not to be left out of God’s care.68 2.6 Jesus-tradition analysis: Continuity and discontinuity between the story’s “narrative outline” and its first interpretations. Once told by the parabolist, a parable becomes the “common heritage” of the witnesses who have heard it. The oral tradition likes to tell and retell a story and keep its main elements and features, but the story begins to be read in new contexts. The first interpreters share the flavour of the first sense but do not mechanically repeat what Jesus said. They introduce slight changes that contribute to establishing interpretations within the transmitted tradition, oral and written – and oral again (the so called second orality). Transmitters are extremely careful with the materials they hand on, and there is a common sense of a strong fidelity to Jesus and his message. They consider themselves as keepers of the Jesus-tradition, a tradition that is alive and, therefore, combines continuity and discontinuity.69 In the Second Quest the study of parables was dominated by attempts to underline discontinuity between Jesus’s parables and rabbinic parables (in accordance with Jülicher’s contribution) and between Jesus and the Synoptic tradition and Gospels (under the influence of Jeremias’s programme of unearthing “authentic” materials of Jesus behind the written documents). The limits of both attempts to rediscover the so-called real Jesus are rather obvious. After many such failures, it seems clear that Jesus cannot be removed from the common ground of Judaism (starting with Scripture!), 66

P. Fiebig thought Matt 18:14 was the nimshal of Jesus’s parable (Die Gleichnisreden Jesu in Lichte der rabbinischen Gleichnisse des neutestamentlichen Zeitalters [Tübingen, 1912] 195). A. Jülicher concedes that the logion might come from Jesus, although it was transferred here from elsewhere (Die Gleichnisreden Jesu [vol. II; Tübingen, 1889] 331). Both are quoted in Snodgrass, Stories with Intent, 617, n. 44. 67 “La mission de Jésus est si étroitement liée à ce Règne qu’elle le rend proche” (Dupont, “La brebis perdue,” 645). 68 The relationship between Jesus’s behaviour and God’s design is stressed in Dupont, “La brebis perdue,” 647–666). 69 On the Jesus-tradition, see the Introduction to my book Jesus: An Uncommon Journey (WUNT 2/288; Tübingen, 2010) 1–43. See also J.D.G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered (Christianity in the Making 1; Grand Rapids/Cambridge, 2003) 173–254; R. Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand Rapids/Cambridge, 2006) 240–357.

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even though Jesus has a special, even unique, way of telling stories related to God in a secular, everyday, language. Regarding the parables found in the Gospels, it is quite common and useful to place the parable of the Lost Sheep in the framework of the written documents, where it was placed in the first or second century. Redaktionsgeschichte has taught us to interpret a pericope in the context of the macrotext where it is now found. In this way, interpretation of a parable is not uprooted from an understanding of the text as a whole, and this fact leads to some problems in the plot of the stories. For instance, in Matthew 18 and Luke 15, as we will now see, in the nimshal or application the lost sheep becomes a “little one” (Matt) or a “sinner” (Luke). But nowhere in the parable is it said why the sheep was lost, whereas the application underlines that the “little ones” “went astray” (Matt) or that the “sinner” “repents” (Luke).70 We need, then, to explore the relationship of the narrative outline of Jesus’s parable with the first interpretations (of the first readings) available for analysis: the Synoptic Gospels and Thomas.71 Accordingly, we do not intend to explain once more the parable of the Lost Sheep within Matt 18 and Luke 15 – this has been done in 2.1 – or to check the different reinterpretations the parable has received in those two Gospels, but to verify in which way their readings are related to the narrative transmitted in the previous Jesus-tradition. This tradition includes the interpretation of the parable within the source Q, where the application or nimshal could have had the function of focusing the meaning of the story. It is quite usual to find such an application in parables transmitted by Q as the ending of the parabolic story or mashal.72 In the case of the Lost Sheep, the narrative (Q 15:4–5) is com70 71

Both applications, in Matthew and Luke, are similar and dissimilar. The extant fragments of the Gospel of the Hebrews are so few that it is not possible to consider this text as a witness to the reception of Jesus’s parables. 72 For example, in the parable of the children sitting in the market place (Q 7:31–32) the application (7:33–25) begins with a γάρ (Luke 7:33 par. Matt 11:18). In the parable of the father who gives fish and bread to his child (Q 11:11–12) the application (11:13) begins with an οὖν (Luke 11:13 par. Matt 7:11). The parable of the thief who comes at midnight (Q 12:39) has an application (12:40) that begins with καὶ ὑµεῖς (Luke 12:40 par. Matt 24:44). The parable of the Royal Aspirant and the Pounds (Q 19,12–27) has an application related only to the pounds (19:26) that begins with λέγω ὑµῖν (Luke 19:26, γάρ in Matt 25:29). The parable of the great banquet (Q 14:16–23) has an application placed in the mouth of the master (14:24) with λέγω γάρ ὑµῖν (Luke 14:24, parable of the wedding feast in Matt 22:11–13). Only two Q parables, the two houses (6:48–49b) and the double parable of the mustard and the leaven (13:19.21), do not have an application at the end, but the meaning in both cases is clearly given by a double introductory formula: 6:47, 48a (compare Matt 7:24a, 26a par. Luke 6:47, 48a) and 13:18, 20 (compare Matt 13:31a, 33a par. Luke 13:18, 20). We may conclude that in Q, Jesus’s parables are set in a context or framework that points out the interpretation they should be given.

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pleted by the application (15:7), which begins with οὕντως (Matt 18:14 par. Luke 15:7).73 Therefore, the motifs of seeking and finding and the consequent joy at the success in finding are related to God’s action (the “heavenly joy”) and were probably included in the parable as it was transmitted by Q. The framework of Q’s understanding seems to be God’s attitude towards those who were lost, as in Jesus’s ministry. There is, however, no specification of the reason why they stood apart from the flock (as in Matt 18: they were “little ones who went astray,” or as in Luke 15: they were “sinners”) or the probable effects of this situation (as in Matt 18: they could “perish,” or as in Luke 15: they “repent”). In Q the weight of the reading continues to rest upon the man’s attitude, that is, God’s concern for and Jesus’s attitude towards those who are lost (tax collectors and sinners, as they appear in Luke 15:1–2). The shift in the reading of Jesus’s story is the natural consequence of the inclusion of the parable in two macrotexts: the gospels of Matthew and Luke. In both gospels the shift is to be found in the characters of the story. Whereas in the narrative as such the man is the main character and his behaviour is related to God’s attitude and Jesus’s commitment to sinners, in the two gospels the lost sheep becomes the centre of the story. Semantic fields develop and various metaphors begin to be applied to some elements of the narrative, and the global metaphorical process that emerges from the narrative is divided into units of metaphorical meaning that correspond to the characters and other elements in the story. There are two complete examples of a large-scale use of allegory in the Synoptics: the allegorical method or Allegorese is applied in the so-called explanations of the parables of the Sower (Mark 4:14–20 par. Matt 13:19– 23 par. Luke 8:11–15) and the Wheat and the Tares (Matt 13:37–43). But this is not the case in the parable of the Lost Sheep. Here, the narrative is embedded with new meanings, which develop the application of the parable and bind it closely to the narrative as such. However, there is no complete set of metaphorical equivalences between an external (theological) idea and every element of the story. Let us take the parable in Luke 15:4–7. The two emphasised motifs, so common in Luke’s Gospel, are “joy” (of the man) and “repentance” (of the lost sheep).74 Regarding the first motif, Luke introduces into the story a 73 Moreover, the formula λέγω ὑµῖν appears in the Lukan application or nimshal (15:7) and in the mouth of the Matthaean storyteller (18:13b). 74 Dupont, “La brebis perdue,” 631–632. Luke has conceived ch. 15 of his Gospel as a unity, with two parables dominated by personal characters: the Prodigal Son (a father, the younger son, the elder son) and the Lost Sheep (a man, a “sheep,” ninety-nine “sheep,” “sheep” being a clear metaphor for people). Because of that, in both parables, the personal motifs of joy and repentance are evident. Regarding joy, compare 15:5–7 and 15:22–24, 25, 27, 30, 31–32. Regarding repentance, compare 15:7 and 15:17–20, 21,

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feast celebrated by the joyful man who comes back home with the lost sheep on his shoulders and calls together his friends and neighbours. The motif of joy is found three times (!) in the Lukan story (vv. 5, 6, 7), although it already is found in the narrative prior to Luke and Matt (the Greek verb χαίρω is found both in Luke 15:5 and Matt 18:13).75 Thus, Luke has developed a motif that was probably extant in Jesus’s parable, but did not create it. Regarding the motif of repentance, it must be said that the image of a lost sheep may easily be related to that of a sinner, although it is difficult to explain this equivalence with reference to a moral change of heart. If so, one would need to assume that the sheep had “decided” to go back home, aware of having committed a sin. But nowhere is it said that the sheep made such a “decision.” Therefore, Luke introduces the motif of repentance, on the assumption that the parable referred to sinners, enlarging the application with a second reference to what is expected from a sinner ‒ repentance.76 In sum, the Lukan Gospel has kept the basic features of the parabolic narrative, although the main role played by the metaphor of the lost sheep as sinner – indirectly present in the transmitted story – has led to an expansion of the semantic field.77 Repentance as an active choice of the sinner is stressed in the application, even though this feature has no parallel in the story as such. These are the metaphorical correspondences in the Lukan parable: ‒ the “lost one” = the sinner, who repents, ‒ the “ones who are not lost” = the righteous, who need no repentance, ‒ the “man” who goes after the lost sheep and finds it rejoicing = God (and Jesus), who wants sinners to repent and with great joy prepares a feast on behalf of one sinner (the sinner) who repents.

24, 32. The motif of joy is underlined in v. 6, when the man is portrayed as issuing a joyful invitation to his friends and neighbours. This sub-scene, with its personal touch, may well have been borrowed from the parable of the Lost Coin (15:9). It is clear that the subject of joy has been expanded and intensified in Lukan composition (Zimmermann, Kompendium, 215). 75 Here it is difficult to distinguish between human joy and God’s joy, as Dupont indicates (“La brebis perdue,” 631). Even for Jesus, the man who goes after the lost sheep cannot be separated from the image of God who seeks the lost sheep (Ezek 34:16). Hultgren is right when he says: “The shepherd is a metaphor for God or Jesus himself as God’s envoy” (Parables, 58). 76 Luke does not mention anywhere the relationship to be drawn between God’s steadfast going after the lost sheep (divine grace bestowed upon the sinner) and the fact that the latter is found (a firm decision of the sinner who decides to repent, when touched by divine grace). 77 For instance, Luke has kept the actions of searching for and finding somebody who was lost, but relates them in a direct way to a sinner (15:7). The closest parallel is the story of Zacchaeus (19:1–10), which finishes with these words: “The Son of Man came to seek (ζητέω) and to save the lost (τὸ ἀπολλωλόν).”

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In Matt 18:12–14 the parable takes on a new tone: the framework is now the Matthaean community and the whole of chapter 18 is devoted to it.78 As in Luke, the sheep is not a secondary character, and here it becomes a metaphor for those who, within the Matthaean community, “went astray.” These “little ones” are referred to in the parable’s introduction as people watched by “their angels” (v. 10), that is, protected by divine mercy. Thus, in the Matthaean understanding, the parable is focused on the Christian community. Matthaean interests, found throughout the gospel, pervade the application (v. 14) and even the narrative (vv. 12–13), so that the sheep is not lost but “has gone astray” (πλανάω) (v. 12) and the man seeks this sheep “that has gone astray” (v. 12). The other sheep are presented, correspondingly, as those “that have not gone astray” (v. 13). Of course, somebody who has gone astray might “perish” (ἀπόλλυµι) (v. 14), and “the will of my Father,” Jesus says, is that not one of those who went astray should perish. Here, the language used in the narrative is also found in the application.79 Moreover, those who go astray and could perish are called “these little ones” (v. 14).80 Only urgent action by “the man who has a hundred sheep,” prompted by God, the Father, can avoid the irrevocable perishing of those who have gone astray. It seems clear that the parable (narrative and application) is applied in its totality to the problems and challenges of the Matthaean community. As usual in the Gospel of Matthew’s reinterpretation of parables, the story is used to illustrate a Matthaean motif, related in this case to the internal situation of the community.81 The “little ones” are certain members of the community (believers in Jesus, 18:6!) who, being weak in their faith, are stirred up and dragged off by other members (called “false prophets” in 7:15; 24:11), who lead them astray, away from the right interpretation and practice of Jesus’s message, rooted in God’s will (18:14) and justice (18:7: “woe to the man who makes the others fall into sin”).82 In such a situation the community’s leaders83 cannot escape their duties, “despising the little 78 See U. Luz, Das Evangelium nach Matthäus (Matt 18–25) (EKK I/3; Zürich/Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1997) 24–38. 79 Zimmermann Kompendium, 214: “apollymi passt sprachlich gut zum Bild der Schafe”. 80 Notice that the singular (“a sheep”) has shifted to the plural (“these little ones”). In Luke, on the contrary, the numerical equivalence is kept in the application: “a sheep” becomes “a sinner.” 81 Luz speaks about “overtones” in the Matthaean parable (Matthäus, EKK I/3, 33). 82 Hultgren, Parables, 55. 83 Some interpreters hesitate at this point and are prone to conclude that “all the community,” not only its leaders, must be responsible for those who have left the right and righteous way kept by the majority (Kompendium, 214). However, the parable distinguishes between “the man” and “the ninety-nine.” It is better to see two metaphorical

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ones” (18:10), but must “go in search” of them (18:12), so that they may not perish (18:14), that is, fall into irrevocable (final?) condemnation.84 These appear to be the metaphorical correspondences in the Matthaean parable: ‒ the “lost one” = the little ones, a few who had gone astray and could perish, ‒ the “ones that are not lost” = the majority in the community who have not gone astray, ‒ the “man” who seeks the lost sheep, finds it, and rejoices = the community’s leaders, prompted by God’s will, who must seek the little ones that went astray, so that not even one of them perishes.

The Matthaean interpretation of the parable is based on a metaphorical reshaping of the story, influenced by an interest in the possible defection of some members of the community, weak in faith and strongly attracted by behaviour that could lead irreversibly to perdition.85 An urgent reaction must begin, and the leaders have the responsibility of restoring to the right way those who have started to fail and could perish forever. This “searching” (ζητέω) (18:12), which has become a central action related to the restoration to the community, belongs to the plot of the narrative, and in fact is a necessary element in that plot, both in the Matthaean and Lukan versions of the parable.86 Additionally, the use of “going astray” (πλανάω) found in the Gospel of Matthew reflects a much more personal choice than the general “be lost.” Both verbs, however, can be applied to the image (a sheep from a flock) or to the application (some people from a community). This ambivalence also appears in Ezek 34, the well-known Old Testament text about the bad shepherds (the leaders of Israel) and the good shepherd (God, the Lord). In Ezek 34, “go astray” and “be lost” are used alongside each other with a similar meaning.87 Thus, it seems that Ezek 34 was the text that made possible and justified the Matthaean reinterpretation; the expression “to be lost” has been substituted by “to go astray” as a

correspondences for these two characters (“the leaders” and “the majority”), and not for only one (“all the community”). 84 Zimmermann, Kompendium, 214: “das endgültige Verlieren”. 85 This definitive perdition may be God’s eschatological judgement (Matt 18:8–9), a falling into sin (Matt 18:6–7) that leads towards hell, or exclusion from the community (Matt 18:17). 86 The difference between “go in search” (Matt 18:12) and “go after” (Luke 15:4) should not be overstated. In the Matthaean redaction, the formula πορευθεὶς ζητεῖ (v. 12) is to be referred to the Lukan formula πορεθέται ἐπί (v. 4). Both of them allude to the same motif ‒ the man’s seeking of the lost sheep. 87 V. 4: “The one that strayed (πλανώµενον) you have not brought back, the one that is lost you have not sought (ἐζητήσατε).” V. 16: “I will seek (ζητήσω) the one that is lost and bring back the one that has strayed (τὸ πλανώµενον).”

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result of an exegesis that linked the parable with Ezek 34.88 Jesus’s story had to be associated with a specific text from Scripture, in order to give it a new meaning. The expression “to be lost,” a key word in the story of a lost sheep, was the exegetical link between the parable and Ezek 34:4, 16, and through it Matthew was able to reinterpret the status of the sheep (the lost sheep became the sheep that went astray) as a consequence of a sound exegesis that related Jesus’s words to the text of Scripture. The influence of Ezek 34 on the Matthaean reading of the parable may also be seen in the semantic shift of the verb “to be lost,” which belongs to Jesus’s narrative and to the Lukan version (Luke 15:4: ἀπόλλυµι). This verb was employed in another sense from its semantic field: “to perish” (ἀπόληται) (see Matt 18:14). It may be noticed that in Ezek 34 the perishing of the sheep is mentioned in vv. 5, 8 (“the sheep has become prey and food for wild beasts”) and its eventual salvation is mentioned in vv. 22, 25–28 (“they may dwell securely”). Thus, in the Matthaean application of the parable, the perishing of the little ones is envisaged and functions as a warning to the leaders, who must work to remove the weakest members of the community from the bad path they are walking along. The warning is uttered by Jesus as “the will of the Father who is in heaven”; God himself wants people who have gone astray to be brought back to the community.89 The Gospel of Thomas contains the parable in logion 107. Here the interpretation, as in Matthew, employs a strict system of metaphorical correspondences. However, instead of a shift in the meaning of the oral narrative outline, in this complex text there has been a radical reinterpretation, so that the parable of the Lost Sheep has become the parable of the Largest Sheep. One has to distinguish two readings in Thomas.90 In the first one, corresponding to the oldest form of the document, there are two expressions that do not appear in Matthew and Luke and are connected with each other: “the largest sheep” and “Kingdom.” The lost sheep has become “the largest sheep,” which must be interpreted as the “Kingdom,” as also, for instance, in log. 8: “the big fish.” So, the “man” (here in Thomas “the manshepherd”) who wants to enter the Kingdom and reign must look for it and find it (log. 2). Likewise, if he looks for the sheep that went astray and finds it, he will have the greatest treasure of his life ‒ the Kingdom. In

88 In our analysis of semantic fields we indicated Ezek 34:16 as the text that might have formed the background of Jesus’s parable. But Ezek 34:4.16 is so evidently close to our parable that the same text could also have been used by the Matthaean tradition. 89 Hence, the “man” with a hundred sheep is identified not only with the community’s leaders but also with God, who impels them to seek and find the weakest ones and bring them back to the community. 90 See my “Gospel of Thomas” in Els evangelis apòcrifs, (vol. II; Barcelona, forthcoming).

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fact, he is seeking not a sheep but the sheep, namely, the largest one, the best one of all.91 Thomas1 seems to depend mainly on Matthew (the sheep “has gone astray,” he “seeks” only this sheep),92 but influence from Ezek 34 could also explain these two expressions. In any case, the meaning of the story is completely different. In Matthew, the sheep that has gone astray is a metaphor for the little ones, the weakest ones, whereas in Thomas the sheep is “the largest” prize, the Kingdom. One may recall the parables of the hidden treasure (Matt 13:44 and Gos. Thom. 109) and the pearl of great value (Matt 13:45–46 and Gos. Thom.76), which are presented by Jesus as metaphors for the Kingdom; the treasure and the pearl have to be sought and found. In Thomas 107, however, the narrative as such plays a secondary role, since it has been almost forgotten for the sake of just one motif: seeking and finding the largest sheep of the flock. In Thomas1 the metaphorical equivalence has completely changed. According to the transmitted parable, the lost sheep was somebody in trouble (Matt: the little ones, Luke: the sinners), but in the Gospel of Thomas it refers to the Kingdom, the most hoped for and desirable treasure. In Thomas2 the meaning of the parable shifts again. There are two possible interpretations. In the first one, the point of departure is the basic metaphor already present in Thomas1 (sheep = Kingdom). In this case a Gnostic background would lead one to see in “the shepherd” the Gnostic believer who, having sought hard (“after he had toiled”), has found within himself the divine spark, namely, “the largest sheep,” which is preferable to anything else in this world (“I love you more than the ninety-nine”, 107:3). The second interpretation is based precisely on the personal and intimate tone of this last statement.93 The phrase should be put in the mouth of a personal being (Jesus, the Saviour) who turns towards another 91

The narrative of Thomas 107 seems to make a point that contradicts Ezek 34, the text that could have “inspired” Jesus the parabolist and particularly the Matthaean reading of the parable. In Ezek 34:16 the sheep deserving of the man’s care is “the lost,” “the straying,” “the crippled,” “the weak,” whereas, it is said, “the fat and the strong I will destroy” (this is the reading of the Masoretic Text and the Targum, although there those who are destroyed are “the sinners and the wicked”). On the contrary, in the Septuagint, the text is positive: “The strong I will watch over” (probably the Hebrew root for “destroy”, shmd, has been understood as shmr, “watch over”). So, we cannot say whether the text of Ezek 34 known and available had “destroy” (MT and Targum) or “watch over” (LXX), and whether the author of Thomas used this text for his reinterpretation of the parable. If so, the positive interpretation of the sheep fits better with “watch over” than “destroy.” 92 Nevertheless, it is only in Luke (15:4) that a parallel is found to the expression “until he found it” (Gos. Thom. 107:2). 93 The Kompendium rightly speaks of: “persönlich zugesprochene Liebe ... der Zielpunkt der Parabel” (217).

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person (the Gnostic Christian). Gospel of Thomas 107:3 would, then, function as the peak element of the parable, replacing the motif of joy. Its narrative structure has similarities with Luke 15:6, where the main character, having achieved his goal and returned home, speaks to his friends. Here, in Gos. Thom. 107:3, the main character, after finishing his work, speaks to the sheep he has found.94 Hence, it would seem that this second possible reading should be preferred. “The shepherd” is, then, the Saviour, who comes down from the pleroma to “seek” the “most beloved sheep,” the “largest one,” the Gnostic believer, after he/she has fallen into this world and “gone astray” in it. The Saviour makes a great effort, walking through the material world to hand over knowledge (the “Kingdom”) to the Gnostic Christian, “the largest sheep,” the only beloved, whereas Christians not belonging to the Gnostic group, “the ninety-nine,” are “left” behind without the treasure of knowledge. 2.7 History of interpretation (Wirkungsgeschichte) and present-day readings of the parable This last interpretation, coming from Gnostic Christology, has dominated the history of exegesis of the parable. As we have seen, its point of departure is the metaphorical understanding of the main character, the “man” (or “shepherd”), as Christ. According to Irenaeus, this shepherd is the Logos who comes down from the mountains and becomes flesh among us, whereas the lost sheep is not the divine spark but the Logos’s own material creation.95 According to Origen, whose interpretation became the dominant one through the centuries, the shepherd is the Saviour and the sheep the whole of creation. The ninety-nine sheep are the “rational creatures,” particularly the angels left behind on the mountains, and the one sheep is humankind, saved from this world, which is a “valley of tears” (vallis lacrimarum), once the Saviour comes down “from the Trinity.”96 As U. Luz stresses, the parable is an expression of the drama of salvation.97 Christology is the frame of reference for the most common reading of the parable. The second stream of interpretation takes as its point of departure an understanding of the main character, the “man” (or “shepherd”), as the community’s leaders. The interpretative frame is provided here by ecclesiology, specifically paraenesis, and interpreters work close to the reading of 94 The proposal made in 2.5 was the following: “So there will be more joy in heaven over somebody who has been lost and has been found than over ninety-nine that were not lost.” It seems that this application, or perhaps Luke 15:6, have been transformed into the love declaration of Gos. Thom. 107:3. 95 Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. 3,19,3. 96 Hom. Gen. 2:5 (GCS Or. VI,34); Hom. Num. 19:4 (GCS Or. VII,184); Cels. 4:17. 97 Luz, Matthäus, EKK I/3, 34.

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the parable found in Matthew. Once again Origen, followed by Jerome and Aquinas, has influenced the reading of the parable as a summons to those who should react to the danger that faces “a lost sheep,” a metaphor for the wicked.98 The seeking for those who have failed and have now gone astray should be the first goal of the Church. According to Cyprian, those lapsi should be accepted again into communion without restrictions.99 A third line of interpretation takes a theological approach that employs a dual understanding of the main character, the “man” (or “shepherd”), as God or as Jesus. This is not far from modern exegesis, which tends to underline the Christological implications of a text that is seen as intending to explain God’s attitude, and, at the same time, Jesus’s behaviour, towards sinners – a word that may of course be applied to all humankind. Luther, for instance, said in a sermon of 1524, “We are the lost sheep.”100 All human beings need to be sought by God. His care for us is endless. As it appears in the Gospel of Luke, which stresses God’s joy at a human being’s repentance, the parable is placed in the context of Jesus’s commensality with tax collectors and sinners. This metaphor may be applied to any human being who is aware of having gone astray and is waiting for God’s care to be manifested.

3 Conclusions 3.1 The concept of polyvalence as applied to research into the parables of Jesus cannot exclude the historical question. The meaning of a narrative should not be completely separated from the question of its origin, its first transmitters, and its subsequent readings. The Third Quest has shown that interpretation must rely on the plausibility of the material, and a plausible interpretation of a story attributed to Jesus must take into account all the extant sources (primarily the Synoptic Gospels and Thomas) and try to draw up a basic narrativity, a common narrative outline, which should form the primary point of reference for interpreters. This narrative outline has to be considered against the context of Jesus’s ministry and after that, the readings that constitute the Jesus-tradition. The different readings are often intermingled, and it is impossible to trace a clear development among them. The interpreter must leave several doors open. 3.2 A “narrative outline” is a flexible composition, related orally, which might explain elements common to both the Matthaean and Lukan ac98 Hom. Jos. 7:6 (GCS Or. VII,333–4). 99 Ep. 55,15. Quoted by Luz, Matthäus, EKK I/3, 35. 100 Quoted in Kompendium, 218. Luther uses the parable

sola gratia.

to explain his conception of

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counts as well as elements specific to each of them. The outline is not regarded as a final result of research. Rather, it offers a plot, a narrative sketch of the story transmitted, in this case, in the gospels of Matthew, Luke, and the Gospel of Thomas. The “narrative outline” has narrativity as its main feature, allowing the interpreter to reach reasonably solid ground in analysing plot and characters. In the parable of the Lost Sheep, the outline has three narrative stages: (a) A man with a hundred sheep loses one of them. (b) He leaves the ninety-nine sheep on the mountains / in the wilderness and goes after the one that has been lost. (c) The man finds the lost sheep, lays it on his shoulders, and rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that were not lost. Note that the narrative here is reduced to its essential structure. 3.3 The narrative outline must be tested from two directions: the social conditions that are presupposed in the story and the semantic fields that constitute the “world” of meanings and references underlying the narrative. In each case, analysis of the Jewish background, both sociocultural and religious, demonstrates that the story is rooted in Jewish customs, structures, and literature; the Jewishness of Jesus’s parables is confirmed. Analysis of the social conditions underlying the narrative indicates that it is completely plausible. As usual in the parables of Jesus, there are no indications of the reasons, aims, and intentions of the behaviour of the two active characters in the story: the main character (“the man who goes in search of the sheep”) and the secondary character (“a sheep that has been lost”). Semantic-field analysis demonstrates that it is not possible to take any Old Testament text employing the metaphor of shepherd and flock for the Lord and Israel and apply it to the parable. The only text where this metaphor approaches the context of our narrative is Ezekiel 34:16, but even there the Lord-shepherd does not leave almost all the flock (ninetynine sheep!) on their own. 3.4 In the narrative there is a process of change through an exchange. Hearers are invited to change their point of view through engagement with the dialogue among the different characters. This dialogue centres on an “extravagant” element, which “opens up” the metaphorical process. It starts from the very core of narrativity and allows the interpreter (hearer, new hearer) to discover the meaning of the story and how this meaning is related to him/her. Narrativity leads to metaphoricity. So, we may confidently speak of a “first sense,” expressed the first time or times the parable was told by the parabolist. Obviously, the first sense is neither the only one nor the last one, but it has a foundational value. The secular character of Jesus’s parables (stories taken from everyday life) does not preclude the primacy Jesus gave to God throughout his message and life. Jesus’s parables were pronounced in the context of his message.

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3.5 In the parable of the Lost Sheep, the question that arises is whether the man will or will not decide to go after the lost sheep. The man seeks it out because he has made a decision to find the sheep and because he is ready to leave the other ninety-nine unattended in a lonely area of the countryside. This is the position the parabolist considers the best one, and he tries to persuade his hearers to adopt it. He has three reasons for that. First, generally speaking, it is better to have a hundred sheep (the whole flock!) than only ninety-nine. Secondly, the picture of the man coming back home with the sheep on his shoulders is an appealing and a moving one. The third reason, the decisive argument, which succeeds in convincing the hearers, is that the joy that comes from the finding of the lost sheep is greater than the joy the man would have experienced if he had remained with the ninety-nine sheep that were not lost. There is a special joy and comfort and peace, which constitute the best inner reward. Thus, although the man’s behaviour is really extravagant (one sheep vs. ninety-nine!), it does not lack sense; the finding of one missing sheep is worth placing in danger the other ninety-nine. One sheep is as important as the other ones and cannot be left behind. 3.6 The parable of the Lost Sheep was pronounced by Jesus at some time during his ministry, probably on more than one occasion. The parable attempts to justify Jesus’s attitude, which is the result of a choice that is not shared by all. In the Scriptures, God speaks quite often of his commitment towards sinners. In Jesus’s ministry, however, care for sinners is a basic, and even a novel, choice. Sinners are the first to whom Jesus directs his care and attention. Jesus’s attitude towards sinners is pro-active; he does not wait for them to convert but seeks them out. His activity is also inclusive, because it includes tax collectors and sinners, that is, the whole of Israel. The oral narrative that emerges looks as though it ended with an application or nimshal (“So there will be more joy in heaven over one person who was lost and then was found than over ninety-nine who were not lost”). This application would reflect Jesus’s inner assuredness of his affinity with God, the Father. Jesus’s mission is bound up with the closeness of the Kingdom and becomes a sign of the divine presence breaking out in the world. Thus, the parable not only justifies Jesus’s attitude towards sinners but also shows how in the Kingdom preached by him sinners are preferred recipients of God’s care. 3.7 The framework for Q’s understanding seems to be God’s attitude and Jesus’s behaviour towards those who were lost. The behaviour of the man who is the main character is related to this attitude of God and the commitment of Jesus. Thus, the meaning has not changed from that found in Jesus’s ministry. In the Gospels of Luke and Matthew, the secondary character, the lost sheep, has become the centre of the story. Luke (15:4–7)

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has kept the basic features of the parabolic narrative, although the main role played by the metaphor of the lost sheep as the sinner – indirectly present in the transmitted story – has led to an expansion of the semantic field. Repentance as an active choice of the sinner is stressed in the application, even though this feature has no parallel in the story as such. Additionally, there is a marked stress on the motif of divine joy as an expression of God’s care and love. 3.8 In the Matthaean reading of the parable (18:10, 12–14), the parable is focused on the Christian community and its leaders. Matthaean interests, found throughout the gospel, pervade the application (v. 14) and even the narrative (vv. 12–13), so that the sheep is not lost but “has gone astray” and could perish, that is, fall irreversibly into perdition, unless the community leaders seek out this sheep, that is, the little ones “who have gone astray” – in contrast to the other sheep, who “have not gone astray.” The changes introduced in Matt seem to be justified through a careful exegetical link established between authoritative words of Scripture (Ezek 34:4, 16) and the authoritative words of Jesus’s parable. Specifically, the expression “to be lost,” a key word in the story of a lost sheep, seems to have constituted this exegetical link. In this way, Matthew has been able to reinterpret Jesus’s parable: the lost sheep became the sheep that has gone astray. The influence of Ezek 34 on the Matthaean reading of the parable might also be seen in the semantic shift within a single verb, for “to be lost” (ἀπόλλυµι in Luke 15:4) becomes “to perish” (ἀπόληται) (see Matt 18:14). 3.9 In the oldest form of the Gospel of Thomas (107:1–2) – which I call here Thomas1, the so-called parable of “the lost sheep” becomes the parable of “the largest sheep,” which has to be interpreted as the “Kingdom.” The metaphorical equivalence has changed completely. According to the transmitted parable, the lost sheep referred to somebody in trouble (Matt: the little ones; Luke: the sinners), but in the Gospel of Thomas, it refers to the Kingdom, the most hoped for and desirable treasure (see Gos. Thom. 76; 109). In the most recent form of Thomas – Thomas2 – there are two possible interpretations. In the first one, the point of departure is the basic metaphor already present in Thomas1 (sheep = Kingdom). “The shepherd” would be the Gnostic believer who, having sought hard (“after he had toiled”), has found within himself the divine spark, namely, “the largest sheep,” which is preferable to anything else in this world (“I love you more than the ninety-nine”, 107:3). The second reading is based precisely on the personal and intimate tone of this last statement. Jesus, the Saviour, turns towards the Gnostic Christian. He makes a great effort, walking through the material world to hand over knowledge (the “Kingdom”) to the Gnostic group, “the largest sheep,” the only beloved, as against Christians

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not belonging to the Gnostic group, “the ninety-nine,” who are “left” behind without the treasure of knowledge. The history of interpretation (Wirkungsgeschichte) may be described according to three different interpretations. The first is profoundly Christological and close to the type of Gnostic interpretation already seen in Thomas. Origen comments that the shepherd is the Saviour and the sheep the whole of creation: the ninety-nine sheep are the “rational creatures,” in particular the angels left behind on the mountains, and the one sheep is humankind, who is saved from this world. Origen also proposes an ecclesiological and paraenetic interpretation. As in Matthew, the parable should be addressed to the community’s leaders, who have to react to the danger that faces “a lost sheep,” a metaphor for the wicked and those who have failed. The third current of interpretation, and the most widespread nowadays, argues for a dual understanding of the main character, the “man” (or “shepherd”), as God or as Jesus. Modern exegesis tends to underline the Christological implications of the parable. 3.10 The proposal presented here for the interpretation of Jesus’s parables includes seven steps: (1) transmission analysis, which facilitates the sketching of a “narrative outline” of the story; (2) sociohistorical analysis, which is analysis of the social conditions that attest to the plausibility of the “narrative outline”; (3) semantic-field analysis, which identifies the metaphorical and symbolic conventions employed within the “narrative outline”; (4) narrative analysis (the story’s narrativity) and metaphorical transfer, which allows us to move from the world of images to the world of the first hearers; (5) situation analysis, analysis of the situation in Jesus’s ministry, which yields the first – and foundational – sense of the “narrative outline”; (6) Jesustradition analysis, which demonstrates the continuity and discontinuity between the story’s “narrative outline” and its oldest interpretations; (7) history of interpretation up to present-day interpretations of the text (Wirkungsgeschichte).

The Parables: A Theological Approach Reading Parables in the Context of Today’s Orthodox Church PREDRAG DRAGUTINOVIĆ

The purpose of this contribution is twofold. First, it outlines some features of the patristic hermeneutics of the parables. Second, it offers some observations regarding the theological value of the patristic interpretation of Scripture, especially for today’s Orthodox biblical hermeneutics. The present article contains six sections. Section 1 deals with the question of the definition of a parable. In sections 2 and 3 research on parables in New Testament studies and the inadequacy of the Orthodox biblical scholarship to engage this research are briefly discussed. Section 4 offers a short presentation of the main features of the patristic hermeneutics on parables, including the general hermeneutical orientation, as well as the Church Fathers’ Christological and canonical perspectives. Section 5 is mainly focused on the question of how patristic hermeneutics could influence our own interpretation. Section 6 is a conclusion with an evaluation.

1 What Is a Parable? Jesus spoke in parables. This historical fact is attested in all three Synoptic Gospels.1 The parables, which originally were an oral phenomenon, ended in the fixed texts within the canonical Gospels. There is no doubt that in the process of transmission some bigger or smaller alterations have occurred. Since the parables have become an integral part of the narrative of 1 See J.-H. Charlesworth, The Historical Jesus: An Essential Guide (Nashville, 2008), 101. This does not mean, of course, that he only spoke in parables. The Gospel according to John, whose historiographical characteristics should not be underestimated, does not include parables, but extended conversations, polemical dialogues and discourses punctuated by questions and objections; see R. Bauckham, “Historiographical Characteristics of the Gospel of John”, NTS 53 (2007): 32: “He must have taught in a much more discursive and expatiating way than the Synoptic Gospels attribute to him.”

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the Gospels, their “life settings” have changed. After the faith in the Risen Lord, his words took on a new meaning. What he spoke during his earthly life began to be applied to Jesus himself. Although most of Jesus’ parables were originally no allegories, some of them were allegorized within the Synoptic Gospels. These gospels narrate about 40 parables of Jesus. Only three of them are utterly allegories (Mk 4,3–8; 4,3–20; Matt 13,24–30; 13,36–43; Matt 22,1–14 ~ Lk 14,15–24). The first two of them could have been meant as allegories by Jesus himself, while the last one is likely to be a secondary, post-Easter allegorizing.2 In recent New Testament studies, the parables are researched as small literary forms (Kleinformen) with specific historical settings, textual regularities, and social and cultural backgrounds.3 With regard to their content, the parables are short stories that reflect the daily life of common people in Galilee. The direct and simple character of the parables conveys, however, a deep theological message. Accordingly, I would consider the parables theologically as “small-metanarratives” (in the sense of U. Luz) about God and the new life available in community with him.4 But the way to this community with God, as presented in the parables of the Gospels, leads through the person of Jesus Christ. In many parables, though not in all, the Speaker Jesus is an essential part of the parable, and the parable is illustrated, even “embodied,” by the deeds and faith of Jesus. Thus, the direction the Church Fathers have taken in their interpretation of the parables is already opened. Before we turn to the patristic interpretation of parables, we will take a short look at parable research in Western biblical scholarship and at the deficiency of Orthodox scholarship, which is deeply rooted in the patristic heritage, to engage its methods and results.

2 See M. Reiser, Sprache und literarische Formen des Neuen Testaments (Paderborn, 2001), 144–145; Charlesworth, Historical Jesus (n. 1), 102. It is, however, in my opinion, impossible to gain a positive historical knowledge regarding the question whether Jesus himself had allegorized some of his parables or the allegorizing was the secondary work of the early communities or the gospels’ writers; see n. 62. 3 See C. Kähler, “Gleichnis/Parabel: II. Neues Testament,” RGG4 3:1000–1003; A. Steudel, “Parabel,” LBH, 430–433; R. Zimmermann and G. Kern, eds., Hermeneutik der Gleichnisse Jesu: Methodische Neuansätze zum Verstehen urchristlicher Parabeltexte (WUNT 213; Tübingen, 2008). 4 For more on the proposal of U. Luz, see his “Postmoderne Bibelinterpretation? Interpretation der Bibel in der Postmoderne,” FZPhTh 56 (2009): 403–422. Under the term “(grand) metanarratives” I understand the prevailing common-sense views about meaning, writing, experience, like the Christian worldview in the Middle Age or the belief in the reason, the infinite progress of knowledge and social and moral betterment in modernity. The biblical “small metanarratives”, on the contrary, do not tend to explain the very essence of the world, reality and life as a system or an ideology, but to provide some “small” theological insights on human existence and its dependence upon God.

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2 A Brief Survey of Research on the Parables The parables have been investigated intensively in Western biblical scholarship from many points of view.5 According to the critical survey of R. Zimmermann we can distinguish among the three tendencies or approaches in the parable’s research as follows6: 2.1 The historical approach to the parables seeks to explore them in their historical context. This investigation goes in three directions. The first is the endeavor to reconstruct the original form of the parables, the “ipsissima vox” or “authentic voice” of Jesus (A. Jülicher; J. Jeremias). This approach assumes that the text of the parables in the canonical gospels offers an altered version of what Jesus really said in his oral parables. C.-H. Dodd opened the second direction; he asks not so much for the original words of Jesus as for the original situation of the parables, the situation the parables addressed, their “setting in life.” The third direction deals with the social and cultural background of the texts. This approach emphasized the first recipients and how they would understand a parable (L. Schottroff; C. W. Hedrick). All of these hermeneutical concepts reject the traditional interpretation of the parables in the Church and maintain that the historical method enables access to the “original words,” the “original situations,” and the “original understanding” of the gospels’ parables. 2.2 The literary approach to the parables is the consequence of the “linguistic turn” in the human sciences. The central preoccupation is no longer the quest for origins, but for the text itself. The basic hermeneutical assumption is that the understanding of the language allows the understanding of a parable. The parables were treated either from the perspective of their text-structure and semiotics (D.O. Via; E. Güttgemmans) or from the perspective of their metaphoricity (R. W. Funk; N. Perrin; P. Ricœur; H. Weder; H.-J. Klauck et al.). 2.3 The reception-aesthetic approach is a reader-oriented interpretation of the parables with strong theological and hermeneutical elements. The role of the reader or the listener was at times taken into account in previous studies, but the novelty of the reception-aesthetic approach is that it con5 See D.-O. Via, The Parables: Their Literary and Existential Dimension (Philadelphia, 1967), 2–22; R. Zimmermann, “Gleichnishermeneutik im Rückblick und Vorblick: Die Beiträge des Sammelbandes vor dem Hintergrund von 100 Jahren Gleichnisforschung,” in: Zimmermann and Kern, eds., Hermeneutik (n. 3), 25–63; L. Schotroff, Die Gleichnisse Jesu (2nd ed.; Gütersloh, 2007), 120–130; C.-W. Hedrick, Parables as Poetic Fictions: The Creative Voice of Jesus (Eugene, 1994), 7–10, sums up the whole of the parable research in five phases. The Church Fathers belong, according to him, to the antihistorical phase 2 (A.D. 50 until the 19th century). 6 The following section is based on the survey of Zimmermann, “Gleichnishermeneutik” (n. 5), 26–51. The full bibliography is to be found there.

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siders not only the historical recipients but also the recipients generally; the parables invite the readers to take part in the process of understanding (E. Jüngel; P. Ricœur; C. Kähler; M.-A. Tolbert; A.-J. Hultgren, et al.). Thus, the most important context for interpretation is not the original, historical setting of the text but the present context of the reader.

3 The Difficulty of Orthodox Biblical Scholarship to Accept Western Research on the Parables This rich, stimulating, and provocative research on parables has come to the forefront of New Testament studies in Western Europe since the end of the nineteenth century, that is, since the seminal work of Adolf Jülicher.7 It is mostly unknown in Eastern Europe. As far as I know, A. Jülicher’s book has never been translated into any of the Eastern European languages. This work protested against the Church’s allegorizing of the parables.8 A. Jülicher tried to show that treating the parables as allegories was the way of reading before the Enlightenment and has to be given up. Not every detail in a parable has to be about something else! Consequently, he rejected any allegorical dimensions, insisting that the parables have one and only one point of comparison.9 Allegorical interpretation was, as we will see, the Church Fathers’ approach to the parables and is the dominant way of reading them in the Orthodox Church to this day.10 Whether or not Jülicher’s proposal successfully offered an alternative to the allegorical method, parable research took on a new dimension after his work, according to the above brief research survey. However, his solutions did not find broader reception because many scholars argued that there are some allegorical elements or metaphors in the parables, although these allegorical elements 7 A. Jülicher, Die Gleichnisreden Jesu im Algemeinen, (vol. 1 of Die Gleichnisreden Jesu; 2nd ed.; Tübingen, 1910); idem, Auslegung der Gleichnisreden der drei ersten Evangelien (vol. 2 of Die Gleihnisreden Jesu; 3rd ed.; Tübingen, 1910). 8 Since Jülicher “die Allegorese der Kirchenväter erscheint als das Schreckgespenst der Gleichnisforschung,” according to R.-B. Eggen, Gleichnis, Allegorie, Metapher: Zur Theorie und Praxis der Gleichnisauslegung (TANZ 47; Tübingen, 2007), 85. 9 Jülicher’s hermeneutical program was the “Kampf gegen die allegosierende Auslegung von Jesu Parabeln”, Gleichnisreden Jesu (n. 7), 50. 10 See U. Luz, “Die Bedeutung der Kirchenväter für die Auslegung der Bibel: Eine westlich-protestantische Sicht,” in Auslegung der Bibel in orthodoxer und westlicher Perspektive: Akten des west-östlichen Neutestamentler/innen-Symposiums von Neamt vom 4.–11. September 1998 (ed. J.D.G. Dunn et al.; WUNT 130; Tübingen 2000), 29–51, esp. 33: “Der ursprüngliche Sinn eines Textes ist hier der Maßtab für seine richtige Auslegung. Gemessen an diesem Grundsatz können die Auslegungen der Kirchväter nur von sekundärer Bedeutung und relativ uninteressant sein.”

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have often been ascribed not to the “historical Jesus” but to the early Christian communities or to the writers of the Gospels.11 The reception of the diligent and admirable work of Western theologians is negligible in Eastern biblical scholarship. The abundance of scholarly books, the diversity of approaches, and the multitude of concepts in this field are discouraging and incomprehensible for most scholars and students from Eastern Europe. The main reasons, however, for this failure to engage Western scholarly work are, in my opinion, the following: 3.1 The first reason is theological and Christological. The rejection of the allegorical method, a dominant method of parable interpretation by the Church Fathers and considered part of the “Holy Tradition”, has considerable theological consequences. The first problem is that the quest for the “historical Jesus” often implied searching (through a hermeneutic of suspicion!) for a “truth” that is not given in the faith of the Church. Scholars have often concluded that the “historical Jesus” had to say “something else” that is not identical with the faith of the Church. Thus, the message of the “historical Jesus” often seems to be very different from the message of the living Lord Jesus who is the object of faith in the Church. The second problem is that the various attempts to discover the original message of the “historical Jesus” differ greatly from each other. The problem with the literary approach is that it separates Jesus the Speaker from the content of his parables. The parables are considered “autonomous stories” with a certain “textual meaning”; they live their own lives without the necessity of a connection with the Lord Jesus who actually gave them authority. Thus, it seems that parabolic sense is not so much to be found in the person of Jesus Christ or in the Kingdom of God as in what happens in the story.12 3.2 The second reason is more of a cultural nature and has to do with the absence of common questions, both social and theological, in the West and the East. First of all, the question of the historical Jesus must be men11 See e.g. G. Bornkamm, Jesus von Nazareth (14th ed.; Stuttgart et al., 1988), 63: “Derlei Tendenzen zur allegorischen Ausdeutung sind in der Auslegungsgeschichte schon von früh an erkennbar und haben bereits auf die Gestaltung einiger Evangelientexte eingewirkt. Doch sind sie der späteren Gemeindeüberlieferung zuzurechen. Die authentischen Gleichnisse Jesu haben mit Allegorien nichts zu tun.” For the parables’ research after Jülicher see for example Eggen, Gleichnis (n. 8), 41–84; K. Erlemann, “Adolf Jülicher in der Gleichnisforschung des 20. Jahrunderts,” in Die Gleichnisreden Jesus (1899–1999): Beiträge zum Dialog mit Adolf Jülicher (ed. U. Mell; BZNW 103; Berlin, 1999), 5–37. 12 This approach treats the parables as “genuine works of art, real aesthetic objects.” It seems that for their interpretation the relation to the Speaker Jesus does not play a hermeneutical role. They reveal something about the “Christian view” of humanity, the world, evil, etc., but they do not connect this view essentially with the Person of Jesus Christ. See e.g. D.O. Via, Gleichnisse Jesu: Ihre literarische und exisistentiale Dimension (BEvTh 57; München 1970), 96–103.

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tioned. The issue of the historical Jesus, and especially the question of whether his words in the gospels are really his own words, is the fruit of the Enlightenment and Historicism. It did not really have a creative reception in Eastern biblical studies.13 Ignoring or refusing this question, Orthodox biblical scholarship was not able to take part in parable research. The other issue is the general lack of interest in the literary genre of a biblical text, which is an organic part of the historical-critical method.14 One gets the impression that Orthodox scholars seldom deal with this topic, perhaps because the awareness of the canonical framework of Scripture is too strong or because there is a fear of fragmenting the one and undivided Scripture. Accordingly, Orthodox scholars have proven reluctant to treat the parables as separate units in literary isolation from the canon and especially from the gospels.15 Today, however, a two-way influence in the field of biblical scholarship is emerging and a wider awareness of patristic hermeneutics is evident. While the globalization of almost all levels of European society brings more and more similar questions and problems to both sides, Western and Orthodox, Orthodox biblical scholars increasingly receive and acknowledge the importance of what were once regarded as typical Western approaches to Scripture. On the other hand, Western biblical scholarship is developing interest in the patristic interpretation of the Bible. Two series on patristic interpretations produced in America (Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture [eds. C. Oden and C.-A. Hall] and the Church’s Bible [ed. R. Wilken]), as well as the European project, Novum Testamentum 13 See T.G. Stylianopoulos, The New Testament: An Orthodox Perspective (vol. 1 of Scripture, Tradition, Hermeneutics; Brookline, 2004), 162–185. 14 Here I have in mind primarily my own personal context in Serbia. The situation in Greece is quite different. The modern Greek exegetical school has already dealt with the methodological questions and themes under discussion. See e.g. S. Agouridis, Ἑρµηνευτική τῶν ἱερῶν κειµένων: Προβλήµατα – Μέθοδοι ἐργασίας στήν ἑρµηνεία τῶν γραφῶν (3rd ed.; Athen, 2002), 246–253, esp. 249; I. Karavidopoulos, Εἰσαγωγή στήν Καινή ∆ιαθήκη (Thessaloniki, 1998), 143–148; P. Vasileiadis, “Βιβλική κριτική καί Ὀρθοδοξία”, in Βιβλικές ἑρµηνευτικές µελέτες (Thessaloniki 1988), 49–101; K. Nikolakopoulos, “Grundprinzipien der orthodoxen patristischen Hermeneutik: Dissonanz oder Ergänzung zur historisch-kritischen Methode?” OrthFor 13 (1999): 171–184; Stylianopoulos, New Testament (n. 13), 171. 15 See some contributions to the topic in the Greek Orthodox field: P.N. Bratsiotis, “Αἱ παραβολαὶ τοῦ Κυρίου καὶ ἡ νεωτέρα κριτική,” Ἐπιστηµονικὴ Ἐπετηρὶς Θεολογικῆς Σχολῆς Ἀθηνῶν (Scholarly Annual of the Theological School of Athens) 1 (1924): 127– 200; S. Logopatis, Αἱ παραβολαὶ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ: Ἑρµηνευτικὴ µελέτη (Athen, 1951). The work on the parables of I. Karavadipoulos lies along the line of J. Jeremias and is, as far as I know, the only Orthodox critical monograph on the topic: I. Karavidopoulos, Αἱ παραβολαὶ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ (Ἐπιστηµονικὴ Ἐπετηρὶς Θεολογικῆς Σχολῆς Θεσσαλονίκης [Scholarly Annual of the Theological School of Thessaloniki] 15; suppl. 5; Thessaloniki, 1970).

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Patristicum (ed. A. Merkt), clearly confirm this tendency. A kind of “patristic turn” in the field of biblical exegesis cannot be expected, but, in my opinion, patristic hermeneutics can offer a valuable contribution to the mainstream way of doing exegesis, both Western and Eastern.16 With respect to parable research, a connection could be made with the new hermeneutical proposal of Ruben Zimmermann. His way of reading the parables includes all elements which are important for an Orthodox reading while taking account of all serious historical questions and the insights of the literary approach, and he understands the parables as theological texts in which the person of Jesus plays a crucial role. The parables are “remembered texts,” which are always related to the person of Jesus.17 Instead of speaking about the “historical” Jesus, the better solution is to speak about Jesus “remembered.”18 This close connection between Jesus and his words spoken in the parables seems to have been neglected in previous research on the parables in the West. The hermeneutical proposal of R. Zimmerman seeks to remedy this problem.

4 The Church Fathers’ Hermeneutics of the Parables 4.1 The Methodology. A Sketch To outline the main characteristics of patristic biblical hermeneutics and the Church Fathers’ method of interpreting Scripture is not an easy enterprise. “Patristic hermeneutics” is a term too general, for it covers a long period of several centuries, many geographic locations and cultural realms, and finally, many different life and ecclesial situations in which Scripture 16 For the distinction between exegesis and hermeneutics in patristic interpretation and its consequences, see U. Luz, “Bedeutung” (n. 10), 34. 17 See R. Zimmermann, “Gleichnisse als Medien der Jesuserinnerung: Die Historizität der Jesusparabeln im Horizont der Gedächtnisforschung,” in Zimmermann and Kern, eds., Hermeneutik (n. 3), 87–121, esp. 118: “Unter Einbeziehung des narrativen Gedächtnisrahmes wird der Gleichniserzähler selbst zu einem wesentlichen Teil kontextuellen Bestandteil des Gleichnisses.” 18 See the characteristic title of J. Dunn’s book, J.-D.-G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered (vol 1 of Christianity in the Making; Grand Rapids, 2003). See a summary of his approach on p. 882: “(1) The only realistic objective for any ‘quest of the historical Jesus᾽ is Jesus remembered. (2) The Jesus tradition of the Gospels confirms that there was a concern within earliest Christianity to remember Jesus. (3) The Jesus tradition shows us how Jesus was remembered; its character strongly suggests again and again a tradition given its essential shape by regular use and reuse in oral mode. (4) This suggests in turn that that essential shape was given by the original and immediate impact made by Jesus as that was first put into words by and among those involved as eyewitnesses of what Jesus said and did. In that key sense, the Jesus tradition is Jesus remembered.”

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was involved.19 Nevertheless, some basic characteristics common to the majority of the interpreters of the patristic period can be sketched.20 First, patristic hermeneutics makes a distinction between res and verba. The classic example is offered by Augustine: “A sign is learned when the thing is known, rather than the thing being learned when the sign is given.”21 Patristic interpretations are always a discourse on a matter (res), which is only presented and articulated in the words (verba) of the biblical texts.22 Second, the divine inspiration of Scripture plays a crucial role for its interpretation.23 Almost all Fathers share this conviction. Third, allegory was a common way of interpretation. Regarding the parables, Eusebius of Emesa maintains: “The apostles have practiced the allegory and the method used by him (Origen, P. D.) is acceptable. All parables have been spoken in the allegorical way.”24 Allegory was used in order to underline the Christological message of a biblical text: “… but the treasure hidden in the Scriptures is Christ, since he was pointed out by means of types and parables.”25 Fourth, the Fathers emphasize the importance of the σκοπός of a biblical text. The σκοπός is a crucial hermeneutical category. The task of the interpreter is to describe the effective scope of the Scriptures.26 Fifth, the right interpretation of a biblical text could be offered only from the standpoint of the regula fidei.27 This is, first of all, faith in the person of Jesus Christ 19

H. Alfeyev, “The Faith of the Fathers: The Patristic Background of the Orthodox Faith and the Study of the Fathers on the Threshold of the 21st Century,” SVTQ 51 (2007): 371–393. 20 See M. Reiser, “Die Prinzipien der biblischen Hermeneutik und ihr Wandel unter dem Einfluss der Aufklärung,” in Die prägende Kraft der Texte: Hermeneutik und Wirkungsgeschichte des Neuen Testaments: Ein Symposium zu Ehren von Ulrich Luz (ed. M. Mayordomo; SBS 199; Stuttgart, 2005), 79–88; M. Fiedrowicz, Die Theologie der Kirchenväter: Grundlagen frühchristlicher Glaubensreflexion (Freiburg, 2007), 97–187; B. Studer, “Die patristische Exegese, eine Aktualisierung der Heiligen Schrift: Zur hermeneutischen Problematik der frühchristlichen Bibelauslegung,” REAug 42 (1996): 71–95; J. Panagopoulos, Ἡ ἑρµηνεία τῆς Ἁγίας Γραφῆς στήν Ἐκκλησία τῶν Πατέρων: Οἱ τρεῖς πρῶτοι αἰῶνες καί ἡ ἀλεξανδρινή παράδοση ὥς τόν πέµπτο αἰώνα (Athen, 1991), 54–58. 21 Augustine, Μag. 10.3 (PL 32:1214): “magis signum re cognita quam signo dato ipsa res discitur.” 22 Studer, “Patristische Exegese” (n. 20), 83–85. 23 See e.g. Origen, Princ. 4.1. 24 Eusebius Emesenus, Sermo 11.4 (SSL 26) “Nam et apostolus allegorizat et suscipiendus est modus quo utitur et omnes parabolae in allegoriae modo dicuntur.” 25 Irenaeus, Haer. 5.26.1 (SC 100:713–717). 26 See Gregory of Nyssa, Insr pef: GNO 5.24.13–25, 9); Athanasius, C. Ar. 3.28–29 (PG 26:384–385); Cyril of Alexandria, glaph. Gen.-Dt. 6 (PG 69:308). See also J.-D. Ernest, “Athanasius of Alexandria: The Scope of Scripture in Polemical and Pastoral Context,” VC 47 (1993): 351–352. 27 Reiser, “Prinzipien” (n. 20), 81–83; S. Agouridis, “The regula fidei as Hermeneutical Principle in Past and Present,” in L’Interpretazione della Bibbia nella Chiesa: Atti

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and in his two natures, the divine and the human one. The above mentioned hermeneutical factors have, essentially, determined patristic exegesis.28 Now that the fundamental hermeneutical principles of patristic exegesis have been presented, we return to our topic of parables. In the patristic interpretation of Scripture, we encounter a twofold use of the word παραβολαί. On the one hand, a “parable” means a simple comparison or a symbolic speech.29 On the other hand, a “parable” is a parable (story) of the Lord, therefore a text of the gospels and a specific literary unit (“the parables of the Lord”).30 In general, patristic interpreters seldom reflect on the literary genre of a text.31 For the Fathers, every parable was the vehicle of divine truth, the word of the risen Lord for their own time. A parable as such did not need to be isolated as belonging to a specific literary genre and explored for itself. These two observations bring us already to the heart of the patristic hermeneutics of parables. 4.2 The Christological Approach: totus Christus For Gregory of Nyssa, Christ reveals divine mysteries (ἀποκαλύπτοντος τὰ κεκρυµµένα µυστήρια), interpreting the Scripture in reference to himself (µεταλαµβάνειν). In the gospels, Christ speaks in parables and metaphors. The entire Gospel is about Christ, about his two natures: “in the hidden

del Simposio promosso della Congregazione per la Dotrina della Fede (ed. P. Grech et al.; Citta del Vaticana, 2001), 225–231. 28 For a long time, even before but especially since the Enlightenment, these hermeneutical convictions of the Fathers have been considered obsolete and outdated. International biblical scholarship today is, however, more open to a new, critical, and creative reception of the patristic hermeneutical principles. In my judgment, the most important task of Orthodox biblical scholars is to reconsider the concept of the “Neo-patristic synthesis” which was developed by Orthodox theology in the second half of the previous century (see generally Stylianopoulos, New Testament [n. 13], 163–166). A significant step forward in the direction of a reconsideration of the “Neo-patristic synthesis” has been recently taken (June, 3–6, 2010) in the international Orthodox conference held in Volos (Greece) under the title, Neo-patristic synthesis or Post-patristic Theology: Can Orthodox Theology be Contextual? (forthcoming). 29 See Irenaeus, Haer. 2.21.1 (SC 294:264–266); 4.26.1 (SC 100:713–717); Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 6.124.6 (GCS 52.3:494). 30 Irenaeus, Haer. 1.8.1 (SC 264, 16, 112–116); Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 6.125.1 (GCS 52.3:495). 31 See a general distinction by Diodore of Tarsus (Ps. 118 prol.: RSR 10:79–101]). With regard to the parables, see Origen’s distinction between the comparisons and the parables (Comm. Ser. Matt. 10,4 [PG 13:10, 4]): διαφορὰν εἶναι ὁµοιώσεως καὶ παραβολῆς ... ἡ µὲν ὁµοίωσις εἶναι γενική, ἡ δὲ παραβολὴ εἰδική (“there is a difference between a similitude and a parable. The similitude seems to be generic and the parable specific”).

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meaning the divine presence is revealed.”32 This approach to Scripture – the Christological approach – can be considered representative of patristic hermeneutics as a whole. Thus, in the parables, Jesus speaks in a mystic way about himself too. The Speaker is organically related to the content of his word. Telling a parable, Jesus always tells something about his soteriological work: “scripturae verus interpres Christus”33 The common basis, “paradigm,” or “interpretive framework” of patristic exegesis was the Christological approach to Scripture. The parables, in their form of short, metaphorical stories about God, his relationship to his people and to his creation, were for the Church Fathers summaries (short stories) of the history of salvation (so already in Matt 21:28 – 22:14) or illustrative stories about the relations between God and human beings, having always their central point in Christology. They speak about nothing less than the history of salvation with a Christological orientation. For the Church Fathers, almost every parable intends to say something about the Christ-event in the history of salvation. In order to show this central idea in the parables, the Church Fathers applied the allegorical method in their interpretation of the parables; almost every detail in the parables points to something else, to a higher reality or realm, and all together narrate the history of salvation, which has its peak in the Christ-event. Their exegetical assumption is that there are fixed metaphors in the parables. The exegesis of parables functions in a simple way: every single image, person, or event narrated in a parable is/means/presents something/someone from the history of salvation. For instance, the king represents God, the Good Samaritan is the Lord Jesus Christ, the bridegroom is Christ, the vineyard is Israel, the oil is good deeds, and so on. This way of interpretation was appropriate to support the Christian grand-metanarrative which was supposedly hidden in every single story of the Bible: Everything in the Bible is about Jesus Christ. This hermeneutical conviction was both the starting point and the aim of the exegesis of the Church Fathers.34

32 33

Or. Catech. 32.5 (GNO 3,4;79.3–12). Ambrose, Exp. Luc. 7.50 (SC 52:23). 34 See Fiedrowicz, Theologie (n. 20), 131–133; J. Panagopoulos, “Christologie und Schriftauslegung bei den griechischen Kirchenvätern,” ZThK 89 (1992): 41–58; P.-J. Leithart, Deep Exegesis: The Mystery of Reading Scripture (Waco, 2009) 173–174. In the field of Western parable interpretation, the Christological feature of the parables has been emphasized especially by H. Weder, Die Gleichnisse Jesu als Metaphern: Traditionsund redaktionsgeschichtliche Analysen und Interpretationen (FRLANT 120; 4th ed.; Göttingen, 1990), 97–98: “Da die ursprünglichen Jesusgleichnisse Vorgriffe auf das Ereignis der Nähe Gottes zur Welt (die Auferweckung des Gekreuzigten) sind, war eine christologische Interpretation der Gleichnisse unvermeidlich, damit sie als Gleichnisse Jesu überliefert werden konnten. Die christologische Auslegung ist demnach Ausgangs-

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With regard to the interpretation of the parables, a difference exists between the so-called Alexandrian and Antiochian exegetical schools, or more accurately, the Alexandrian and the Antiochian contexts of the interpretation of Scripture.35 The use of allegory in the interpretation of the parables by the Church Fathers of Alexandria is evident. This approach seeks a spiritual meaning in a parable. Representative for this tradition is Origen’s homily on the parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:30–37) in which he quotes an interpretation from “one of the presbyters:” The man who was going down is Adam, Jerusalem is paradise, Jericho the world, the robbers are the hostile powers, the priest is the law, the Levite represents the prophets, the Samaritan is Christ, the wounds represent disobedience, the beast the Lord’s body, the inn should be interpreted as the church, since it accepts all that wish to come in. Furthermore, the two denarii are to be understood as the Father and the Son, the innkeeper as the head of the church, who is in charge of its supervision. The Samaritan’s promise to return, points to the second coming of the Saviour.36

The exegetes of Antioch generally “minimized allegory,” but in many cases, they could not avoid it.37 If we take John Chrysostom as the representative of the Antiochian context, we encounter the following hermeneutical consideration regarding the interpretation of parables: And, as I always say, the parables must not be explained throughout word for word, since many absurdities will follow; this even he (the Lord) himself is teaching us here in thus interpreting the parable. Thus he saith not at all who the servants are that came to him, but, implying that he brought them in, for the sake of some order, and to make up the picture, he omits the part, and interprets those that are most urgent and essential, and for the sake of which the parable was spoken; signifying himself to be Judge and Lord of all. 38

punkt für den im Rahmen christlicher Verkündigung vorzunehmenden Gegenwartsbezug.” 35 I prefer to speak about different contexts of exegetical praxis, rather than about two different hermeneutical schools, since today we know that the Church Fathers from both contexts did not have so radically different approaches to the Bible as was thought in the past. See Studer, “Patristische Exegese” (n. 20), 73; Chr. Karakolis, “Erwägungen zur Exegese des Alten Testaments bei den griechischen Kirchenvätern: Eine orthodoxe Sicht,” in Das Alte Testament als christliche Bibel in orthodoxer und westlicher Sicht: Zweite europäische orthodox–westliche Exegetenkonferenz im Rilakloster vom 8.–15. September 2001 (ed. I.Z. Dimitrov et al.; WUNT 17; Tübingen, 2004), 24–25. 36 Hom. Luc. 34, 3 (SC 87:402–404). For Origen’s interpretation of the parable, see R. Roukema, “The Good Samaritan in Ancient Christianity,” VC 58 (2004): 63–67. 37 See W.S. Kissinger, The Parables of Jesus: A History of Interpretation and Bibliography (ATLA.BS 4; London, 1979), 27: “Unlike the Alexandrians, the Antiochenes did not look for hidden meanings in the biblical text but sought to set forth the literal sense intended by the author.” See also Karakolis, “Erwägungen” (n. 35), 25. 38 Hom. 47: Comm. Matt. 13.34–35 (NPNF 10:285).

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The main characteristic of John Chrysostom’s interpretation of the parables is his ethical reading, based, of course, on the Christological and soteriological understanding of the biblical message. His interpretations display a very high ethical standard. He interprets a parable in a way that moves his audience to act. The use of allegory serves to update the moral meaning of the text. He argues, for example, that the parables about the Ten Virgins and the Talents, as well as the two parables about the faithful and unfaithful servants in Matt 24:45–51, have a common theme. The parables are about “… diligence in almsgiving, and helping our neighbor by all means which we are able to use, since it is not possible to be saved in another way.”39 In the parable of the Talents, “talent” in verse 29 has the following allegorical meaning: “He that has a gift of word and teaching to profit thereby, and uses it not, will lose the gift too; but he that give diligence, will gain to himself the gift in more abundance.”40 Hence, in both contexts, the interpretation of the parables has allegorical elements and consequently points to Christology and to the soteriological work of Jesus Christ. Interpreting parables in this way, the Church Fathers work along the lines of the authors of the canonical Gospels (or, perhaps, even Jesus himself) who started the process of allegorizing Jesus’ parables (Mark 4:13–20 [interpretation: 4:3–9]; Matt 13:36–43 [interpretation: 13:24–30]; Matt 22:1–14 [the possible original form: Luke 14:15– 24]; Matt 25:1–13).41 Accordingly, one can hardly speak about an essential gap between the parables of Jesus narrated in the Gospels and their later interpretation in the early Church. From the Christological perspective of both contexts, the main point lies in the conviction that the speaker Jesus is an essential part of the parables. It was absolutely necessary to point to this unique speaker Jesus when he himself was absent, i.e. after his death.42 The parables had to be interpreted allegorically, i.e. christologically, since Jesus was the “seal” of their truth. This is the reason why Matthew took over versions of parables that were in many cases christologically allego-

39 40 41

Hom. 78: Comm. Matt. 25, 1–30 (NPNF 10:470). Ibid., 472. See n. 2. 42 See P. Lampe, Die Wirk1ichkeit als Bild: Das Neue Testament als ein Grunddokument abendländischer Kultur im Lichte konstruktivistischer Epistemologie und Wissenssoziologie (Neukirchen-Vluyn, 2006), 59: “Evidenz durch Kongruenz und sinnliches Wahrnehmen stellten sich ferner für die ein, die erkannten, dass der lebendige Gott mit seiner Königsherrschaft, von der die Gleichnisse erzählten, eben in diesem Gleichniserzähler selbst, in dessen Worten an die kleinen Leute, in dessen heilenden Sich-Zuwenden auf die Menschen zugeht und präsent zu werden beginnt (implizite Christologie).” See also P. Lampe, “Gleichnisverkündigung im Lichte konstruktivistischer Wissenssoziologie” in Mell, ed., Gleichnisreden (n. 11), 223–236.

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rized, and he continued this tendency.43 Luke, who did not allegorize the parables himself and preferred non-allegorical versions (see e.g. Matt 22,1–14 par. Luke 14,15–24), narrated the parables as part of his history of Jesus, and in this context his readers received them.44 This is very close to the Christological, allegorical interpretation of the Church Fathers who simply followed the path already opened by the texts of the Gospels.45 4.3 The Canonical approach The canon of Scripture and the canonical approach to the Bible are central issues in current biblical hermeneutics.46 The question of the canon and its hermeneutical role in the process of the interpretation of Scripture is recognized as crucial. Our reading of the Scripture depends on our attitude towards the canon. Orthodox and Protestants differ as to how the canon should be read. From an Orthodox (and patristic!) point of view, reading “canonically” means reading on the basis of the faith of the Church. Transposed to historical dimensions, this means reading the canon from its “end,” from the perspective of the reception of the apostolic tradition in the Church. Therefore, the canon in its final form, as the collection of the

43 44

See U. Luz, Die Jesusgeschichte des Matthäus (Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1993), 106–107. For Luke, see a good example in the patristic exegesis in Chr. Karakolis, “Ἡ παραβολή τοῦ ἀσώτου υἱοῦ: Μιά ἀλληγορική προσέγγιση τῆς ἱστορίας τῆς σωτηρίας”, in Θέµατα ἑρµηνείας καί θεολογίας τῆς Καινῆς ∆ιαθήκης (Thessaloniki, 2005), 131–156, esp. 152–156. Karakolis, following the allegorical readings of the parable of the Prodigal Son by the Church Fathers, argues that Luke narrates the story in a way which does not close the door for allegory. In other words, the Lucan text is already open for an allegorical interpretation (154). This insight, however, does not change the textual fact that Luke did not allegorize the parable(s) himself. 45 Already in the Gospel according to Mark, we find the use of allegory to actualize a text for a new situation, see A. Lindemann, “Die Erzählung von Sämann und der Saat (Mk 4,3–8) und ihre Auslegung als allegorisches Gleichnis,” in Die Evangelien und die Apostelgeschichte (WUNT 241; Tübingen, 2009), 55–69, esp. 69. 46 From the rich bibliography I mention the following titles: B. Childs, Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testament (Minneapolis, 1993); B. Childs, The Church’s Guide for Reading Paul: The Canonical Shaping of the Pauline Corpus (Grand Rapids, 2008), esp. 75–78, 253–259; U. Luz, “Kanonische Exegese und Hermeneutik der Wirkungsgeschichte,” in Die Wurzel aller Theologie: Sentire cum Ecclesia: FS zum 60. Geburtstag von Urs von Arx (ed. H. Gerny et al.; Bern, 2003), 40–57; E. Lemcio and R.W. Wall, The New Testament as Canon (JSNTSup 76; Sheffield, 1992); J. Schröter, “Die Bedeutung des Kanons für eine Theologie des Neuen Testaments: Konzeptionelle Überlegungen angesichts der gegenwärtigen Diskussion,” in Aufgabe und Durchführung einer Theologie des Neuen Testaments (ed. C. Breytenbach and J. Frey; WUNT 205; Tübingen, 2007), 135–158; M. Oeming, Biblische Hermeneutik: Eine Einführung (2nd ed.; Darmstadt, 2007), 75–82; J.-M. Auwers and H.-J. de Jonge, eds., The Biblical Canons (Leuven, 2003).

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texts of the Old and the New Testament, is of primary importance. 47 Thus, the function of the canon is to provide a framework, within which the individual witnesses can be understood. For the Protestants with their inherited principle of returning to the origins (ad fontes), the Bible stands over against the Church. The tendency to raise critical questions about the Church’s tradition makes it much easier and tempting to give priority to the earliest strata of the New Testament, for example, to give priority to “Jesus” over against the gospels. Continuously attempting to come closer to the “historical Jesus” by using the “right” method and to the so-called “original” version of a parable of Jesus over against the parables of the “Jesus Christ of the gospels” is in some respects betraying their own traditional principle, “sola scriptura.”48 From this point of view, the canon as such plays an insignificant role in the exegesis of the biblical texts.49 The question regarding the parables is the following: Should the parables be read by themselves, as isolated literary units with particular theological and ethical messages, or should they be read in relation to the rest of what is known about Jesus, as an integral part of the entire εὐαγγέλιον? The other question is whether the parables should be read in the context of the Gospel in their current textual form, or whether we should try somehow to come closer to an “original form” of a parable, ignoring its canonical form and state. For the patristic reading of the parables the answer to this question is clear. As a representative statement I will mention a text of Irenaeus, who protests against the Valentinians’ perversion of Scripture to support their own opinions:50 They gather their views from other sources than the Scriptures and, to use a common proverb, they strive to weave ropes of sand, while they endeavour to adapt with an air of probability to their own peculiar assertions the parables of the Lord (παραβολὰς κυριακάς), the sayings of the prophets, and the words of the apostles, in order that their scheme may not seem altogether without support. In doing so, however, they disregard the order and the connection of the Scriptures, and so far as in them lies, dismember and 47 For a statement from an Orthodox point of view, see P. Vasileiadis, “Canon and Authority of Scripture: An Orthodox Hermeneutical Perspective,” in Dimitrov et al., eds., Das Alte Testament (n. 35), 269–271. 48 For this problem of Protestant theology, see further U. Luz, “Was heißt Sola Scriptura heute? Ein Hilferuf für das protestantische Schriftprinzip,” EvT 57 (1997): 28– 35. 49 See J. Becker, “Theologiegeschichte des Urchristentums – Theologie des Neuen Testaments – Frühchristliche Religionsgeschichte,” in Breytenbach and Frey, eds., Aufgabe (n. 46), 133: “Da die Idee eines neutestamentlichen Kanons und alle Kanonentscheide im einzelnen nachurchristlich sind, sollten wir das Urchristentum aus allen seinen Quellen zu verstehen trachten.” 50 Irenaeus, Haer. 1.8.1 (see n. 30); See also 2.28.3 (SC 294, 18, 277); Clement, Strom. 6.124.6–125, 3 (see n. 30); 7.96.4 (GCS 17.2:68).

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destroy the truth. By transferring passages, and dressing them up anew, and making one thing out of another, they succeed in deluding many through their wicked art in adapting the oracles of the Lord to their opinions. Their manner of acting is just as if one, when a beautiful image of a king has been constructed by some skilful artist out of precious jewels, should then take this likeness of the man all to pieces, should rearrange the gems, and so fit them together as to make them into the form of a dog or of a fox, and even that but poorly executed; and should then maintain and declare that this was the beautiful image of the king which the skilful artist constructed, pointing to the jewels which had been admirably fitted together by the first artist to form the image of the king, but have been with bad effect transferred by the latter one to the shape of a dog, and by thus exhibiting the jewels, should deceive the ignorant who had no conception what a king's form was like, and persuade them that that miserable likeness of the fox was, in fact, the beautiful image of the king. In like manner do these persons patch together old wives’ fables, and then endeavour, by violently drawing away from their proper connection, words, expressions, and parables (παραβολάς) whenever found, to adapt the oracles of God to their baseless fictions.

In the judgment of the Fathers, the parables can be properly understood only if we read them in the canon of the Old and the New Testament. In terms of modern discourse analysis, we could define a parable as a text that has its context in the larger narrative of a Gospel, its intertext in the whole of the canon, and a context that refers to the socio-historical realities within which the parable is set.51 Reading parables as isolated stories can be interesting from the point of view of general human religious experience or the particular religious experience of the people in Galilee in the first half of the first century, but when read this way, they have nothing to say about the greatness of the Christ-event (for example, the resurrection or incarnation, which are theological issues that parables generally do not mention). According to the Church Fathers, the parables are not general stories about God or the Kingdom of God, but they have a clear Christological purpose. They can and must be analyzed separately as literary units, but every theological evaluation has to take into serious account the gospels’ entire message, into which the parables are integrated. With the Church Fathers, we learn to read and understand Scripture, and the parables in particular, through canonical, Christological, and soteriological lenses. The biblical texts have to be applied for the present by this kind of interpretation. These aspects of patristic hermeneutics were and remain normative for reading and interpreting parables in the Orthodox Church.52 With respect to the parables, we can conclude that patristic interpretation is always a canonical interpretation. Its hermeneutical principle of 51

See J.-B. Green, “Discourse Analysis and New Testament Interpretation,” in Hearing the New Testament: Strategies for Interpretation (ed. J.B. Green; 2nd ed.; Grand Rapids, 2010), 218–239, esp. 226–227. 52 See K. Ware, How to Read the Bible: The Orthodox Study Bible (Nashville, 1992), 762–770.

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reading the Scriptures as a canon results in a canonical exegesis of the Bible. This is a key distinction from modern Western hermeneutics, which may have an interest in the canon and reflect on canonical themes, but this interest has seldom consequences for the concrete, theological exegesis of the biblical texts.53

5 Hermeneutical Considerations Today, after the Enlightenment and Historicism54, after a new understanding of autonomy and the freedom of the human subject (a new selfunderstanding), after the assertion that the Bible belongs to all humankind and not only to the Church, after the Holocaust,55 after globalization, after the scientific revolutions,56 after the new insights into the historical development of humankind, after the basic conviction that every reading is theory-laden and historically conditioned, and finally after the rejection of all 53 I am thinking here of the process of the “de-canonisation” in the western interpretation of the biblical texts as a natural consequence of historical criticism. See e.g. O. Wischmeyer, “Texte, Text und Rezeption: Das Paradigma der Text-RezeptionsHermeneutik des Neuen Testaments,” in Die Bibel als Text: Beiträge zu einer textbezogenen Bibelhermeneutik, (O. Wischmeyer and S. Stolz, eds.; NET 14; Tübingen and Basel, 2008), 171. She argues that in the past the New Testament’ hermeneutics was “stets eine Hermeneutik nicht nur der Einzeltexte, sondern auch des Gesamttextes mit seinen universalen und normativen Anspüchen und Geltungsbereichen. Gegen diese kirchliche Kanon-Hermeneutik hat sich ein stetiger Prozess der Kritik und Dekonstruktion formiert, der seit der Aufklärung immer mehr an Dynamik und Einfluss gewonnen hat.” For the hermeneutical presuppositions of a canonical approach see Childs, Church’s Guide (n. 46), 31. For Childs, canonical reading means not simply to read all the biblical texts together as a theological unity, but to consider the canon as a kind of “hermeneutical guide” for the reading of Scripture. The order of the books in the canon is not only a formal one, but also sets the canonical context for its interpretation (with respect to the letters of Paul, 253–259), the norm for “canonical exegesis.” The relation of patristic exegesis from this point of view is quite difficult. I am not sure whether the Church Fathers betray awareness of such a hermeneutical role of the canon. The historical process of the formation of the canon, however, overlaps partly with the so-called patristic period. Until the list of Athanasius (369), there had not been a general consensus regarding the canon. In this regard, the attempt of John Chrysostom to reconstruct the historical chronology of the letters of Paul could be interesting. See Κ.-Ι. Belezos, Χρυσόστοµος καί Ἀπόστολος Παῦλος: Ἡ χρονολογική ταξινόµηση τῶν παύλειων ἐπιστολῶν (2nd ed.; Athen, 2005). 54 See K. Neumann, Die Geburt der Interpretation: Die hermeneutische Revolution des Historismus als Beginn der Postmoderne (Forum Systematik 16; Stuttgart, 2002), 11–23. 55 See, e.g., T. Oldenhage, Parables for Our Time: Rereading New Testament Scholarship after the Holocaust (New York, 2002). 56 See T. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (3rd ed.; Chicago, 1996).

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kinds of grand historical metanarratives which have served to enslave people and to suppress them under different ideologies,57 our approach to the interpretation of Scripture is changed. It can never be the same as the Church Fathers’, nor is it possible to repeat their readings automatically and without further reflection on our own time. Whether or not we consider the Fathers’ exegesis to be outdated or even “wrong” is another question, as is the question of whether or not we are ready to gain something from them for our own interpretation. With regard to this issue, I would like to offer some brief observations. 5.1 The Parables as Open Texts: Against Standing Metaphor The parables are not texts that tend to illuminate only one point or only one thought. They are open for new meanings (“open texts,” according to U. Eco58) because they do not operate with fixed concepts but with images, symbols, and other “open” communicative means, as well as with metaphors, which are also open for new readings in new situations. Reading parables as open texts means giving them the opportunity to say something to every human being in every historical life-context. They contain a pertinent message for the life of one who receives or seeks it.59 The interpretation of the parables does not only have the task of discovering the fixed and anchored meanings that they have had in the past, but along the line of the intentions of the texts to create new meanings, which have the power to change people, to move them to act,60 to convey to them the responsibility 57 See L. Schottroff, “The Kingdom of God is Not Like You Were Made to Believe: Reading Parables in the Context of Germany and Western Europe,” in The Bible and the Hermeneutics of Liberation (A.F. Botta and P.R. Andinah, eds.; Atlanta, 2009), 169–179. See n. 4. 58 See U. Eco, Lector in fabula: Die Mitarbeit der Interpretation in erzählenden Texten (2nd ed.; München, 1994), 69–70. 59 See S. Croatto, Biblical Hermeneutics: Toward a Theory of Reading as a Production of Meaning (Maryknoll, 1987), 50. This is especially important in the frame of the contextual hermeneutics. A. Thiselton, The Two Horizons: New Testament Hermeneutics and Philosophical Description with Special Reference to Heidegger, Bultmann, Gadamer, and Wittgenstein (Grand Rapids, 1980), 12–16, argues that the parables need to be “re-set” in a different life-context. That is, for the parables to have the intended effect, they must be modernized, and told in such a way as to engender the reaction that was intended when they were first delivered. 60 See U. Luz, Matthew in History: Interpretation, Influence and Effects (Minneapolis 1994), 14: “Many, if not most, of the parables of Jesus are understood only when a change in the life of the readers or listeners takes place”; cf. also Weder, Gleichnisse (n. 34), 279–282. In this respect, the ethical reading of the parables by John Chrysostom is very helpful. His exhortation after the interpretation of the parables (“let us...”), and his connection of love for our neighbour with our own salvation, correspond deeply to the spirit of the evangelical message. See, for example, Hom. 78: Comm. Matt. 25.1–

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for deciding for life and love, to offer them a new sense of existence. The choice of new interpretations of these metaphors has to be, in my judgment, related to the core message of the whole Gospel, which is the message of love.61 Such interpretation must always follow the direction given by a possible original meaning in the texts that is already Christological.62 This is a good reason to continue exploring the text with historical-critical methods. Our interpretation must correspond to the intentions of the text that have to be revealed through historical-critical work.63 The Church Fathers were doing the same thing – reading the biblical text Christological as they wanted to be read – but, of course, without the historical-critical research of modern times. To illustrate this problem, I would like to take as an example the interpretation of the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30–37). In the context of Luke’s narrative, the parable has a clear purpose, namely, to give an answer to the question, “Who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29), and to affirm the Samaritan, a person who was considered an inferior human being in the eyes of the Jewish lawyer. In the patristic interpretation, be30 (NPNF 10:472): “Knowing, then, these things, let us contribute alike wealth, and diligence, and protection, and all things for our neighbour’s advantage. For the talents here are each person’s ability, whether in the way of protection, or in money, or in teaching, or whatever. Let no man say, I have but one talent and can do nothing; for you can even by one talent approve yourself.” 61 Cf. Augustine, Doctr. Chr. 1.36 (40) (NPNF 2:533): “Whoever, then, thinks that he understands the Holy Scriptures, or any part of them, but puts such an interpretation upon them as does not tend to build up this twofold love of God and our neighbor, does not yet understand them as he ought.” 62 The only original meaning of a parable that we can find out is the meaning given by the authors of the gospels. In my opinion, it is not possible to distinguish between a meaning given by the “historical Jesus” and a meaning given by Mark, Matthew, or Luke, because the only access we have to “meanings” is through the texts of Gospels that are at the end of a long tradition from Jesus to their authors. Thus, we have to deal with words of Jesus that have already been interpreted. Therefore, C.H. Dodd’s appeal “to remove a parable from its setting … as represented by the Gospel” and to “make an attempt to reconstruct its original setting in the life of Jesus” seems to be an impossible task (see C.-H. Dodd, The Parables of the Kingdom [London, 1935], 84). In general, exegetes need to rethink which meaning of a text they are trying to reconstruct, as well as whether and how we can know “the past.” See K. Jenkins, Re-thinking History: With a New Preface and Conversation with the Author by Alun Munslow (London, 2003), 7. For a fresh look at the topic of the “historical Jesus,” see J. Schröter, “New Horizons in Historical Jesus Research? Hermeneutical Considerations Concerning the So-Called ‘Third Quest’ of the Historical Jesus,” in The New Testament Interpreted: Essays in Honour of Bernard C. Lategan (ed. C. Breytenbach et al.; Leiden, 2007), 71–85. 63 Once one has come to an understanding of what a parable meant, then the question of “what the parable means” for me or my contemporaries can be asked. It is hardly possible to answer to the second question without already having answered to the first one.

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ginning with Origen, the figure of the Good Samaritan was consistently interpreted as a standing metaphor for the Lord Jesus Christ.64 With some slightly revised details, this interpretation was the dominant one in the Early Church.65 We cannot find an interpretation in patristic exegesis, in which the man who has fallen into the hands of robbers was a Jew and the Lord Jesus or his Church also helped a Jew, or even a reversal of the roles “through a retelling in which the church is the priest or Levite and Israel the ‘Samaritan.’”66 After the Second World War and the Holocaust, a variety of potential meanings of metaphors must be activated and engaged in the interpretation of the parable. The metaphor used in patristic exegesis is, from our perspective, not a standing metaphor. In the same way Luke’s parable gives room for the Christological and soteriological interpretation of the Church Fathers, we have to seek our interpretation of the – theologically engaged – metaphors to face our own new problems and questions posed by the flux of the history. Moreover, in the broader context of this problem, we must distance ourselves from patristic anti-Judaism.67 We can make an effort to understand it within its own historical context, but nevertheless, we must distance ourselves from it.68 My point is that all metaphors are historically conditioned and therefore not necessarily standing; timeless and always standing is only the message that a parable is able to convey, the message about the unique act of God in the Person of Jesus Christ proclaimed in the unconditional love of his world and people. Therefore, the meaning of a parable emerge through the context, in which it is read and understood.69 64 65

See n. 36. See the exhaustive survey of J. Welch, “The Good Samaritan: A Type and Shadow of the Plan of Salvation,” Brigham Young University Studies 38.2 (1999): 51–115, esp. 55. 66 C.H. Cosgrove, “Toward a Postmodern Hermeneutica Sacra: Guiding Considerations in Choosing Between Competing Plausible Interpretations of Scripture,” in The Meanings We Choose: Hermeneutical Ethics, Indeterminacy and the Conflict of Interpretations (ed. C.-H. Cosgrove; JSOTSup 411; London, 2004), 51. 67 For an example of a scholar facing the anti-Judaism in the patristic age, see M. George, “Antijudaismus bei den Kirchenvätern: Eine notwendige Polemik?” in Antijudaismus – christliche Erblast (eds. W. Dietrich et al.; Stuttgart, 1999), 74–92. 68 Here we face the difficult question of criticism and self-criticism in eastern Orthodox theology and exegesis. The term “criticism” needs further reflection. See some observations on this theme in J.D.G. Dunn, “Reflection on the Sambata Conference,” in Das Gebet im Neuen Testament (ed. H. Klein et al.; WUNT 249; Tübingen, 2009), 196– 197. 69 See the discussion about the polyvalence of the parables by M.A. Tolbert, Perspectives on the Parables: An Approach to Multiple Interpretations (Philadelphia, 1979), 35–50. In my opinion, only the openness for the new meanings of metaphors enables a “re-telling” of these “small metanarratives” in new situations and new life-contexts. The ability to “re-tell” a biblical parable is the ability of doing theology.

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5.2 The Parables as Theological Texts The parables are theological texts.70 To interpret them means doing theology. Their language is metaphorical. All speech about God must be metaphorical speech. The parables express theology by means of symbols and paradoxes, types and images. But all theological speech is a mirror: “For now we see in a mirror dimly” (1 Cor 13:12). The narrative theology and the symbolic expressions of the parables are quite closer to the people of today than to the conceptual and metaphysical thinking of most of the Greek and Latin Church Fathers, who used abstract philosophical concepts and metaphysical categories in the interpretation of Scripture. The Church Fathers have found out the direction of the meaning of the texts for their own time and for their own ecclesial and historical needs. They had their own way of doing theology, and their theology and exegesis were the fruits of the confrontation with the concrete issues of their own time.71 Their interpretation was a response to the particular challenges to the doctrines of faith and to the questions raised by the debates that dominated the theological discourse, for example, the unity of the two Testaments in the framework of the history of salvation, the Arian controversy about Christology and the question of the significance of the divine nature of Jesus Christ, the response to other metanarratives, like those of the Jews or of Neo-Platonism, and later the issue of the unity of the two natures in the one person of the Logos. Orthodox theological exegesis of today can claim to be on the paths of the Fathers only when the theological message of the Scripture is interpreted while taking into account the real life, the real people, and the real cultural contexts in which our interpretation occurs. In other words, to do the same thing that the Fathers did for their time means that a biblical text has to be interpreted according to the context of the new and changing condi70 See C. Link, “Modelle, biblische Texte zu verstehen,” in Neutestamentliche Exegese im Dialog: Hermeneutik – Wirkungsgeschichte – Matthäusevangelium: FS für U. Luz zum 70. Geburtstag, (eds. P. Lampe et al.; Neukirchen-Vluyn, 2008), 33–43, esp. 40: “Im Gleichnis lässt Gott sich durch ein Stück Weltwirklichkeit vertreten, und nur diese Vertretung ist es, die und durch die wir verstehen.” 71 For how the parables were involved in the theological discussion of the second century see, for example, N. Brox, Offenbarung, Gnosis und gnostischer Mythos bei Irenäus von Lyon (SPS 1; Salzburg 1966), 62–63. For the contextual exegesis of the Church Fathers, see F.M. Young, Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture (Cambridge, 1997), 244–246. See also S. Agouridis, “The Orthodox Church and Contemporary Biblical Research,” in Dunn et al., eds., Auslegung (n. 10), 147–148. It is important to stress the fact that patristic theology was a theology based on Scripture. The Holy Scripture was an indispensible theological guide (see Jerome, Comm. Isa. Prol [CCL 73:1]: “ignorance of the Scripture is ignorance of Christ” [“ignoratio scripturarum ignoratio Christi est”]).

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tions of postmodernity in order to render the text’s message accessible to and compatible with the present. This is the only way, in which the claim of the Scripture itself can be realized. I quote a very important hermeneutical consideration in this regard: In other words, for those who accept scriptural authority, the world of the text gives meaning to the world outside the text. Conversely, the world outside the text enables the meaning inside the text to be discerned. We are not talking about ‘eisegesis’ so much as the inevitable process of hermeneutics. An authoritative text is understood to refer to the world in which people live, and so its meaning is bound to be received or contested in the light of the plausibility structures of the culture which receives the text. A culture which can conceive of the material universe as interpenetrated by another reality, which is transcendent and spiritual, will read the reference of scripture in those terms. That is far more significant for the differences between ancient and modern exegesis than any supposed ‘method’. Methodologically exegesis involves many of the same procedures. 72

6 Conclusion The Orthodox Church is a particular “interpretive community” with a long and rich tradition of spirituality and speculative (philosophical) theology. It is an “interpretive community” in which certain interpretive interests and procedures are shared. Those interests and procedures have cultural and historical roots and backgrounds. The Orthodox Church has to be aware of the particularity of its models of interpretation and has to show respect for other, different interests, profiting from them and encountering them in dialogue, which is necessary for the practice of love in Jesus Christ. To practice this dialogue would mean to opt against any form of absolute or authoritarian reading of the biblical texts. Reading the parables in the framework of Orthodox tradition means the following: a) The Christological dimension of the parables must not be lost! This is peculiar to them; it is the most outstanding feature that makes them different from simple religious stories. They demand to be read in a Christological framework; they give this direction and perspective all by themselves! At least from an exegetical point of view, in the parables occurs, something of a paradox: Jesus speaks symbolically about himself, about his role in the history of salvation (in the past, in the Gospels), and he also speaks now, through the voice of the living Christ of faith (the task of theology). In spite of the possibility of multiple readings of the parables and their openness for various interpretations, the Christological message that they doubtless contain must be conveyed always and everywhere. 72

Young, Exegesis (n. 71), 139.

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b) The parables as “small metanarratives” are integrated in a vision provided by the whole biblical message and vice versa. The messages of the parables can be properly conveyed only within the canonical framework. When the parables are read as isolated units, there is a danger of a reductionistic distortion. Once placed in the narrower context of the text of a gospel and then in the broader context of the Bible, a parable expresses an intended meaning or multiple possible and legitimate meanings, with which exegetes have to work. I would like to conclude with a word from Gregory of Nyssa, who speaks about the openness of methodology in the interpretation of Scripture. For the Church Fathers, the most important point in an interpretation is not the name of the method but the ὠφέλεια (the utility) that one has from this interpretation: οὐδὲν περὶ τοῦ ὀνόµατος διοισόµεθα, µόνον εἰ τῶν ἐπωφελῶν ἔχοιτο νοηµάτων.73 Orthodox biblical scholarship has to reconsider where the ὠφέλεια for today’s application of the Scripture lies. Thus, it would be possible to preserve and update the rich tradition of patristic hermeneutics and at the same time to be open to a creative reception of the historical-critical method and other approaches to the biblical texts that seek to give understandable answers to the questions of the postmodern era, questions that are new and were unknown at the premodern time of the Church Fathers.74

73 74

Hom. 1–15 in Cant. prol (GNO 6.5). In my contribution I have operated with the general concept of the “Church Fathers” as the authorities from the past. See V. Michoc, “The Actuality of Church Fathers’ Biblical Exegesis” in Dunn et al., eds., Auslegung (n. 10), 5–6. This is, however, only one dimension of the concept, the historical one. From the theological point of view, the time of the Church Fathers is identical with the time of the Church, see Karakolis, “Erwägungen” (n. 35), 21–22.

Jesus and His Followers in Galilee: Albert Schweitzer’s Reconstruction CARL R. HOLLADAY

One of the most influential ‒ and provocative ‒ construals of Jesus’ Galilean ministry was formulated by Albert Schweitzer in The Quest of the Historical Jesus. This highly controversial work, which challenged assumptions lying behind much nineteenth-century (and earlier) Life-of-Jesus research, was first published in German in 1906.1 A much expanded second German edition appeared in 1913, followed by numerous reprintings (editions).2 An English translation of the first edition by William Montgomery was published in 1910.3 A full English translation of the second edition did not appear until 2000, under the editorship of John Bowden.4 While Schweitzer was critical of numerous nineteenth-century lives of Jesus, he especially challenged William Wrede’s The Messianic Secret, first published in German in 1901 and later appearing in English in 1971.5 1 A. Schweitzer, Von Reimarus zu Wrede: Eine Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung (Tübingen, 1906); hereafter RW. 2 A. Schweitzer, Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung (2nd ed.; Tübingen, 1913); hereafter GLJF. Unaltered reprints occurred in 1921, 1926, 1933, and 1951 (with a new preface written by Schweitzer). The first Taschenbuchausgabe was published (reprinted) in Hamburg in two volumes, with an introduction by J. M. Robinson. It was also reprinted (without date) in volume 3 of Schweitzer’s Gesammelte Werke (5 vols.), ed. by R. Grabs (Berlin/München). Another reprint of the 1966 “seventh” one-volume edition appeared in 1984: A. Schweitzer, Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung (9th ed., reprint of the 7th ed.; Tübingen, 1984). 3 The English translation was published in England as The Quest of the Historical Jesus: A Critical Study of Its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede (trans. W. Montgomery; London, 1910). It was also published the same year in a re-set and re-paginated English edition by Macmillan (New York). Hereafter Montgomery, QHJ. 4 A. Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus: First Complete Edition (ed. J. Bowden; trans. W. Montgomery et al.; London, 2000; Minneapolis, 2001); hereafter Bowden, QHJ. 5 W. Wrede, Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien: Zugleich ein Beitrag zum Verständnis der Markusevangeliums (Göttingen, 1901; repr. unaltered 3rd ed., 1963) = The Messianic Secret (trans. J. C. G. Greig: Cambridge, 1971).

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Whereas Wrede’s predecessors had read Mark as an early, historically reliable account of Jesus’ ministry, he interpreted Mark as a heavily slanted theological work in which many features of Christian belief that had developed after Jesus’ death, most notably his messianic consciousness, were attributed by Mark to Jesus himself. Schweitzer characterized Wrede’s overall reconstruction of Jesus’ life and ministry as “thoroughgoing skepticism.” By this he meant Wrede’s tendency to doubt the authenticity of the messianic claims Mark attributes to Jesus. Instead, Wrede insists that Mark’s description of Jesus’ ministry, including both his words and deeds, rather than being read as a straightforward, realistic, and thus reliable account, reflects a thoroughly post-Easter perspective. Schweitzer’s self-styled “thoroughgoing eschatology” offered an alternative to Wrede. Rather than seeing aspects of the Synoptic portrait of Jesus, such as Jesus’ Davidic lineage, as later Christian beliefs that were retrojected back into the Gospel accounts, Schweitzer tended to take them at face value. This was especially the case with features of Jesus’ teachings and actions that were closely aligned with contemporary Jewish apocalyptic thought, such as the kingdom of God/heaven, Son of Man as a selfdesignation, suffering as a prelude to the end-time, among others. Although Schweitzer treated Wrede’s “thoroughgoing skepticism” and his own position of “thoroughgoing eschatology” in a single chapter in the first edition, he rearranges this material in the second edition, devoting two chapters (19 & 20) to Wrede and a separate chapter (21) to his own position. In sharp contrast to Wrede, Schweitzer relies heavily on Mark (and Matthew) for his reconstruction of Jesus’s life and ministry.6 Luke’s Gospel he largely ignores as a tertiary witness.7 Following David Friedrich Strauss, he excludes John’s Gospel because of its historical unreliability. Nor does Schweitzer employ the Two-Source Hypothesis that had been developed in the nineteenth century, a decision that was heavily criticized by reviewers and opponents.8 Rather than discussing these debatable features of Schweitzer’s views about the interrelationship of the Gospels, I want to focus on Schweitzer’s 6 Even so, Schweitzer acknowledges problematic features in Mark’s account. See Bowden, QHJ, 328 (= GLJF, 407). 7 On Schweitzer’s view of Luke vis-à-vis Mark and Matthew, see Bowden, QHJ, 522, n. 5 (= GLJF, 396, n. 1). 8 See P. Wernle, TLZ 31 (1906): 501–506; A. Jülicher, “Die Epoche 1901,” in Neue Linien in der Kritik der evangelischen Überlieferung (Vorträge des hessischen und nassauischen theologischen Ferienkurses 3; Gießen, 1906), 1–13, and H.J. Holtzmann, “Der gegenwärtige Stand der Leben-Jesu-Forschung,” Deutsche Literaturzeitung 27 (1906): 2419. These are noted, along with a broader range of criticisms, by J. C. Paget, “Albert Schweitzer’s second edition of The quest of the historical Jesus,” BJRL 88 (2006): 3–39, esp. 13; also 7, n. 21.

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reading of his two main sources: Matthew and Mark. By looking at the way he read their respective accounts of Jesus’s life and ministry, especially his Galilean ministry, we can surface some important exegetical issues that confront twenty-first century readers of the Synoptic Gospels. The overall contours of Schweitzer’s portrait are generally well known, but the textured details are less familiar. His profile of Jesus is etched sharply enough to warrant a close hearing, once again.

1 Schweitzer’s Reconstruction of Jesus’ Galilean Ministry Jesus’ early life is hidden in a cloudy mist. His hometown’s surprising response to the inaugural sermon in Nazareth exposes gaping holes in the story of his transition from carpenter to teacher (Mark 6:1‒16).9 His encounter with John the Baptist marks a reliable starting point, although the details of their initial meeting are obscure.10 When and where they first met, and for how long, is unknown. A trip by Jesus to observe Passover in Jerusalem may have provided the occasion. Jesus’ baptism by John is firmly established, but the significance of this event remains unclear. And yet, Jesus seems to have emerged from this encounter confident of two things: (1) he expected the imminent arrival of the kingdom of God; and (2) he saw himself as the future Messiah. He may have shared either or both convictions to some extent prior to meeting John the Baptist.11 But if 9 Bowden, QHJ, 316 (= GLJF, 391). 10 Jesus’ relationship with John the Baptist

is introduced at the beginning of chapter 21 (Bowden, QHJ, 316 [= GLJF, 391–392]) but treated more fully in the discussion of Elijah’s identity (Bowden, QHJ, 335‒338 [= GLJF, 417–420]). 11 The significance of Jesus’ baptism by John illustrates a point on which Schweitzer’s mind changed. In his earlier “sketch” of Jesus’ life titled Das Messianitäts- und Leidensgeheimnis: Eine Skizze des Lebens Jesu (Tübingen, 1901), which was later published as The Mystery of the Kingdom of God: The Secret of Jesus’ Messiahship and Passion (New York, 1914), Schweitzer evaluates Jesus’ baptism as follows: “Only this is sure: at [Jesus’] baptism the secret of his existence was disclosed to him, namely, that he was the one whom God had destined to be the Messiah. With this revelation he was complete, and underwent no further development. For now he is assured that, until the near coming of the messianic age which was to reveal his glorious dignity, he has to labour for the Kingdom as the unrecognised and hidden Messiah, and must approve and purify himself together with his friends in the final Affliction” (Mystery of the Kingdom of God, 160‒161). In the 1906 edition of The Quest, Schweitzer attributes this self-consciousness to Mark: “According to Mark He had known Himself since His baptism to be the Messiah, but from the historical point of view that does not matter, since history is concerned with the first announcement of the Messiahship, not with inward psychological processes” (Montgomery, QHJ, 352 = RW, 349). By the 1913 edition, the significance of Jesus’ baptism is more open-ended, when Schweitzer allows: “... the possibility that he already

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so, his baptism confirmed them. Shortly after his baptism, Jesus began proclaiming in Galilee the nearness of the kingdom of God. Even this early in his ministry, distinct features of each conviction are evident: (1) At this point, Jesus’ eschatological vision reflected his Jewish apocalyptic outlook: the kingdom of God would arrive soon; its arrival would usher in a supernatural, heavenly form of existence in which the elect would participate; like other members of the elect, Jesus would experience this supernatural existence in some angelic or heavenly form. Within this newly formed heavenly kingdom, the elect would be ranked hierarchically, from the least to the greatest, thus bringing about a dramatic reversal of earthly values.12 In the heavenly kingdom, the Messiah-Son of Man will enjoy a supreme, exalted status antithetical to his lowly, earthly existence.13 (2) His messianic consciousness derived from his Davidic lineage. Rather than reflecting a post-Easter Christological outlook, the “Son of David” titles found in numerous stories in the Gospels, elaborated in the birth and infancy stories of Matthew and Luke, and alluded to by Paul confirm Jesus as an actual descendant of David. Jesus as Son of David was not an identity created by the later church to reinforce its belief in his messiahship; rather, Jesus believed himself to be Messiah because he was a member of the Davidic family.14 To think of himself as Messiah because of his Davidic lineage is one thing; to project this Davidic, messianic identity into the future and envision himself as the Danielic Son of Man, exalted to supreme status in the heavenly kingdom, is quite another.15 They are not necessarily connected. knew himself to be the future Messiah before he went to the shores of the Jordan should not be dismissed outright” (Bowden, QHJ, 316 [= GLJF, 392]). He further says, “Whether the experience Jesus had at his baptism was really the birth of his knowledge of himself as the Messiah, as modern psychology assumes, must remain undecided. Modern psychiatry and psychology are not generally inclined to allow solitary hallucinations to bring about such a complete transformation of a man’s consciousness of himself and his whole outlook. They see them simply as incidental accompaniments of the thoughtprocesses which are going on at the time. There is some evidence in Jesus of specific as well as general preconceptions and reflections which suggest that he could have had some idea of his messianic destiny” (Bowden, QHJ, 316 [= GLJF, 392‒393]). 12 Schweitzer adduces Matt 5:19; 11:11; 18:4. See Bowden, QHJ, 256 (= GLJF, 312). 13 See Bowden, QHJ, 316–317 (= GLJF, 392–393). 14 Bowden, QHJ, 319 (= GLJF, 395). 15 Schweitzer identifies this problem in his amplified discussion of Jesus’ early life (Bowden, QHJ, 317 [= GLJF, 393]), but discusses it at length in his expanded chapter on Aramaic language, Rabbinic Background, and Buddhist parallels to Jesus (Bowden, QHJ, 252‒253, 258‒259 [= GLJF, 306–308, 314–316]).

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A descendant of David could exercise a messianic role, or “appear as a Messiah,” to bring about social reform, even free God’s people from political, military oppression. But why imagine that this Davidic messiah’s role would eventuate in a transformed, supernatural kingdom, in which he would exist as an angelic, heavenly being and preside as God’s vicegerent? Why, in other words, should the prophetic eschatology (prophetic expectations relating to the ‘appearance’ of a Davidic messiah) be linked with the Danielic eschatology (the vision of a heavenly kingdom of God in which the Son of Man rules supreme)? Or, to put the problem another way: why imagine that the Danielic Son of Man, who would preside in the newly transformed heavenly kingdom, must have had a prior earthly existence, in which he lived as a descendant of David? Schweitzer identifies two distinct streams of messianic-eschatological thinking within Second Temple Judaism. The first he designates as “prophetic,” since it is expressed most clearly in the OT prophetic tradition, beginning with the pre-exilic and continuing through the post-exilic prophets. In this version of messianic thought, which is reflected in Psalms of Solomon and Shemoneh Esreh, hopes are centered in a future king from the house of David, who will “appear” at some point in history, confront and overcome political-social chaos, establish an era of peace, which will culminate in an end-time resurrection and final judgment. In some texts, the return of dispersed Israel is another ingredient of this view. An alternative (and unprecedented) view is expressed in Daniel, hence the “Danielic” (or apocalyptic) view. In this view, hopes are centered in a transcendent, heavenly kingdom rather than an earthly messianic one. Instead of a Davidic king, this second view features an angelic, heavenly being who brings about cosmic intervention in which heaven and earth interact. Resurrection is also a key ingredient. First articulated in Daniel, this view is also found in the Similitudes of Enoch (1 En 37–71), in which the dominant messianic figure is the heavenly Son of Man, who does not spring from an earthly family but is a heavenly, pre-existent figure. Schweitzer regards these as two diametrically opposed conceptions that are in constant tension with each other throughout the Second Temple Period. In some texts, one view is dominant; in other texts, the alternative view dominates; in still others, both are present, co-existing in an uneasy, sometimes unresolved tension. The Similitudes of Enoch represent the first serious effort to synthesize these two conflicting views, but its solution is to make the prophetic view conform to the apocalyptic template of Daniel. The Apocalypses of Baruch and Ezra attempt a similar synthesis, with some faint echoes of the prophetic view being heard, but drowned out by Danielic-Enochic eschatology. Similar tension is seen in some of the Sibylline Oracles, but even there the superterrestial reality is finally dominant. While these various texts often present conflicting views, which make it difficult to extract a coherent, systematic picture of Jewish messianic expectations at this time, they nevertheless establish the context within which Jesus’ eschatological thinking must be understood. Like his other Jewish counterparts, Jesus wrestles with these two conflicting messianic traditions. What distinguishes Jesus, however, is the unique contours of the synthesis he formulates, especially its compelling simplicity. His synthesis “gives up the old notion of the messianic kingdom by identifying it with the eternal kingdom of the resurrection.” Rather than envisioning a messianic kingdom as the prelude to the resur-

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rection and final judgment, Jesus collapses them: the messianic kingdom (of God) occurs simultaneously with the end-time events. The resurrection does not follow, but initiates, the messianic kingdom. No longer are those who are alive at the end-time privileged over those who have already died and thus would not ordinarily participate in the messianic kingdom. Since the resurrection occurs first, the dead, even the righteous who perish in the final tribulation, can participate in the heavenly blessings.

While it is impossible to identify precisely the sources of Jesus’ messianic and eschatological views, Schweitzer can posit “borrowings from the Similitudes of Enoch.” Even so, Jesus’ eschatological views were his “own creation,” and they represent “his original solution to the problem presented to the learned scribes of that time by the prophets and Daniel.” That Jesus himself was aware of this conceptual problem is seen in his dispute with the Pharisees over the meaning and significance of Psalm 110 (Mark 12:35‒37). How, Jesus asks, can David, the early king of Israel, anticipate a greater, more eminent future descendant? Any such descendant would, by definition, be lesser not greater. How could David ever call such a descendant “Lord”? Jesus’ answer: the original David must have envisioned an earthly descendant who would be elevated to heavenly status, comparable to that of the Danielic Son of Man. Jesus, in other words, saw in Psalm 110 the solution to this conceptual problem of linking the Davidic messiah with the Danielic Son of Man. The blending of these two elements – Jesus’ expectation of the coming kingdom of God and his messianic consciousness – are aptly summarized: In the kingdom of God, all the elect were to be transformed into supernatural beings and allotted widely varying ranks; the Messiah-Son of man, to be David’s son as well, had to have been born of the royal house and to have lived an earthly existence; as the messianic events were imminent, it was to be expected that he had already begun this first form of existence. Given these presuppositions, it is conceivable up to a point that an outstanding religious personality of Davidic descent could see himself as the chosen one, who in the great transformation of things which was about to take place would be elevated to the rank of the Messiah-Son of man.16

While Jesus’ messianic consciousness probably originated early, perhaps was even deepened by his experience with John the Baptist, he steadfastly refused to reveal how this identity might unfold. Why he kept these expectations secret can only be conjectured.17 Sometime after Jesus’ encounter with John the Baptist, he appeared in Galilee proclaiming that God’s kingdom would arrive shortly and that people had to undergo moral reform ‒ repentance ‒ in order to participate in the kingdom. At most, Jesus’ ministry lasted a year, since the Synoptic Gospels report only one Passover observance. His actual “public ministry,” 16 17

Bowden, QHJ, 319 (= GLJF, 396). Bowden, QHJ, 319 (= GLJF, 396).

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however, probably lasted only a few weeks, from the time he first appeared in public until he sent out his disciples on their preaching mission.18 Even his so-called “Galilean ministry” is wrapped in obscurity.19 His travels and overall behavior were somewhat unpredictable. Rather than seeking opportunities to speak openly, he avoided people. Far from being a well-planned, carefully executed mission strategy, in which Jesus spoke enthusiastically to large, adoring crowds, his “Galilean ministry” was erratic, often punctuated by withdrawal. He was a preacher who preferred privacy rather than publicity. This pattern of reluctant proclamation and aversion to publicity is perhaps best explained by his encounters with the demon-possessed. These healing events, in which he exorcised demons, threatened to expose his messianic secret. In the Gospel accounts, this is expressed literarily through the demons’ use of appropriate titles, such as “Holy One of God,” to express Jesus’ true identity. The underlying reality is that Jesus feared that these events would blow his cover. The more he encountered such figures, the more uncomfortable it made him, and the more withdrawn he became. In his confrontations with the demon-possessed, Jesus experienced the deep conflict between “the urge to teach” and “the duty he felt to preserve the secret of his person.”20 He continued to teach during this period but as “one who knows that he should not do so too clearly or too convincingly.”21 From the scattered events, exchanges with opponents, and occasional discourses only a small amount of Jesus’ actual teaching survives. The figure who emerges from this tangle of sources and reports is not a “teacher” in any ordinary sense but an enigmatic figure who astounds, even confuses, his hearers rather than instructs them. Especially is this the case with the parables reported at the beginning of his ministry in Mark 4, which should be seen as esoteric teaching designed to inform and illumine his inner circle of disciples; they are not exoteric teaching aimed at the general public. Not that all his later parables have this limited purpose; but initially his parabolic teaching conceals rather than reveals the “mystery of the kingdom of God” to outsiders.22

18 19

On the length of Jesus’ ministry, see Bowden, QHJ, 319–320 (= GLJF, 396‒397). Schweitzer’s account of Jesus’ “odd aversion to publicity” during his Galilean ministry depends mainly on Mark 1‒7. Mark’s rather disorganized account (Matthew similarly) reporting a “series of uncorrelated episodes” (321 [=GLJF, 399]) reflects historical reality: rather than being carefully organized, Jesus’ activities were sporadic. See Bowden, QHJ, 320–322 (GLJF, 397–400). 20 Bowden, QHJ, 322 (= GLJF, 400). 21 Bowden, QHJ, 322 (= GLJF, 400). 22 Bowden, QHJ, 322 (= GLJF, 400).

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While many find this aspect of Jesus’ didactic behavior puzzling, it derives from his belief in predestination (Mark 4:10‒12).23 This conviction that an elect few had already been destined by God to enter the kingdom, and thereby experience salvation, was fueled by Jesus’ eschatological outlook. The future, he believed, was entirely under God’s control, and events leading to the future kingdom of God were unfolding according to a divinely ordained plan. To the wider public, he proclaimed a general message of repentance in view of the coming kingdom of God, but to his inner circle of disciples, who were part of God’s elect, he spoke in parables. He was aware of the tension created between his public proclamation, which offered salvation to all, and his private instruction, which limited “true knowledge” to the elect. And yet, there are cases in which God’s predestined will overrides reluctance to follow Jesus. The rich young man, refusing to give up his possessions, goes away sad, but Jesus reassures the disciples that “all things are possible with God” (Mark 10:17-27), implying that God’s all-powerful will would eventually override the resistant will of the young man. The blessings unfolded in Jesus’ Beatitudes reflect a similar outlook. Those who display the virtues that Jesus mentions are not rewarded with blessings; instead, they exhibit these virtues because they have been predestined to the kingdom. The “mystery of the kingdom of heaven,” as unfolded in the parable of the sower (and other parables of growth), is more about its divine inevitability than its temporal nearness.24 The metaphors of seed and harvest underscore the miracle of growth by reminding hearers that God initiates and oversees such “natural” processes. They also reveal a truth about God’s kingdom, which has been announced, thus set in motion, by the preaching of John the Baptist and Jesus. Just as surely as harvest follows seed time through the agency of divine power, so is God’s kingdom destined to arrive ‒ and soon. Besides having a metaphorical function to illustrate the divinely ordained set of events that Jesus announces, “seed” and “harvest” also have a realistic, temporal meaning. Jesus’ listeners could see fields of grain around them ready to be harvested ‒ the last such harvest anyone would experience, since it beckoned the arrival of God’s kingdom. The parable of the sower serves as both metaphor and natural sign: Jesus used the parable to illustrate God’s infinite power to achieve the divine purpose, but also to underscore the double meaning of harvest: the harvest of the fields around them signaled that God’s eschatological harvest would begin soon.25 23 The predestinarian character of Jesus’ teaching, which explains why he limited his parables initially to insiders, is discussed in Bowden, QHJ, 322‒324 (= GLJF, 400–402). 24 Bowden, QHJ, 324–325 (= GLJF, 403). 25 Bowden, QHJ, 326 (= GLJF, 405).

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The “secret of the kingdom of God,” more than anything else, is about the inevitable, systematic unfolding of the divine will: The secret of the kingdom of God which Jesus unveils in the parables about confident expectation in Mark 4, and declares in so many words in the eulogy on the Baptist (Matt. 11), amounts to this, that in the movement to which the Baptist gave the first impulse, and which still continued, there was an initial fact which drew after it the coming of the kingdom, in a fashion which was miraculous, unintelligible, but unfailingly certain, since the sufficient cause for it lay in the power and purpose of God. 26

Convinced that the natural harvest surrounding him betokened the arrival of the kingdom, Jesus sent out his twelve disciples to proclaim this message in the surrounding region. When Jesus launched this “mission of the Twelve,” he fully expected that God’s kingdom would be ushered in while they were away, engaged in their preaching mission. He did not expect them to return from this mission among the cities of Israel. Instead, during their mission two events would occur simultaneously: God’s kingdom would dawn and the Parousia of the Son of Man would occur.27 Schweitzer thinks it plausible to imagine that Jesus secretly thought of himself as the Son of Man who would appear while the Twelve were engaged in their preaching mission.28 He concludes this from Matt 10:23, when Jesus, in commissioning the Twelve, promises them, “you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.” 29 Schweitzer’s reading of this passage is straightforward: the Son of Man (and thus the Parousia) would occur before the Twelve return from their preaching mission. Since Jesus by this time believed that he was the messianic Son of Man, it was only natural for him to conclude that somehow he would experience (or trigger) the Parousia while the Twelve were away on their preaching mission. To entertain this expectation, he must have imagined that “he would first be supernaturally removed [from the earth] and transformed.”30 His declarations about being least and greatest in the kingdom of God imply that one could be transferred from a lowly, earthly role to an exalted, heavenly role; and that when the kingdom of God arrived, participants would experience it in hierarchical ranks. Those who suffered humiliation and persecution on earth would be elevated to positions of greatest importance and visibility in the kingdom. The “idea of metamorphosis” would have figured as a prominent element in his eschatological vision ‒ the sense that a dramatic transformation 26 27 28

Bowden, QHJ, 326 (= GLJF, 404). Bowden, QHJ, 327 (= GLJF, 405–406). Schweitzer describes how Jesus might have imagined his role as the eschatological Son of Man (Bowden, QHJ, 331-333 [= GLJF, 411–415]). 29 Bowden, QHJ, 327 (= GLJF, 405). 30 Bowden, QHJ, 332 (= GLJF, 413).

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of everything would occur. For the living, this meant being transformed into another form of existence; for the dead, it meant being brought to a new form of life. Thus, resurrection ‒ the belief that the dead will be raised to new life ‒ is “a special case of this metamorphosis.” It does not matter whether one is dead or alive when this metamorphosis occurs; what matters is that everyone will participate in these dramatic changes. “The resurrection, the metamorphosis and the Parousia of the Son of man take place simultaneously and in one and the same act.”31 In keeping with common apocalyptic belief, Jesus would also have expected to experience the “messianic woes” that were to occur before the final dissolution of all things. “As the future bearer of the supreme rule [Jesus] must undergo the deepest humiliation.”32 Given Jesus’ pronouncement that the bridegroom would be taken away (Mark 2:20), he probably expected not only to suffer but also to die. “Suffering, death and resurrection must have been closely united in his messianic consciousness from the first.”33 Whether he expected to die before the final cataclysm or to be alive to experience it remains an open question. What finally matters is that he could envision himself suffering, experiencing humiliation and tribulation, and even dying, along with the rest of the elect, and yet emerge through this turbulent period as the triumphant Son of Man within God’s newly established kingdom. Regardless of the form Jesus’ own sense of destiny took at the time he sent out the Twelve, it had a strong eschatological dimension. By this time, he was clearly operating with a strong “messianic consciousness,” and as time passed he continued to reflect this outlook.34 “In all of Jesus’ speech and action the messianic consciousness shines out.”35 An “authoritative ‘I’” echoes through his teachings: the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5‒7); his claim of authority to forgive sins (Mark 2:5‒10); requiring disciples to confess his name (Matt 10:32‒33); intimate access to God that made him a powerful advocate for the rest of humankind; choosing the Twelve not just as co-workers but as leaders with highly symbolic roles in the coming kingdom (Matt 19:28); granting extraordinary power to Peter (Matt 16:18‒ 19) and to the other apostles (Matt 18:18). Equally clear, however, are his efforts to keep his messianic identity secret. While his own messianic consciousness shows through his teachings and actions, he is not only reluctant to publicize it, but he also overtly suppresses it. 31 32 33 34 35

Bowden, Bowden, Bowden, Bowden, Bowden,

QHJ, 333 (= GLJF, 414). QHJ, 333 (= GLJF, 414). QHJ, 333 (= GLJF, 414). QHJ, 334 (= GLJF, 415). QHJ, 334 (= GLJF, 415).

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Thus, by the time Jesus sent out the disciples on their preaching mission, his messianic consciousness was fully active. Only if this were the case would he have commissioned the Twelve in the first place. And yet, to Jesus’ astonishment, his disciples did return!36 God’s kingdom had not begun, and the Son of Man had not come. Jesus’ expectations had been shaped by “dogmatic history” ‒ his eschatological beliefs informed by a Jewish apocalyptic worldview; those expectations had been dashed by “actual history,” the course of events that failed to conform to his expectations. This clash between Jesus’ own “dogmatic history” and the actual course of history resulted in the first “delay of the Parousia” to be experienced by the Jesus movement. It represented a major turning point in Jesus’ own thinking, because it required him to re-think his eschatological views and his own role as the Davidic Messiah. This crisis within Jesus’ own life and thought signaled the future of Christianity: The whole history of ‘Christianity’ down to the present day, that is to say, the real inner history of it, is based on the ‘delay of the parousia’, i.e. the failure of the parousia to materialize, the abandonment of eschatology, and the progress and completion of the ‘deeschatologizing’ of religion which has been connected with it. It should be noted that the non-fulfillment of Matt 10:23 is the first postponement of the parousia. We therefore have here the first significant date in the ‘history of Christianity’; it gives to the work of Jesus a new direction, otherwise inexplicable.37

Along with the expected arrival of the kingdom and the Son of Man during the mission of the Twelve, Jesus had also predicted that his disciples would experience a period of intense suffering (Matt 10:16‒33). Accompanying these sufferings would be an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which would enable them to speak boldly in the face of resistance and persecution. So understood, this bestowal of the Holy Spirit, anticipated in Joel 3‒ 4, signaled the coming judgment. It was seen as an eschatological sign marking the arrival of the last days.38 And yet, neither of these predictions came true. “[After Jesus’ predictions] there followed neither the sufferings, nor the outpouring of the Spirit, nor the parousia of the Son of man. The disciples returned safe and sound and full of a proud satisfaction (Mark 6:30).”39 The disciples’ return had proved Jesus wrong. This created a major crisis in his thinking, but several other significant events occurred at this time, while Jesus was still in Galilee.

36 37 38 39

Bowden, Bowden, Bowden, Bowden,

QHJ, 327 (= GLJF, 406). QHJ, 328 (= GLJF, 407). QHJ, 330 (= GLJF, 409). QHJ, 331 (= GLJF, 411).

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Among the most significant is Jesus’ identification of John the Baptist as Elijah (Matt 11:1‒19).40 It was widely expected that a figure in the tradition of Elijah would appear as a harbinger of the kingdom of God. But the identity of this new Elijah was a matter of controversy. Some thought Jesus fit the description, but Jesus took the innovative step of identifying John the Baptist as Elijah (Matt 11:14), a point later reinforced at the Transfiguration (Matt 17:9‒13). This conflicted with popular expectations because John the Baptist had proclaimed the coming of Elijah ‒ clearly a figure other than himself; and John the Baptist was merely a prophet without supernatural powers, who performed no miracles as Elijah had done. And yet, after the return of the Twelve, Jesus insisted that John the Baptist was Elijah, although this revelation threatened to reveal his own messianic identity. If John was Elijah, the Messiah could not be far behind. It was Jesus’ own messianic consciousness, finally, that forced him to identify John the Baptist as Elijah. “[Jesus] expected his own revelation as Son of man [but] before that it was necessary for Elijah first to have come.”41 Another equally significant event occurred at this time: the feeding of the multitudes (Matt 14:13‒21; Mk 6:30‒44).42 Rather than fixating on questions relating to the historicity of this event, as many earlier scholars had done, Schweitzer emphasizes its distinctive texture. When Jesus gives thanks and distributes the bread to the people, he does so as the future Messiah. Although the disciples and the multitudes are unaware of the symbolic significance of what occurs, the meal anticipates the future messianic feast that they would share with him in the coming kingdom.43 In this sense, the feeding of the multitudes was “an indirect disclosure of the messianic secret.”44 “The feeding of the multitude was more than a lovefeast, a fellowship-meal ... it was a sacrament of salvation.”45 As a sacramental event, filled with eschatological overtones, the feeding of the multitudes anticipated Jesus’ last supper with the disciples that occurred later in Jerusalem.46 At that time, however, the disciples understood its significance, because Jesus explained the meal as an anticipation of the messianic banquet that he would later share with them in the kingdom of God (Matt 26:29; Mark 14:25). Just as the feeding of the multitudes is rightly understood as a sacramental event with strong eschatological overtones, in which Jesus’ action 40 41 42 43

Bowden, QHJ, 335‒38 (= GLJF, 417–421). Bowden, QHJ, 338 (= GLJF, 420). Bowden, QHJ, 338‒339 (= GLJF, 421–422). Elsewhere, “the supper at Lake Gennesaret” is called a “veiled eschatological sacrament” (Bowden, QHJ, 341 [= GLJF, 424]). 44 Bowden, QHJ, 342 (= GLJF, 426). 45 Bowden, QHJ, 339 (= GLJF, 422). 46 Bowden, QHJ, 341 (= GLJF, 425).

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anticipates the future messianic banquet, so also should the rich eschatological significance of John’s baptism be seen. Rather than being a “symbolic act” in which washing metaphorically expresses the removal of sin, John’s baptism anticipates future immersion with the Holy Spirit. When John mentions his water baptism as anticipating Jesus’ baptism with the Holy Spirit, rather than separating them, he connects them. Both the repentance he required and the baptism that followed acted as “signs” of salvation. The idea of being “signed and sealed” had deep roots in Old Testament thought (e.g., Ezek 9).47 In later Jewish writings, the Pauline letters, the Book of Revelation, and early patristic writers, being “sealed” in order to experience salvation is a recurrent motif. Accordingly, “the washing practiced by John was … an eschatological sacrament pointing forward to the outpouring of the Spirit and to the judgment, a provision for ‘salvation.’”48 Shortly after the return of the Twelve, Jesus’ initial period of preaching in Galilee ended abruptly, when he decided to travel north to Gentile territory, specifically to the region of Tyre and Sidon (Mark 7:24‒30).49 In this withdrawal, Jesus was acting on his impulse toward isolation.

47 48

Bowden, QHJ, 339 (= GLJF, 422). Bowden, QHJ, 340 (= GLJF, 424). Schweitzer discusses at some length the importance of recognizing the strong eschatological overtones and sacramental character of John’s baptism. Only when seen this way, he insists, can we explain why early Christianity adopted this practice: “the adoption of the baptism of John in Christian practice cannot be explained except on the assumption that it was the sacrament of the eschatological community, a revealed means of securing ‘salvation’ which was not altered in the slightest by the messiahship of Jesus” (Bowden, QHJ, 341 [= GLJF, 425]). What is remarkable is that the practice of Christian baptism is nowhere justified by pointing to the example of Jesus’ baptism. Jesus neither commanded baptism nor baptized others. And yet the early church embraced this practice. Why? “The dual significance of ancient baptism, which makes it the guarantee both of the bestowal of the Spirit and of deliverance from the judgment, indicates that it is none other than the eschatological baptism of John” (Bowden, QHJ, 342 [= GLJF, 426]). From the earliest period of the ministries of John the Baptist and Jesus, “eschatological sacraments” figure prominently. Standard treatments of church history and Christian dogma tended to see this early, formative period of John and Jesus as a pristine time, devoid of any explicit sacramental significance. Only later, it was usually argued, with the expansion and development of Christianity into second century, did these pristine forms of practice ‒ baptism and fellowship meals ‒ acquire “magical (sacramental) overtones.” But the reverse is true. Sacramental practices were there from the start: “From the beginning, baptism and the Lord’s Supper existed as eschatological sacraments in the movement which later detached itself from Judaism under the name of Christianity” (Bowden, QHJ, 341 [= GLJF, 425]). Possessing such strong sacramental theology helps explain why early Christianity appealed to “the spirits of the East” and “Hellenism” (Bowden, QHJ, 342 [= GLJF, 426]). 49 Bowden, QHJ, 320‒321, 331 (= GLJF, 397–399, 411‒412).

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The cluster of events recorded by Matthew and Mark at this juncture in Jesus’ life abounds with confusion.50 There is no clear logic to the pattern of Jesus’ geographical movements; he seems to travel in a circuitous route.51 Recording the feeding of the four thousand (Mark 8:1–10) seems redundant, coming so soon after the earlier miraculous feeding (Mark 6:30–44). The two accounts appear to be different versions of the same event. The sequence of Peter’s confession at Caesarea Philippi (Mark 8:27–9:1) and Jesus’ transfiguration “six days later” (Mark 9:2–13) appears out of order. It would be more sensible if their order were reversed: Jesus’ true identity is first revealed to Peter, James, and John in a moment of heavenly ecstasy, after which Peter reveals it to all the disciples at Caesarea Philippi.52 And a close reading of both events suggests that they 50 51

Bowden, QHJ, 344 (= GLJF, 429). In Mark, Jesus first travels north to Tyre and Sidon (Mark 7:24‒30), then (by way of Sidon !) south to the region of the Ten Cities (Mark 7:31‒37). A second miraculous feeding occurs ‒ the feeding of the four thousand (Mark 8:1‒10). This is followed by disputes with the Pharisees (Mark 8:11‒13) and Jesus’ censure of the disciples for their failure to understand the significance of the feedings (Mark 8:14‒21). Then comes the healing of the blind man at Bethsaida (Mark 8:22‒26). After this, Jesus travels north again to Caesarea Philippi (Mark 8:27‒33), where Peter confesses Christ; Jesus predicts his passion, death, and resurrection, after which he teaches about discipleship. Next comes the Transfiguration (Mark 9:2‒8) and Jesus’ subsequent conversation with the disciples about the coming of Elijah (Mark 9:9‒13). Roughly the same sequence is reflected in Matthew. 52 Here is another instance in which Schweitzer’s views are modified. In the 1901 “Sketch,” Schweitzer straightforwardly reports the transfiguration as an event that occurred in Galilee (Mystery of the Kingdom of God, 167), after which Jesus becomes convinced that his suffering and death, not a general affliction sent by God, will initiate the kingdom. Shortly thereafter, Peter’s confession occurs (p. 169), after which he is rebuked by Jesus, and then Jesus begins the journey to Jerusalem, “the funeral march to victory” (p. 169). In the 1906 edition of The Quest, Schweitzer maintains this position: “to make the narrative coherent, the transfiguration, as being a revelation of the Messiahship, ought to precede the incident at Caesarea Philippi” (Montgomery, QHJ, 383 [= RW, 380]); he spells out the details on pp. 383‒386 [= RW, 380–383]). In the 1913 edition, however, the picture is less clear. Through some editorial changes, Schweitzer is more explicit in stating that the events underlying the transfiguration account occurred in Galilee, “whether east or west of the mouth of the Jordan it is impossible to decide” (Bowden, QHJ, 344 [=428]). The quotation cited above from the 1906 edition is altered in the 1913 edition, and appears to say that the “biblical order” is the correct order: “For intrinsic reasons, we should thus assume that in reality the ‘transfiguration’ represented a manifestation of the messiahship of Jesus and that the scene at Caesarea Philippi in fact preceded it in time rather than following it” (Bowden, QHJ, 344 [= GLJF, 428]). And yet, in his exposition of the transfiguration that follows, Schweitzer follows the same lines of the 1906 edition. In a lengthy footnote (Bowden, QHJ, 524–525, n. 25 [= GLJF, 430, n. 1]), he gives a detailed rehearsal of events recorded in Mark 6:31‒9:30, noting geographical and logical oddities. But he concludes emphatically: “It must be conceded from both

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probably occurred in Galilee, prior to Jesus’ departure “north.” Their literary sequence in Matthew and Mark appears loose and contrived. What appears to be two sequential sets of events in Matthew and Mark may, in fact, rehearse the same set of events.53 Even with this literary confusion, however, some things are clear. First, in the Caesarea Philippi and Transfiguration episodes, Jesus’ messianic secret is revealed.54 Second, a shift occurs in Jesus’ messianic consciousness. No longer does he expect that a divinely sent “tribulation” will initiate the coming kingdom. He is now convinced that his own suffering and death will be the triggering events. This is especially evident in his passion predictions and his teachings about the disciples’ suffering. Third, Jesus now decides that he must go to Jerusalem, not to engage in another period of teaching and ministry, but to suffer and die. As the Messiah, Jesus himself must now set in motion the events that will usher in the kingdom of God, and this will occur in Jerusalem. Fourth, Jesus begins to interpret the significance of his suffering and death through the lens of the Isaiah Servant Songs. He must do for the elect ‒ for others ‒ what they cannot do for themselves. He now sees that his death has vicarious overtones: As Son of Man, he is destined to die in order to give his life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45).55 Fifth, Jesus reaffirms that John the Baptist is Elijah. Since Elijah was a harbinger of the coming kingdom of God, this meant that Jesus’ messianic identity was even more fully revealed. Jesus’ final days in Jerusalem should not be seen as a period of “teaching.”56 They do not constitute the second major period of his ministry, a “Judaean ministry,” which complements his earlier “Galilean ministry.” Little actual teaching occurred in Jerusalem. The confrontations between Jesus and various Jewish groups and other authorities that are recorded in the Passion Narrative of the (Synoptic) Gospels, as well as his scattered pronouncements, should be read as narrative decoration. Nor should these anecdotal embellishments obscure the more fundamental reality: Jesus went to Jerusalem to die, to set in motion events that would usher in the kingdom of God. All of his actions should be seen as provocations with external and internal evidence that the passage Mark 8.34‒9.29 belongs to another place and to an earlier period. Thus the ‘transfiguration’ precedes Jesus’ appearance at Caesarea Philippi. This is the most important thing to establish.” 53 Schweitzer envisions the possibility that two narratives, each containing a feeding story followed by a lake crossing, an account of Jesus’ traveling from Galilee northward (Tyre & Caesarea Philippi), have been fused into a single Markan account. See Bowden, QHJ, 344 (= GLJF, 429). 54 These five observations are extracted from Bowden, QHJ, 346–349 (= GLJF, 432– 436). 55 Bowden, QHJ, 348–49 (= GLJF, 435). 56 Bowden, QHJ, 350 (= GLJF, 437–38).

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one overriding aim: his death at the hands of the authorities in order to realize his messianic destiny. It is therefore a mistake to speak of Jesus as really ‘teaching’ in Jerusalem. He has no intention of doing so. As a prophet he foretells in veiled parabolic form the offence which must come (Mark 12:1‒12), exhorts people to watch for the parousia, pictures the nature of the judgment which the Son of man will hold and, for the rest, thinks only how he can so provoke the Pharisees and the rulers that they will be compelled to get rid of him. That is why he violently cleanses the temple and attacks the Pharisees, in the presence of the people, with passionate invective. 57

Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem should not be read as the arrival of a humble servant, who is acclaimed by the crowds as God’s Messiah; that is, as an event in which the crowds recognized his true identity, which he was reluctant to embrace. Rather, Jesus actively orchestrated his entry into Jerusalem to display openly his messianic identity. Through his “triumphal entry,” Jesus wanted to signal, indeed publicize, his strong messianic consciousness and the conviction that his suffering and death would usher in the arrival of the kingdom of God. “The entry is … a messianic act on the part of Jesus, an action in which his consciousness of his office breaks through, as it did at the sending out of the disciples, in the explanation that the Baptist was Elijah, and in the feeding of the multitude.”58 Even so, the crowds were unaware of what they were seeing: “The entry into Jerusalem was therefore messianic for Jesus, but not messianic for the people.”59 Similar messianic forthrightness is seen in Jesus’ trial. The authorities tried to find witnesses to testify against him, but were unsuccessful. He was finally convicted by his own testimony, rather than the testimony of others: “The condemnation of Jesus depended on his own admission.”60 He had not been brought to trial because the crowds had concluded from his triumphal entry that he was the Messiah. Instead, he was brought to trial because of his own provocative, messianic actions. And at his trial, he continued to provoke the authorities, so that he would be put to death. Judas’ betrayal of Jesus should be seen in the same light.61 While scholars have long debated what Judas actually betrayed, some points are fairly clear. Not only did Judas hand over Jesus to the authorities, but he also provided them the opportunity for Jesus’ arrest. But more importantly, Judas revealed Jesus’ messianic secret. Like Peter at Caesarea Philippi, Judas revealed the true identity of Jesus to the authorities. Since Judas was the sole witness to this revelation, his testimony at trial would have been use57 58 59 60 61

Bowden, Bowden, Bowden, Bowden, Bowden,

QHJ, 350 (= GLJF, 437–438). QHJ, 351 (= GLJF, 440). QHJ, 351‒352 (= GLJF, 440). QHJ, 351 (= GLJF, 439). QHJ, 353 (= GLJF, 441–442).

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less. Conviction depended upon Jesus’ own admission. “Jesus immediately admitted [his messianic identity], and strengthened the admission by an allusion to his parousia in the near future as the Son of man.”62 As with the triumphal entry, so with Jesus’ betrayal and trial: The public was unaware of his messianic identity. It is not the people who tell the authorities about Jesus’ messianic identity; it is rather the “the priests [who] go among the people and induce them not to agree to the procurator’s proposal (to release Jesus).”63 Revealing this to the populace “changes [Jesus] at once from a prophet worthy of honour into a deluded enthusiast and blasphemer.”64 Until the very end, Jesus controlled events: “At midday of the same day ‒ it was 14 Nisan, and in the evening the Passover lamb would be eaten ‒ Jesus cried aloud and expired. He had refused the sedative drink (Mark 15:23) in order to remain fully conscious to the last.”65 Since Jesus had predicted that his death in Jerusalem would usher in the coming kingdom, and with it, the Parousia of the Son of Man and final judgment, his actions proved to be a serious miscalculation. He died, but the world did not end. Christianity began, but the world continued, and forever thereafter Jesus’ followers had to explain this second “delay of the Parousia.”

2 Some Issues Raised by Schweitzer’s Construal of Jesus’ Galilean Ministry Although Schweitzer was criticized for having a somewhat naive view of the interrelationships among the Gospels and the evangelists’ use of oral and written sources, he is keenly aware of the complex nature of the Jesus tradition as preserved in the Gospels. He is especially sensitive to the difficulty of capturing the dynamic interplay between sayings and actions reported in the Gospels and how these relate to Jesus’ own selfconsciousness. He outlines in some detail the challenges posed by any reconstruction of Jesus’ life: But who in early times could possibly have had a clear conception of the life of Jesus? Its most critical moments were totally unintelligible even to the disciples who had themselves shared in the experiences, and who were the only sources for the tradition. They were simply swept through these events by the momentum of the purpose of Jesus. That is why the tradition is incoherent. The reality had been incoherent too, since it was only 62 63 64 65

Bowden, Bowden, Bowden, Bowden,

QHJ, 353 (= GLJF, 442). QHJ, 354 (= GLJF, 443). QHJ, 354 (= GLJF, 443). QHJ, 354 (= GLJF, 443).

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the secret messianic self-consciousness of Jesus which created both the events and their connection. Every Life of Jesus therefore remains a reconstruction on the basis of a more or less accurate insight into the nature of the dynamic self-consciousness of Jesus which created the history. 66

While acknowledging problematic features of the origin and development of the Jesus tradition and its eventual recording in written sources, Schweitzer insists on the catalytic role of Jesus himself as the originator of these traditions. 2.1 Sources Like every scholar trying to assess the significance of the Gospel portraits of Jesus, Schweitzer well understands the implications of one’s decisions about sources. As noted earlier, Schweitzer’s reconstruction draws almost exclusively on Matthew and Mark; John is completely excluded as historically unreliable; Luke is referred to only marginally. Having learned from Wrede, among others, how theologically colored the Gospel of Mark is, Schweitzer acknowledges the difficulties of depending exclusively, or even heavily, on the Second Gospel for the core historical understanding of Jesus. He chastises earlier Markan scholars for thinking that the Second Gospel was written with “either complete or partial historical consciousness.”67 Consequently, the historian must draw on different perspectives. In Schweitzer’s case, this meant Matthew and Mark: “The life of Jesus cannot be arrived at by following the arrangement of a single Gospel, but only on the basis of the tradition which is preserved more or less faithfully in the two earliest Synoptic Gospels.”68 Schweitzer consistently notes problematic features of Matthew and Mark’s reporting. Mark’s juxtaposition of Jesus’ rejection at Nazareth (Mark 6:1-6a) and the sending of the Twelve (Mark 6:6b‒13) occurs probably because these two events were temporally connected in the tradition Mark inherited.69 What is historical is their “lack of connection.” The numerous literary seams and logical inconsistencies make it impossible to reach definitive historical conclusions.70 In some cases, however, the errat66 67 68

Bowden, QHJ, 352 (= GLJF, 441). Bowden, QHJ, 352 (= GLJF, 441). Bowden, QHJ, 352 (= GLJF, 441). In his preface to the sixth edition, Schweitzer reiterates this claim that Matthew and Mark are “the two oldest gospels” (Bowden, QHJ, xxxvi [= GLJF, V]). Dennis Nineham observes that Schweitzer thought both gospels originated in Palestine about 70 C.E., and that both rested on “a common source, which is more accurately reproduced now by the one and now by the other.” Schweitzer thought this source was traceable to “men who were present during the ministry of Jesus” (Bowden, QHJ, xxv). 69 Bowden, QHJ, 327 (= GLJF, 405). 70 Bowden, QHJ, 328-329 (= GLJF, 407–408).

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ic, disordered sequence of events probably reflects the underlying historical reality of Jesus’ unplanned, open-ended ministry.71 While we can appreciate Schweitzer’s decision to privilege Matthew and Mark in his construal of Jesus’ Galilean ministry, a century or more of Gospels criticism makes it impossible for twenty-first century interpreters to adopt the same approach. Even with continuing debates about the TwoSource Hypothesis, a more refined understanding of Q and its possible correlation with reconstructed communities of Jesus’ followers, resurgence of support for the Griesbach Hypothesis in various forms, and reassessments of the relationship between the Synoptic Gospels and the Fourth Gospel, the different perspectives on Jesus’ Galilean ministry within each Gospel must be taken into account (see Appendices 1 & 2). 2.2 Stages of Development in Jesus’ Galilean Ministry Another issue that Schweitzer’s reconstruction surfaces is whether it is possible to use a developmental framework to make sense of the Synoptic accounts of Jesus’ activity in Galilee. While he is willing to concede that the sending of the Twelve marks a major shift in Jesus’ thinking, he is consistently critical of efforts to establish clearly demarcated stages in the “Galilee” period. Schweitzer identifies K. A. Hase as the first scholar to propose two stages in Jesus’ life: initially Jesus accepts popular notions about the messianic age, then subsequently develops his own views.72 Hase’s claim to fame was to create “the modern historico-psychological picture of Jesus.”73 Holtzmann had confidently identified seven stages of Jesus’ activity in Galilee, the sixth of which ‒ his decision to leave Galilee and travel north ‒ was especially significant.74 Schenkel and Weizsäcker, by contrast, had distinguished two stages of Galilean ministry: (1) a period of success, which culminated with the dispute about ceremonial purity (Mark 7:1–23), and (2) a period of waning support, or even failure, which ended with his departure to Judea (Mark 10:1).75 Keim formulated a simi71

Bowden, QHJ, 321 (= GLJF, 399). K. A. Hase, Das Leben Jesu: Lehrbuch zunächst für akademische Vorlesungen (Leipzig, 1835); see Bowden, QHJ, 59 (= GLJF, 62). 73 Bowden, QHJ, 59 (= GLJF, 62). 74 H. J. Holtzmann, Die synoptischen Evangelien. Ihr Ursprung und geschichtlicher Charakter (Leipzig, 1863); see Bowden, QHJ, 176 (= GLJF, 203). Holtzmann’s seven stages are as follows: Stage 1: Mark 1; Stage 2: Mark 2:1–3:6; Stage 3: Mark 3:7–19; Stage 4: Mark 3:19–4:34; Stage 5: Mark 4:35–6:6; Stage 6: Mark 6:7–7:37; Stage 7: Mark 8:1–9:50. See Bowden, QHJ, 501, n. 8 (= GLJF, 203, n. 1). 75 D. Schenkel, Das Charakterbild Jesu (4th ed.; Wiesbaden, 1873); K. H. Weizsäcker, Untersuchungen über die evangelische Geschichte, Ihre Quellen und den Gang ihrer Entwicklung (2nd ed.; Tübingen, 1901); see Bowden, QHJ, 176 (= GLJF, 203). 72

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lar two-stage scheme, an earlier “Galilean spring-tide,” followed by a period of declining popularity, thereby identifying two sharply antithetical periods of success and failure.76 While some scholars, such as Weisse,77 had objected to such proposals, this tendency to derive “historico-psychological” developmental interpretations of Jesus’ Galilean ministry characterized many nineteenth-century lives of Jesus. Such development schemes, Schweitzer insists, are superimposed on the Markan narrative rather than derived from the Gospel itself.78 Schweitzer, by contrast, is struck by the episodic character of Matthew and Mark. Rather than finding in the Gospels a series of events with tightly knit temporal and causal connections or coherent patterns of arrangement, Schweitzer finds gaps and lack of clear organization. This is especially evident in Mark’s recounting of events in Galilee (chs. 1–7), in which Jesus’ journeys “have an odd unease and aimlessness about them.”79 Another example is the juxtaposition of the rejection at Nazareth (Mark 6:1‒6a) and the sending of the Twelve (Mark 6:6b–13).80 Equally perplexing for Schweitzer is the report and sequence of events in Mark 8‒9.81 Schweitzer’s analysis of this issue raises some important interpretive questions for twenty-first century readers. The overarching question is: What can we deduce about Jesus’ Galilean ministry from the Synoptic accounts? Does the loose arrangement of the individual episodes preclude judgments about the probable sequence of events? Is it helpful to distinguish between probable historical sequence and Mark’s narrative sequence? Can we at least raise interpretive questions about Mark’s (or the implied author’s) placement of events? Even if we grant that events roughly corresponding to the Caesarea Philippi confession and the Transfiguration may have occurred in a different sequence historically, does this prevent us from assessing how Mark’s arrangement of events should be understood literarily or theologically? Though critical of the way other scholars had interpreted Jesus’ Galilean ministry as described in Mark and Matthew, Schweitzer shares many of their historical-critical assumptions. Like his counterparts, Schweitzer be76 T. Keim, Die Geschichte Jesu von Nazareth (3 vols.; Zürich, 1867–1872); see Bowden, QHJ, 181–182 (= GLJF, 210–211). 77 C. H. Weisse, Die evangelische Geschichte kritisch und philosophisch bearbeitet (2 vols.; Leipzig, 1838); Die Evangelienfrage in ihrem gegenwärtigen Stadium (Leipzig, 1856). See Bowden, QHJ, 177 (= GLFJ, 204) 78 Bowden, QHJ, 327–328 (= GLJF, 406–407). In his earlier “sketch” of Jesus’ life, published in German in 1901, Schweitzer had critiqued the two-stage view of Jesus’ Galilean ministry. See Schweitzer, Mystery of the Kingdom of God, 63–69. 79 Bowden, QHJ, 320‒321 (= GLJF, 397–398). 80 Bowden, QHJ, 327 (= GLJF, 405). 81 Bowden, QHJ, 344–345 (= GLJF, 428–429).

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lieves that the Gospel accounts, if read critically, could yield reliable information about certain points. Schweitzer thus speaks confidently about Jesus’ sending of the Twelve and his views before and after this event; or about Jesus’ decision to leave Galilee and travel northward and what this signified. Later developments in Gospels criticism, however, most notably redaction and narrative criticism, have enabled scholars to ask a different set of questions. Regardless of whether certain events occurred in the sequence reported in the Gospels, redaction critics ask about the Evangelist’s theological views as reflected in the narrative as we have it. Assuming the Gospel narratives in the form that we have them, narrative critics ask about the (narrative) world envisioned, or projected, by a particular Gospel. Their question is not so much the historical probability or plausibility of what is reported, but the narrative logic of the story. These shifts in perspective enable us to ask about Mark’s (or Matthew’s) theological understanding of Jesus’ Galilean ministry, or how the latter is projected in the narrative world of the implied author. One might legitimately ask, therefore, whether the literary effect of the Markan arrangement is to portray two (or more) stages in Jesus’ Galilean ministry: an initial period of success that gives way to waning support and finally failure. 2.3 Reading Strategies: How to Explain Theological Claims About Jesus in the Gospels Although Schweitzer confined himself mainly to Matthew and Mark, his “strong reading” of these Gospels reveals a penetrating, rigorously analytical mind. He scours the biblical texts for literary seams that might point to redactional activity by the evangelist or community. The Gospels are read not only for what they reveal but also for what they conceal: attitudes and actions of Jesus, his disciples, the crowds, and others that might have become hidden in the fog of the church’s memory. He tracks logical inconsistencies like a hound, and he sniffs out their significance with a vengeance. To this methodical, systematic reading of the Gospels Schweitzer brings his knowledge of Jewish apocalyptic thought. And where he hears echoes of this thought world, he lingers ‒ and listens. Passages that others tended to ignore or minimize, Schweitzer probes. When Matt 10:23 reports Jesus saying that before the Twelve returned from their preaching mission among the towns of Israel, the Son of Man would have come, Schweitzer takes this seriously; and he presses the point tenaciously. This can only mean that Jesus expected the arrival of the kingdom of God and the Parousia of the Son of Man while the disciples were away on their preaching mission. Or when Jesus says that in the kingdom, the least would become the greatest, and the greatest the least, he concludes that in the coming

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kingdom there would be a hierarchy, ranging from the least to the greatest. And so on. His construal of the life of Jesus is both revisionist and contrarian. He constantly argues against the grain of “modern theology,” by which he means the scholarly positions that had developed during the nineteenth century and that had, by the dawn of the twentieth century, become a consensus. Such reconstructions tended to explain explicit Christological features of the Gospel accounts, such as “Son of David,” as later creations of the church; or, at least, as later theological perspectives that had been read back into the Gospels. Schweitzer tends to argue against such explanations. The confession of Peter at Caesarea Philippi, especially the Matthean version, which links Peter’s confession to the establishment of the church, need not be seen as a later interpolation inserted to undergird Roman Catholic orthodoxy or belief in the papacy and its linkage to St. Peter. Instead, it can be read quite credibly as the authentic words of Peter; and the church could well have been envisioned as a future reality by Jesus himself.82 Schweitzer is equally suspicious of scholarly explanations that question the authenticity of Jesus’ predictions about his future suffering and resurrection.83 He is also reluctant to dismiss the discourse material in Matthew as “composite discourses” compiled by the evangelist himself.84 Compared with some of his predecessors and contemporaries, Schweitzer’s reconstruction is conservative. He is certainly more confident about the historicity of certain features of the Jesus story than Wrede. Schweitzer’s insistence that Jesus operated with a strong sense of his own messianic identity, even from the earliest part of his ministry, going back to his original encounter with John the Baptist, calls into question a well established scholarly tradition that was extremely skeptical of Jesus’ messianic self-consciousness. One of the most well-known aspects of Schweitzer’s revisionist reading of Matthew and Mark is his insistence on the pervasive eschatological dimension of Jesus’ teachings and actions. Schweitzer weaves into his reconstruction of Jesus’ ministry an eschatological thread that is visible in every square inch of the tapestry. Jesus’ feeding the multitudes is not simply a miracle demonstrating his messianic power. Rather than being seen as a miraculous “fellowship meal,” this meal should be understood as an eschatological sacrament, which anticipates the future messianic banquet that Jesus’ disciples would enjoy with him. Those who were fed may not have 82

Schweitzer proposes that the church in Matt 16:18 “is the pre-existent church which will appear at the end of time, and is synonymous with the kingdom.” See Bowden, QHJ, 334–335 (= GLJF, 416). 83 Bowden, QHJ, 346–347 (= GLJF, 432–434). 84 Bowden, QHJ, 328, 330‒331 (= GLJF, 407, 410).

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realized this, Schweitzer insists, but the story has these overtones. Similarly, John’s baptism and his promise that it anticipates a future baptism of the Holy Spirit, which Jesus himself would administer, should not be seen as mere “symbolic” initiation rites, in which sins were washed away. Rather, Christianity embraced John’s baptism because it recognized the need for assurance ‒ salvation “signed and sealed” ‒ a central element of eschatological thinking. Sacramental elements are present within Jesus’ ministry and they were later embraced by the early church; they are not later accretions that represent early Christianity’s love affair with the Greek mystery religions. 2.4 Jesus’ Messianic Self-Consciousness One of the most provocative features of Schweitzer’s construal of Jesus’ life is his probing of Jesus’ messianic self-consciousness as it related to his role in the end-time. Schweitzer pressed the following questions: What did it mean when Jesus referred to himself as Son of Man? How did he envision himself in relation to God’s coming kingdom? How did he see himself over against other members of God’s elect, who were destined to participate in God’s coming kingdom? And how, precisely, did he envision his elevation to the status of “heavenly Son of Man”? What did this mean, assuming that he was alive when the kingdom was ushered in? Or what did it mean if he were to die before the kingdom came? How did Jesus himself think about cosmic metamorphosis, resurrection, the Parousia of the Son of Man, and final judgment, especially in relationship to each other? Especially illuminating is Schweitzer’s probing of Jesus’ unfolding messianic consciousness. He is interested in when ‒ how early ‒ Jesus’ messianic consciousness set in, but also how it developed. One of the most interesting interpretations is his insistence that Jesus expected the kingdom to arrive while the Twelve were away on their preaching mission; and that when the Parousia did not occur as he had predicted, that Jesus had to adjust to this first “delay of the Parousia.” And what did it mean for him to continue to hold to the expectation of a coming kingdom in these changed circumstances? And how did Jesus eventually conclude that, rather than God taking a drastic action to initiate the kingdom, he himself would have to do, because of his messianic identity and role? And then, how did this increasing sense of messianic destiny crystallize in his decision to go to Jerusalem, precisely in order to die? Schweitzer’s reconstruction of Jesus’ messianic consciousness and its gradual development challenged simple, straightforward explanations of Jesus’ ministry and mission. Rather than operating with a fixed, clearly defined sense of messianic purpose, which he possessed from the very outset of his ministry, or baptism by John the Baptist, which he then simply

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executed methodically in his preaching mission, Jesus possessed a much more open-ended sense of his messianic vocation. Rather than unfolding in robotic fashion, Jesus’ messianic identity interacted with historical reality, underwent change, and responded to God’s own intervention in history. It is a more dynamic process, in which Jesus’ own actions and sense of vocation unfold, develop, and change within the contingencies of human history. But at the end, in the final stage of his life, his messianic vocation became crystal clear, even fixed, as he took control of events in Jerusalem.

3 Concluding Remarks Though written over a century ago, Schweitzer’s The Quest of the Historical Jesus heavily influenced scholarly discussion of Jesus and the Gospel tradition throughout the twentieth century. Schweitzer’s influence was felt in many different ways, but is perhaps most visibly seen in the minimalist views of Bultmann and his successors regarding what can be known historically about Jesus from the Gospel sources. What especially commends his reconstruction of Jesus’ Galilean ministry is its sharply etched profile and his incisive manner of reading and cross-examining the Gospel texts. Also instructive is the way in which Schweitzer challenged the reigning consensus of nineteenth-century scholarship, most notably its tendency to attribute Jesus’ theologically provocative claims to the post-Easter church. “The evangelist is supposed to have been compelled by ‘community theology’ to represent Jesus as thinking dogmatically and actively ‘making history’: if the poor evangelist can make him do it on paper, why should not Jesus have been quite capable of doing it himself?”85 With such trenchant critique, Schweitzer invites us to reconsider whether the main creative impulse for the Gospel tradition should be located in Jesus himself rather than in his later followers.

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Bowden, QHJ, 315 (= GLJF, 391).

Jesus’ Ministry in Galilee in Matthew 8–10 CARL R. HOLLADAY

All four Gospels report Jesus’ preaching and healing activities in Galilee. Whether each evangelist, however, envisioned a “Galilean ministry” has been debated extensively. In this paper, we first review how each of the four Gospels depicts Jesus’s ministry in Galilee. Then, we look more closely at one section of the Gospel of Matthew to see how the First Evangelist shaped his narrative to depict Jesus’ miracle-working activity in Galilee immediately after the Sermon on the Mount.

1 Jesus’ Ministry in Galilee: The Different Perspectives of the Four Gospels 1.1 Mark The first few episodes of Mark (the preaching of John the Baptist, Jesus’ baptism by John, and the Temptation) are located in Judea. In 1:14, the storyline shifts to Galilee, where Jesus begins his ministry proclaiming the kingdom of God. All of the episodes and teachings between 1:14 and 10:1, which reports Jesus leaving “that place” and traveling to Judea and TransJordan, are located in Galilee or in nearby regions of northern Palestine. Mark includes numerous geographical markers that locate episodes in Galilee (1:14, 16, 28, 39; 3:17; 7:31; 9:30), Galilean towns (1:21; 2:1; 6:1, 45, 53; 8:22; 9:33), the regions of Tyre and Sidon (7:24, 31), Decapolis (5:20; 7:31), and Caesarea Philippi (8:27). In the “Jerusalem” section (10:1–16:8), Jesus promises to meet his disciples in Galilee after his resurrection (14:28). This promise is reaffirmed by the young man in the empty tomb (16:7). Retrospectively, the narrator reports women who witnessed Jesus’ crucifixion as having “provided for him when he was in Galilee” (15:40–41). Generally speaking, then, the first half of Mark’s Gospel is set within Galilee and its neighboring northern regions of Palestine (1:14–9:50). The latter half, by contrast (10:1–16:8), is set within the regions of Judea and

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Trans-Jordan, specifically in Jerusalem and its environs. In the history of Gospel scholarship, this geographical distribution of material in Mark lent weight to the two-stage view of Jesus’ ministry as comprising an initial Galilean stage, followed immediately by a Judea/Jerusalem stage. 1.2 Matthew The storyline of Matthew’s Gospel closely resembles that of Mark. After the Birth and Infancy narrative (chs. 1–2), which envisions the Holy Family going from Bethlehem to Egypt, and then moving to Nazareth (2:19– 23), the initial episodes reporting John the Baptist’s preaching, Jesus’ baptism, and the Temptation are located in Judea (3:1–4:11). The storyline shifts to Galilee with clear geographical markers in 4:12–17, documenting the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee in order to fulfill Isa 9:1–2. All of the episodes from that point forward, beginning with the Sermon on the Mount (chs. 5–7), through the discourse about community rules in ch. 18, are located in Galilee and neighboring regions of northern Palestine. A clear break occurs at 19:1, when Matthew reports that Jesus, having finished these sayings, “left Galilee and went to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan.” Everything from 19:1 through 28:15 occurs in Judea or Jerusalem, although the final commissioning of the disciples occurs in Galilee (28:16–20). Matthew also includes specific references to Galilee (4:12, 15, 18, 23, 25; 15:29; 17:22), as well as retrospective observations in the Judean section about Jesus’ Galilean ministry (21:11; 27:55). He also links specific episodes with Galilean towns, including Capernaum (4:13; 8:5; 11:23; 17:24), Gennesaret (14:34), Nazareth (2:23; 4:13; 21:11; 26:71), Bethsaida (11:21), Choraizin (11:21), as well as towns in outlying areas, including Tyre and Sidon (15:21; cf. 11:21–22), the Decapolis (4:25), Gadara (8:28), and Caesarea Philippi (16:13). Matthew also records Jesus’ promise to appear to the disciples in Galilee after his resurrection (26:32). Matthew reports the fulfillment of this promise in greater detail (28:7, 10, 16). Though Matthew greatly amplifies the Markan storyline, mainly through the addition of the five major discourses (chs. 5–7, 10, 13, 18, 23– 25), he adopts the two-stage division of Jesus’ ministry into a Galilean (4:12–18:35) and Judean/Jerusalem ministry (19:1–28:15). Unlike Mark, however, Matthew concludes his Gospel with Jesus delivering the Great Commission to the disciples in Galilee (28:16–20). 1.3 Luke The Lukan Birth and Infancy Narrative differs from Matthew by locating the Holy Family initially in “a town in Galilee called Nazareth” (1:26),

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from which they traveled to Bethlehem for Jesus’ birth, and to which they returned (2:39). Like Mark and Matthew, Luke places the preaching of John the Baptist in “the region around the Jordan” (3:3), along with Jesus’ baptism by John and the Temptation (3:1–4:13). Luke also locates the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee (4:14–15), although he differs from his Synoptic counterparts by reporting Jesus’ rejection in his hometown synagogue as an inaugural address that launches his public ministry (4:16– 30; cf. Mark 6:1–6a; Matt 13:53–58). From that point forward, until Jesus “set his face to go to Jerusalem” (9:51), Luke confines Jesus’ ministry to Galilee (4:14, 31; 5:17; 8:26). In this opening stage of Jesus’ ministry Luke includes episodes connected to Galilean towns, such as Nazareth (4:16; cf. 4:34; 18:37; 24:19), Capernaum (4:23, 31; 7:1; 10:15), Gennesaret (5:1), and Bethsaida (9:10; cf. 10:13). The main difference in the Lukan storyline is his addition of the Travel Narrative (9:51–19:27), in the course of which Jesus is said to have gone through “the region between Samaria and Galilee” (17:11). In the latter part of the Gospel, the Judean/Jerusalem section (19:28–24:53), Luke includes retrospective references to Jesus’ ministry in Galilee (23:5, 49, 55; 24:6). Accordingly, the Galilean section of Jesus’ ministry in Luke extends from 4:14 until the beginning of the Travel Narrative in 9:51; or, if the Travel Narrative, in whole or in part, is included in the Galilean ministry, it would extend to Jesus’ arrival in Judea in 18:35–19:1–10 (Jericho), and his final arrival in Jerusalem (19:11, 28, 45). 1.4 John The geographical arrangement of Jesus’ ministry in John’s Gospel diverges sharply from the Synoptic Gospels. Rather than reporting a few introductory episodes in Judea and then moving to a Galilean ministry described over several chapters, followed by a Judean ministry in the latter half of the Gospel, John reports episodes that alternate between Judea (Jerusalem/Bethany) and Samaria or Galilee. After the Prologue (1:1–18), the first episodes cluster around Jerusalem and Bethany (1:19, 28), whereupon Jesus travels to Galilee (1:43). Jesus’ first sign ‒ the wedding at Cana ‒ occurs in Cana of Galilee, near Capernaum (2:1–12). The next main section (2:13–3:36) is located in Jerusalem, where Jesus cleanses the temple (2:13–25) and discourses with Nicodemus (3:1–36). The storyline then moves northward to Samaria, in which Jesus’ discourse with the Samaritan woman is featured (4:1–42). He then travels to Cana in Galilee (4:43–45, 54), in which the healing of the official’s son occurs (4:46–54). In chapter 5 the scene shifts to Jerusalem, where the healing of the lame man at the Bethzatha pool occurs (5:1–9). This is followed by Jesus’ controversy with

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Jews concerning the Sabbath (5:9–18) and his discourse about the Son’s authority, resurrection, the witness of John the Baptist and Scripture to Jesus, and Moses (5:19–47). Chapters 6–7 report episodes in Galilee, including the feeding of the 5000, walking on the water, the crowds at Capernaum, followed by the bread from heaven discourse in Capernaum (6:25–59). John’s report of the unbelief of Jesus’ brothers is located in Galilee (7:1‒9, esp. vv. 1 and 9). The main geographical shift in John’s Gospel occurs at 7:10–13, in which Jesus travels secretly to Jerusalem. From 7:10 through 20:31, the storyline is concentrated in Jerusalem. Unlike the Synoptics, however, John reports an entire chapter of appearances in Galilee (21:1–25). By offering alternating geographical locations for Jesus’ ministry in the first seven chapters, John offers a distinct alternative to the two-stage Galilean-Judean construal of Jesus’ ministry. In terms of relative weighting of these two locations, John reports only a handful of episodes in Galilee, devoting far more space to episodes that occur in Jerusalem.

2 Matthew 8‒10 Matthew’s view of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee after his first discourse is unfolded in chapters 8–10.1 In this section he pulls together ten miracle stories (along with some other materials) in chs. 8–9 and then in ch. 10 reports Jesus’ second discourse about mission and discipleship. As the diagram shows (see chart “Matthew 8-10: Jesus’ Ministry in Galilee”), Matthew has drawn on three sources: Mark, Q, and M. He has also used Mark’s narrative structure but he has freely rearranged and supplemented it with non-Markan material. He has depended heavily on the two cycles of miracle stories in Mark 1:21‒2:12 and 4:35‒5:43. He has also included material from other parts of Mark (e.g. 9:27–31; cf. Mark 10:46– 52; 9:35–38; cf. Mark 6:6b, 34). He has omitted Mark’s first miracle, the healing of the man with the unclean spirit (1:23‒28), as well as the description of Jesus at prayer (1:35–39), but he has retained everything else in 1:29‒2:12. In some cases he has rearranged Mark’s sequence, for example, by placing the healing of the leper first in his newly configured cycle of miracle stories.2 Some of the episodes included in this cycle of miracle 1 The following section is a slightly revised version of my discussion of Matthew 8– 10 in A Critical Introduction to the New Testament: Interpreting the Message and Meaning of Jesus Christ (Expanded edition on CD-ROM; Nashville, 2005), 195–98. The accompanying chart expands the chart on p. 195. 2 Matthew also relocates Mark 2:23–28, plucking grain on the Sabbath, to 12:1–8 (cf. Luke 6:1–5).

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stories are doublets, which are repeated later in Matthew’s narrative: healing the two blind men (9:27–31; 20:29–34) and healing the mute demoniac (9:32–34; 12:22–24, where it has a parallel with Q [Luke 11:14–16]). It is not necessary to trace in detail all the editorial decisions that have influenced Matthew’s shaping of these chapters. More important theologically is to ask whether we can detect any patterns in Matthew’s use and redaction of his sources. From this comparison we want to learn what the literary shape of Matthew’s story reveals about his own theological understanding of these events. The cumulative effect of ten miracle stories told in such a compressed manner should be noted. Rather than telling all ten without interruption, like a good teacher, Matthew has grouped them in alternating sets, thereby making them more memorable: a cluster of miracle stories followed by other material, miracle stories, other material, and so forth. Even with the other material, the dominant image is Jesus the compassionate healer. This image is sharpened even further when, at the conclusion of Jesus’ healing of Peter’s mother-in-law, Matthew introduces the first, and only, formula quotation in this section: “this was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah, ‘He took our infirmities and bore our diseases’” (Matt 8:17). With this quotation from Isa 53:4, Matthew invites readers to see Jesus, the Isaianic Servant, being featured in all of these stories. By identifying another “dot” in Scripture, Matthew connects this cycle of miracle stories to his earlier sketch of the Messiah in chs. 1–4. Matthew already knows the Markan miracle stories as occasions for revealing Jesus’ true identity. Matthew retains some of these stories, for example, the demoniacs’ recognition of Jesus as Son of God (8:29; cf. Mark 5:7; also Luke 8:28) and perhaps the two blind men who addressed Jesus as Son of David (9:27–31; cf. Mark 10:46–52; also Luke 18:35–43). Several times recipients of Jesus’ healing power address him as Lord, perhaps confessionally (8:2, 6, 8, 21, 25; 9:28). As in Mark, Jesus is also addressed or recognized as Teacher (8:19; 9:11), but this title is used in Matthew by those who fall short of true discipleship. Thus the scribe on the verge of becoming a disciple calls Jesus “Teacher,” whereas the one who is already a disciple calls him “Lord” (8:19–21). Matthew also knows from Mark Jesus’ use of “Son of Man” as a third person form of self-reference (9:6; cf. Mark 2:10; also Luke 5:24), and he honors this usage in the second instance that he draws from Q (8:20; cf. Luke 9:58). As in Mark, only Jesus uses this title. Through this dazzling constellation of honorific titles, Matthew conveys the rich texture of Jesus’ messianic identity. The miracle stories are the medium through which the message of Matthew’s Christology is carried. As people experience Jesus the compassionate healer, they encounter him

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as Lord, Teacher, Son of God, and Son of David. As Jesus heals the sick, he enacts his role as Son of Man. In all of these stories, Matthew reminds us, we encounter the Isaianic Servant. Buttressing the christological titles are Jesus’ own pronouncements through which we hear him interpret his messianic role in his own words. We encounter him as the one who, like God, forgives sins (9:6; cf. Mark 2:10; Luke 5:23); prefers mercy to sacrifice (9:13)3; reaches out, not to the righteous, but to sinners (9:13; cf. Mark 2:13; Luke 5:32); and shows respect for Torah (8:4; cf. Mark 1:44; Luke 5:14). This section also amplifies Jesus’ universal mission sketched in chs. 1– 4. We are struck by Matthew’s decision to place the healing of the leper first, and to pair it with the healing of the centurion. Jesus’ instruction to the leper to “offer the gift that Moses commanded” identifies him as Jewish (8:4). Jesus underscores the centurion’s Gentile identity by declaring that he had not found comparable faith in Israel (8:10). Healing two Gadarene demoniacs places Jesus squarely within the Decapolis, Gentile territory (8:28–9:1; cf. 4:25), just as raising the synagogue leader’s daughter shows him extending mercy to a Jew (9:18). His eating with tax collectors and sinners (9:10–13) further reinforces the image of a Messiah moving beyond established boundaries to reach those on the fringes of society. Taken together, these stories show Jesus the Messiah enacting the prophetic vision of Isa 9:1–12 by bringing light to Gentiles as well as Jews (4:14– 16). Especially noteworthy is the location of these events in “Galilee of the Gentiles” (4:15). Matthew candidly reports the conflict created by Jesus’ messianic ministry. This is reflected in Jesus’ prickly words to the centurion in 8:11–12. While “many from east and west” ‒ Gentiles ‒ will share in the messianic banquet “with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob,” their counterparts, “the heirs of the kingdom” (probably Pharisaic Jews), will experience God’s most severe judgment. Having introduced this theme early, Matthew carries it right through the entire section. Jesus’ miracle stories become occasions of conflict in which “some of the scribes” accuse him of blaspheming (9:3) and the Pharisees accuse him of conspiring with Satan (9:34). His willingness to eat with tax collectors and sinners meets similar resistance by the Pharisees (9:10–13), and his disciples’ refusal to fast distinguishes them even further from Pharisaic practice (9:14). Just as these stories reveal Jesus’ messianic character, so do they reveal the rupture that Jesus causes within Israel. The disciples see it all firsthand: Jesus’ experience foreshadows the resistance they will encounter later. In relating this set of miracle stories, Matthew also anticipates the needs of future disciples. Not only would the church preach these stories but it 3

See Hos 6:6; also 1 Sam 15:22; Prov 15:8; 16:7 LXX; Ps 40:7; 51:19.

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would also draw on them for encouragement. A clear example is the story of Jesus’ calming the storm (8:23–27). The story stands alone in Mark 4:35–41, but Matthew places it after Jesus’ conversation with would-be followers (8:18–22). In the forefront are the disciples’ anxieties: coping with the demands of an itinerant lifestyle and meeting family obligations. Then comes the story of the disciples in a boat with Jesus on a stormy sea, wavering in their faith, crying for help, and experiencing Jesus’ power to calm the storm. The miracle story depicts Jesus’ power to control the chaos of nature but it can also be read as an allegory assuring disciples as they try to stay afloat in the turbulent waters of conflict, doubt, and outright resistance. Other stories probably function in the same way. The call of Matthew, for example, exemplifies the essence of discipleship: answering the simple call, “Follow me” (9:9). Just as chs. 1–4 prepare the way for Jesus’ inaugural sermon, chs. 8–9 set the stage for Jesus’ second sermon in ch. 10. He summons the Twelve to entrust them with his own ministry of healing and preaching. In sharp contrast to his universal outreach, Jesus limits their mission to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (10:6); eventually they will be sent to all nations (28:18–20). Jesus also warns the disciples of coming persecutions (10:16–23). They too will be charged as Satan’s co-conspirators (10:24– 25). Anticipating their fears and anxieties, he reminds them of the true costs of discipleship (10:26–39). His final reminder: as disciples, they represent him (10:40–42). As with the Sermon on the Mount (chs. 5–7), this second discourse has two audiences: the Twelve, as they carry out their mission to Israel, and future disciples who need to know what to expect, how to behave, how to survive, and how to maintain an authentic faith. Ever the evangelist, Matthew in chs. 8–10 gives us another panel of his messianic mural, presenting Jesus as a figure who embraces both past and present. Jesus the compassionate healer, who enacts the role of the Isaianic Servant in Galilee and instructs the Twelve in the protocols of responsible leadership, also stands in the midst of the church in which his ministry of preaching, teaching, and healing continues. Like the Twelve, the church has been commanded to “cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons” (10:8). These stories report what Jesus did; they also prescribe what the church should do. Through Jesus’ pronouncements and discourses, the church listens to his living voice.

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3 Conclusion As this brief survey shows, each Evangelist viewed Jesus’ Galilean ministry with a slightly different perspective. By analyzing how Matthew has utilized the traditions at his disposal, we have seen how he re-shaped one portion of Jesus’ Galilean ministry to achieve his own literary and theological purpose.

4 Summary of Discussion in the Seminar Our seminar heard two presentations. The first dealt with the construal of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee in Albert Schweitzer’s The Quest of the Historical Jesus. The second focused on how Jesus’ Galilean ministry is presented in Matthew’s Gospel. The first paper generated a lively discussion about Schweitzer’s provocative depiction of Jesus’ activity in Galilee. By insisting that Jesus’ preaching and healing activity in Galilee lasted only a few weeks, Schweitzer challenged earlier proposals of a Galilean ministry that was full of hope and optimism, a “Galilean spring” as it were, that gave way to a Judean ministry characterized by tragic elements. Schweitzer’s reconstruction called into question such psychologizing interpretations of Jesus’ ministry. Another point of discussion related to Schweitzer’s heavy, if not exclusive, dependence on the Gospels of Matthew and Mark for his reconstruction. While he was convinced that these were the earliest and most reliable sources, he was equally adamant in his rejection of John’s Gospel as historically unreliable. Luke, however, virtually falls out of his reconstruction. Some of Schweitzer’s critics noted his relatively simple theory of Gospel origins that reflected his distaste with source criticism. These observations prompted the seminar to note the critically important relationship between the Synoptic problem and modern reconstructions of Jesus’ Galilean ministry. How one understands the full impact and significance of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee depends on how one reads each Gospel account and relates all four of them to each other. Some discussion was given to Schweitzer’s controversial understanding of the kingdom of God as an eschatological reality − a state of affairs that would be ushered in at the end of time, prompted by Jesus’ Parousia. Of particular interest is his proposal that Jesus, at the beginning of his ministry, expected the end of the world to occur prior to the return of his disciples from their preaching mission; and that when they returned without this event having occurred, Jesus had to alter his understanding. The first “delay of the Parousia,” therefore, occurred during Jesus’ Galilean ministry. It

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was event that caused him to change his messianic self-consciousness and finally decide to go to Jerusalem, where he would undergo death and trigger the final consummation. The seminar raised the question of the current viability of Schweitzer’s “thoroughgoing eschatology,” which was informed by his understanding of early Jewish apocalyptic. The second paper allowed the seminar to engage in close textual study of a clearly defined pericope in the Gospel of Matthew that relates directly to our understanding of Jesus’ Galilean ministry. Some time was spent reviewing how Galilee figures into each Evangelist’s presentation of Jesus’ ministry. But the most time was spent looking at Matthew 8-10. What became clear from reviewing the individual episodes that Matthew includes in this section is how his use of his three primary sources − Mark, Q, and M − reveals his own theological purposes. While Matthew generally follows the sequence of Mark, he freely relocates episodes to advance his theological understanding of Jesus’ identity and mission. Examining Matthew’s composition of chs. 8−10 through the use of redaction criticism surfaces recurring questions about the historicity of the Gospel portrayals of Jesus’ Galilean ministry. More important than exact chronological or geographical precision in constructing an account of this stage of Jesus’ ministry is the overall effect of this composition and its location within the overall Gospel. The abundance and density of Christological titles and claims that are made in this series of episodes reinforce critical elements of Matthew’s Christological, e.g., his universal mission to both Jews and Gentiles as well as his exalted status as messianic Son of Man. The seminar explored a variety of questions that arose out of this analysis and discussion: What role do different theories of Gospel composition play in reconstructing Jesus’ ministry in Galilee? How are theological claims by each Evangelist reflected in their strategies of literary composition? Given the fluidity within the Gospel tradition relating to the chronological occurrence and placement of certain events or episodes, what sorts of historical claims can be made about Jesus’ Galilean ministry?

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Matthew 8‒10: Jesus Ministry in Galilee Matthew Matthew’s Sources

Luke

8:1‒4

Mk 1:40‒45

5:12‒16

John

1

Healing the leper

2

Healing the centurion’s 8:5‒13 servant

Q (cf. Mk 2:1; 7:30)

7:1‒10; 13:28‒29

3

Healing Peter’s mother-in-law

8:14‒15

Mk 1:29‒31

4:38‒39

Summary (Isa 53:4)

8:16‒17

Mk 1:32‒34 (cf. 3:10‒12)

4:40‒41

Would-be followers

8:18‒22

Q (cf. Mk 4:35)

9:57‒62

4

Calming the storm

8:23‒27

Mk 4:35‒41

8:22‒25

5

Healing the Gadarene demoniacs

8:28‒34

Mk 5:1‒20

8:26‒39

6

Healing the paralytic

9:1‒8

Mk 2:1‒12

5:17‒26

Call of Matthew and eating with tax collectors and sinner

9:9‒13

Mk 2:13‒17

5:27‒32 (cf. 15:1‒2; 19:1‒10)

Question about fasting

9:14‒17

Mk 2:18‒22

5:33‒39

7 Raising Jairus’s & daughter and healing 8 hemorrhaging woman

9:18‒26

Mk 5:21‒43

8:40‒56

9

9:27‒31

Mk 10:46‒52

18:35‒43

10 Healing the mute demoniac

9:32‒34

M (cf. Mk 3:22)

11:14‒15

7:20; 10:20; 8:48 and 52

Great harvest

9:35‒38

Mk 6:6b; 6:34

8:1; 10:2

4:35

Healing two blind men

4:46b‒45

5:1‒7; 8‒9a

3:29‒30

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SECOND DISCOURSE Matthew 8‒10: Jesus Ministry in Galilee Matthew

Matthew’s Sources

Luke

John

Sending the Twelve

10:1‒16

Mk 6:7‒11; 3:13‒19

9:1; 6:12‒16; 9:2‒5; 10:3

1:42

Coming persecutions

10:17‒25

Mk 13:9‒13

12:11‒12; 6:40

13:16

Exhortation to fearless confession

10:26‒33

Q

12:2‒9

Division in households

10:34‒36

Q

12:51‒53

Conditions of discipleship 10:37‒39

Q

14:25‒27; 17:33

Representing Jesus

10:40‒42

M (Mk 9:41; cf. 9:37)

10:16

Summary

11:1

M

13:20

The Crucified Christ and the Silence of God Thoughts on the Christology of the Gospel of Mark TOBIAS NICKLAS1

It is well known that the Gospel of Mark, likely composed in the years around or shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem, is probably the oldest written attempt to depict the life and ministry of Jesus through a narrative. Even if the author, a Christian of (at least) the second generation, made use of early written sources and the “Jesus story” was continually retold in his time, the achievement of the evangelist can hardly be underestimated.2 To appreciate the Christological profile of the text, therefore, means not only to discuss the use of various Christological titles but also to analyze the question of how the text as a narrative manages to present the good news of Jesus the Christ (and Son of God) 3 (Mark 1:1). The following attempt to approach the Christology of the Gospel of Mark is based on the final form of the text. This of course does not mean a categorical rejection of diachronic considerations, but they are secondary to my question, by which I seek to understand the Gospel of Mark as a finished product.4 1 2

Translated from the German by Christoph Ochs. A brief presentation of my thoughts on the Christology of Mark, intended for a wider audience, has been published in T. Nicklas, “Wer war Jesus von Nazareth? Jesus im Spiegel der Evangelien,” in Jesus begegnen: Zugänge zur Christologie (ed. G. Hotze et al.; Freiburg, 2009), 7–78, here 37–50, though it does not fully develop some of the ideas I deem important. 3 The question of whether Mark 1:1 originally contained the words υἱοῦ θεοῦ is a text-critical issue that can hardly be resolved, but it is not really relevant for the following discussion. See A. Y. Collins, “Establishing the Text: Mark 1:1,” in Texts and Contexts: The Function of Biblical Texts in Their Textual and Situational Contexts (ed. T. Fornberg and D. Hellholm; Oslo, 1995), 111–127, or P. M. Head, “A Text-Critical Study of Mark 1:1: The Beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ,” NTS 37 (1991): 621–629, both of whom regard the shorter form of the text as more original. 4 For the significance of such an approach to the Gospel of Mark, cf. already F. Hahn, “Einige Überlegungen zu gegenwärtigen Aufgaben der Markusinterpretation [1985]” in Ferdinand Hahn, Studien zum Neuen Testament I: Grundsatzfragen, Jesusforschung,

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1 Mark 1:1–15 ‒ The preparation for Jesus’s ministry Mark 1:1–15 already indicates the decisive trajectory for understanding Christ in the Gospel of Mark. From here, the threads begin that run through the whole of the gospel and only find their end in the final chapters. The question of whether Mark 1:1 belongs to the original gospel (and if so, in what precise form) is contested.5 The core of what the Gospel of Mark is getting at, however, has already been touched on with this verse: the gospel entails the good news of and about Jesus of Nazareth, who has become known as the “Christ” (resp. “Son of God”).6 The good news, however, is neither fully completed nor is it drawn to a close in the Gospel of Mark with its open ending. It only begins here.7 However, when Mark 1:1 is only understood as the content, information, or more or less selfevident formula of a basic Christian creed ‒ that Jesus is Christ ‒ its meaning is essentially underappreciated. To speak of Jesus as the Christ (and Son of God) is at best an appropriate framework for what follows, a framework that still has to be filled out with what is about to be narrated. 8 In other words, to designate the figure of Jesus of Nazareth as Christ (resp. Son of God) can mean quite different things since the term “Christ” or Evangelien (WUNT 191; ed. J. Frey and J. Schlegel; Tübingen, 2006), 385-407, here 388f. 5 Cf., e.g., D. Lührmann, Das Markusevangelium (HNT 3; Tübingen, 1987), who considers Mark 1:1 to be “secondary.” The question of J. K. Elliott goes even further; see his “Mark 1.1–3 – A Later Addition to the Gospel?,” NTS 46 (2000): 584–588. 6 J. Gnilka, Das Evangelium nach Markus (Mk 1,1-8,26) (EKK II/1; 3rd ed.; Zürich/Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1989), 42f. writes: “Verse 1 is … a summary of the entire work of Mark, not the title of the book, but the designation of its content” (translated from the German). 7 I not only take Mark 1:1 to be the heading of Mark 1:1–15 alone, but of the whole gospel, which is conceived, in turn, as an open text. A similarly formulated idea was proposed by J. Marcus, Mark 1–8 (AB 27; New Haven/London, 2000), 146; similar also is P. G. Klumbies, Der Mythos bei Markus (BZNW 108; Berlin/New York, 2001), 158f. However, contrast M. Hengel (who is quite polemical against this view), Die vier Evangelien und das eine Evangelium von Jesus Christus: Studien zu ihrer Sammlung und Entstehung (WUNT 224; Tübingen, 2008), 160f. [cf. M. Hengel, The Four Gospels and the One Gospel of Jesus Christ (trans. John Bowden; London, 2000), 91f; the German original is probably more polemical than the English translation; translator’s note]. 8 I, therefore, think that the significance of Mark 1:1 is not fully appreciated, when, e.g., L. Schenke, Das Markusevangelium – Literarische Eigenart – Text und Kommentierung (Stuttgart, 2005), 44, writes, “The book title ensures that the reader is already aware about who Jesus really is, even before beginning to read the text” (translated from the German). I would prefer to say that readers are informed about the titles with which Jesus can be appropriately designated, though readers still do not know more than Peter in Mark 8:20 and can still completely misunderstand the figure of Jesus.

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“Messiah” (and likewise Son of God) is semantically unspecific ‒ the manifold early Jewish expectations for an anointed one have been well known for a long time.9 But this also allows for understanding Mark 1:1 as a great riddle. The decisive question that should pose itself to the readers is how or in what manner Jesus has to be understood as the Christ or Son of God. A second question follows: how far can what is said by or about Jesus be understood as gospel, “good news?” Indeed, in the time of the text’s composition, the term “gospel” reverberates with two associations, on the one hand the well-known background of the Roman emperor cult and on the other its use in the Septuagint of Isaiah (Isa 52:7; 60:6, 61:1).10 In particular, the intertextual link to Isaiah 52:7 surely provides a first answer: the good news deals with the Jesus-proclaimed royal rule of God (cf. Mark 1:15), which in the gospel is closely tied to Jesus. Thus, the second question can also be rephrased: How is God’s royal rule, which is proclaimed in the text, and which is so closely tied to the appearance of Jesus, actually realized? My thesis, which I attempt to elaborate in what follows, is that the two questions above can only be answered if the final text of Mark is understood as a sensibly arranged unit in which the various intra- and intertextual links are taken seriously. The Gospel of Mark is, as such, more than merely the superficial redaction and composition of various original, individual stories that are more or less unrelated (and essentially could be rearranged). Only when viewed in its totality is a deep and deeply challenging answer offered to the questions posed by Mark 1:1 (and 1:14f.). The first key scenes follow. John the Baptist is, based on Mal 3:1, 23, probably understood above all as the returning Elijah, the one making way for the Lord, who describes the one coming after him primarily as the infinitely superior Spirit-baptizer (Mark 1:8), with whose recognition the recognition of Christ is ultimately connected.11 It is generally known that 9 Especially provocative here are J. Neusner, W. S. Green, and E. S. Frerichs, eds., Judaisms and their Messiahs at the Turn of the Christian Era (Cambridge, 1987). More recently cf., e.g., the complex presentation by St. Schreiber, Gesalbter und König: Titel und Konzeptionen der königlichen Gesalbtenerwartung in frühjüdischen und urchristlichen Schriften (BZNW 105; Berlin/New York, 2000). 10 More information can be found in any of the more important introductory works on the New Testament. Cf., e.g., I. Broer and H. U. Weidemann, Einleitung in das Neue Testament (3rd ed.; Würzburg, 2010), 27–33. 11 For the relevance of Elijah in the Gospel of Mark, cf. the study by S. Pellegrini, Elija – Wegbereiter des Gottessohnes: Eine textsemiotische Untersuchung im Markusevangelium (HBS 26; Freiburg, 2000). Pelligrini writes, “It would be too much … to speak of an ‘Elijah secret’, but it is certainly true that the recognition of Elijah (in the form of John the Baptist) presupposes and activates attitudes that are also necessary for the recognition of the Son of God (in the form of Jesus). For this purpose the figure of John, taken as Elijah, was rightly placed in the beginning of the good news of Jesus

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for the baptism scene in Mark (Mark 1:9–11), several Old Testament passages are important:12 The heavenly voice is a clear allusion to Ps 2:7 and very likely a reference to Isa 42:1.13 The descent of the Spirit on the one who subsequently proclaims the “gospel” reminds one of Isa 61:1, where the anointed, spirit-endowed speaker proclaims “good news.” It is now debatable if the baptism scene in Mark presupposes that Jesus, who just came from Nazareth (ἀπὸ Ναζαρέτ), is adopted as Son of God by means of John’s baptism.14 In favor of this argument is, of course, the link to the heavenly voice of Ps 2:7; against it is the fact that the Psalm’s adoption formula, “today I have begotten you,” has been omitted from Mark 1:11. Perhaps this question, coming from the later vantage point of Christological controversies, is an anachronism and does not really occur to Mark.15 He is much more concerned to give a textual sign with this divine speech: the story of Jesus, God’s beloved son, finds its starting point in the baptism of John. That this story will not be without tragedy is seen in the link to Isa 42:1. The beloved son is addressed in the manner of God’s suffering servant of Deutero-Isaiah; thus, it is already very faintly implied that sonship and suffering, for Mark, will come together.16 Also, the following scene in Mark 1:12–13 can be interpreted with the help of Isa 61:1, for the baptized is endowed with the spirit and is as such the anointed of God. This is corroborated in his (not explicitly mentioned, but still assumed) refusal to give in to the devil’s temptations. The discussion over further dimensions of this short passage ‒ for example, the question of Christ” (p. 383, translated from the German). Also, with Mark 1:14 and the implied fate of John the Baptist, the question poses itself as to what extent Jesus also will experience something similar. Cf. also the sensible thoughts of R. Feneberg, Der Jude Jesus und die Heiden: Biographie und Theologie Jesu im Markusevangelium (HBS 24; Freiburg, 2000), 73. 12 Quite often in this context Gen 22:2 is mentioned (e.g., by Marcus, Mark 1–8, 163), to which the address “beloved son” might point; however, as far as I can see, this reference does not reappear. 13 There seems to be a text form in the background that is closer to the Hebrew text than the newer LXX version. Similarly, e.g., A. Y. Collins, Mark (Hermeneia; Minneapolis, 2007), 150. A rather extensive analysis of the Greek version (also of Ps 2:7 and Gen 22:2, 12, 16) is offered by C. Rose, Theologie als Erzählung im Markusevangelium: Eine narratologisch-rezeptionsästhetische Untersuchung zu Mk 1,1-15 (WUNT II.236; Tübingen, 2007), 142–146. 14 Cf., e.g., Schenke, Markusevangelium, 54. 15 Very similar is E. Schweizer, Das Evangelium nach Markus (NTD 1; Göttingen, 1998), 17; also R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark (NIGTC; Grand Rapids, 2002), 82f. 16 Thus, the question of whether “Jesus [is] here proclaimed as the (Davidic) Messiah … or as the servant of God” (Lührmann, Markusevangelium, 37; translated from the German) is interesting in terms of understanding the history of tradition but is not appropriate in light of the text, which contains both aspects.

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whether or not there is a relation to the ideal beginning in paradise ‒ does not concern us here.17 It seems important to me, however, that the text briefly describes the relation of the anointed one to God. He is driven by the spirit of God, which even the devil cannot change. The anointed one is also in constant contact with God, for God spoke to him in the heavenly voice when he was baptized, and now the angels serve him.18 This special relation to God and the wilderness environment serve to elevate the anointed one further above his surroundings before he, at the end of the Baptist’s activity, begins his own public ministry (Mark 1:14–15).19 With this, the crucial lines of the scenario to be expected are already drawn. The text will constantly revolve around the question of how Jesus of Nazareth, as the anointed one and Son of God, is to be understood. As much as Mark 1:13b might suggest an “idyllic beginning,” the allusion to the suffering servant in Mark 1:11 and the briefly mentioned temptation of Mark 1:13a, already indicate the presence of a darker side, which will codetermine the fate of the anointed one. From Mark 1:15 onwards, the proclamation of good news and the nearness of the rule of God become determinative. Already with Mark 1:1–15, the outlines of the great theological achievement of Mark become visible. Mark tightly links his understanding of Jesus as the Christ and the Son of God with the seemingly incomprehensible historical fact of the suffering and death of Jesus on the cross. In this he will succeed in apprehending the cross of Christ as more than a side issue, a more or less accidental end to the life of Jesus. From the beginning, he weaves it into the ministry of Jesus, without neglecting the glorious dimension of the Son of God.20

17 An extensive overview and discussion of the various positions is given by C. Schramm, “Paradiesische Reminiszenz(en) in Mk 1,13? – Der Streit um die AdamChristus-Typologie auf dem hermeneutischen Prüfstand,” in Theologies of Creation in Early Judaism and Ancient Christianity. In Honour of Hans Klein (DCL Studies 6; ed. T. Nicklas and K. Zamfir; Berlin/New York, 2010), 267–298. 18 Only in Mark 13:27 will angels who serve Jesus – then designated as the Son of Man – be mentioned again. Thus, the end-time conditions mentioned in Mark 13 already overshadow the beginning of the gospel. 19 Rose, Theologie, describes Mark 1:14–15 as the “door of the gospel” (154), and a little further on (259f.) the “core sentence of the gospel” (translations from the German). 20 Thus, I would say that a Christology, and also a theology, that thinks from the point of the cross is of utmost importance for the Gospel of Mark. However, when “theology of the cross” means the attempt to define God “only from the point of the cross,” as done by E. Cuvillier, “Die ‘Kreuzestheologie’ als Leseschlüssel zum Markusevangelium,” in Kreuzestheologie im Neuen Testament (WUNT 151; ed. A. Dettwiler and J. Zumstein; Tübingen, 2002), 107-150, here 109, then I would, by virtue of the multidimensionality of Markan Christology and theology, hesitate to agree.

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2 “Not as the Scribes” (Mark 1:22) Already in the first appearance of the Markan Jesus in the synagogue of Capernaum (Mark 1:21–28), the topic of Jesus’s authority plays a role;21 from there on, the question of the origin of his authority will resurface again and again. Mark 1:21–28 returns to the theme of the rule of God by means of the “teaching” motif (Mark 1:21, 22, 27). Curiously, however, not the content of Jesus’s teaching but the manner of his teaching is disclosed. Unlike the scribes, he teaches with authority (ἐξουσία, Mark 1:22, 27).22 What this means in particular is made obvious ‒ and programmatic ‒ in the exorcism in the synagogue of Capernaum; he who withstood Satan’s temptation now, as “the Holy One of God”23 (Mark 1:24), will condemn the “unclean spirits”24 and demons. That this demon is speaking for all of them is seen by the use of the plural: “Did you come to destroy us?” (Mark 1:24). With this, a positive narrative thread begins. Jesus’s appearance leads, like an epiphany, to amazement (ἐθαµβήθησαν, Mark 1:27), the news about him travels (Mark 1:28), and the number of miracles and exorcisms he works increases (Mark 1:29–34). This, of course, continues in a sequence of scenes until ‒ right after 3:6, where the Pharisees’ and Herodians’ decision to kill him is mentioned ‒ it reaches a first climax in Mark 3:7–12 (cf. also Mark 3:31–35). However, it is doubtful if this multitude, despite the use of the verb ἀκολoυθέω, is understood in the gospel as something purely positive.25 After all, for the most part the multitude remains faceless. A key for evaluating the multitude’s role is certainly to be 21 As such the following section was entitled “A Man with Authority” by B. Van Iersel, Markuskommentar (Düsseldorf, 1993), 91 (translated from the German). 22 Feneberg rightly asserts that the description “not like the scribes” (Mark 1:22) does not yet necessarily represent a negative assessment of the scribe’s teaching; see Feneberg, Jude Jesus, 80f. Contrast here P. Dschulnigg, Das Markusevangelium (ThKNT; Stuttgart, 2007), 80, who considers Mark 1:22 to contribute to the emerging negative image of the scribes in the Gospel of Mark. 23 For more on the title’s background and its history of tradition, see Marcus, Mark 1–8, 188f. 24 The juxtaposition of “Holy Spirit” (Mark 1:8) and “unclean spirit” (Mark 1:23), which the text creates, connects the scene of 1:21–28 to the beginning of chapter 1. For this, see also C. Wahlen, Jesus and the Impurity of Spirits in the Synoptic Gospels (WUNT II.185; Tübingen, 2004), 91. 25 Contrast, e.g., Schenke, Markusevangelium, 113: “Nothing speaks against understanding 27b–8 as a success report, even from the viewpoint of the author. He probably evaluated the growth of Jesus’s popularity as quite positive” (translated from the German). Similarly, Dschulnigg, Markusevangelium, 113, speaks of “Jesus’s great success.” Cf., however, Gnilka, Markus I, 134f.: “If the rumor about his ministry, which can only refer to his healings, is the cause of their increase, their attitude stands criticized” (translated from the German).

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found already in chapter four. Although the Markan parable speech can be seen first as an illustration of the proclamation of the kingdom of God, and although one might think that the mention of the multitude here describes the promising, successful side of the Markan Christ, the short interlude of Mark 4:10–12 clearly disrupts this picture; not even the closest circle around Jesus understands the meaning of the parable (Mark 4:10). The reason that the teaching of Jesus is given in parables (and not in straightforward speech) is that the great multitude is still “outside” and according to Isa 6:9f. is meant to be hardened.26 The secret of the kingdom of God is given only to a small circle (cf. also Mark 4:33f.). Could one thus place next to the familiar (and somewhat disputed) motif of the Markan “Messianic Secret” the motif of a “Kingdom of God Secret”?27 I think so; after all, its secrecy is more explicit (Mark 4:11) than a Messiah or Son of God Secret, especially because the question of the establishment of the “near” rule of God (Mark 1:15) remains unanswered up to (almost) the end of the text. The Gospel of Mark thus reacts to the widespread rejection of the message of Jesus in the author’s own context and builds up the image of the “in-group” of the church as a kind of more elite circle. Nevertheless, the text anticipates that the proclamation by means of parables will not stop the intermediate success of the message. This is not only illustrated by the growth parables in Mark 4:26–29 and 30–32, but in particular by Mark 4:22: “For nothing is hidden, except to be revealed; nor has anything been secret, but that it should come to light.” With regard to Christology, the possibility thus emerges that on the one hand, Christ can be depicted as someone for the most part misunderstood, at least in his earthly ministry, despite his emerging ἐξουσία. On the other hand, it can be explained how the church addressed by this gospel could be 26 Feneberg rightly emphasizes that the fact that one is a member of the “in-group” does not guarantee “that they themselves rightly hear and see, thus, that they could not be hardened,” Jude Jesus, 127 (translated from the German). How much this is the case will again and again be seen in the case of the disciples’ (lack of) understanding. 27 This then would be closely related to the so-called “parable theory,” which holds that the parables exist to turn the proclamation of the gospel into a riddle. For an introduction, see Gnilka, Markus I, 170–72. Contrast Klumbies, Mythos, 199, who writes: “The term ‘kingdom of God’ does not have a mysterious quality in Mark. The Markan Jesus, with his talk of the kingdom of God, introduces his audience, respectively his readers, to an absolute normality for all to see. His talk of the kingdom of God aims at the recovery of the dimension overlooked by the seekers (v. 12), particularly to see the secret of the βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ in that which is near and taken for granted, and to find it in the normality of the course of life” (translated from the German). I think that Klumbies comes close here to an appropriate interpretation of an important dimension of the message of the historical Jesus, but I also think that the Gospel of Mark clearly plots a rather different course regarding the question of why so many people do not accept Jesus’s message (and also when and how the kingdom of God begins).

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comprised of Christ’s followers. With the help of Mark 4:22, one can even build a bridge between the decidedly open and unsatisfactory end of Mark 16:8 and the situation of the church. Even if Jesus’s closest followers did not understand his message, and even if the women at the tomb did not pass on the message of Jesus’s resurrection, this message is nevertheless unstoppable.

3 The misunderstood and rejected Christ Although the powerful deeds and words of the Markan Jesus, at least in the first half of the gospel, lead to Jesus being followed, even pursued, by an ever-increasing multitude, the outlines of a second thread also become evident in the first chapters. According to Mark 1:35–39, very early on Jesus retreats into solitude to pray; the relation to the wilderness scene of 1:12– 13 seems clear. The intimacy of his relation to God, however, becomes disturbed because Simon (Peter) and his companions do not simply follow after Jesus, but almost aggressively pursue him (κατεδίωξεν, Mark 1:36).28 The statement, “Everybody is looking for you” (Mark 1:37), can only be understood as an accusation. This second thread becomes more pronounced in the following passages. Although Jesus more frequently seeks out solitary places (Mark 1:45), the multitude around him persistently increases. Insofar as these could be indicators of the success of his proclamation, the contrast to the situation in the wilderness (Mark 1:12) becomes evident; there is now no more talk of angels who minister to him. In turn, the subsequent deeds of Jesus lead more and more to conflict, whereas originally they led only to approval or amazement. That this conflict would lead to death is already seen in Mark 2:1–12. The “authority of the Son of Man” (Mark 2:10), the power to forgive sin, is displayed, but now the accusation of blasphemy (Mark 2:7) also occurs, the same accusation which in the end will be the charge receiving the death sentence in the trial before the high council (Mark 14:64).29 Based on the logic that only God can forgive sin, the scribes’ accusation makes sense. Based on the logic of the text, which has intro28 Cf. also Marcus, Mark 1–8, 202: “This is a rather strange verb to use, since it is a compounded form of diōkō (‘to pursue or persecute’) and is almost always used in a hostile sense, for hunting down one’s enemies … It does, ironically, fit in with the military atmosphere of 1:16‒20; 21‒28: Jesus has called the disciples to become fishers … of human beings, but instead they immediately hunt him down.” Other authors – e.g., France, Mark, 112 – hesitate to understand the verb in its common meaning. 29 So also France, Mark, 126; Rose, Theologie, 186; and Schenke, Markusevangelium, 88.

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duced Jesus as the Son of God and the one God has anointed with the Spirit, even as the one to whom God has spoken directly, the accusation of blasphemy is to be understood as a sign of the blindness of those who judge in this way. That the Jesus story will inevitably lead to his death is also seen in various ways through scenes that follow. Still quite harmless is the accusation that he is eating with “the tax collectors and sinners” (Mark 2:16). Likewise, the question of why Jesus’s disciples are not fasting (Mark 2:18) could still be read as a simple request for information, but when the answer speaks of days after which the bridegroom will be “taken away,” or literally “lifted away” (ἀπαρθῇ ἀπ’ αὐτῶν, Mark 2:20), this can already be understood as a hidden indicator of the coming cross.30 Then, both Sabbath conflicts, which are closely related on account of their common themes, lead in Mark 3:6 to the decision of the Pharisees and Herodians to kill Jesus.31 Drastic displays of the rejection of Jesus are also portrayed in Mark 3:20f., where his family believes he has “lost his sense,” and Mark 3:22– 30, where – interestingly by scribes from Jerusalem, the place of Jesus’s death – Jesus’s authority is related to Beelzebul.32 This thread of Jesus’s rejection, introduced so early in the gospel, is of course not yet complete; it runs through the whole of the gospel (cf., e.g., Mark 5:17; 6:6; 8:11) and becomes very strong in the scenes in Jerusalem that precede the passion (Mark 11:27–33; 12:13–27, 35–40). Already, the following interim conclusion can be made: When the above-mentioned indicators of Jesus’s fate that appear in the various conflicts are taken together, a mosaic emerges in which the crucifixion of Jesus in Jerusalem is, at least, discernible in outline already in the first chapters. Also, two other typical Markan motifs can be related to this thread, the so-called “Messianic Secret” and the “understanding of the disciples.” The 30

I would interpret the “lifting” here as a lifting onto the cross, rather than as a reference to a rapture theology. 31 Klumbies, Mythos, 185, writes on the sequence of scenes in Mark 2:1–3:6: “The maxims Jesus represents meet the resistance of reality, which is bound to other norms, and consequently lead to conflicts. There is no bridge between the criteria of the old order of Jesus’s critics and Jesus’s practice. The new is not derived from the old. … This heralds a new, confrontational approach to history.” A little further on Klumbies describes the significance of Mark 3:6: “3:6 shows: Jesus was not able anymore to overcome the resistance, which was building up since 2:6, 7, against the norms he stood for. The deadly outcome of his life begins to become apparent as the consequence of his norm-setting behavior” (p. 186, all translations from the German). 32 The connection to Jerusalem and the accusation that Jesus is in opposition to God reflect, of course, essentially the same pattern that is also encountered in Jesus’s sentencing before the high council.

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less elusive of these two motifs certainly is the understanding of the disciples.33 Even if the closest circle around Jesus ‒ namely, Simon, Andrew, John and James ‒ already follow him from the beginning of his public ministry (Mark 1:16–20), one consistently encounters signs of their (and of the other disciples’) failure. Although the reader has to look very carefully in the first three chapters to find that Jesus’s disciples do not play an entirely positive role in the whole of the narrative, from chapter four onwards their blatant lack of understanding becomes more and more obvious. During the storm on the lake (Mark 4:35–41), they are not only accused of lacking faith (Mark 4:40), but their final question, τίς ἄρα οὗτός ἐστιν, paired with their great fear (ἐφοβήθησαν φόβον µέγαν), also shows that although an epiphany occurred in the silencing of the storm, they are only moved to question the identity of Jesus and fail to find an adequate answer. In other scenes, the disciples’ attitude towards Jesus could almost be described as insensitive, if not rude: When the woman with the issue of blood broke through the wall of people surrounding Jesus and touched him, they treat Jesus’s question about who touched him as essentially something foolish (Mark 5:31).34 In the context of the multiplication miracle and his walking on water (Mark 6:30–52), the disciples’ dismay over Jesus’s epiphany on the lake is explained precisely as occurring because they have not “gained any insight” and “their heart was hardened” (Mark 6:52). Also, in the conflict over purification and impurity (Mark 7:1–23), the disciples have to ask about the meaning of Jesus’s statements. The text does not make clear whether they understand Jesus’s subsequent explanation (Mark 7:18–23). However, the doubling of the multiplication miracles (Mark 6:30–44: the feeding of the 5000; Mark 8:1–10: the feeding of the 4000), when considered together, renders the disciples’ question in the second instance (Mark 8:4) not only as a sign of the magnitude of the miracle and gravity of the situation, but also as a sign of their hardening and lack of insight. All this becomes even more pointed – just a few verses after the second feeding miracle – when the disciples worry “because they had no bread” (Mark 8:16). In this light, the question even arises as to how appropriately the disciples have fulfilled their suggested roles of authoritatively support33 It is clear that this motif also fulfils a didactic function of guiding the reader. Nevertheless, I would not want say that there is no distance being created between Jesus and his disciples; rather, the disciples become in the post-Easter period, due to the instruction they frequently require, “especially qualified witnesses of the Jesus event” (so, e.g., Broer and Weidemann, Einleitung, 102). After all, the disciples play a role in the postEaster period in a prospective sort of way at best, and nowhere do we find that Jesus’s instructions lead to any sort of progress in their attitude. 34 Whereas various interpreters seek to excuse the disciples’ reaction, Marcus, Mark 1–8, 359, writes, in my opinion rightly, of the “apparent impertinence” of the disciples.

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ing Jesus in his teaching, which was given to them when he first called them (Mark 3:14–15). In the Markan commissioning scene (Mark 6:6b–13) they leave without bread and money (Mark 6:8) and call people – just like John the Baptist (Mark 1:4) – to repentance. They do in fact drive out many demons and heal many sick ‒ in contrast to Jesus, they do so through anointing (Mark 6:13)35 – but any proclamation of the good news of the kingdom of God is not mentioned at all. This motif by itself only conveys the image of a Christ misunderstood and inadequately accepted, even by the closest circle. A crucial sign for the Christology of the text, with regard to the disciples’ (lack of) understanding, connects this motif to an important aspect of what is usually described as the “Messianic Secret.” Since William Wrede, the Markan motif of the Messianic Secret has been debated quite hotly.36 In my opinion, however, there is no doubt that the observation that the Markan Jesus forbids discussion of his miracles in various situations or requires that commitment to him be kept a secret, is in fact significant. Under closer scrutiny, however, it becomes quite evident that there are in fact various motifs hidden under the label of that designation, and this raises the question of whether one can speak of the Markan “Messianic Secret” at all.37 I consider Jesus’s various prohibitions against openly designating him as the Holy One of God (Mark 1:24f), as Son of God (Mark 3:11), or as Messiah (Mark 8:30) to belong essentially to one type (cf. also more generally Mark 1:34). The decisive key is found, in my opinion, in Mark 8:27–33, the scene in Caesarea Philippi, which at the same time is a turning point of the entire gospel.38 Mark 6:14–16 mentions for the first time speculations over the question of who Jesus is, which is so important for the gospel.39 In light of Mark 1:1 and 1:11, however, it is clear that the various statements – that 35 This difference is also indicated by Marcus, Mark 1–8, 384, who, however, evaluates the overall mission of the disciples as successful (391). 36 Cf. W. Wrede, Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien: Zugleich ein Beitrag zum Verständnis des Markusevangeliums (3rd. ed.; Göttingen, 1963). Cf. also H. Räisänen, The ‘Messianic Secret’ in Mark (Edinburgh, 1990), and the summary of the present research by G. Guttenberger, Die Gottesvorstellung im Markusevangelium (BZNW 123; Berlin, 2004), 314–20. 37 A. Winn, The Purpose of Mark’s Gospel: An Early Christian Response to Roman Imperial Propaganda (WUNT II.245; Tübingen, 2008), 136–139, differentiates between two different motifs, one related to miracles, which are often disclosed, and one related to Jesus’s identity, which in fact is kept. 38 Feneberg, Jude Jesus, 196, sees a decisive break between 8:30 and 8:31, which prevents him from interpreting the dynamic of what are, in my opinion, clearly connected scenes in all its sharpness. 39 For the structural link between Mark 8:27–33 and Mark 6:14–44, cf. also Klumbies, Mythos, 236–38. Further links – even Mark 1:27; 4:41; and 6:2 – are discerned by J. Marcus, Mark 8–16 (AB 27A; New Haven/London, 2009), 611.

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Jesus is the resurrected John the Baptist, Elijah, or a prophet (Mark 6:14f.) – do not go far enough and fail to express an adequate understanding of Jesus. The question comes up again in Mark 8:27, this time from Jesus himself. To this first question, “Who do the people say I am?” (Mark 8:27), the disciples give exactly the same answer (Mark 8:28) as already discussed in Mark 6:14f, thus reflecting the opinion of those who have already been described in Mark 4:11b as “those outside.” Decisive now is the second question: “And who do you say I am?” With this the “inside group” is meant, of whom it is said in Mark 4:11a that they are entrusted with the “mystery of the kingdom of God.” It would appear that the breakthrough in the understanding of the disciples is finally achieved when Simon Peter, apparently for the whole group, confesses, “You are the Messiah!” (Mark 8:29). In light of Mark 1:1, this confession would seem adequate, yet once again the relevance of the evangelist’s most decisive question becomes apparent: yes, Jesus is Christ – but what does that actually mean?40 Rather than praising Simon and the disciples for this confession, Jesus forbids them to speak about it (Mark 8:30) and begins to instruct them. In so doing, he does not use the title of Messiah but refers to himself as the “Son of Man.” This one has to “suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again” (Mark 8:31). Only now the quality of Peter’s confession becomes evident, for the same one who just confessed Jesus as the Messiah now takes him aside and sharply rebukes him (ἐπιτιµάω, Mark 8:32). It becomes clear that Peter used the correct title for Jesus, but he has not adequately filled it with meaning.41 How dramatic this false understanding 40 Along the same lines as my interpretation is Lührmann, Markusevangelium, 146, when he writes: “For Mark the confession of Peter, that Jesus is the Χριστός is not wrong; however, in the light of current messianic expectations, it was disputed in what sense he could be designated as such” (translated from the German). Important also is the observation of J. R. Donahue and D. J. Harrington, The Gospel of Mark (Sacra Pagina 2, Collegeville, 2002), 265, who emphasize how much Mark reinterprets the title of Christ in the light of the cross. Relatively close to my interpretation is also Cuvillier, Kreuzestheologie, 116: “The reader understands, that for Peter ‘Christ’ is the eschatological Davidic figure, the royal messiah, who comes to liberate his people and to establish an earthly kingdom … The narrative suggests that there is a radical difference between the disciples’ understanding of Jesus’s messiahship and what Jesus himself holds” (translated from the German). P. Lamarche, Évangile de Marc (ÉtB.NS 33; Paris, 1996), 203, on the other hand, does not entirely hit the mark when he speaks of a half confession of Peter. 41 Though the different interpretations of the scene are hard to keep track of, it seems to me that the decisive problem of many interpretations is that they attempt to look at Peter’s confession as the climax of the Gospel of Mark and to read it as a sign that Peter successfully arrived at the proper understanding. Cf., e.g., Feneberg, Jude Jesus, 186–95, who, based on his purely positive assessment of Peter’s confession, likewise also rejects the “Messianic Secret.” Very similar also is Schenke, Markusevangelium, 207, who

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really is becomes visible in Jesus’s reaction, for he now in turn rebukes (also ἐπιτιµάω Mark 8:33) Peter; to not integrate the suffering, death, and resurrection of the Son of Man into the image of Christ Jesus is Satan’s work. Also, with this reference to Satan, a clear link is established between Mark 8:33 and Jesus’s refusal to accept the demons’ use of titles in addressing him. From Mark’s point of view, the use of the right title with a wrong understanding that does not include suffering, the cross, and resurrection has to be rejected by all means.

4 Instruction and Revelation With this in mind, one can also understand why Jesus in the Gospel of Mark never calls himself Messiah/Christ or Son of God, but instead uses a number of other titles and attributes that are less associated with specific expectations. Of course, the designation “Son of Man” is especially prominent and is used in relation to Jesus’s role in the end times (Mark 8:38; 13:26; 14:62), his present authority (Mark 2:20, cf. also 2:28), or his suffering (Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:33; 14:21).42 However, there are also other designations that usually are not counted as proper titles and are therefore not considered in Christologies focused solely on titles. Due to their “freshness,” however, these very designations are particularly helpful for elucidating the meaning of the “classic” titles. Jesus talks of himself as a “physician” (Mark 2:17), as “bridegroom” (Mark 2:20), as the “Lord of the Sabbath” (Mark 2:28), or as “shepherd” (Mark 14:27). He describes himself as the one who has “authority” to forgive sins (Mark 2:10), who calls sinners (Mark 2:17), or he compares his actions, at least indirectly, to those of David (Mark 2:25). All these descriptions of the deeds and of the significance of the Markan Jesus are also given “outwardly.”

wants to forego “a religionsgeschichtliche differentiation” of the term here, but in doing so must overlook that the confession, although literally accurate, still leads in the immediate context to Peter’s identification with Satan due to his false understanding of the content of this confession (Mark 8:33). Also, J. Gnilka, Das Evangelium nach Markus (Mk 8,27–16,20) (EKK II/2; 5th ed.; Zürich/Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1999), 15, is surely right in asserting that the command to silence does not necessarily mean a devaluation of the confession; but in 8:31–33, it is evident that Peter did not understand his confession in the sense it was meant to be understood in Mark. 42 In the meantime, the literature on the title of “Son of Man” has become hardly manageable. Cf. more recently, e.g., the articles in D. Sänger, ed., Gottessohn und Menschensohn: Exegetische Studien zu zwei Paradigmen biblischer Intertextualität (BThSt 67; Neukirchen-Vluyn, 2004). In contrast, see the classic work by M. D. Hooker, The Son of Man in Mark (London, 1967).

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The instructions for the inner and innermost circle go much further and deeper. The Markan Jesus, on his way to Jerusalem, speaks three times (Mark 8:31–33; 9:30–32; 10:32–34) explicitly about the fate he will encounter in Jerusalem. Yet, three times the reactions of the disciples, or their representatives, reveal their complete lack of understanding.43 The various elements encountered in these occurrences vary slightly: Mark 8:31–33 speaks of the suffering, rejection, death, and resurrection of the Son of Man, which is subsequently rejected by Peter; Mark 9:30–32 speaks of the Son of Man being handed over, his death, and resurrection, yet the disciples do not understand the meaning of what is said and subsequently end up in an utterly senseless fight over group hierarchy (Mark 9:33f.);44 Mark 10:32–34 speaks of the Son of Man being handed over to the chief priests and scribes, his death sentence, and his being handed over to the Gentiles, adding the specific details of Jesus’s mocking and torture before his death and resurrection. In spite of this compact passion narrative, James and John approach Jesus immediately afterwards to secure special places of honor for themselves in his kingdom (which they obviously understood as an entirely earthly affair; Mark 10:35, 37). Again, Jesus answers them by pointing to his passion, to the cup he has to drink (Mark 10:38f.; cf. Mark 14:36). Only once does the announcement of the fate on the cross go to those “outside” – although then only “in parables” (Mark 12:1a, cf. Mark 4:10– 12). The parable of the evil vineyard tenants (Mark 12:1–11)45 offers itself to be read as an allegory of the history of God with his people. The similarity of Mark 12:1b to Isa 5:1–2 (LXX) already suggests that God is to be seen as the vineyard owner and Israel as the vineyard; the mistreated and killed messengers (Mark 12:2–5) are most likely to be seen as the prophets. Christologically decisive, however, is 12:6–11: Jesus himself is to be understood as the beloved son and heir.46 Consequently, the implied fate of 43 A very extensive analysis of this scene (although with a strong focus on redaction history) is offered by A. Weihs, Die Deutung des Todes Jesu im Markusevangelium: Eine exegetische Studie zu den Leidens- und Auferstehungsansagen (FzB 99; Würzburg, 2003), 233–452. 44 Which, as Schenke, Markusevanglium, 234f., recognizes, shows links to Mark 8:31 and 9:12. 45 For further reading on the interpretation of this text and its significance for the Christology of Mark, cf. A. Weihs, Jesus und das Schicksal der Propheten: Das Winzergleichnis (Mk 12,1‒12) im Horizont des Markusevangeliums (BThSt 61; NeukirchenVluyn, 2003). 46 Cf. also the observations of Feneberg, Jude Jesus, 270: “The biblically informed listener hears in these formulations, moreover, that Jesus as the ‘beloved son’ is compared to Isaac (Gen 22:2) and to Joseph (Gen 37:20), the son of Jacob, the heir, whom his own brothers want to kill. A perceptive reader of the gospel will also remember that Jesus has already been called ‘beloved son’ twice in the narrative, by the voice from heav-

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the son – “they took him, and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard” – is a parable-like announcement of the suffering and death of Jesus (Mark 12:8, 11). The announcement of his resurrection also finds a mysterious equivalent in the quotation of Ps 118:22–23 (LXX) in Mark 12:10– 11:47 “The stone which the builders rejected, this became the chief corner stone. This came about from the Lord, and this miracle happened before our eyes!” The rejection of the son has dramatic consequences for the tenants also, for the owner “will come and destroy the vine-growers” (Mark 12:9). I do not think it appropriate to simply equate the vineyard-tenants with Israel; rather, the context suggests they are the chief priests, scribes, and elders as the leading representatives of Israel, who again ask about Jesus’s authority (Mark 11:28) yet do not receive an answer. Nevertheless, the anti-Jewish potential of the text should not be underestimated. The Christ of the Gospel of Mark is understood here as the one who was rejected by the leaders of his own people and yet as the one vindicated by God. However, these revelations are not merely restricted to the aspect of suffering. The glory of the coming one is also shown to the high council in Mark 14:62 as to those who are outside: “And you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven.” This line is a combination of Ps 110:148 and Dan 7:13, and it is subsequently understood as blasphemy (Mark 14:64) and leads to Jesus’s death sentence. At the very least, the inner circle of the disciples has already experienced something similar twice. The speech on last things, beginning in Mark 13:3, is given to Peter, James, John, and Andrew, which is precisely that circle of disciples Jesus called first (Mark 1:16‒20). At the center of the speech stands in a very similar fashion – though without a reference to Ps 110 – the eschatological return of the coming one related to Dan 7:13: “And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And then He will send forth the angels, and will gather together His elect from the four winds, from the farthest end of the earth, to the farthest end of heaven” (Mark 13:26–27). Although Jesus speaks in both cases only about the “Son of Man,” the high priest has understood the claim en during his baptism (Mk 1:11), and by the voice from the cloud (Mk 9:7)” (translated from the German). 47 For the particular form of the quotation, see Collins, Mark, 548. 48 For the significance of this psalm for the New Testament, cf. M. Tilly, “Psalm 110 zwischen hebräischer Bibel und Neuem Testament,” and L. Bormann, “Psalm 110 im Dialog mit dem Neuen Testament,” both in Heiligkeit und Herrschaft: Intertextuelle Studien zu Heiligkeitsvorstellungen und zu Psalm 110 (BThSt 55; ed. Dieter Sänger; Neukirchen-Vluyn, 2003), 146–70, and 171–205; also A. H. I. Lee, From Messiah to Preexistent Son (WUNT II.192; Tübingen, 2005), 202–239 (specifically on Mark 14:62, cf. 231–36).

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that stands behind this statement. The one coming on the clouds of heaven is, according to Mark 14:62, the one to whom God has given a place of power. The coming one who, based on Mark 13:26, is someone with “great power and glory,” is as such not only described as a heavenly being but very likely also as the one who amidst the heavenly host is coming for the final judgment. This means, however, that this exalted figure assumes roles on the day of the Lord that are expected to belong only to God. This Christology of glory not only has a future aspect but already shines into Jesus’s own time. It is shown beforehand to the innermost circle – this time without Andrew. As much as the narrative of the Gospel of Mark extensively prepares for the gloomy fate of the cross, it does not keep silent about the bright, heavenly dimension of the rule of the Son of God, although the gospel cleverly combines it with the announcement of suffering and the need to take up one’s cross (Mark 8:34–38). The gospel reveals this heavenly dimension in the transfiguration scene to Peter, James, and John (and to the reader) exclusively. The transfiguration (Mark 9:2–10) not only transforms the figure of Jesus so that he is understood as a heavenly being and is related to Elijah and Moses, but more importantly, God’s voice is heard a second time.49 The words, “This is my beloved son, listen to him!” not only describe Jesus as the Son of God and intertextually, following Deut 18:15, as the anticipated prophet like Moses, but these words also have a double intratextual reference. On the one hand, they refer back to the baptism, where God’s voice is heard for the first time (Mark 1:11) and where Jesus is called “beloved son” for the first time, and on the other hand, they instruct the disciples to heed Jesus’s subsequent instruction – as difficult as it may be for them – and to listen to him.50 I find it particularly important that from this point to the end of the gospel, the voice of God is not heard anymore. Only once more Jesus will be called the Son of God explicitly – and then not by God, but by the centurion under the cross, one of the most important “minor characters” of the gospel (Mark 15:39).51 49 An extensive interpretation of the Markan transfiguration scene is offered by S. S. Lee, Jesus’ Transfiguration and the Believers’ Transformation: A Study of Transfiguration and Its Development in Early Christian Writings (WUNT II.265; Tübingen, 2009), 9–48. However, for the theophanic elements of the scene, cf. Collins, Mark, 425f. 50 Beyond this, they also address the readers of the text. D. S. Du Toit, Der abwesende Herr: Strategien im Markusevangelium zur Bewältigung der Abwesenheit des Auferstandenen (WMANT 111; Neukirchen-Vluyn, 2006), 369, writes, “The reactualization of the transfiguration account at the end of the Gospel of Mark has … the function of pointing out the ongoing validity of Jesus’s authority of teaching and revelation for the time of Jesus’s imminent absence” (translated from the German). 51 That there is, in fact, a structural link between all three passages where Jesus is designated as “Son of God” is also made evident by the use of the word φωνήν, which also Klumbies, Mythos, 274, has shown; for the additional link to (albeit text-critically

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5 Glimpses of Hope on the Way to the Cross Beside the multitude of those who, for various reasons, follow Jesus, becoming witnesses of his deeds or hearing his parables yet remaining “outside” (Mark 4:11), and the narrower group of the disciples, in which the “Twelve” (Mark 3:13–19) have a special position, the Gospel of Mark also describes, in a few places, some figures who appear to break through the wall of doubt and misunderstanding surrounding the Markan Jesus and find their way to the Christ-movement. This is already rudimentarily visible with the healed leper (Mark 1:40–45), who appears almost to provoke Jesus by his manner of approaching him,52 but with his statement of trust, “If you are willing, you can make me clean” (Mark 1:41), actually moves Jesus to heal him. The same happens with the paralyzed man and his carriers, who break through a roof to get to Jesus (Mark 2:1–12), with the demoniac of Gerasa, who begs Jesus to let him stay with him (Mark 5:18), with the woman with the issue of blood, who is healed on account of her faith, whom Jesus not only heals but also grants peace (Mark 5:34), and with the Syro-Phoenician woman who manages to convince Jesus to heal her daughter (Mark 7:22–30).53 Other figures are even further along the path of arriving at an adequate understanding of Christ. Of particular interest is Bartimaeus, the blind man in Jericho, who only through loud, repeated calls is able to break through the wall of people surrounding Jesus (Mark 10:47–48). Even if one might speculate whether his confession that Jesus is the “Son of David” is adequate,54 not only does Jesus’s reply, “Your faith has made you well,” reveal that he found his way to an appropriate relationship to Christ but also the fact that now he “began following him on the road” (Mark 10:52).55

uncertain) Mark 1:1, cf. the considerations of Rose, Theologie, 240. However, more critical is M. Ebner, “Kreuzestheologie im Markusevangelium,” in Kreuzestheologie im Neuen Testament (WUNT 151; ed. A. Dettwiler and J. Zumstein; Tübingen, 2002), 151–168, here 153–158, who certainly is not wrong in pointing out the difference between the first two proclamations and the centurion’s statement, which he emphasizes with regard to its political dimensions. 52 I consider the reading ὀργισθείς in Mark 1:41 as original. For the text critical discussion, cf. B. D. Ehrman, “A Leper in the Hands of an Angry Jesus” in Studies in the Textual Criticism of the New Testament (NTTS 33, Leiden/Boston, 2006), 120–141. 53 For further reading, see M. Ebner, “Im Schatten der Großen: Kleine Erzählfiguren im Markusevangelium,” BZ 44 (2000): 56–76. 54 So Schenke, Markusevangelium, 253, regarding Mark 12:35ff. For the significance of the title cf., e.g., Gnilka, Markus II, 110. 55 Collins, Mark, 511, writes, “Although Bartimaeus had not heard that teaching as a character in the narrative, the audiences know that ‘to follow Jesus on the way’ means to follow him to suffering and death.”

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Though only a minor character, Simon of Cyrene is quite probably a historical memory, due to the unique designation as “father of Alexander and Rufus” (Mark 15:21),56 at least indirectly related to the Markan church. Although little more is said about him than that he carried the cross of Christ, this is exactly what is expected of a true disciple of Jesus according to Mark 8:34.57 As Christ moves towards his death, he encounters the nameless woman in Bethany in Mark 14:3–9 who anoints his body with costly oil “for the burial” (Mark 14:8). Although she makes no spectacular or explicit confession, the reaction to and interpretation of her deed reveals that especially here one finds an appropriate understanding of Christ.58 By comparison, it would appear that the women who, according to Mark 16:1, attempted to anoint Jesus after his death, were rather foolish and misguided.59

6 The Crucified One and the Silence of God Only in the actual passion narrative are the threads identified thus far brought together to reveal the crucial answers to the increasingly clearer questions: How can Jesus be understood as the Christ ‒ that is, Messiah and Son of God ‒ when he so clearly is moving towards his suffering and cross? What does this mean for the message about the rule of God, which is so closely related to Jesus’s deeds and words? With the chief priests’ and scribes’ decision to kill Jesus (Mark 14:1), the anointing for burial in Bethany (Mark 14:3–9), and Judas’s decision to hand Jesus over (Mark 14:10–11), the road is cleared for the passion. More so than the other gospels, Mark emphasizes the absolute loneliness of the Son of Man, who now “is to go” on his own (Mark 14:21). This loneliness was already dimly visible, and only a few minor characters were able to penetrate it. This depiction of the Son of Man’s absolute loneliness is achieved, in my opinion, by the following means:

56 So Gnilka, Markus II, 315: “The use of the names only makes sense if they were known to the church. That means that this Simon would later become a Christian” (translated from the German). 57 Very similar, e.g., Gnilka, Markus II, 315. Contrast here France, Mark, 641: “It would be inappropriate to the narrative context to suggest that Simon’s ‘taking up the cross’ … in itself symbolises his personally entering a life of discipleship …”. 58 A nice, extensive exegesis of the scene is offered by, e.g., Du Toit, Der abwesende Herr, 74–87 [lit.]. 59 I would therefore – against Dschulnigg, Markusevangelium, 37 – not speak of a “thoroughly positive view of the female disciples” in the Gospel of Mark.

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(1) Based on Zech 13:7, Jesus prophesies the dispersion of the sheep after the death of the shepherd (Mark 14:27). Although Peter avows twice that this could never happen (Mark 14:29, 31a), to which all the others agree (Mark 14:31b), Jesus’s abandonment will very soon become evident. Only the closest circle accompanies him in the garden of Gethsemane: Peter, James, and John. The dramatic request of Jesus, “My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death; remain here and keep watch” (Mark 13:34; cf. 14:37, 41), even in this situation, is going to be disregarded three times. The close intratextual link to the central admonition of the end-time speech ‒ “Take heed, keep on the alert” (Mark 13:33) ‒ shows that the events now unfolding are seen as eschatologically relevant and that in the process the disciples fail in the most blatant way possible. With the capture of Jesus, all other disciples, except Peter who is about to betray him (Mark 14:66–72), disappear from the scene entirely, not to return (cf., however, 16:7). It is only consistent, then, that the text does not describe them as recipients of any kind of vision of the resurrected one. (2) Mark 14:34 leads down another trail: If one takes seriously the intertextual relation to Ps 42:5, 10, and identifies Jesus as the speaker of the prayer in the Psalm, then the Markan Jesus is described here as someone virtually “thirsting” after God. Jesus is depicted as confronted with the question of where God is (Ps 42:2, 10) and asking himself why God has left him (Ps 42:9).60 Based on this, a few other statements come to be seen in a different light. The short prayer in Mark 14:36 is frequently studied to determine how far Jesus’s Abba-address reflects the historical Jesus’s relation to God.61 Seen in the overall context of the Gospel of Mark, however, it reverses the relationship of God and Jesus as expressed by God’s voice in Mark 1:11 and Mark 9:7.62 The one who is twice addressed by God as his “beloved son,” now addresses God as his “father.” In the context of Ps 42, it is also clear that there is no answer from God; the father appears to

60 Similar is Feneberg, Jude Jesus, 325. St. P. Ahearne-Kroll, The Psalms of Lament in Mark’s Passion (MSSNTS 142; Cambridge, 2007), 66–69, 181–186, also finds links to Ps 41:5, 11, so in his opinion, Pss 41 and 42 form the backdrop of the text; thus, he reads the entire scene in the light of Ps 41f. 61 Cf. now G. Schelbert, ABBA Vater: Der literarische Befund vom Altaramäischen bis zu den späten Midrasch- und Haggada-Werken in Auseinandersetzung mit den Thesen von Joachim Jeremias (NTOA/StUNT 81; Göttingen, 2011). 62 For the Gethsemane scene as a contrast to the transfiguration scene in Mark, cf. also Guttenberger, Gottesvorstellung, 191f., who correctly writes: “Jesus, in contrast to the transfiguration scene, is not changed into a being of the divine realm, but into one of the realm of the dead. … The designation as son is reciprocated in addressing God as Abba …” (translated from the German).

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have “forgotten” him (Ps 42:9).63 That the text carries this interpretation is seen by the fact that Jesus even prays this prayer twice (Mark 14:39), but in response, it is only mentioned that the disciples fell asleep again (Mark 14:40). At the same time, an intratextual bridge is built to Mark 15:34, the prayer of the crucified one who asks the question why God has left him. Mark 15:34 is without a doubt a clear intertextual link to Ps 22. To focus alone on the intertextual link, however, obfuscates the intratextual link to the Gethsemane scene. If this link is taken seriously, then the Markan Jesus is described as the one who in his passion has to endure the silence of God.64 The one who, according to Mark 1:13, is God-appointed, Spiritendowed, and served by angels, experiences in his suffering the silence of the same God, who twice has called him his “beloved son.” That very early interpreters of this text were already unwilling to accept this, is seen in the Lukan parallel Luke 22:43–44 (though the text is disputed here), which describes the fear of the one praying in drastic physical detail, but the appearance of an angel to strengthen the one thus praying functions as God’s answer. Quite consistent with this view, the link to Ps 22 also diminishes. Not everything has been said yet. The intertextual links in the Markan passion narrative basically answer two questions: (1) Quite brief and easily overlooked are the links to the suffering servant in Deutero-Isaiah.65 They occur in the interpretation of Jesus’s death during the last supper (Mark 14:24 – Isa 53:11–12),66 perhaps also in the mention of Jesus’s silence before the high council (Mark 14:61a – Isa 53:7),67 and also clearly in the mocking and abuse of the same scene (Mark 14:65) and later by the Roman soldiers (Mark 15:19, cf. both to Isa 50:6 LXX).

63 Quite different – and therefore, in my opinion, not fully appreciating the dramatic quality of the scene – is Feneberg, Jude Jesus, 327: “In the Gethsemane scene Jesus experiences a fiasco with his three closest friends. They fail him in his worst hour. He is left entirely alone; alone with God. Jesus’s prayer in this situation and his total surrender to the will of God give an insight into Jesus’s unique relationship with the father. Alone, without any human support, but carried along by the safe assurance of God’s will, Jesus enters into the conflict with the Sanhedrin” (translated from the German). 64 Similar ideas are also found in Guttenberg, Gottesvorstellung, 195–209. 65 One should also point out in this context Mark 10:45. For the discussion of whether Isa 53 plays an important role in the background, cf. H. J. B. Cobrink, “Salvation in Mark,” in Salvation in the New Testament: Perspectives on Soteriology (NT.S 121; ed. J. van der Watt; Leiden/Boston, 2005), 33–66, here 53–55. 66 For further reading, see, e.g., A. Yarbro Collins, “Finding Meaning in the Death of Jesus,” JR 78 (1998): 175–96, here 177. 67 But cf., e.g., Collins, Mark, 704, who identifies clear links to Ps 37:14f. LXX (and also Ps 26:12 and 34:10 LXX), and thus emphasizes the messianic components more strongly.

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(2) The link to Ps 22 is much clearer and even explicit in Mark 15:34. Not only does the Markan Jesus have the beginning of the psalm (Ps 22:1) on his lips, but the rather surprising interest in the fate of Jesus’s clothing, on a purely intratextual level, can only be explained as an intentional equation of the experience of the crucified one with that of the psalmist (cf. Ps 22:18). In that regard, the motif of the shaking of heads (Mark 15:29) could be a brief reference to Ps 22:7. Much more vague, however, is the relation of Mark 15:23 and 36 to Ps 69:22, which is emphasized more clearly only in later texts. Taking both of these textual links seriously, the evangelist arrives at the decisive answer to the first question: in the Christological concept of Mark, Jesus of Nazareth is proven to be the Son of God precisely in being abandoned by God (as the suffering servant of God in the manner of Deutero-Isaiah, and perhaps even more so as the suffering righteous one of Psalm 22), thereby verifying the centurion’s confession in Mark 15:39. Whereas Peter’s confession in Mark 8:30 would not allow for this decisive link in spite of Jesus’s instruction (and therefore was subsequently firmly rejected), the centurion’s confession, chiefly in reaction to the death of Jesus, is adequate. The Markan crucifixion scene also supplies the answer to the second question. If one takes the link to Ps 22 seriously, then the few allusions on the surface actually indicate the significance of the entire Psalm. It is well known that Ps 22 consists of two parts. Ps 22:1–21 describes the lamentful situation of the psalmist and from v. 22 onwards the text unexpectedly turns to praising God. Then, Ps 22:24f. makes clear that God, who appeared so intolerably silent, heard the lamentations of the one praying (cf. Jesus’s scream of death in Mark 15:37!)68 and has proven himself faithful towards him. Thus the confession of the centurion, who is certainly a Gentile, stands as a sign that “all the ends of the earth” begin to “turn to the Lord” and that “all the families of the nations will worship before” him (Ps 22:27).69 This is precisely how “the Lord as king” rules (Ps 22:28), and how the rule of God, proclaimed by Jesus from the beginning of the Gospel of Mark (Mark 1:15), begins to dawn. 68 For Jesus’s outcry and its link with Ps 22, cf. Ahearne-Kroll, Psalms, 205–10, and also H. Gese, “Psalm 22 und das Neue Testament: Der älteste Bericht vom Tode Jesu und die Entstehung des Herrenmahles,” in Vom Sinai zum Zion: Alttestamentliche Beiträge zur biblischen Theologie (BEvT 64; 2nd ed.; München, 1984), 180–201, here 180. For different interpretations, e.g., as “apocalyptic sign,” cf. Cuvillier, Kreuzestheologie, 119f. 69 Feneberg, Jude Jesus, 347, writes, “Psalm 22 is particularly well-suited for the literary structuring of the last hours of Jesus on the cross, because it not only expresses the suffering and death of Jesus as that of the ‘suffering righteous,’ but also contains a messianic program for the Gentiles” (translated from the German).

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In this regard, it also becomes clear that the Gospel of Mark is not in need of a spectacular resurrection scene, inasmuch as everything has basically been said already. Mark 16:1–8 only confirms Jesus’s repeated announcement (Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:34; cf. also Mark 12:10 and 12:26) and shows for a last time the failure of the women, who were the only ones accompanying Jesus, witnessing his death “from afar” (Mark 14:40; cf. also the contrast to the centurion, who stands opposite Jesus).

7 Conclusion The Gospel of Mark can be read as a narrative solution to the problem of how the crucified Jesus of Nazareth can be understood as the Christ and Son of God. The theological challenge of relating the Cross of Christ to the Glory of Christ, without diminishing either of these two dimensions, is closely related to the question of the mysterious establishment of the rule of God. (1) Right from the beginning, Jesus is described as God’s anointed, whose proclamation of the rule of God is with “authority,” the kind of authority that is seen in a number of powerful deeds, especially in exorcisms but also in healing miracles. These deeds of power attract an everincreasing multitude of people, who first are amazed yet in the end ignorant, even stiff-necked. (2) Jesus’s messiahship and identity as the Son of God, and likewise his proclamation of the kingdom of God, are, despite Jesus’s public ministry, enshrouded in secrecy – expressed in the motif of the “Messianic Secret,” to which, in my opinion, can also be added the “Kingdom of God Secret.” Corresponding to this secrecy is the lack of understanding of even the closest circle around Jesus, which is ultimately maintained even to the end of the text. In Markan thinking, the Messiah, the Son of God, and the Kingdom of God Secret reveal that the Christ, or the Son of God, can only be fully understood at the cross, and that the seemingly silent God proves himself as king only when human beings come to this realization. Thus, the text’s intertextual links must be taken seriously, especially the laments of Pss 22 and 69, and likewise the witness of Deutero-Isaiah. Traditions of the suffering righteous and of the suffering servant of God are woven into the narrative of the text, in order to tell of and describe Jesus as Christ, both as the suffering righteous one and the glorious, future Son of Man coming to judge (cf. Dan 7:13).70 To comprehend this is crucial. However, 70

For further reading, see M. Reichardt, Endgericht durch den Menschensohn? Zur eschatologischen Funktion des Menschensohns im Markusevangelium (SBB 62; Stuttgart, 2009). For the redaction-historical background, cf. St. Beyerle, “‘Der mit den Wolken

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most characters in the narrative do not manage to do so at all, or at best do so only partially. The wall-like misunderstanding surrounding Jesus is only broken through in a few places and only by a few characters – important minor characters – culminating in the centurion’s confession at the cross (Mark 15:39), which essentially replaces the twice-heard voice of God (Mark 1:11 and 9:7), who seemingly is silent during the passion. As a Gentile, the centurion at the cross is simultaneously the representative of the nations, who come to worship God in the presence of the cross; the Markan Jesus is also, and above all, understood as the Christ and Son of God for the Gentiles. (3) The perceptive reader becomes aware very quickly that the Markan Christ from the beginning onwards is heading toward the cross. Already in the first three chapters, through scattered motifs in the conflict stories, a pattern emerges in which the decisive elements of the passion narrative are already prefigured. Although this is mostly hidden and only foreshadowed in conflicts and reactions to Jesus’s deeds of power in the first half of the text, after the turning point of Caesarea Philippi, three straightforward passion predictions are made to the inner circle of the disciples (Mark 8:31– 33; 9:30–32; 10:32–34), and to those “outside,” the passion is predicted in the story of the vineyard-tenants (Mark 12:1–12) – albeit only in the form of a parable! The predictions of the coming suffering, death, and resurrection, each time followed only by rejection and lack of understanding, correspond to predictions, often cleverly arranged and juxtaposed with their opposite motif, of the present and future authority and glory of the Son of God, who describes himself as the Son of Man. (4) Most impressive is the radical way in which the Gospel of Mark describes Jesus’s way to the cross. On the one hand, the gospel shows a Christ who is largely misunderstood by his disciples and the multitude alike. On the other hand, he is seen as endowed with the Spirit, often praying in solitude, living completely out of his relation with God. However, the same God, who explicitly calls Jesus his “beloved son” twice (Mark 1:11; 9:7), is silent when Jesus beseeches him in prayer and calls him “Abba, father” in the agony of Gethsemane. Thus, the allusions to Ps 42 in the Gethsemane scene and the various links to Ps 22 form a framework around the core of the passion, which describes the radical experience of abandonment of the Markan Christ. Nevertheless, when these intertexts are taken into account as a whole, they allow that especially in the silence of God, is God understood as the Lord who establishes salvation and the kingdom. When this is understood, it is only consistent that the Gospel of des Himmels kommt’: Untersuchungen zum Traditionsgefüge ‘Menschensohn’,” in Gottessohn und Menschensohn: Exegetische Studien zu zwei Paradigmen biblischer Intertextualität (BThSt 67; ed. D. Sänger; Neukirchen-Vluyn, 2004), 1–52.

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Mark would not need a resurrection scene ‒ especially for the disciples who, until the end, are lacking in understanding and sleeping when they are supposed to be watching.

Performing the Passion, Embodying Proclamation: The Story of Jesus’s Passion in the Pauline Letters? DOMINIKA A. KUREK-CHOMYCZ

Paul’s letters are replete with references to the death of Jesus and the implications of this event, yet nowhere in the Pauline literature do we come across a detailed account of the passion. Based on the letters alone, without recourse to the Gospels’ passion narratives, our knowledge of the circumstances of Jesus’s death would be very limited. Paul repeatedly asserts that Jesus was crucified (1 Cor 1:23, cf. 1:13.17–18; 2:2.8; 2 Cor 13:4; Gal 3:1, cf. 5:11.24; 6:12.14; Phil 2:8), and in 1 Cor 15:3–4 he quotes a tradition, which he had handed on to the Corinthians, that Jesus “died for our sins according to the Scriptures” (Χριστὸς ἀπέθανεν ὑπὲρ τῶν ἁµαρτιῶν ἡµῶν κατὰ τὰς γραφάς), “was buried” (ἐτάφη), and “was raised on the third day,” also “in accordance with the Scriptures” (ἐγήγερται τῇ ἡµέρᾳ τῇ τρίτῃ κατὰ τὰς γραφάς). The only significant event preceding crucifixion mentioned in Paul’s letters, the Last Supper, is recalled in 1 Cor 11:23–25. As for the responsibility for Jesus’s death, two passages in particular are significant – 1 Thess 2:15 and 1 Cor 2:8. It is not possible to distinguish strictly between specific events of Jesus’s passion and death, on the one hand, and their interpretation and consequences, on the other hand, especially when one takes into account Paul’s clear interest in the latter issue.1 Yet in the present contribution my focus is on the former – that is, the references and allusions to the story of Jesus’s passion and death. It is often asserted that the paucity of details in this regard attests to Paul’s disinterest in the life of the historical Jesus, or even his ignorance concerning traditions related to the earthly Jesus, including the circumstances of his passion and death. I shall suggest that both assertions are based on questionable premises. Their authors on the 1

This is valid not only for the crucifixion narrative but also for the story of Jesus in general. Cf. the distinction R.B. Hays, “Is Paul’s Gospel Narratable?,” JSNT 27 (2004): 217‒39, 221, suggests between “Paul as storyteller” and “Paul as interpreter of stories.” As Hays rightly observes, “Rather than re-narrating the stories [...], Paul characteristically alludes, summarizes or reflects.”

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one hand overestimate the significance of textual evidence, and on the other, overlook certain clues provided in Paul’s writings. Most importantly, however, those who argue that Paul was not interested in the story of Jesus’s passion fail to appreciate the role that nonverbal communication played in the Apostle Paul’s proclamation of the good news. My paper consists of two major parts. In the first part, I discuss a number of passages that possibly reflect or allude to passion traditions. I do not consider them only with a view to determining which events are referred to. My main purpose is to note the reasons for the inclusion of particular references in a given text and to asses the extent to which an allusion in question may reflect Paul’s interest in specific events in the earthly life of Jesus, especially those preceding his death, as well as the circumstances of Jesus’s death itself. This critical overview of both the Pauline texts and select scholarly approaches to the problem leads me to the second part, in which I propose that in order to appreciate the significance of the story of Jesus’s passion for Paul, we should view the passages in which Paul interprets his own hardships in terms of the suffering and death of Jesus as an apostolic performance orchestrated by God, whereby Paul’s own body constitutes the vehicle of the proclamation.

1 Passion Traditions in the Pauline letters? 1.1 Allusions to the Passion Traditions in the Pauline antilegomena Neither in the homologoumena nor in other writings of the corpus Paulinum do we come across an extended account of the passion or a specific episode related to it. This is understandable in view of the genre of these writings; telling the story of Jesus’s suffering and death in a narrative sequence was not their purpose. We may note, however, that in spite of the recurrent references to the crucifixion in the homologoumena, only in the deutero-Pauline letter to the Colossians do we encounter an allusion to a specific detail of Jesus’s crucifixion – namely, nailing to the cross. In Col 2:14 the author mentions the “nailing to the cross” (προσηλώσας αὐτὸ τῷ σταυρῷ) of the “record of debts.” While the image is metaphorical, such an obvious allusion to the nailing to the cross is interesting, in view of the ongoing discussions as to what exactly Jesus’s punishment entailed,2 espe2 In a recent monograph, G. Samuelsson, Crucifixion in Antiquity: An Inquiry into the Background and Significance of the New Testament Terminology of Crucifixion (WUNT 2/310; Tübingen, 2011), has questioned the common understanding of how the death of Jesus is depicted in the New Testament, arguing that neither pre-NT usage of σταυρόω and cognate terms, nor the relatively brief and devoid of details descriptions found in the gospels, justify the understanding of the punishment Jesus underwent as crucifixion. In

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cially since the action of Jesus’s being nailed to the cross is not even mentioned in any of the canonical passion narratives. Among other writings in the Pauline literature, 1 Tim 6:13 needs to be mentioned, for here we find the only reference to Pontius Pilate outside of the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles.3 First Timothy 6:13 provides an allusion to the story of Jesus’s passion which is more specific than most of the references to Jesus’s passion in the Pauline letters. Significantly, in 1 Tim 6:13 Pilate’s full name is used, Πόντιος Πιλᾶτος, which otherwise occurs only twice in the entire New Testament, in Lk 3:1 (the dating of the proclamation of John the Baptist) and Acts 4:27 (believers’ prayer after the release of Peter and John). Thus, unless we accept a variant reading in Mt 27:2, judged secondary by NA 27, this form of Pilate’s name is not found in any of the Synoptic passion narratives. This is in contrast with the simple form, Πιλᾶτος, used fifty times in the NT, primarily in the passion narratives. In 1 Tim 6:13 Jesus, who literally “testified before Pontius Pilate the good confession” (µαρτυρήσαντος ἐπὶ Ποντίου Πιλάτου τὴν καλὴν ὁµολογίαν), is invoked as a witness to the author’s exhortation for his addressee to “keep the commandment.” There are a number of unresolved issues with respect to this verse. First, regarding it as an allusion to events related to Jesus’s passion presupposes the interpretation of the preposition ἐπί in ἐπὶ Ποντίου Πιλάτου in a spatial sense, as “in the presence of,” rather than in a temporal sense. Yet another possibility would be to understand the preposition as referring to the period when Pilate was the prefect of the imperial Roman province of Judaea, hence, “in the time of Pilate.” Yet the connection between Pontius Pilate and the passion narratives is very strongly attested in early Christian literature, both canonical and noncanonical, so it is not clear what other event of Jesus’s life could be proposed as an alternative. Moreover, there is a parallel between “the good confession” of Jesus with the “good confession” which in v. 12 Timothy is said to have “confessed in the presence of many witnesses” (ὡµολόγησας τὴν καλὴν ὁµολογίαν ἐνώπιον πολλῶν µαρτύρων). Thus, the reference to Pilate in v. 13 could be regarded as a parallel to the “many witnesses” of v. 12, evoking court imagery. In consequence, it is more likely that “in the presence of” is the correct interpretation.4 The reference to Jesus’s καλὴ ὁµολογία, elusive to us, implies a statement that both the author and the reader(s) would be familiar with. Although the author was quite likely alluding to an episode preceding Jesus’s death that he deemed historical, his interest is primarily paraenetic. By presenting Timothy’s confession as modelled on that of Jesus, the author exhorts his addressee to continue to conform his actions to those of Jesus. The parallelism with regard to the “good confession” of Jesus and Timothy, however, is not complete. While in v. 12 τὴν καλὴν ὁµολογίαν is a direct object of ὁµολογέω, in v. 13 it is not evident how the accusative relates to µαρτυρήσαντος. Some commentators regard it as synonymous with ὡµολόγησας of v. 12, in which case it would refer to the act of spite of a number of important and insightful observations in his examination of ancient literature, his overall thesis remains unpersuasive. 3 On Pontius Pilate both as a historical figure and as a literary character, see H.K. Bond, Pontius Pilate in History and Interpretation (SNTSMS 100; Cambridge, 1998), who, however, only mentions 1 Tim 6:13 in passing, without discussing it in any detail. 4 Cf. also I.H. Marshall, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles (ICC; Edinburgh, 1999), 663. In nn. 87–88 he lists commentators who support the respective positions with regard to ἐπί in v. 13.

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making the confession.5 It is not clear, however, what Jesus’s “good confession” refers to. Among the canonical Gospels, only John reports Pilate’s conversation with Jesus. In the Synoptics, Pilate’s attempts to communicate with Jesus are met with silence or at most with “σὺ λέγεις” in Mk 15:2 and Luke 23:3. In view of this, we could ask whether Jesus’s “confession” needs to be interpreted as an oral communication, or whether his silence, or his refusal to respond, could not be understood as such. The confession would then consist not in words but in an act that Jesus performs before Pilate. Alternatively, rather than limited to a single deed, one could understand the reference as encompassing all that follows Jesus’s encounter with Pilate, in particular his dying. Yet this is not highly plausible, since ἡ καλὴ ὁµολογία of the addressee, mentioned in v. 12, most likely refers to a verbal act. What is more, elsewhere in the New Testament the verb ὁµολογέω is in general limited to the realm of speaking, or what one does with one’s lips, sometimes with the emphasis that this should be in accordance with the attitude of the heart (cf. Rom 10:9-10). The reference to the καλὴ ὁµολογία in v. 13, therefore, may evoke some tradition similar to the account of Pilate’s dialogue with Jesus in John 18:33–37.6 Rather than considering µαρτύρησας as a synonym of ὡµολόγησας, however, I suggest that we follow those authors who regard testifying to the confession as separate from the act of making it. 7 In this way, even if ἡ καλὴ ὁµολογία denotes specific verbal communication, bearing witness to it would involve the entirety of Jesus’s behaviour in the course of the events that followed, culminating in the crucifixion. Towards the end of this paper, it will become clearer why I emphasize the nonverbal aspect. More important for my purposes, is the reason why a specific passion tradition is evoked in 1 Tim 6:13. By drawing a parallel between the actions of his addressee and those of Jesus, the author implies that the details of Jesus’s death and the events preceding it are of interest mostly insofar as they can be re-enacted, in various forms, by his followers.

1.2 Alleged Responsibility for Jesus’s Death in Paul’s Letters In the homologoumena, except for the account of the Lord’s Supper, we do not encounter allusions to specific episodes preceding Jesus’s death. We do, however, find references to the circumstances of Jesus’s death, in particular with respect to the responsibility for it, and in this regard, we need to comment on two verses – 1 Thess 2:15 and 1 Cor 2:8. In 1 Thess 2:15 “the Jews” (οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι) are said to have “killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets” and to have driven Paul out, generally “displeasing God and opposing everyone” (τῶν καὶ τὸν κύριον ἀποκτεινάντων Ἰησοῦν καὶ τοὺς προφήτας καὶ ἡµᾶς ἐκδιωξάντων, καὶ θεῷ µὴ ἀρεσκόντων, καὶ πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις ἐναντίων). Assuming the commonly 5 Cf. the NRSV translation: “who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession.” 6 Cf. L.T. Johnson, The First and Second Letters to Timothy: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 35A; New York, 2001), 308: “This letter has awareness of either the Gospel of John 18:36-38 or, as is more likely, the tradition that found inclusion in that Gospel.” 7 See ibid., 307. The use of µαρτυρέω followed by a noun in the accusative as that to which one bears witness is attested in the Johannine literature (John 3:11; Rev 1:2; 22:16.20).

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accepted dating of the Pauline letters, this “most vituperative and polemical statement by Paul against ‘the Jews’”8 would also constitute the first mention of the death of Jesus in Paul’s extant writings. How are we then to understand this apparent blaming of the Jews for the death of Jesus, and what precisely is meant by οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι? A glance at several commentaries is instructive. Authors of older commentaries as a rule tend to pay rather limited attention to the problem, even if they note the vehemence of the condemnation.9 In more recent contributions to the debate, we come across various interpretive strategies employed to deal with the issues raised by the text, including the suggestion that 1 Thess 2:14–16 is an interpolation.10 Gordon Fee in his recent NICNT commentary rightly rejects this facile solution, calling it “a counsel of despair.”11 Yet he, too, has recourse to a particular strategy, often used by scholars in their discussion of anti-Judaism in the New Testament.12 Only too well aware of the gruesome consequences of understanding the participial modifier of the Jews as nonrestrictive and implying the responsibility of all the Jews, Fee argues for a restrictive meaning – that is, for limiting the group to contemporary Jews from Judaea who are responsible for all the actions enumerated by Paul. “Prophets” in this context would imply Christian prophets, which is only possible if one follows the shorter reading (τοὺς προφήτας) and rejects the addition found in the Majority text: “their own” (ἰδίους).13 We are unable to enter into a more detailed discussion of the passage at this point and to take into account the complex exegetical and hermeneutical issues involved. In view of our main focus, we note that the question of the responsibility of certain individuals or group(s) for Jesus’s death from a historical perspective is not the main thrust of the passage. Indeed, in the context of 1 Thess 2:14–16, Jesus’s death is not singled out 8

D. Pollefeyt and D.J. Bolton, “Paul, Deicide and the Wrath of God: Towards a Hermeneutical Reading of 1 Thess 2:14-16,” in Paul's Jewish Matrix (ed. T.G. Casey and J. Taylor; Bible in Dialogue 2; Rome, 2011), 230. 9 Cf. J.E. Frame, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Thessalonians (ICC; New York, 1912), 111: “The denunciation is unqualified; no hope for their future is expressed.” 10 For an insightful discussion of these different strategies, including a number of examples, see Pollefeyt and Bolton, “Paul” (n. 8), 232–251. The authors propose their own hermeneutical reading of the problematic text. 11 G.D. Fee, The First and Second Letters to the Thessalonians (NICNT; Grand Rapids, 2009), 91. 12 Pollefeyt and Bolton, “Paul” (n. 8), do not include Fee in their discussion, yet based on their classification, Fee’s strategy clearly belongs under the heading “referent limitation.” 13 The shorter reading is supported by the best witnesses, both Alexandrian and “Western,” including ‫ א‬A B D* F G and others.

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as more significant than other hideous deeds ascribed to οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι; it is, rather, put on a par with them. Οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι are invoked in the context of comparison between the Thessalonians, who suffered at the hands of their compatriots, and the churches of Judaea, whose imitators they are said to have become. Paul’s main point seems to be that οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι are hindering him from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved (v. 16).14 This is not to suggest that we may neglect the dangerous potential – or not even mere potential – of these words, but for the purpose of the present paper our interest in 1 Thess 2:15 is that it constitutes the first reference to the story of Jesus’s death in the Pauline letters. The argument that Paul’s purpose was not to charge specific individuals as directly responsible for the death of Jesus but rather to include moral responsibility for it among the other accusations of οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι, may be indirectly supported by the fact that in 1 Thess 2:15 the generic term ἀποκτείνω is used, and not the more specific σταυρόω. The latter, however, evoking more concretely the manner in which Jesus died, the crucifixion, occurs in 1 Cor 2:8, another passage where those responsible for Jesus’s death are named. There is no consensus as to how the phrase “the rulers of this age” (οἱ ἀρχόντες τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου) should be understood, whether it denotes demonic powers or rather earthly political leaders.15 If the reference is to the latter, it would primarily presuppose Roman authorities, even if not completely excluding the Jewish leaders. Yet in order to do justice to Paul’s apocalyptic outlook, these human leaders can best be envisaged as remaining under the influence of cosmic powers associated with the old age. Again, the point is not to blame specific individuals for Jesus’s death but rather to reinforce the stark distinction between true wisdom and the wisdom “of this age,” σοφία τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου, and to paint a powerful image so as to persuade the Corinthians to embrace Paul’s teaching, which in his mind – and note that he was claiming to have the mind of Christ (cf. 1 Cor 2:16) – mediated God’s true wisdom. 1.3 Passion “traditions”? As we proceed with our consideration of the references to specific events related to the passion and death of Jesus in the Pauline letters, we need to acknowledge our main difficulty. The basic “facts” alluded to in Paul’s letters are in line with the passion traditions known from the passion 14

Cf. the centrality of the notion of σωτηρία in Pollefeyt’s and Bolton’s hermeneutical reading of the text (n. 8). 15 A.C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text (NIGTC; Grand Rapids, 2000), 233–239, discusses at some length the various interpretations which have been put forward.

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narratives in other early Christian writings, so we can reasonably presume that they are based on certain early Christian “traditions” rather than think in terms of Paul’s contribution to the creation of passion narratives. The issue is more convoluted, however, with regard to the interpretation of the consequences of Jesus’s death. For the most part, the allusions to what supposedly happened – that is, the story of the passion – are intermingled with the interpretation of the theological significance of Jesus’s death, and it is often futile to try to distinguish between the two. This is understandable, given that historical circumstances related to the life and death of Jesus, from Paul’s perspective, do not constitute an autonomous element but are an integral part of the overarching narrative, beginning with creation and envisaging the end-time consummation. Yet attempting to isolate individual “traditions” is problematic not so much because for Paul they would have formed part of the overarching story, but even more so because such an attempt raises questions from a methodological perspective. Except for the two passages where Paul himself refers to a tradition that he had received, in 1 Cor 11:23 and 1 Cor 15:3, the answer to the question as to whether he draws on a tradition in a given passage depends on the criteria that individual scholars apply.16 The diversity of criteria put forward, at times contradicting one another, not to mention the ways they are employed, may be indicative of their at times arbitrary character, intertwined with particular agendas of individual interpreters.17 Exegetes have long debated which of the passages where Paul refers to the implications of Jesus’s death reflect traditional material. As a glance at the history of research may suggest, this was often related to the presupposition – or the hope – of exegetes, that once we isolate allegedly traditional material, the ideas which were original to Paul will emerge, and this, in turn, will allow us to understand better Paul’s own views on the significance of Jesus’s death. Less than fifty years ago, Ernst Käsemann in his well-known article on “Die Heilsbedeutung des Todes Jesu bei Paulus” could still refer to a number of supposedly pre-Pauline, “borrowed” traditions as self-evident.18 This allowed him to conveniently discount or at 16 See, for example, the criteria for isolating pre-Pauline traditions listed by E.E. Ellis, “Preformed Traditions and Their Implications for Pauline Christology,” in Christology, Controversy, and Community: New Testament Essays in Honour of David R. Catchpole (NovT Supp 99; Leiden, 2000), 303–20, 309. 17 As has been noted in the debate concerning the relationship between Paul and the historical Jesus; cf. D.C. Allison, Jr., “The Pauline Epistles and the Synoptic Gospels: The Pattern of the Parallels,” NTS 28 (1982): 1–32. 18 E. Käsemann, “Die Heilsbedeutung des Todes Jesu bei Paulus,” in Paulinische Perspektiven (Tübingen 1969; 2nd ed. 1972; 3d ed. 1993), 61–107; ET: E. Käsemann, “The Saving Significance of the Death of Jesus in Paul,” in Perspectives on Paul (trans. M. Kohl; London, 1971), 32–59.

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least play down the atoning significance and sacrificial interpretation, 19 which he deemed pre-Pauline. Instead, he emphasized what he considered the core of Pauline theology, the main insight of the Reformation – namely, God’s grace and justification. Later, with the change of focus from diachronic to synchronic methods, the question of unearthing original traditions, which Paul may be quoting or to which he may be alluding, has received less attention, allowing exegetes to focus more on the interpretation of Paul’s extant texts. Yet even if scholars no longer devote their lives to isolating pre-Pauline elements, their views are often reflected in their comments, which show that the distinction between traditional material and Paul’s own contribution is based on a given author’s presuppositions underlying the understanding of how the death of Jesus was understood by the first Christians. This is evident in James Dunn’s remark in his commentary on Paul’s statement in Rom 4:25 concerning “Jesus our Lord,” who “was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification” (ὃς παρεδόθη διὰ τὰ παραπτώµατα ἡµῶν καὶ ἠγέρθη διὰ τὴν δικαίωσιν ἡµῶν). According to Dunn, it is a “variation of quite a well established formulation in earliest Christianity,” which constitutes “a meeting point between two strands of Christian tradition: (1) the passion narratives and (2) Christian reflection on Jesus’ death using Isa 53.”20 While the first element may be fairly uncontested, the latter presupposes that the connection between Jesus and the deutero-Isaianic Suffering Servant became well established within the first two decades after Jesus’s death and that this is indeed the backdrop to which Paul’s formulation here and elsewhere refers. Even if an earlier tradition is reflected in this passage, an additional issue in this case is whether we can talk about a “traditional formula” quoted by Paul or just an allusion to a known interpretation.21 Dunn, while stating that v. 25 “looks like the sort 19

Cf. the following assertion (ibid., 43): “The cross’s consequences for men dominate all Paul’s statements to such an extent that the consequences for God simply do not enter his field of vision, and other concepts occupy the foreground so exclusively that for this reason alone no essential significance can be attributed to the theme of sacrifice. Only pre-Pauline formulae can be cited in support here.” 20 J.D.G. Dunn, Romans 1−8 (WBC 38A; Dallas, TX, 1988), 224. 21 In a classic study of the New Testament notion of “Dahingabe” and its background, W. Popkes, Christus traditus: Eine Untersuchung zum Begriff der Dahingabe im Neuen Testament (ATANT 49; Zürich and Stuttgart, 1967), does not assert the existence of rigid formulas, yet other scholars have attempted to establish the existence of such a Dahingabeformel. For an overview and critique of these attempts, with a particular focus on Gal 2:20, see G. Berényi, “Gal 2,20: A Pre-Pauline or a Pauline Text?," Bib 65 (1984): 490–537. On Paul’s use of the verb in reference to Christ in Galatians and Romans, see also V.P. Furnish, “‘He Gave Himself (Was Given) Up ...’: Paul’s Use of a Christological Assertion,” in The Future of Christology: Essays in Honor of Leander E. Keck (ed. A.J. Malherbe and W.A. Meeks; Minneapolis, 1993), 109–21.

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of formula which may often have been used in the worship and teaching of the early Christian congregations,” does not exclude the possibility that the formulation was Paul’s creation.22 Whether or not Rom 4:25 and other Pauline passages reflect a prePauline tradition or even a “formula,” the use of the verb παραδίδωµι in Paul’s letters illustrates well the problem of isolating passages that refer to specific events related to the story of Jesus’s death and distinguishing them from their theological interpretation, or to put it in other terms, separating the events of human history from the narrative about God’s involvement in this history. In Rom 8:32 this verb is used in the active form, with God as subject, who is said to have “given up his Son for all of us”: ὑπὲρ ἡµῶν πάντων παρέδωκεν αὐτόν. In Gal 2:20, we come across the reflexive form, this time with Jesus as the subject: παραδόντος ἑαυτὸν ὑπὲρ ἐµοῦ (“who gave himself up for me”; cf. the use of simple δίδωµι in Gal 1:4: τοῦ δόντος ἑαυτὸν ὑπὲρ τῶν ἁµαρτιῶν ἡµῶν).23 In the aforementioned text in Rom 4:25, however, the form is passive (παρεδόθη), and it is not said who is responsible for this “handing over,” allowing for ambiguity and encompassing both the possible human agents – and hence an allusion to a specific historical episode (Judas’s betrayal) – and the divine purpose. We are unable to make a clear distinction between what we could regard as a reference to a historical “fact” and the divine purpose because for Paul, both the involvement of human actor(s), directly responsible for Jesus’s betrayal, and God’s action as the ultimate subject of παραδίδωµι, were part 22 Dunn, Romans, 240 (n. 20). Cf. C.E.B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (ICC; vol. 1; Edinburgh, 1975), 251, who, while admitting that the verse need not necessarily be a “quotation of a traditional formula,” contends that that the alleged formula “was formulated under the influence of Isa 52.13– 53.12 is hardly to be doubted.” Cranfield bases his statement, in line with other scholars supporting this position, on the “conjunction of παραδιδόναι with διὰ τὰ παραπτώµατα ἡµῶν,” which he compares with Is 53:6 and 53:12. Yet the relationship between Rom 4:25 (and similar formulations elsewhere) and LXX Is 53:6.12 is a matter of debate, and even if it is accepted, it does not need to imply that the LXX version of Isaiah was the sole text which could have inspired early Christians. For a recent contribution to the discussion, see C. Breytenbach, “The Septuagint Version of Isaiah 53 and the Early Christian Formula ‘He Was Delivered for Our Trespasses’,” NovT 51 (2009): 339–51, who argues for the existence of “the widespread Greek notion of delivering somebody unto a hostile force,” which the LXX translator used, and which constitutes a broader context in which the early Christian concept of Jesus’s being given up, or giving up his life, is to be understood. Cf. also Chr. Eschner, Gestorben und hingegeben “für” die Sünder: Die griechische Konzeption des Unheil abwendenden Sterbens und deren paulinische Aufnahme für die Deutung des Todes Jesu Christi (WMANT 122; NeukirchenVluyn, 2010), who suggests that both the “dying for” and “giving-up” sayings draw on the same Greek tradition. 23 Cf. also the deutero-Pauline letter to the Ephesians, where in 5:2.25 also the reflexive form παρέδωκεν ἑαυτόν occurs.

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of the narrative of Jesus’s passion, just as the “rulers” of 1 Cor 2:8 may denote in the first place earthly authorities but without excluding a reference to the demonic powers. While this has long been acknowledged by scholars, it needs to be stressed that this does not imply Paul’s disregard for the earthly events. On the contrary, by linking the two, Paul recognizes the significance of the specific, earthly reality and the circumstances involved. We come across the passive form of παραδίδωµι, now in the imperfect tense, again in 1 Corinthians, in one of the two places where Paul explicitly refers to a tradition he has handed on. In 1 Cor 11:23–2524 the retelling of the foundational narrative grounds the celebration of the common meal in the story of Jesus, emphasizing Paul’s role as the mediator and faithful transmitter of the tradition. It also underscores the need for continuity between the source of the tradition, the apostolic mediator, and the communal practice in Corinth. At the same time, in view of v. 22, the recounting of the tradition serves to highlight the contrast between the original event and the practice of the Corinthians that Paul does not commend. Compared to other references to the events that took place during the earthly life of Jesus, the account of the Lord’s Supper in this passage is undoubtedly the longest of all. Even though it still remains rather basic,25 the prepositional phrase in v. 23 ἐν τῇ νυκτὶ ᾗ παρεδίδετο presupposes the knowledge of further details of the story, with which both Paul and the Corinthians were apparently well acquainted. Regarded as “the earliest account of the institution of the Eucharist,”26 1 Cor 11:23–25 has obviously played an enormous role in the discussions concerning the development of the Eucharist, even if no scholarly consensus has been reached in this regard.27 It has also featured in the debate concerning the

24

For bibliographical references, see J.A. Fitzmyer, First Corinthians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 32; New Haven, 2008), 448–453; among the contributions that have appeared more recently, see especially J. Schröter, “Die Funktion der Herrenmahlsüberlieferungen im 1. Korintherbrief: zugleich ein Beitrag zur Rolle der ‘Einsetzungsworte’ in frühchristlichen Mahltexten,” ZNW 100 (2009): 78‒100. 25 As has been noted by scholars, even in the case of the Synoptics it may strike us how basic and devoid of detail their institution narratives are. Indeed, in institution narratives, the narrative as such is reduced to a minimum. Cf. P.F. Bradshaw, Eucharistic Origins (London, 2004), 7: “It is the material containing the interpretive sayings to which the name ‘institution narrative’ has been given by scholars, but in truth they contain very little narrative as such.” 26 Fitzmyer, 1 Corinthians, 429 (n. 24). 27 Cf. the comment of O. Hofius, “The Lord's Supper and the Lord’s Supper Tradition: Reflections on 1 Corinthians 11:23b-25” in One Loaf, One Cup: Ecumenical Studies of 1 Cor 11 and Other Eucharistic Texts (ed. B.F. Meyer; New Gospel Studies 6; Macon, 1993), 75‒115, here 76: “We are in the dark concerning the path taken by the tradition in

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historicity of Jesus’s Last Supper, and more generally, the events precedpreceding his death, but the passage has featured less prominently in discussions of Paul’s interest in these events. Yet to reduce the importance of this passage to these two issues, the historicity of the account and its significance as cultic aetiology,28 does not do it full justice. Most importantly, by focusing on vv. 23‒25, the significance that v. 26 plays in Paul’s admonishment has often been overlooked. We shall return to this shortly. In 1 Cor 11:23 Paul claims to have received the tradition, which he then passed on to the Corinthians, “from the Lord” (Ἐγὼ γὰρ παρέλαβον ἀπὸ τοῦ κυρίου, ὃ καὶ παρέδωκα ὑµῖν). We leave aside the problems raised by this reference to the Lord as passing on a specific tradition.29 We only note that besides legitimating the content of Paul’s proclamation, this stresses also the continuity between the risen and earthly Jesus. In the only other verse in which Paul refers explicitly to the received tradition, 1 Cor 15:3, which we quoted already in the introduction to this essay, he does not claim its nonhuman origin. This text not only provides us with an early Christian kerygma but also a summarized account of the narrative sequence known from the Gospels. There is a debate as to where exactly the “tradition” ends, yet this concerns mostly the apparitions of the risen Jesus.30 As regards specific traditions concerning Jesus’s passion, the information it contains is again very succinct, limited to the event of Jesus’s death and burial (vv. 3b‒4a). The latter is significant insofar as it stresses the reality of Jesus’s death. That he died “for our sins” (ὑπὲρ τῶν ἁµαρτιῶν ἡµῶν) and that all this happened “in accordance with the Scriptures” (κατὰ τὰς γραφάς) grounds the historical event of Jesus’s death in the narrative of God’s dealing with human beings. By situating himself at the outset in the role of the transmitter of the tradition (vv. 1.3) and mediator of the good news (vv. 1–2), Paul lays ground for a more extended its pre-Pauline phase, and the attempts to illuminate it do not carry us beyond noteworthy perhaps, but ultimately indemonstrable conjectures.” 28 The comment of Fitzmyer, 1 Corinthians, 431 (n. 24), is typical: “This Pauline passage is important as the earliest attestation of the way Jesus instituted the Eucharist, depicting his words and gestures over the bread and cup of wine as he interprets some of the Passover elements anew.” 29 For a recent attempt to argue that this reference to receiving the tradition from the Lord needs to be taken literally, see F. Watson, “‘I Received from the Lord...’: Paul, Jesus, and the Last Supper,” in Jesus and Paul Reconnected: Fresh Pathways into an Old Debate (ed. T.D. Still; Grand Rapids, 2007), 103–24. 30 Nowadays most commentators tend to agree on identifying only vv. 3b–5 as prePauline, but cf. D.M. Moffitt, “Affirming the ‘Creed’: The Extent of Paul’s Citation of an Early Christian Formula in 1 Cor 15,3b-7,” ZNW 99 (2007): 49–73, who recently argued for including also vv. 6–7 (except for 6b).

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and explicit discussion of his apostleship in vv. 8–10. Yet at the same time, he also links his own story with that of Jesus, suggesting to the Corinthians that by receiving and standing firm in the gospel he proclaimed, they have also become part of the story. If they hold firmly to the message, they will be included in its eschatological fulfilment, which they may already begin experiencing (note δι’ οὗ καὶ σῴζεσθε in v. 2). To return to the earthly story of Jesus’s suffering and death, narrating the passion at length is not the aim of vv. 3b–4. In the context of chapter 15, the main reason for referring to Jesus’s death and burial is the need to underscore the reality of his resurrection – not the details of the story. Nonetheless, both Paul’s reference to the good news that he initially brought to Corinth (note the untranslatable figura etymologica: τὸ εὐαγγέλιον ὃ εὐηγγελισάµην ὑµῖν in v. 1) and the summary of the tradition handed down by him in vv. 3b–4 suggest a much longer and more elaborate account that Paul initially presented to the Corinthians.31 1.4 Paul and the Story of Jesus’s Suffering and Death As in all the other passages in which Paul refers to the circumstances of Jesus’s passion, the Apostle does not provide any details in the two passages where he acknowledges being indebted to a tradition he has received. Among the Pauline letters, only the shortest of them, Philemon, does not mention the death of Jesus, yet none of the numerous references to Jesus’s death provides us with a more specific account of the passion. Obviously, scholars ask why. Did Paul not know the details of Jesus’s passion, or even if he did know, did he not recount them to the members of his communities? The response often offered in this context, especially in the previous century, is the repeated claim of Paul’s alleged disinterest or even ignorance concerning the earthly Jesus. Ernst Käsemann’s comment is representative of this attitude: “Curious though it sounds, the apostle does not seem to have any precise knowledge about the concrete circumstances of the crucifixion.”32

31 The term “gospel,” as M.M. Mitchell, “Rhetorical Shorthand in Pauline Argumentation: The Functions of ‘The Gospel’ in the Corinthian Correspondence,” in Gospel in Paul: Studies on Corinthians, Galatians and Romans for Richard N. Longenecker (ed. L.A. Jervis and P. Richardson; JSNTS 108; Sheffield, 1994), 63–88, reminds us, is a rhetorical shorthand that Paul may use in his letters only because he presupposes the addressees’ familiarity with its contents. Cf. ibid., 64: “In usage the single phrase τὸ εὐαγγέλιον allows Paul, with great economy and elegance, to insert the entire long narrative of God’s plan ‘according to the Scriptures’ into an argument without repeating the whole.” 32 Käsemann, “Saving Significance,” 49 (n. 18).

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The fact that in Paul’s letters there is little evidence of his interest in, or even familiarity with, the details of the passion narrative – or the public ministry of Jesus – does not necessarily imply that they were not integral parts of Paul’s apostolic activity. Among the passages that refer to Jesus being crucified, which I enumerated in the introductory remarks, Gal 3:1 is especially important in that it suggests that Paul could have preached rather graphically about the details of the crucifixion, and we shall return to this passage in a moment. The issue at hand is obviously related to a more general problem of the relationship between Paul and the earthly Jesus, fiercely debated one hundred years ago but less so in more recent times.33 As remarked by one of the contributors to the earlier debate on the relationship between Jesus and Paul, “A missionary preaching that included no concrete account of the life of Jesus would have been preposterous. The claim that a crucified Jew was to be obeyed as Lord and trusted as Saviour must surely have provoked the question as to what manner of man this was.”34 Yet not everyone would agree with this view. One of the arguments used in defence of the thesis that Paul was not interested in the earthly Jesus – namely, the interpretation of 2 Cor 5:16 as referring to “Jesus in the flesh” – is now rarely employed. Most scholars agree that κατὰ σάρκα is to be understood adverbially in this context, and thus the verse refers to the mode of knowing Jesus – that is, knowing him “according to the flesh.” In spite of this, Paul’s silence as regards the traditions of Jesus’s life continues to be understood by a number of authors in minimalistic terms, assuming that Jesus’s death on the cross could be the only event in the life of the earthly Jesus that Paul deemed significant. A common explanation offered concerning Paul’s alleged disinterest in the earthly Jesus is succinctly summarized by Gerd Theissen and Annette Merz: “Theological convictions prevent Paul from enhancing the earthly Jesus. Jewish monotheism could worship a heavenly being who owed his status solely to God – but not an earthly man who was given divine dignity on the basis of his own words and actions. […] Traditions which already seemed to surround the words and actions of the earthly Christ with the splendour of the exalted one must be alien to him [i.e. Paul].”35 I would argue, however, that the minimalistic position is paradoxically also maximalist in that it tends to rely exclusively on the (partial) written 33 See V.P. Furnish, “The Jesus-Paul Debate: From Baur to Bultmann,” in Paul and Jesus: Collected Essays (ed. A.J.M. Wedderburn; Sheffield, 1989), 17–50, for an overview of the scholarship on the relationship between the historical Jesus and Paul. Cf. also other contributions in the same volume that focus on select aspects of the debate. 34 J.G. Machen, “Jesus and Paul,” in Biblical and Theological Studies by the Members of the Faculty of Princeton Theological Seminary (New York, 1912), 562. 35 G. Theissen and A. Merz, The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide (trans. J.S. Bowden; Minneapolis, 1998), 95–96.

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evidence, the Pauline letters, as if they could offer us a complete picture of the means Paul had recourse to while proclaiming the gospel. Studies on orality in the first century36 have made scholars aware of the fact that the picture we gain by relying primarily on textual evidence, as most biblical scholars do, is rather distorted. First Corinthians 11:23, as we noted earlier, indicates that the Corinthians were well acquainted with the sequence of events preceding Jesus’s death, and 1 Cor 15:3–4 also suggests their familiarity with the circumstances of his death and burial. The fact that there is no extant written evidence, and perhaps never was, does not mean that Paul was not interested in specific events related to Jesus’s passion. We can at least assume that the entire story was related to the Corinthians in an oral account. With regard to other events of Jesus’s life, verses such as Gal 4:4, Rom 1:3; 9:5, or even Phil 2:7, need not be taken solely as theological statements but could possibly be taken also as allusions to the story of Jesus’s birth and subsequent earthly life. We must not a priori exclude the possibility that certain nativity traditions, for example, were not part of Paul’s oral proclamation. A growing interest in a narrative approach to Paul is to be welcomed, as it has resulted, among other benefits, in a far greater appreciation for the importance of the story – or various stories37 – of Jesus for Paul, including specific traditions concerning Jesus’s life and ministry.38

2 Performing the Passion, Embodying Proclamation 2.1 Proclamation and Performance We now return to Paul’s discussion of the “Lord’s Supper” in 1 Corinthians. In 11:26 Paul states: ὁσάκις γὰρ ἐὰν ἐσθίητε τὸν ἄρτον τοῦτον καὶ τὸ ποτήριον πίνητε, τὸν θάνατον τοῦ κυρίου καταγγέλλετε, ἄχρι οὗ 36

Most recently, see the collection of essays in A. Weissenrieder and R.B. Coote, eds., The Interface of Orality and Writing: Speaking, Seeing, Writing in the Shaping of New Genres (WUNT 260; Tübingen, 2010). 37 Cf. S.E. Fowl, “Some Uses of Story in Moral Discourse: Reflections on Paul’s Moral Discourse and Our Own,” Modern Theology 4 (1988): 293–308, here 304. 38 For an overview and evaluation of several key contributions by Pauline scholars, which have appeared in the last few decades and in which the story of Jesus plays a significant role, see Th. Stegman, The Character of Jesus: The Linchpin to Paul’s Argument in 2 Corinthians (AnBib 158; Rome, 2005), 74–96. Even more recently, see K.Y. Lim, “The Sufferings of Christ Are Abundant in Us”: A Narrative Dynamics Investigation of Paul's Sufferings in 2 Corinthians (LNTS [JSNTS] 399; London, 2009). Concerning the narrative approach more generally, the essays collected in B.W. Longenecker, ed., Narrative Dynamics in Paul: A Critical Assessment (Louisville and London, 2002), are of particular interest.

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ἔλθῃ. The NRSV translates this text as follows: “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.” Commentators disagree as to what the “proclamation” in this text consists in. Otfried Hofius in his influential article on “The Lord’s Supper and the Lord’s Supper Tradition” devotes a paragraph to the meaning of the verb καταγγέλλω.39 He dismissively enumerates several possible interpretations, stating with much conviction that “the ‘proclaiming’ of the death of Christ takes place not through the celebration of the Lord’s Supper as such, nor through a ritual act consisting simply of the breaking of the bread and the pouring of the wine; for ‘καταγγέλλειν is always a matter of the word’.”40 Hofius’s insistence is typical of the single-minded focus on the verbal element in proclamation, widely spread both in exegetical and popular literature, even though it needs to be noted that among dictionaries, both EDNT and BDAG agree that in 1 Cor 11:26 καταγγέλλω is not just a matter of the word.41 The alleged evidence for the assertion that “καταγγέλλειν is always a matter of the word” is indeed rather debatable. In the LXX the verb occurs only in 2 Macc 8:36 and 9:17, and, as remarked by Beverly Gaventa, in the first of these two passages, “The context makes it obvious that Nicanor did not travel around preaching about the God of the Jews. Instead, his defeat and flight constituted such an announcement or demonstration.”42 Also in the New Testament, we observe that the use of καταγγέλλω is not limited to verbal communication. For example, in Acts 13:38 the entire event, rather than an account of it, whether oral or written, is apparently the means of proclamation. Also a glance at the use of καταγγέλλω in the Pauline letters suggests that Paul’s “proclamation” involves more than mere words, although these are often included. Rather, it encompasses manifold aspects of the apostolic activity, verbal proclamation constituting

39 40

Hofius, “Lord’s Supper” (n. 27), 108. Ibid.; in his last assertion, he refers to Chr. Wolff, Der erste Brief des Paulus an die Korinther. Zweiter Teil: Auslegung der Kapitel 8−16 (THKNT 7/2; Berlin, 1982), 91: “καταγγέλλειν ist immer eine Sache des Wortes.” 41 I. Broer, “καταγγέλλω,” EDNT 2:256, states: “It is clear that the proclamation of the gospel happens not only through the word.” Cf. BDAG 515: “you proclaim (by celebrating the sacrament rather than w. words) the Lord’s death.” Likewise, the authors of more recent commentaries opt for a more inclusive interpretation. Both Thiselton, 1 Corinthians, 887 (n. 15), and Fitzmyer, 1 Corinthians, 445 (n. 24), understand καταγγέλλω in this context in a broad sense, implying the communal celebration of the Supper, rather than being limited to a verbal act. 42 B.R. Gaventa, “‘You Proclaim the Lord’s Death’: 1 Corinthians 11:26 and Paul’s Understanding of Worship,” Review & Expositor 80 (1983): 377–87, 382.

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just one part of it. First Corinthians 9:14, where proclaiming the gospel is presented as full-time work, illustrates this well.43 In 1 Cor 11:26 there is no necessity to posit any additional oral explanation, such as a homily delivered during the meal. Rather than envisaging a verbal account accompanying the Supper, the focus on the setting and the concern with the Corinthians’ behaviour make it more plausible to interpret the phrase τὸν θάνατον τοῦ κυρίου καταγγέλλετε, ἄχρι οὗ ἔλθῃ as implying that the Supper itself constitutes proclamation.44 Even those who agree with such an interpretation tend to pay rather limited attention to the phrase, since it is not a part of the tradition Paul cites in vv. 23b–25, nor does it, at least at first sight, contribute to our understanding of the problems related to the Corinthian celebration of the Lord’s Supper. Yet Gaventa is correct to observe that “the phrase ‘the death of the Lord’ refers to Jesus’ death in all its significance as the scandalous event in which all human values and expectations are overturned (cf. 1 Cor. 1:23).”45 In this way the phrase is of far greater significance. By making explicit the meaning of the Lord’s Supper, it not only sheds light on the social context of the Corinthian meal but also alludes to the opening chapters of the letter, reiterating the core of Paul’s own proclamation, the message about the cross (ὁ λόγος ὁ τοῦ σταυροῦ), which is, as Paul claims in 1:18, “the power of God for those who are being saved (τοῖς σῳζοµένοις).” The eschatological significance is likewise stressed in 11:26: ἄχρι οὗ ἔλθῃ. For our purposes, we observe that an interpretation of v. 26 which does not posit a need for a verbal reiteration of the story does not necessarily play down the value of the narrative as such or the event in the life of the earthly Jesus to which it refers. They remain significant because their reenactment constitutes the proclamation of the Lord’s death. The importance of the historical (at least from Paul’s point of view) episode is further enhanced, rather than diminished, by the eschatological orientation Paul ascribes to it. In view of the foregoing, we may ask whether a scholarly prejudice, which privileges verbal communication over against other possible means 43 Cf. the comment of Broer, “καταγγέλλω” (n. 41), who observes with regard to 1 Cor 9:14 that “in Paul καταγγέλλω is used in a more open way and tends toward meaning ‘be active as messengers of faith’.” 44 A related issue is the question of whether the Lord’s Supper as such can be interpreted in terms of performance; cf. the suggestion of D. Stacey, “The Lord’s Supper as Prophetic Drama,” Epworth Review 21 (1994): 65–74, repr. in the Appendix to M.D. Hooker, The Signs of a Prophet: The Prophetic Actions of Jesus (London, 1997), 80–95. 45 Gaventa, “Τhe Lord’s Death,” 380 (n. 42). On the social implications of Jesus’s death on the cross in the Corinthian context, see R. Pickett, The Cross in Corinth: The Social Significance of the Death of Jesus (JSNTS 143; Sheffield, 1997).

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of communication, is not responsible for the recurrent claims that Paul was not interested in the story of Jesus’s passion. I would like to suggest that scholars have found few traces of the passion narrative in Paul’s letters not only because the culture in which Paul proclaimed the gospel was largely oral and as a result his letters offer only a limited access to the themes that he addressed in his apostolic mission. More importantly, we tend to overlook the significance that the account of Jesus’s passion may have had in this context because it was not limited to verbal communication, on which exegetes tend to concentrate. 2.2 Paul and Performance The notion of performance has generally been underestimated in traditional scholarship. I would argue, however, that it plays a significant role in Paul’s understanding of his apostolic vocation. “Performance” is a modern term, highly ambiguous and broadly contested; it may thus be debated to what extent it can help us to understand the evidence from the Pauline letters. Yet it is precisely the term’s ambiguity that can account for the variety of ways in which Paul’s relationship to the traditions of Jesus’s passion could be understood as “performance.” The trans-liminal and transgressive nature of performance, and the tendency to erase much of the distance between the actor and the character played, that we nowadays associate with performance art, are not altogether alien to more traditional theatrical performances.46 As we shall see in a moment, specific theatre imagery, when viewed against its first century background, sheds light on Paul’s understanding of his apostleship. In addition, the boundary between theatre and other kinds of performances is not firmly fixed. “Performance” is a broader term, but it surely encompasses theatre. Most importantly, regardless of how we define performance, it allows for a significant amount of blending between the identity of the “performer” and the character enacted,47 but it also implies that no complete identification of the two is possible. In spite of the various ways in which the term “performance” is used, to quote Marvin Carlson, “all performance involves a consciousness of doubleness, according to which the actual execution of 46 Cf. A. Duncan, Performance and Identity in the Classical World (Cambridge, 2006), who in her discussion about the famous first-century BCE Roman actor Roscius demonstrates how performance and performers were regarded in ancient Rome as capable of transgressing both social and cultural boundaries, “or even as exposing the fundamental arbitrariness of Roman social organization” (161). For a helpful introduction to contemporary performance art, see R. Goldberg, Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present (London 1979; 2nd ed.1988; 3d ed. 2011) 47 Cf. the comments of Duncan, Performance (n. 46), 7, on “a conception of identity as fluid or constructed,” which “the ancients often attributed to actors.”

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an action is placed in mental comparison with a potential, an ideal, or a remembered original model of that action. [...] Performance is always performance for someone, [...] even when, as is occasionally the case, that audience is the self.”48 The reluctance to consider the role of performance in Paul’s ministry, at least in reference to some Pauline passages, could be due to the scholarly concern lest we envisage the Apostle as someone resembling a street performer. This seems to be the case in the attempts to limit the scope of Gal 3:1 to verbal proclamation. In Gal 3:1 Paul reminds the Galatians, addressed as “foolish,” about “Jesus Christ crucified” (Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς ἐσταυρωµένος), who προεγράφη before their eyes (κατ’ ὀφθαλµοὺς). While Paul does not tell us in detail what this refers to, this is an indication that proclaiming Jesus crucified was not limited to a general statement that “Jesus was crucified.” Whether this included some sort of re-enactment of the story depends on how we understand the term προγράφω.49 Johannes Louw and Eugene Nida claim, “It would be wrong to assume that προγράφω in Ga 3.1 refers to some kind of theatrical demonstration. The portrayal mentioned here was evidently a vivid verbal description.”50 Yet it is not clear what arguments Louw and Nida’s claim is based on. As classicists have observed, the apparently common fear on the part of the orators of being accused of histrionics, and Quintilian’s attempts to “lay out ‘rules’ separating oratorical delivery from theatrical performance,” show how “uncomfortably close” oratory and acting were perceived in the first century.51 Paul’s “vivid verbal description” may have been delivered in a way which blurred the distinction between rhetoric and theatrical performance. Regardless of how we envisage the reality behind Gal 3:1, it 48 M. Carlson, Performance: A Critical Introduction (New York and London, 2004), 5, referring to R. Bauman, “Performance,” in International Encyclopedia of Communications (ed. E. Barnouw; vol. 3; New York, 1989). Carlson himself notes that we best consider performance “as an essentially contested concept,” rendering it futile to seek “some overarching semantic field to cover” the “disparate usages” of the term. Yet he regards Bauman’s suggestion as a “highly suggestive attempt at such an articulation.” With regard to performance where the “audience is the self,” it is interesting that in Plato’s antitheatrical and anti-mimetic statements in Republic 2 and 3, as Duncan, Performance (n. 46), 14, observes, in the context of the education of the Guardians in the ideal polis, “The only allowance Plato makes for poetry, and in particular mimetic poetry, is that Guardians may imitate the exact sorts of selves that they are supposed to become.” 49 B.S. Davis, “The Meaning of προεγράφη in the Context of Galatians 3.1,” NTS 45 (1999): 194–212, provides a survey of the various interpretations that have been suggested by scholars. 50 J.P. Louw and E.A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, Based on Semantic Domains (vol. 1; 2nd ed.; New York, 1989), 410. 51 Duncan, Performance, 184 (n. 46); Duncan refers to Quintilian, Inst. 11.3.180– 184.

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is unwarranted to limit it to the verbal element alone. The possibility that some kind of visual representations, such as paintings, were employed,52 cannot be entirely excluded. However, it is more probable that, in keeping with the suggestion of Basil Davis, “the canvas upon which the crucified Christ was publicly displayed,” was in the first place Paul himself.53 As John Barclay comments, in a similar vein, for the Galatians the “enfeebled Paul was [...] a representative, even a personification, of the crucified Christ whom he placarded.”54 Even though I do not exclude the possibility of some “theatrical demonstration,” it is neither constitutive nor indispensable for my suggestion that we apply the notion of performance to the way in which St. Paul proclaimed the story of Jesus’s passion. Of far greater significance is the way Paul may have understood his entire apostolic existence in terms of a performance staged by God. Exegetes have often been rather bewildered, if not embarrassed, by Paul’s tendency to portray his own sufferings and everyday existence in terms traditionally reserved for Jesus’s passion, to see himself as a continuation of the “Suffering Servant” and to imply that by his own afflictions, he participated in the saving significance of Jesus’s death and resurrection. Such statements abound especially in 2 Corinthians, but also in Galatians, Paul’s apostolic identity is tightly, at times almost indistinguishably, linked with the identity of Jesus. Paul, whom the Galatians welcome “as Christ Jesus” (ὡς Χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν; 4:14), claims to have been crucified with Christ, so that now he no longer lives, but Christ lives in him (Χριστῷ συνεσταύρωµαι·ζῶ δὲ οὐκέτι 52 H.D. Betz, Galatians: A Commentary on Paul’s Letter to the Churches in Galatia (Hermeneia; Philadelphia, 1979), 131, notes that in order to help the orator impress his listeners, “All kinds of techniques were recommended to achieve the effect, including impersonations and even holding up painted pictures.” He quotes in this context Quintilian’s reference to the practice of “bringing into court a picture of the crime painted on wood or canvas” (Inst. 6.1.32). 53 Davis, “Meaning,” 208 (n. 49). It is rather surprising that earlier in his text (198) Davis asserts, “Equally unlikely is the possibility that Paul had preached the gospel to the Galatians through the medium of the theatre, i.e. that he had dramatized the gospel.” Davis’s main argument – namely, that “passion plays” are not attested in the New Testament – fails to persuade, especially since it implies a fairly limited understanding of theatrical performance. Yet his own proposal concerning the interpretation of Gal 3:1 can very well be understood in terms of performance more broadly conceived. Davis himself draws on the theatre metaphor when towards the end of his article (210) he states (referring to 1 Cor 4:9), “Paul saw his ministry as part of a celestial show staged by God.” When he adds, “This of course is very different from a theatrical production staged by the apostle and his co-workers,” one may wonder whether the disjunction he poses is not too absolute. 54 J.M.G. Barclay, “Paul’s Story: Theology as Testimony,” in Narrative Dynamics (n. 38), 133–56, here 145.

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ἐγώ, ζῇ δὲ ἐν ἐµοὶ Χριστός; 2:19b–20a). Finally, Gal 6:17 serves as a particularly stern reminder for his addressees that Paul’s proclamation is not limited to verbal communication. Scholars are not agreed as to whether Paul’s bearing of the στίγµατα of Jesus in his body (ἐν τῷ σώµατί µου) evokes the imagery of religious tattooing or whether it alludes to the custom of branding slaves.55 However, as James Dunn states, “There is a strong consensus that by the ‘marks of Jesus’ [...] Paul means the scars and physical effects of the various beatings and severe hardships [...] which Paul had [...] experienced in the course of his missionary work.”56 He then continues, “The thought [...] links up with his talk elsewhere of sharing Christ’s sufferings and death. [...] The allusion to the death of the man Jesus is probably heightened by the unusual use of Jesus’ personal name, without any title (Lord or Christ).”57 The connection between Paul’s body and the earthly Jesus, present in Gal 6:17, is even more forceful in 2 Cor 4:7–15,58 and especially in vv. 10–11, suggesting that Paul conceived of his body as the locus of, as Erhardt Güttgemanns puts it, “the epiphany and presence of the earthly Jesus” (“Die Epiphanie und Präsenz des irdischen Jesus”).59 In v. 10 Paul claims to be “always carrying in the body the dying (τὴν νέκρωσιν) of Jesus,” so that “the life of Jesus may also be made visible (φανερωθῇ)” in his body (ἐν τῷ σώµατι ἡµῶν). The use of the term νέκρωσις,60 rather than 55 Cf. Betz, Galatians (n. 52), 324, opts for religious tatooing; J.D.G. Dunn, The Epistle to the Galatians (BNTC; London, 1993), 346–347, lists both possibilities, noting that branding slaves is the “older view,” now much less popular. 56 Dunn, Galatians (n. 55), 347. 57 Ibid., 347. 58 For the bibliography on 2 Cor 4:7-15, see R. Bieringer, E. Nathan, and D. KurekChomycz, 2 Corinthians: A Bibliography (BiTS 5; Leuven, 2008), 55–61. 59 Cf. the following comments of E. Güttgemanns, Der leidende Apostel und sein Herr: Studien zur paulinischen Christologie (FRLANT 90; Göttingen, 1966), 134, on Gal 6:17: “Paulus denkt also auch hier den gekreuzigten Jesus und seine eigene ‘leibliche’ Existenz als Apostel so sehr zusammen, daß man vom ‘Leibe’ des Apostels als dem Ort der Epiphanie und Präsenz des irdischen Jesus als Herrn reden muß. Hier bekommt also erneut das σῶµα des Apostels christologische Relevanz.” Prior to his discussion of Gal 6:17, he examines at more length 2 Cor 4:7–15, and these remarks apply also to his understanding of this passage. 60 Νέκρωσις can either mean “death” (the “state of deadness”) or “(the process of) dying.” The NRSV opts for the former, yet the list of Paul’s own afflictions in the immediately preceding verses 7–9 may imply that in and through the hardships he endures, the Apostle re-enacts the suffering which the dying Jesus underwent. As a result, it seems preferable to translate νέκρωσις as “dying.” For additional arguments and bibliographical references, see the commentary by M.J. Harris, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians. A Commentary on the Greek Text (NIGTC; Grand Rapids, 2005), 345. Contra M.E. Thrall, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Second Epistle to the Corinthians (vol 1.; ICC; Edinburgh, 1994), 331–332.

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the more usual θάνατος, evokes the physical, realistic aspect of Jesus’s dying, which underscores even more the contrast with the reference to his life, which is thereby manifested. This shows that while the story of Jesus’s passion and death was an integral part of Paul’s proclamation, its ultimate goal was the message about life and the life-giving power of God, which both Jesus and Paul experienced. The imagery of v. 10 is clarified in v. 11: “For while we live, we are always being given up to death (εἰς θάνατον παραδιδόµεθα) for Jesus’s sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh (ἐν τῇ θνητῇ σαρκὶ ἡµῶν).” Here the allusion to the story of Jesus’s passion and death is most evident in Paul’s use of παραδίδωµι in the first person and what the majority of commentators take to be the passive voice.61 We already mentioned the passages where Paul employs this verb in reference to Jesus. As Margaret Thrall remarks, “The verb παραδίδωµι is standard usage in the Synoptic passion predictions, with reference to Jesus’ being ‘given up’, and Paul himself uses it in this sense.”62 According to Thrall, “It is likely that he uses it in the present verse with conscious reference to the Jesustradition.”63 Interestingly, here and elsewhere in the same chapter (cf. vv. 5b and 14b), Paul reinforces the continuity between the earthly and risen Jesus by referring to Christ as “Jesus,” just as he does in Gal 6:1764 but in contrast to his usual practice. Paul’s interpretation of his own afflicted embodiment in terms of the suffering (and glory) of Jesus in this passage is a particularly vivid example of the “embodied proclamation” of the good news, including the story of Jesus’s suffering and death, performed, rather than merely recounted.65 While I agree with Güttgemanns’ insistence on the connection between Paul’s somatic existence and the earthly Jesus, in my interpretation this does not imply that the life of the earthly Jesus as such loses its significance. Paul presents his own hardships and other aspects of 61

Pace J.T. Fitzgerald, Cracks in an Earthen Vessel: An Examination of the Catalogues of Hardships in the Corinthian Correspondence (SBLDS 99; Atlanta, 1988), 180, who regards παραδιδόµεθα as a middle form. 62 Thrall, 2 Corinthians (n. 60), 336. Paul employs the verb with a similar meaning in reference to himself also in 1 Cor 13:3. 63 Ibid. 64 Note the striking parallels between Gal 6:17 and 2 Cor 4:10: τὰ στίγµατα τοῦ Ἰησοῦ / τὴν νέκρωσιν τοῦ Ἰησοῦ; ἐν τῷ σώµατί µου βαστάζω / ἐν τῷ σώµατι περιφέροντες. Cf. R.C. Tannehill, Dying and Rising with Christ: A Study in Pauline Theology (BZNW 32; Gießen and Berlin, 1967), 84. 65 This is not to deny the importance of speaking in Paul’s proclamation; cf. the use of λαλέω in 4:13 and elsewhere in 2 Corinthians: 2:17; 7:14; 11:17.23; 12:19; 13:3. Paul’s reference to Christ speaking in him in the last of these occurrences is of interest for our interpretation.

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his embodied existence in terms of mimetic impersonation not in order to downplay the story of Jesus’s earthly life, but to the contrary, if I may use a term anachronistic in this context, to underscore the reality of the incarnation. Furthermore, Paul not only emphasizes in this way the continuity between the earthly Jesus and the exalted Lord66 but also suggests that the story continues and is being re-enacted in Paul’s apostolic ministry.67 The latter is confirmed by the fact that 2 Cor 4:10 “provides a christological interpretation of the experiences described in the antitheses of vv. 8–9,”68 one of Paul’s so-called “catalogues of hardships.”69 While in Paul’s apostolic life the story (and character70) of Jesus is re-enacted, Jan Lambrecht is right that there can be no question of a complete identification between Paul and Jesus and thus no loss of the Apostle’s identity,71 even though the two come very close together. The issue of a possible loss of identity in performance featured already in ancient discussions concerning actors and acting. Anne Duncan draws attention to two competing theories of acting attested in ancient Greek and Roman literature. The first one, going back “at least as far as Plato’s Ion,” conceives of “acting as possession by the character being played.”72 For the Roman context, she mentions Cicero’s description of the famous actor Aesopus, who allegedly was capable of wholly succumbing to his character, 66 Cf. J. Lambrecht, “The Nekrōsis of Jesus: Ministry and Suffering in 2 Cor 4,7-15,” in Studies on 2 Corinthians (ed. R. Bieringer and J. Lambrecht; BETL 112; Leuven, 1994), 309–33, here 313–14. 67 Cf. Lim, Sufferings (n. 38), who, as stated in the summary of his book on the cover pages, “argues that Paul’s apostolic suffering is grounded in the story of Jesus,” noting also that “Paul sees his own suffering as a reflection of his embodying the ongoing story of Jesus.” It is surprising therefore that there are only a few passing references to 1 Cor 4:9 and to spectacle imagery more generally. Even though his focus is on 2 Corinthians, both letters were addressed to the same community, and they both contribute to our understanding of how Paul presented his apostleship to the Corinthians. 68 Thrall, 2 Corinthians (n. 60), 331. 69 On the Pauline “catalogues of hardships,” see Fitzgerald, Cracks (n. 61); M. Ebner, Leidenslisten und Apostelbrief: Untersuchungen zu Form, Motivik und Funktion der Peristasenkataloge bei Paulus (FB 66; Würzburg, 1991); M. Schiefer Ferrari, Die Sprache des Leids in den paulinischen Peristasenkatalogen (SBB 23; Stuttgart, 1991). 70 Cf. Stegman, Character (n. 38), who argues that throughout 2 Corinthians Paul aligns himself with the ethos of Jesus. With regard to 2 Cor 4:7–12, he submits that “it is more than a statement about the apostle’s endurance of sufferings. In this passage he relates that the treasure of the νοῦς Χριστοῦ is made manifest most clearly by his incarnating the character of Christ in his own mortal flesh” (255). While I sympathize with Stegman’s concern not to focus exclusively on Jesus’s death, and I agree that in general Paul conceives of his apostolic existence as shaped on the pattern of Jesus’s loving existence for the sake of others (cf. 1 Cor 13:3), the reference to the νέκρωσις of Jesus in v. 10 brings the reality of Jesus’s death so sharply into focus that its centrality can scarcely be denied. 71 Lambrecht, “Nekrōsis” (n. 66), 328. 72 Duncan, Performance (n. 46), 2.

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including “the extradramatic situation; the actor’s performance was moving because he himself was moved.”73 The other, opposed theory, understood acting as a skill (τέχνη), which presupposed “control, distance, and analysis” and which “could be refined and perfected.”74 Such a theory seems to underlie Aristotle’s discussion in Poetics, and Duncan finds it also in first c. BCE Rome, in anecdotal evidence about Roscius. The latter theory, while it could imply insincerity and deception, was received with less suspicion in Rome. But it is the former that may be applied to Paul’s “performance.” The almost complete submersion into the character “played” accounts better for the tension between coming close to the identification with the role he enacts and the awareness of the distinction. This ever-present tension between the two has often confused exegetes, especially in relation to the verses which could suggest that Paul’s “performance” actually had performative power. In 2 Cor 4:12 Paul seems at first to summarize what was said in the aforementioned vv. 10–11. In v. 12 he first states, “so death is at work in us,” yet then unexpectedly adds, “but life in you.” This affirmation goes back to the opening verses of the letter, where in 1:6 Paul implied that his affliction had the power to bring about consolation and salvation (σωτηρία) to the community. The latter claim is so daring that commentators hasten to explain that Paul “certainly does not mean that he is the one who saves them.”75 In light of 2 Cor 4:7–15, it is evident that Paul did not consider his suffering salvific but rather as a “live performance,” or to put it in more theological terms, as an epiphany of the salvific power of Jesus’s suffering. In both the introductory blessing and in 4:7–15, however, the sense that Paul participates in, and almost identifies with, the suffering of Jesus is very strong. Hence, the vocabulary of “participation in” and “union with” Christ, or sometimes even Pauline “mysticism,” employed by interpreters. Thus, it may not be altogether surprising that Paul may present his affliction as resulting in life for the community, remaining at the same time aware that he is not the ultimate source of this life. The contrast Paul draws between himself (and other apostles) and other members of Christian communities, which is presupposed in my interpretation, often tends to be disregarded in the attempt to read the passages to which I referred in my discussion in an inclusive sense, as encompassing the experience of all believers. The assertion of Richard Hays is in this respect typical: “Those who are in Christ find the pattern of his faithful suffering and death re-enacted in their own lives (cf. Gal. 2.19b–20; 2 Cor. 4.7–12) and share the same expectation of resurrection. In other words, ‘the story of Jesus’ is not the story of Jesus alone; rather, it is the story of all who are in Christ and therefore share his sufferings and the power of his resurrection.” 76 Yet in the texts that Hays enumerates, Paul speaks in the first place about his own experience, which in 2 Cor 4:12, as noted above, explicitly contrasts with that of the Corinthians (“death in me, life in you”). The disjunction that Paul posits between the experience of the apostles and that of other believers makes it unwarranted, to my mind, to unduly generalize Paul’s bold statements. At the same time, Paul’s expression of his desire that Christ be formed in his Galatian addressees (Gal 4:19), as well as his appeals to imitate him, show that he did not expect

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Ibid., 186. Duncan refers to Cicero’s Sest. 120–123. Ibid., 174. F.J. Matera, II Corinthians: A Commentary (NTL; Louisville, 2003), 42. However, as E.A. Castelli, Imitating Paul: A Discourse of Power (Literary Currents in Biblical Interpretation; Louisville, 1991), 112, rightly observes, “Paul does appear at times to confuse his own position with that of Christ or God.” 76 Hays, “Paul’s Gospel,” (n. 1), 229.

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his audience to remain passive observers but to become involved in the “spectacle,” too, albeit in a secondary mimetic move. It is noteworthy in this respect that the appeal to the Corinthians in 1 Cor 4:16 to become Paul’s imitators 77 follows the theatre metaphor in 4:9. The interpretation of the Lord’s Supper as a communal proclamation of Jesus’s death, as attested in 1 Cor 11:26 (see above), is yet another example of how the Corinthians are also invited to take part in the ongoing performance. Both the apostolic mimesis and that of the other believers presuppose the belief, which was widespread in antiquity and which prevailed long into the Common Era, as reflected in early Christians’ anti-theatre rhetoric, that imitation caused all those involved, both actors and the audience, to attempt to become like the characters imitated.

2.3 Actors in God’s Theatre The generic category of performance is a convenient way of avoiding the speculation as to whether Paul, in his missionary activity, had recourse to “theatrical demonstrations” in a literal sense. However, Paul’s explicit application of the metaphor of spectacle to his own apostolic existence (as well as that of other apostles) in 1 Cor 4:9 shows that, at least in a metaphorical sense, he did envisage himself as an actor in a spectacle staged by God: δοκῶ γάρ, ὁ θεὸς ἡµᾶς τοὺς ἀποστόλους ἐσχάτους ἀπέδειξεν ὡς ἐπιθανατίους, ὅτι θέατρον ἐγενήθηµεν τῷ κόσµῳ καὶ ἀγγέλοις καὶ ἀνθρώποις. As we may remember, in 2 Corinthians, 4:10–11 provide the interpretation of the “catalogue of hardships” included in the preceding verses. The fact that 1 Cor 4:9 introduces yet another Pauline list of sufferings allows us to perceive an analogy between the two passages, and more specifically, it may confirm our interpretation of 2 Cor 4:10–11. The imagery of 1 Cor 4:9 has been variously understood. I agree with Henry Nguyen that the combination of a spectacle and “being led to death” fits well the image of the “Roman spectacle of executing condemned criminals (noxii).”78 At the same time, the power of the metaphor dwells in its capacity to evoke multiple images, and the fact that spectacles involving noxii were the only kind of public shows where the death of certain participants constituted an inherent part of the intended outcome, does not mean that death did not occur in other kinds of spectacles.79 It 77 Cf. also 1 Cor 11:1, where Paul admonishes his addressees to imitate him as Christ’s imitator. As for the only other reference to the concept of imitation in the homologoumena, in 1 Thess 1:6, we may note that the addition of τοῦ κυρίου is rather awkward and looks like an afterthought; clearly, the emphasis is on ἡµῶν. 78 V.H.T. Nguyen, “The Identification of Paul’s Spectacle of Death Metaphor in 1 Corinthians 4.9,” NTS 53 (2007): 489–501, here 497. 79 The difference between the two categories, convicts and professional gladiators, tends to be blurred, yet with regard to the latter, even if in some cases death took place, the rules of fight differed from contest to contest, and contrary to popular understanding, as D.S. Potter, “Entertainers in the Roman Empire,” in Life, Death, and Entertainment in

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therefore remains a valid option to explore other possibilities that the apostolic self-designation as θέατρον may entail. Laurence Welborn, in his study on “Paul, the Fool of Christ,” argues that Paul draws here on the imagery of mime performance.80 More specifically, according to Welborn, Paul presents himself as a “mimic fool,” a characteristic figure of a lower class buffoon who, as “the secondary actor in the mime [...] aped the performance of the archmime.”81 Welborn bases his interpretation on the use of the term µωρός as a generic name for a mimic fool (cf. Paul’s exclamation in 1 Cor 4:10: ἡµεῖς µωροὶ διὰ Χριστόν). Mimes, which the Roman Empire (ed. D.S. Potter and D.J. Mattingly; Ann Arbor, 1999), 256–325, 307, reminds us, “There was no such thing as a mandatory fight to the death between gladiators.” Cf. D.G. Kyle, Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome (London and New York, 2001), 91: “Contrary to popular opinion, most of the arena’s dead victims were not true gladiators but doomed convicts (noxii), men (and women) sentenced to execution, crucifixion, fire, or the beasts.” On a particular type of punishment, public executions staged as mythical re-enactments, see also K.M. Coleman, “Fatal Charades: Roman Executions Staged as Mythological Enactments,” JRS 80 (1990): 44–73 80 L.L. Welborn, Paul, the Fool of Christ: A Study of 1 Corinthians in the ComicPhilosophical Tradition (JSNT SS 293; London and New York, 2005); cf. also his earlier essay, L.L. Welborn, “Μωρὸς γένεσθω [sic!]: Paul’s Appropriation of the Role of the Fool in 1 Corinthians 1-4”, Biblical Interpretation 10 (2002): 420–35. Most of Welborn’s argumentation is based on the Pauline letters. Yet in his introduction to “Paul, the Fool of Christ,” he also suggests that “the number, specificity, and richness of Pauline metaphors drawn from the world of the theater and amphitheater” can be better explained if we understand the occupation ascribed to Paul in Acts 18:3, σκηνοποιός, as denoting a “prop maker.” Welborn takes his cue from the revised article on σκηνοποιός in BDAG, suggesting that the meaning “maker of stage properties” next to, and even as preferable to, the meaning “tentmaker,” was only introduced in the third English edition of Walter Bauer’s lexicon. This meaning was in fact also included in earlier editions of the lexicon, and interestingly, the fifth German edition of the lexicon Bauer (1958), as stated in BAGD, “seems to give priority to the sense ‘manufacturer of theatrical properties’ for the word in Ac 18:3.” In the sixth German edition (1988), revised by Kurt and Barbara Aland, this preference is abandoned, and the article on σκηνοποιός is significantly shortened. In the third English edition (2000), Frederick Danker, however, states his preference quite explicitly (929): “In the absence of any use of the term σκηνοποιός, beyond the pass. in Pollux and the Herm. Wr., and the lack of specific qualifiers in the text of Ac 18:3, one is left with the strong probability that Luke’s publics in urban areas, where theatrical productions were in abundance, would think of σκηνοποιός in ref. to matters theatrical.” The noun under discussion, a hapax legomenon in NT, is not attested in Greek literature prior to Acts, and according to second-century CE Pollux’s Onomasticon, in the Old Comedy the term σκηνοποιός was used synonymously with µηχανοποιός (in LSJ rendered in this context as a “machinist of the theatre”). Therefore, the priority given by Danker to the meaning “maker of stage properties” seems justified. Yet with regard to Paul’s occupation, the question concerning the reliability of the traditions attested in Acts remains. Besides, given the popularity of theatrical performances in the Roman period, it may not be necessary to posit Paul’s occupational interest to explain his metaphors. 81 Welborn, Fool of Christ, 37–38.

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started gaining popularity in the late Republic, became even more widespread in the early Empire.82 Especially popular among the lower classes, mimes had realistic and often vulgar plots, and were presented without masks. They were performed on raised platforms in public spaces more often than in theatres, but they were also performed in private houses. They are often viewed as opposing and debasing the high or official culture, even though members of the elite classes also used to enjoy them. Concerning the role of the mimic fool in particular, Welborn aptly comments: “What made the role of the fool so attractive was the freedom it permitted for the utterance of a dangerous truth. Numerous anecdotes relate how, especially in the early Empire, the mimes became voices for what no one else dared to say. Speaking as a fool, Paul is able to challenge the reliance upon wealth and knowledge by the leaders of the church at Corinth, and the sense of superiority which these things engendered.”83 Welborn’s suggestion is helpful, especially insofar as mime performances would presumably be the kind of theatrical performance most frequently encountered by the members of Paul’s communities, since they often took place in public spaces. Also, the power of the mime to challenge the official culture is in line with the countercultural tone of 1 Corinthians 1–4. However, as has been noted in some of the reviews, Welborn’s contention that Paul was unique in his consistent off-stage appropriation of the role of the fool needs to be questioned, and it is surprising that Cynics, a good example of individual off-stage performance whereby one’s body and attire are meant to convey a countercultural message, are not treated at more length.84 Furthermore, in order to grasp fully the implications of the understanding of Paul’s apostolic existence as a continuous spectacle, one would need to reflect not only on the significance of performance in the first-century Roman world but also take into account the tradition of the OT prophetic drama.85 Perhaps Paul’s addressees, surely familiar with the figure of the mimic fool, would be less likely 82 R.C. Beacham, The Roman Theatre and Its Audience (London, 1991), 135, mentions the “enormous popularity” that the mimes achieved “in the mid-first century AD.” On mimes, see also A. Nicoll, Masks, Mimes and Miracles: Studies in the Popular Theatre (London, 1931). 83 Welborn, “Μωρός,” 433–434. 84 Cf. F.G. Downing, review of L.L. Welborn, Paul, the Fool of Christ: A Study of 1 Corinthians in the Comic-Philosophic Tradition, JSNT 28 (2006): 92. For the connection between Cynics and performance, cf. a popular book by I. Cutler, Cynicism from Diogenes to Dilbert (Jefferson and London, 2005), who presents Diogenes as a progenitor of contemporary performance artists. 85 Cf. D. Stacey, Prophetic Drama in the Old Testament (London, 1990). On Paul’s prophetic self-understanding, see K.O. Sandnes, Paul – One of the Prophets? A Contribution to the Apostle's Self-Understanding (WUNT 2/43; Tübingen, 1991).

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to hear echoes of the prophets’ quasi-theatrical acts, yet Paul’s frequent scriptural references imply that he expected at least some of his addressees to be well versed in the Hebrew Scriptures. In view of the foregoing, I suggest that rather than limiting the interpretation of 1 Cor 4:9 to one specific kind of spectacle, we regard it as evoking a variety of connotations associated with theatrical and quasitheatrical performances attested throughout the Roman Empire and perhaps also those of Paul’s own Jewish tradition. Roman preoccupation with performance and theatrical productions allows us to suppose that the Corinthians would have been aware of the implications of applying the imagery of a spectacle to apostolic existence. For the purpose of the present essay, Paul’s metaphor in 1 Cor 4:9 corroborates my suggestion that we interpret Paul’s references to his “embodied proclamation” in terms of performance – performance which was “staged” by God and “enacted” by God’s slaves, the apostles. Scholars are not agreed as to the proportion between slaves, freedmen, and freeborn among actors in ancient Rome, yet many concur that in spite of singular examples of freeborn actors, such as the late Republic’s most famous actor, Quintus Roscius Gallus, the majority seem to have been either slaves or freedmen. 86 While individuals, like Roscius, amassed considerable wealth by acting, many were poor. This is particularly true for mimic actors. As Richard Beacham notes, “the mimes’ life was a precarious one, [...] most were slaves, and those who were not eked out a dubious living; greatly dependent on the largess and indulgence of patrons, the taste of the public, and the availability of suitable opportunities for performance.” 87 Paul’s self-designation as Christ’s slave, δοῦλος, would thus not be incompatible with his understanding of his own apostolic existence as continuous performance. Furthermore, the idea that God not only sets the stage but also selects the members of his actors’ troupe and assigns them their roles, would be valid not only against the background of spectacles involving convicts but also other kinds of theatrical shows.

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Duncan, Performance (n. 46), 161. Beacham (n. 82), Roman Theatre, 131. Earlier in the text, he mentions the literary references to the disgrace of associating with performers, as well as the fact that “commentators frequently lumped them together with other low-life denizens; whores, pimps, parasites, and the like.” It is generally acknowledged that the status of actors was particularly low in the Roman Empire, in spite of famous actors, who seem to have gained the support of the members of the elite. As Duncan, Performance (n. 46), 128, remarks, “The Romans consistently placed actors and prostitutes at the bottom of the ladder in terms of their legal status. Numerous early Imperial statues ascribe to both professions the status of infamis.” In the Republican period, there was a law permitting magistrates to beat actors publicly, which, according to Suetonius (Aug. 45.3), Augustus limited, so that actors could be beaten “only” at the time and place of their performances.

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3 Concluding Remarks The letters of St. Paul offer only fragmentary evidence with regard to the content of Paul’s proclamation. However, rather than lamenting the scarcity of information – which is understandable in view of the genre of these writings – I concur with those authors who in the last few decades have emphasized the importance of the story of Jesus for Paul. In this story, specific historical events, such as his birth, events of his earthly life, as well as his suffering prior to death, and finally his death and burial, are tightly interwoven with the narrative about the cosmic significance of these events. In spite of this, as I noted in the first part of this essay in my overview of passages that may allude to certain passion traditions, these texts imply at the very least Paul’s – and his addressees’ – acquaintance with more elaborate narratives. Admittedly, if Paul, or his imitator, had recourse to a specific event related to the passion of Jesus, the point of referring to it was not to establish what exactly happened. These passing references, however, especially 1 Cor 11:23, imply a much more detailed, albeit not necessarily written, account of Jesus’s passion, which Paul must have shared with his communities. Paul could ground his concerns regarding the current situation in particular historical events because these events were deemed significant. Similarly, the author of 1 Timothy could assume that his exhortation would be effective given its rootedness in history. Those who treat Paul’s letters as if they could provide more than very fragmentary witness to Paul’s communication with his communities tend to overemphasize the significance of written evidence. Yet by concentrating primarily on the opposition between orality and textuality, one still remains largely within the verbal realm. This is so even if oral communication presupposes a variety of other, nonverbal elements, such as gestures, movements, facial expression, possible reactions from the audience, or the setting of the delivery more generally.88 A tendency to privilege verbal communication has long caused interpreters to overlook the significance of what is not expressed with words. Thus, in the second part of my paper, I drew attention to the importance of the “embodied 88 Note the term “performance criticism” as applied to the oral delivery of New Testament writings; see D. Rhoads, “Performance Events in Early Christianity: New Testament Writings in an Oral Context,” in The Interface of Orality and Writing: Speaking, Seeing, Writing in the Shaping of New Genres (ed. A. Weissenrieder and R.B. Coote; WUNT 260; Tübingen, 2010), 166–93; cf. in the same volume: D. Trobisch, “Performance Criticism as an Exegetical Method: A Story, Three Insights, and Two Jokes,” 194–201. As Rhoads, 173, rightly stresses, an oral “performance is much more than just ‘oral.’ The performance expresses not only sound but physicality and presence.”

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proclamation” in Paul’s apostolic self-understanding. I suggested that passages such 2 Cor 4:10-11 and Gal 6:17, but also other texts in which Paul portrays his apostolic existence in terms commonly used in reference to Jesus’s suffering and death, imply that Paul viewed his apostolic existence in terms of an enactment of Jesus’s life, passion, and death, and that he interpreted it in this way for his addressees. That proclamation in general was not to be limited solely to the verbal element is confirmed in 1 Cor 11:26. Yet Paul seems to have conceived, in the first place, of his own activity as an ongoing performance, and in this way the explicit theatrical metaphor in 1 Cor 4:9 may help us better appreciate Paul’s reflection on his own fragile somatic existence. A metaphor of a spectacle would have been perfectly understandable in the first-century world, and the realia of the actors’ everyday life in that period shed further light on how Paul conceived of his own situation. In addition, the existence of other off-stage performers in Paul’s world would have made it more likely that the metaphor resonated with the hearers. The notion of performance, rather than a simple analogy with a particular type of theatrical shows, allows us to encompass the various ways in which Paul understood his ministry as an enactment of the story of Jesus. It is helpful also because it leaves the question of agency partly open, while a too literal understanding of 1 Cor 4:9 could imply that the apostolic suffering was purposely planned and executed by God. The problem of specifying agency with respect to Paul’s own suffering, however, reflects to some extent the lack of clarity with regard to this question in reference to Jesus. The passive form παραδιδόµεθα in 2 Cor 4:11 is not surprising, in view of the use of the same form in the context of Jesus’s passion. While the imagery of a spectacle staged by God would have been understandable in first-century Corinth and a number of insights from contemporary performance studies would have been valid for the way in which theatre and quasi-theatrical events functioned in the Roman world, from the perspective of modern readers the analogy with contemporary performance art may help us envisage better the significance of the apostolic body as a vehicle in the proclamation of the gospel. Paul’s retelling of Jesus’s story was not limited to verbal communication. Similarly to performance art, the body of the Apostle functioned as the main vehicle to convey the message about the one who was “born of the woman” (Gal 4:4), “descended from David according to the flesh” (Rom 1:3), in human form humbled himself, and became obedient to the point of the death on the cross (Phil 2:7–8), participated in a special supper on the night when he was betrayed (1 Cor 11:23–25), was crucified by the rulers of this world (1 Cor 2:8), then died and was buried (1 Cor 15:3–4). His

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story is significant because it does not end with death, however, since passion traditions for Paul are not to be viewed in separation from the resurrection traditions, as best evidenced in 1 Corinthians 15 but also by the fact that 2 Cor 4:7–15 is followed by Paul’s reflection on the future life in 4:16–5:10. That is why ultimately, in the apostolic performance, the story of Jesus’s earthly life and death cannot be separated from the story of his resurrection.

IV Discussion

Group Discussion: Summaries and Reflections CHRISTOS KARAKOLIS

1 The Third Quest and Methodology 1.1. The Third Quest is not a single quest but one that takes many different directions, all of which are valuable and should be engaged. We should, however, discern which of these directions are the most promising. 1.2. We should be aware that the historical method has its limits. In this regard, we must ask if we can, or even should, separate scholarship from faith.

2 Historical Research and Christological Development 2.1. The New Testament often uses metaphorical language, while later Christianity tends to adopt rather ontological language. All forms of christological language are developed in order to respond to the concrete problems faced by Christian communities in their specific historical circumstances. 2.2. Each gospel presents Jesus in a more or less distinctive way. This also applies to biographies of other personalities of the ancient world, such as Socrates or Alexander the Great. (One must, of course, take into account the differences between the two literary genres.) 2.3. The cross can serve as the basis of the discussion about the historical Jesus, for the cross is an undeniable historical fact. To refer, however, to the “intentions” of Jesus, surpasses perhaps the limits and possibilities of historical research.

3 Johannine Christology 3.1. When dealing with John’s Christology, we have to be aware of our own doctrinal presuppositions.

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3.2. Normally, the language of John should not be understood literally but metaphorically. The metaphor of the Father-Son relationship, understood according to ancient family imagery and connected with Jewish family law, can potentially be a very good basis for understanding Johannine Christology. 3.3. It is possible to understand the Christology in the Gospel of John as a coherent whole.

4 Lucan Christology 4.1. Lucan Christology is very complex and cannot be reduced to any one of its elements. Every pertinent reference contributes to an adequate understanding of Lucan Christology. It is, therefore, not easy to find a dominant christological concept within the Third Gospel. 4.2. Apart from the examination of Luke’s christological titles, the study of how Christology unfolds within the narrative also proves very helpful for understanding Lucan Christology. 4.3. The synchronic approach to the Gospel of Luke tends to be more important today than it used to be.

5 Church Fathers’ Interpretation of the Jesus of History 5.1. The exegesis of the church fathers in modern NT scholarship is gaining popularity. 5.2. The church fathers represent a variety of exegetical trends. Therefore, they should not be uncritically considered as always being in accordance with one another. 5.3. Although the writings of the church fathers have an important position in Orthodox theology, Orthodox theologians are not unanimous as to the exact character of this position. 5.4. The church fathers emphasized specific features of Jesus’s person and life according to the challenges and problems of their own time. For example, Athanasius emphasizes the divinity of Jesus while John of Damascus stresses his true humanity. 5.5. A critical consciousness is already present in the Fathers. Chrysostom, for instance, observes that while the books of the New Testament can disagree with each other as to matters of places and times, all of them agree as to the kernel of the Christian theological message. 5.6. If we are to follow the church fathers, we do not necessarily have to adopt their particular positions, but we have to follow their methodology,

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which included using current scientific methods and insights of their own time so as to convey their message to their historical audience in an understandable way.

6 Jesus Research from the Enlightenment until Today 6.1. The central hermeneutical question here is the role that the regula fidei should play in our research on the historical Jesus: Should it have an a priori, normative authority or a derivative authority after having been tested in the New Testament texts? 6.2. This problem also raises a practical question: How can we apply the results of our Jesus research within the life of the church? In order for our work to be constructive, we currently seem to need a hermeneutic of affirmation and not one of suspicion.

7 Jesus as a Jew 7.1. There is no way to understand Jesus outside of his Jewish context and identity. His healings, for instance, can only be considered in the light of the Sabbath laws of the Torah and their interpretation in the Mishnah. 7.2. The question of how a pious Jew could be executed in such a terrible way still remains open. In this regard, the Romans probably played a more significant role in Jesus’s execution than the gospels suggest. 7.3. Jesus functions as a reformer of Israel, although the outcome of his activity eventually leads to the parting of the ways between Judaism and the church. 7.4. It is important for our understanding of early Christianity to compare Jesus’s and Paul’s attitudes to the law. 7.5. We should always be sensitive to how our language will be understood by our Jewish readers. 7.6. We should keep in mind the problem of dating rabbinic oral tradition and written sources when using them to shed light on Jesus’s person and life. 7.7. Jesus is characteristic in that he does not expressly base his teaching upon preexisting tradition. On the contrary, he claims to have received his teaching directly from God. 7.8. We should further reflect on the question of the extent to which we should interpret the NT texts as authentic witnesses to what Jesus actually said or as secondary interpretations of his original sayings. In asking this

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question, we have to keep in mind that historical research is never ideologically unbiased. 7.9. The statement that Jesus was wrong in his predictions about the eschaton has very serious hermeneutical and theological implications that should be reflected upon very carefully. 7.10. In modern Jesus research, we should consider the Gospel of John as being a potentially trustworthy historical witness to Jesus, thus doing justice to the complexity of the gospel tradition. 7.11. Jesus research has helped us and will further help us to rediscover more fully the Jewishness of Jesus. We should bring this insight back to our churches, so as to be able to face anti-Semitism in new ways.

Notes from the Group Discussion URS VON ARX

1 Historical Research on Jesus and Faith in Jesus The main issue that emerged in our group was the exact meaning of the term “historical Jesus.” Does it refer to the pre-Easter Jesus separated from the post-Easter Jesus (which would be an impossibility in terms of the Christian faith as expressed in the Nicene Creed) or does it mean that Jesus can be an object of historical investigation and research? If the latter is the case, historical research, as understood in the scientific community, by definition cannot establish the divinity of Christ as it appears in the Chalcedonian formula referred to in the paper of U. Luz. Historical research does not reckon with God or divine forces or divine intervention as elements to be used for historical investigation, explanation, or reconstruction. From a Christian perspective, this may either be interpreted as a sign of unbelief or – and this seems to be the better option – as a sign of deep respect for the divinity and Lordship of God, who cannot become an object of human verification or falsification. It was not quite clear, however, whether this second evaluation of historical research on Jesus was shared by all or whether it was deemed by some to be an unscientific, reductionist approach to reality. Historical research, however, can discuss and evaluate the various data or artifacts dealing with Jesus, especially the Gospels, which are a result of the impact Jesus made on his contemporaries and successive generations. In principle, all methods of historical research can be applied, but not all of them may yield results that are worthwhile for a Christian understanding. At this point, the group became somewhat divided. Some held that since no form of historical research can establish what the faith of the church teaches us concerning Christ as truly God and truly human, we should not take any notice of what must be deemed as more or less fantastic or irrelevant (from Jesus the Cynic teacher to The Da Vinci Code, to take two examples of different kinds) when compared with the gospel image embraced by the church. Moreover, we should question the claim to scientific method of such endeavours.

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Others had no such reservations, since the various images that have been and are being produced by these methodologically diverse approaches to Jesus (as presented in the gospels, canonical or otherwise) find an audience, to a lesser or greater degree, in the media of a society that may be hostile to the church or unconvinced by its message. All agreed that ultimately, those responsible for the witness of the gospel or the doctrine of the church must discern which results of historical research from any specific approach can enrich or correct what is perceived as the gospel image (the singular is probably, to a greater or lesser degree, an abstraction) of a particular tradition as encountered in liturgy, iconography, Bible study, and so forth. A number of other issues developed from the above discussion but could not be followed up by closer investigation due to lack of time. For example, the following questions emerged: What motivates or enables an assessment of others’ motivations for engaging in the study of historical texts and in the extensive research involved in establishing, or recovering, or questioning sources for the historical Jesus? What theory, if any, of the relationship between language and extra-linguistic reality do we presuppose, whether consciously or unconsciously?

2 The Jewishness of Jesus The papers of K. Zarras and J. Marcus were impressive examples of doing research into the historical Jesus (= what can be ascertained about his life by using historical methods). What is the theological relevance of the Jewishness of Jesus, even though his Jewishness is not explicitly mentioned in the creedal statement “and made man” or “vere Deus, vere homo”? Does the insistence that Jesus was a Jew (of whatever level of Torah observance) set a limitation on the universality of his being just human? There was a consensus that it is necessary to find a responsible way of dealing with biblical statements or passages that have resulted in antiJudaism/anti-Semitism in the past (e.g., Matt 27:25; 1 Thess 2:14-16; the “Jews” in the Gospel of John). They may be explained with a view to their historical context, which is no longer ours. However, what people repeatedly hear in the liturgy (e.g., during Holy or Great Week) comes along in a decontextualized fashion. Thus, there is an inherent problem, which calls for honest and discerning hermeneutics. Another similar problem concerns ecclesiastical statements that deny the continuing election of Israel and/or presuppose that Israel, by God’s will, has been replaced by the church.

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3 Gospel Images of Jesus In contrast to the previous session, the papers of R. Bieringer and K. Tsalampouni did not address the problem of the historical Jesus (in the sense of a reconstruction of what can be established according to the axiomatic presuppositions of historical research) but rather the image of Jesus that is presented in the Gospels according to John and Luke. Bieringer's paper, in a close reading of a particular segment of John, focused on the phrase “for the Father is greater than I” in John 14:28 and showed that in this instance, the Father’s “being greater (meizōn)” implies a reference to the resurrection of Jesus. The Father is the source of the life that Jesus is to give to those who love him, and thus it is a good thing that Jesus is to leave his friends and return to the Father. How to deal with the paradoxical statements concerning the relation of the Father to Jesus (e.g., 10:30 and 14:28) seems to be a matter for further research. Here we should make a distinction between (a) research presupposing as far as possible nothing but the context of communication between author (represented by the text) and an audience within the first century and (b) research into the history of interpretation, where the interpretation by the church fathers becomes important. Tsalambouni's paper gave a detailed overview of the way Luke presents Jesus to his readers. This was accomplished by a focus on christological titles, which in Luke undergo a reinterpretation by being used in various narratives (esp. Luke 1–2) then reused later. By this procedure, the titles are put into a new perspective that is shaped by the message and the destiny of Jesus. Thus, Luke offers a multifaceted image of Jesus that finds its focus in the Christ-event (including the passion, resurrection, ascension, and the sending of the Holy Spirit). This approach was praised for its refusal to subject the Lucan Jesus traditions to an “overarching concept,” which may be applicable in systematic theology but does not do justice to the interrelated thematic units presented by the Lucan text.

4 The Patristic Understanding of Jesus A long discussion of V. Mihoc's paper brought the following clarification: The Fathers apparently never questioned the historical reliability of what constitutes the core of the later Creeds (or of what is termed the “canon of faith” or “regula fidei” by pre-Nicene theologians). They did, however, discuss the historical reliability of other texts or aspects pertaining to the life of Jesus, but without distinguishing between historical and theological

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discourse, as contemporary theologians are bound to do, if they want to be heard in the context of academic theology in a secular university and in the wider community. This difference has to do with the changed presuppositions of our worldview and thus also of historiography. Thus, to assume the divine authorship of Scripture in order to establish the unquestionable historicity of what specific texts say about Jesus (e.g., resurrection) is no longer possible. This does not mean, however, that it is nonsense, but that it belongs to a different mode of speaking. To clarify and categorize such matters is a specific task of theology. In a history of religions context, this task would belong to what may be called the “myth” of Christian religion. Another question concerned the theological value of trying to use all sorts of historical methods and approaches in order to find out whatever we can about the concrete life of Jesus – aspects of his life that are not mentioned in the classical Creeds. For example, is it important to know whether Jesus was poor and in need of support by others, or whether he belonged rather to the “middle class”? If yes, how is it important? Does a poor Jesus create a model for a Christian lifestyle that is as binding as what belongs to the realm of dogma?

A Talk to Be Continued: A Minsk Group Report MANUEL VOGEL

As far as my experience goes, the group sessions during the conference were a particularly important part of the Minsk Symposium, as they provided the opportunity for intense discussion within the manageable circle of a smaller group of participants. My impressions are in line with the view of Rev. Dr. Marian Vild (Romania), who kindly gave me a written statement to be included in this report: “Working in such a group, I had the chance to talk directly to representatives of Western (especially Prof. M. Reiser and Prof. U. Luz) and Eastern (Professors Ianuari Ivliev and Ivan Zhelev Dimitrov) biblical theology, so that the group discussions were of the utmost interest to me .... The group discussions offered the opportunity for a direct acquaintance with the way the participants understand various matters, thus being, from this point of view, even more important than the presentations themselves and the questions discussed there.” Dr. Vild especially appreciated the open, conversational style in which the problems were dealt with. In such an atmosphere, it was possible to address reservations that inevitably occur when Western (mainly Protestant and Catholic) and Eastern (primarily Orthodox) theologians meet, especially when a hotly disputed topic such as modern Jesus research is on the table. Dr. Vild continues: “I could notice a disagreement between the approaches to the topic. From an Orthodox point of view, we cannot speak about Jesus Christ in the sense of a Christology ‘from below’; it seemed to me more like a ‘Jesusology’...”. Certainly, the historicity of the Incarnation is extremely important to Orthodox theology, but this does not mean that we can talk about Jesus only from the perspective of His humanity! At some points during the conference, I had the feeling that I wasn’t taking part at a theological conference, but at a meeting of historical scientists.” Similar reservations were articulated in the final session. Further Orthodox voices may be representative: “We do accept each other as believers, but do we believe the same things?” And referring to an expression in a plenary statement about Jesus’s eschatological expectation not being realized in his own days: “Can a scholar regarding himself as a Christian say that Jesus was wrong?” But those reservations were met by a sincere mu-

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tual interest, as another statement from the Orthodox side may highlight: “Asked for the result of the conference for me personally, I can say: That I was there and that I heard the voice of the others.” The results for me were similar. I am grateful that I had the opportunity to enter a discussion, of which I had only a vague idea before. At future meetings, I would wish to learn more from our Orthodox partners about their specific methods of biblical exegesis. In Minsk, my perception was that questions concerning modern Western exegesis prevailed, albeit due to interest from all sides. The ideal case would be, as Marius Reiser stated in another context, “that the Orthodox side provides the remedies to cure the western maladies and the western camp those for the Orthodox ones.”1 Nonetheless, there were some surprising effects of the symposium that put traditional dichotomies into perspective. To quote Dr. Vild again: “Some Western participants (having now in mind mainly Prof. Marius Reiser, but not only him) highlighted things that I would have expected to find in the speeches or critiques of the Orthodox.” In retrospect and after some further reflections, I would like to add some additional thoughts as a kind of silent continuation of a talk begun in Minsk.

1 The Development of Western Exegesis Even if one holds the view that modern Western exegesis is “the night when no man can work” (John 9:4), I would insist, that in the night of biblical criticism, not all cats are grey. Already from Hermann Samuel Reimarus to David Friedrich Strauss things improve, as Strauss criticized Reimarus’s rationalism and developed a notion of myth that does at least some justice to the ancient texts. Similarly, it is worth discerning between Bultmann’s and Käsemann’s conceptions of history and their corresponding views of the theological significance of the life of Jesus. Whereas Bultmann counted Jesus’s lifetime among the “presuppositions” of New Testament theology, Käsemann insisted that Jesus’s pre-Easter ministry cannot be regarded as meaningless for Christian faith. Many more examples could be added to demonstrate that critical scholarship is not a united front to be repulsed but a field of discussion with better and worse options.

1 M. Reiser, Bibelkritik und Auslegung der Heiligen Schrift: Beiträge zur Geschichte der biblischen Exegese und Hermeneutik (WUNT 217; Tübingen, 2007), 63.

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2 The Diversity of Western Exegesis Critical exegesis was and is open to be criticized itself, and it has developed in many respects. Times have changed considerably since the days of Reimarus in the midst of the eighteenth century and even since the postwar decades of German critical exegesis. Traditional methods have been supplemented or even replaced by new approaches from such diverse fields as cultural anthropology, literary studies, archaeology, and intertextuality. To give an example: Michael Theobald’s commentary on the Gospel of John,2 a brilliant and indispensable work in the tradition of Bultmann’s literary theory of the Fourth Gospel, stands side by side with the no less impressive commentary penned by Hartwig Thyen,3 who passionately argues for an interpretation of John’s Gospel as a coherent and consistent literary unity from the first verse to the last within a rich intertextual universe. Having both books on the table, one does not want to miss either of them, enjoying the freedom to “prove all things and to hold fast that which is good” (1 Thess 5,21).

3 The Lack of Historical Objectivity Reason is in our days no longer the god-like being it used to be during the rise of enlightenment, and the Enlightenment has long since been enlightened with respect to its own presuppositions and historical conditions. Historical objectivity is neither a requirement for being scientific nor its outcome, because historical objectivity does not exist. It is not a blemish that we lack the testimony of Jesus’s death and resurrection apart from its early Christian interpretations, because no facts are mere facts. The insight of critical scholarship, that regarding Jesus’s resurrection the stage of the Osterglauben is ineluctable and that we have no data about the events “as they happened,” should therefore no longer be taken as an attack on the reliability of the early Christian tradition.

4 The Significance of Literarkritik Apparently, critical exegesis has left behind at least its childhood illnesses and the sins of its youth. Viewed in this light, times are ripe for a more 2

M. Theobald, Das Evangelium nach Johannes: Kapitel 1−12 (RNT; Regensburg, 2009). 3 H. Thyen, Das Johannesevangelium (HNT 6; Tübingen, 2005).

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intense encounter between Orthodoxy and Western biblical scholarship. But what remains a problem is the somewhat strange distance from the text that inevitably arises when the historical-critical method is applied. Not only does Literarkritik generate alienation from the actual shape of the text, but above all the concept of the historical Jesus apart from the perspective of faith also makes Jesus a figure of the past, who has seemingly nothing to do with the resurrected one in whom Chrisians believe. In this respect, the language of the the historical-critical method is indeed the language of unbelievers. As far as Literarkritik is concerned, I use this method with suspicion and likewise with curiosity. Suspicion is advisable, because one has always to be aware of the pitfall that a logic is being applied to the text that is not congenial to the text. On the other hand, observations derived from Literarkritik always arouse my curiosity, because they frequently sharpen my awareness of the smallest details, which I would otherwise have overlooked in their unique and individual character. So I use Literarkritik as a sort of epistemic tool. In this regard, it is not devalued by the notoriously manifold and even contradictory results it produces. Every new hypothesis regarding the formation of a text contributes a new perspective on its meaning, allowing further suggestions regarding its place in a scheme of literary or theological development. Even small textual units gain a diachronic dimension that enhances our understanding of the development of early Christian thought. As far as the text in its final form is concerned, I would suggest that we not be too anxious, because the text is the entity that will certainly stand the test of time and will be able to take care of itself (as was the case in the past), whereas guesses on the literary growth of texts come and go.

5 Historical Jesus and the Jesus of Faith The issue raised by research on the historical Jesus is more serious because it touches the very center of Christian faith. I would not, however, blame critical research on Jesus for the aporias to be faced but our historical consciousness in general. If we only vividly enough imagine the man Jesus in his social and cultural environment of first-century Jewish Galilee, he necessarily becomes an alien figure for us. Jesus research only gives those sentiments a methodological framework. The matter is on the table, once the Christian religion has a historical consciousness of its own beginnings. The decision to live as Christians in a historical “here and now” and not in a mythological “nowhere” implies the willingness to endure alienation from what is held to be meaningful. I never knew my own greatgrandparents; at best I saw some yellowed photos of persons whose faces I

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did not recognize, and conversely they could not know that I would exist in a distant future. I nevertheless say “my” and “…. parents.” The foreignness of the meaningful is no threat to its meaning, and likewise research on the historical Jesus is no threat to the significance Jesus has for believers.4 If this research properly limits its competence, it will not state that miracles are impossible and Jesus’s resurrection did not happen. Regarding the miracles, we have a distinct hermeneutical problem, which cannot simply be solved by means of anti-rationalistic apologetics. The relevant antagonism does not concern the question of whether or not God can act independently from or contrary to the laws of nature, because those laws were not held to be relevant in the same way in the first century as they are today. A common ground has to be found beyond the controversial subject of the laws of nature. The following suggestion seems promising to me: A miracle is not defined as what is impossible according to the laws of nature but what is highly improbable according to experience. To hit the jackpot in a lottery is not impossible but most improbable. Spontaneous recovery from a terminal cancer is not held to be something impossible but very improbable. People today hope for miracles insofar as they hope for the improbable (otherwise nobody would play the lottery).5 That might be a framework to talk about miracles in a non-apologetic way.

6 Critical and Ecclesial Exegesis Critics of critical NT exegesis often emphasize that its issues and results are alien to church life and tradition, and they frequently lament the lack of spirituality of the whole enterprise. I tend to agree with Marius Reiser’s diagnosis of “the aridity and dryness, the unedifying and theologically poor character of most fruits of modern exegesis,”6 and I also agree with him that biblical scholarship has a responsibility towards the church as the primary interpretive community of the Bible,7 once such scholarship is 4 I would like to add at this point that the prevalent German coursebook on the historical Jesus by G. Theißen and A. Merz (Der historische Jesus: Ein Lehrbuch [3rd ed.; Göttingen, 2001]) holds a maximalist position in many respects, such as Jesus’s messianic self-consciousness, the Son-of-Man sayings, and the circle of the twelve. I have no problem entrusting students to this book. 5 G. Theißen, Zur Bibel motivieren: Aufgaben, Inhalte und Methoden einer offenen Bibeldidaktik (Güterloh, 2003), 144f, argues along similar lines: “The subject of miracles ... makes us consider reality under the aspect of the unforeseen: Nothing is determined in such a way that events proceed without surprise. For that it is not necessary to consider breaches of the laws of nature possible” (translation mine). 6 Reiser, Bibelkritik (n. 1), 249 (translation mine). 7 Cf. Reiser, Bibelkritik (n. 1), 47.

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institutionalized within theological faculties and has to contribute to the training and education of future pastors and teachers. But likewise I want to emphasize that if I had to decide between methodological astringence and spiritual substance, I would choose the former and renounce the latter. To my mind, spiritual substance is ultimately not a question of methodology but of personality and ecclesial environment. If a church community stands firmly in its tradition and lives in it, it can give biblical exegesis open space to explore the biblical writings, unattached to contemporary theological interests, as documents of antiquity that were produced when no church (in our meaning of the word) and no new world religion yet existed. Accordingly, I do not see the exegesis of the church fathers within the domain of biblical scholarship but of church history and systematic theology. Especially in the Protestant realm, those treasures are culpably neglected, but I do not see it as the duty of New Testament scholarship to rediscover them (perhaps future dialogues with Orthodox partners will teach me better on this point). As far as personality is concerned, I would argue that exegetical methods can neither create nor destroy a theologically earnest and engaged attitude towards biblical texts. They test one’s theological and spiritual seriousness when they compel the pious mind to some sort of epoché: they take the texts from the pious grip that is all too often too subjective and self-confident, only to restore them to a matured personality.

7 The Importance of Scientific Theology in the Example of Adolf Schlatter I would like to close with a testimony of Adolf Schlatter, the famous New Testament and ancient Judaism scholar (and Systematic Theologian!). Schlatter grew up in a mid-nineteenth-century, pious home shaped by the pietism of his father and the Reformed Protestantism of his mother. With this background, he was constantly aware of the dangers of the theological and ecclesial modernism and liberalism of his time, and he very well knew that he would be peculiarly exposed to those dangers through academic theology. He described his decision as follows: “Since neither parent pressed my choice, a transition to classical philology stood open. At that very moment a comment of my elder sister bore utmost importance for me: I justified my change to philology not least with the argument that theological studies might be dangerous and shake one’s faith. ‘How do you know,’ she asked me, ‘that your studies will cost your faith?’ I repudiated her, but this was only in pretense. In actual fact, her objection illuminated the dishonest sophism of my argument. I felt that when I flinched from the study

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of theology, I would not save my faith but thereby abandon it. I do not see another moment in my life in which a decision of that kind was made, so critical for my inner life, than on that day, when I disregarded my hesitance towards theological studies – for the sake of the pretense of protecting faith – as hypocrisy. To those who ask me for the day of my conversion, I am inclined to answer that my decision to study theology was myconversion.”8

8 A. Schlatter, Rückblick auf meine Lebensarbeit (2d ed.; Stuttgart, 1977), 36f. (translation mine).

Final Plenary Discussion: A Summary CHRISTOS KARAKOLIS

1 Introductory Remarks As is the case with my summary of the group discussion, the discussion of the final plenary session of the conference summarized here does not always express my own views. Unlike the group discussions, however, the last plenary discussion was mainly triggered by concrete questions raised by the students of the Orthodox Theological Academy of Zhirovichi. The discussion summarized here should, therefore, be exclusively understood within this framework. In some cases, more than one participant of the conference answered the same question. In these cases, I tried to extract the main points of these answers and to combine them into an inclusive, coherent response. I also tried to remain as faithful as possible to the original wording of both questions and answers in order to maintain the original spirit of the discussion.

2 Regula fidei What is the relationship of criticism and skepticism to the regula fidei (or normata) in the quest for the historical Jesus? 2.1. The regula fidei is not meant for historical inquiry but for theological interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. Thus, our theological interpretations should not contradict the regula fidei – that is, the faith of the church. If they do, then we will not be able to speak in the name of the church. 2.2. With regard to historical investigation, however, we should apply the same historical criteria that are also used by non-Christian historians. The use of such criteria will lead us to the historical Jesus. The historical Jesus is, however, not the whole truth about Jesus our Lord. 2.3. These two aspects, historical research and theological interpretation, could perhaps be brought together. An honest search for the historical Jesus could bring the biblical scholar closer to the authentic Jesus pro-

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claimed by the church, albeit only in the sense of a more precise, historical understanding. 2.4. History is the art of figuring out what is accurate and what is not accurate according to the sources. In this sense, we need to be skeptical and not assume a priori that everything our sources say is necessarily true. In the case of New Testament scholarship, the problem is that our sources are also canonical. 2.5. Historical criticism cannot be separated from skepticism. However, we should discern between an unreasonable and extreme skepticism and a reasonable one. 2.6. Scripture can never answer questions by itself. Therefore, it has to be interpreted. The criterion of the regula fidei is only an assistentia negativa: it states what is an impossible interpretation, but it can never decide which is the right one.

3 Chalcedon In Chalcedon no emphasis was placed upon the fact that Jesus was a Jew or that he was a man. It was only stressed that he was human. Why should we think differently from the Fathers of Chalcedon nowadays? 3.1. From a dogmatic point of view, it is totally uninteresting that Jesus was indeed a Jew. In this regard, it is relevant only that Jesus was a human being. 3.2. From a historical point of view, however, it is of extreme importance that Jesus was a Jew. His self-understanding, his message, and his life cannot be properly understood if not related to the fact that he was an Israelite who lived and acted within Israel under concrete historical circumstances. 3.3. Jesus himself never spoke of his role as a man, but he was very open to women. He accepted them in spite of the fact that they played no role whatsoever in his contemporary Jewish religion and society. We have to reflect further on this issue because it was not brought up during the conference.

4 Western and Eastern Approaches Western people tend to be more rationalistic than Eastern people. Is this a reason for the importance of historical study within Western biblical scholarship?

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4.1. The idea of Western people being more rationalistic than Eastern people does not always do justice to reality. Most Western Christians are not rationalistic, while there is certainly a considerable number of Eastern Christians who are rationalistic. 4.2. It is not possible on the one hand to be rationalistic and on the other hand to share a common faith in Jesus Christ and to pray together, despite belonging to different Christian denominations, as the participants of the conference did during these last days. 4.3. Nowadays, rationalism is no longer a fixed group of unalterable doctrines. It is an open set of methods that constantly change and develop, being in a constant dialogue with scholars and scientists from other disciplines in the open market of science. 4.4. Criticism as the result of rational thinking is not a threat to Christianity or an obstacle to faith. On the contrary, it is an aid for a sound faith. Based upon our scholarly knowledge and research, we have to give plausible answers to the logical questions raised by modern people.

5 The Jewishness of Jesus Is the question of the Jewishness of Jesus a question of political correctness? On the other hand, do the Jews on their side take into consideration our Christian theology? 5.1. Christianity has Jewish roots. If the roots of a plant are cut, the plant dies. 5.2. Contemporary Christianity’s approach to Judaism is a unique phenomenon in the history of religions. A world religion, which originally had much hatred towards its mother religion, tries to encounter it in a friendly attitude, which is in itself very precious. 5.3. Historically speaking, if Jesus had not been Jewish, the Jews would not have listened to him. 5.4. In the nineteenth century, when the Jews began to enter the mainstream of European cultural life, they became aware that much of the information provided in the records about Jesus – namely, in the New Testament – fit into Jewish life as they knew it. 5.5. Since the Second World War and the Holocaust, Christians have also recognized this very fact. This was parallel to their realizing the dangers that can arise if the daughter religion is completely separated from its mother religion. 5.6. The Jewishness of Jesus can also bring us together from the point of view of experience. In previous years, it would have been extremely difficult for Christians of different denominations to sit at the same table

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and talk about Jesus in peace, which we have experienced during this conference. This applies also to Christian-Jewish relations. Through talking to each other about Jesus, we can open ourselves, know each other, learn about each other, while at the same time keeping our own identity. 5.7. It is irrelevant if the Jews are interested in us Christians or not. On the ethical level, we have to be led by Christian love and do more for others than what they would do or are doing for us. This means that we also have to be open to historical facts and insights that come from dialogue, regardless of the others’ attitude towards our faith.

V Epilogue

Hermeneutical Reflections on Modern Jesus-Research: An Orthodox View CHRISTOS KARAKOLIS

1 The Significance of Jesus᾽s Person The significance of Jesus᾽s person for Christianity cannot be overestimated. The name of the Christian religion stems from the christological title “Christ,” which was very soon – already in the Pauline literature – practically used as a second name of Jesus. According to the common faith of all traditional Christian confessions, Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who became human and revealed to humankind the way to salvation in an authentic and unmistakable manner. He is the center of Scripture, not only of the New Testament, which speaks about him and the community of his believers, but also of the Old Testament, which the Christian church interpreted christologically from the very beginning of its existence. Apart from that, Jesus is not uninteresting even for non-Christians. Muslims think of Jesus as a prophet. Many Jews consider him to have been a wise rabbi, who was ultimately misunderstood by his followers. Non-religious people often consider him as one of the most important personalities in history because he represented a revolutionary teaching within a very dark historical period – a teaching that led him to the cross, but at the same time had an enormous impact on the historical course of humanity up to the present day.

2 Paradigms of Historical Understanding of Jesus᾽s Life and Person There has always been a lively interest in the human dimension of Jesus. Paul, the earliest New Testament author, may not give us any historical details about Jesus᾽s life, but he does state that the pre-existent Son of God became a human being and died as such on the cross. We can presume that in his oral preaching, Paul most likely included references to Jesus᾽s life, as his letters do not include the total of his “gospel” but only those parts he

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wanted or needed to emphasize to his communities according to their particular situation. Later Christian writings – especially the canonical and apocryphal gospels – dealt extensively with presenting the Jesus of history. Nevertheless, the people of antiquity had an understanding of history different from ours. They thought that history is, or at least can be, a place in which God reveals himself to humanity. According to this belief, ancient historiography was, as a rule, practically the ascertainment and the putting down in writing of divine interventions within the visible world. The life of Jesus was understood as God᾽s consummate manifestation, as well as his definitive and ultimate soteriological intervention in the world. From the Enlightenment onwards, a different understanding of history and a different model of historiography has gradually developed and finally prevailed. According to it, the Divine is either non-existent or not interested in human matters. Historical events are totally mundane. Compared to earlier historical understanding, this was a paradigm shift. “Traditional” Christian historians reacted to this change by trying to give proof of God᾽s intervention within history. Both sides agreed – even though they did not necessarily realize it – that the question about the historical Jesus should and could be answered one way or the other. They argued either that Jesus was no more than a simple man – although enlightened in a way– or that he was truly God at the same time. Both were convinced that they could verify their opinion on scientific grounds. The two paradigms mentioned above can of course not be simplistically distinguished from each other. In antiquity, Thucydides totally excluded divine intervention in his historiography, while there are contemporary authors who by all means presuppose divine intervention in history (especially in the area of ecclesiastical historiography or spiritual literature).

3 The Significance of the Patristic Tradition within the Orthodox Church and Theology As is well-known, the patristic theological tradition plays an enormously important role within the Orthodox Church and her theology. According to the broad conviction of traditional Orthodox theology, there is an uninterrupted continuity between the theology of the early church and theology today. During all these centuries, theological expression has of course developed. However, in all periods of church history, the Orthodox theological core has – supposedly – remained constant and even identical. By contrast – according to mainstream Orthodox theology – the Catholic and the Protestant confessions have caused changes to the theology of the church

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on a doctrinal and ethical level, and should, therefore, return to the original Orthodox faith. It is not coincidental that the Orthodox Church names and identifies herself as the rightly believing church. Nevertheless, the actual historical development has been much more complex. Especially in the case of biblical exegesis, the following phenomenon can be observed: While in the church of the first three centuries the Bible was considered to be the absolute theological authority in writing, since about the fourth century the writings of the church fathers started gaining in importance. Moreover, the more time passed after the early church fathers of the first five centuries, the more difficult it became for later theologians to develop and express their own exegetical theology. As a rule, the later exegetes of the East were greatly dependent upon the biblical exegesis of the earlier church fathers. For instance, Theophylact of Ohrid or Euthymius Zigabenus reveal in their extensive exegetical work very little originality and rely to a great extent on earlier exegetes, especially John Chrysostom. Even the formation of the catenae during the Byzantine period is a witness to this historical process. The interpretations offered earlier by the church fathers reached in the middle and late Byzantine times an almost canonical status. Theologians believed that they did not actually have to offer original interpretations of the Bible anymore. It was enough for them to read and cite its earlier exegesis. The final downfall of all Orthodox peoples of the Eastern Mediterranean region to the Turkish yoke only intensified this tendency. Ultimately, tradition has steadily been transformed into a static notion and even nowadays it is widely understood in the Orthodox context as the ultimate expression of all theology. According to this view, there is no place for any fresh theological reflections or even expression. One should just study, cite, and at best interpret the ancient teachers of the church. This view, which as already said is widely and forcefully supported within the Orthodox Church, has – in my opinion – a crucial problem: Since the church fathers have expressed themselves in their own language, according to their own conceptions and within their own time and setting, in modern times it seems hardly possible for the church to enter into dialogue with the world and make herself understandable, if she continues using their largely outdated language.

4 Orthodox Theology and the Historical-Critical Method Orthodox theology has dealt for centuries with philosophy. It has adopted and used – or in certain cases even discarded – philosophical methods. It has participated in theological discussions with other religions and Chris-

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tian churches. However, the blossoming of the historical-critical method in the West was a challenge that Orthodox theology largely ignored. It proved far too challenging for Orthodox theology to follow the discussions and the arguments of the Western exegetes in the nineteenth century and in most of the twentieth. Problems such as doubt about the historical credibility of biblical texts, the search for sources and redactional layers, the issue of pseudepigraphy, and perhaps most importantly, the question about the historical Jesus seemed to be threatening to the faith of the Orthodox Church. Indeed, some of the issues that historical-critical biblical scholarship has raised are simply irreconcilable with Orthodox faith and teaching. Orthodox theologians generally (with a few exceptions) did not try to understand this new, dominating force in the field of international biblical studies or even to enter into dialogue with it. At this point, however, Orthodoxy did not even remain faithful to its own theological tradition. In its long history, the Orthodox Church has always engaged in dialogue with non-Christians, as well as non-Orthodox Christians. There are, of course, good historical explanations for why Orthodox theology for a long time did not enter into dialogue with Western biblical scholarship, such as Turkish rule, the two World Wars, the atheist, totalitarian regimes in the Eastern European countries, the highly specialized training of biblical scholars that could only be obtained in the West, and the isolation and feeling of self-sufficiency on the part of local Orthodox churches, as well as the fact that in the Orthodox context, no wide-spread intellectual and critical movement analogous to the Western Enlightenment has ever taken place. Since the 1950s, however, a way out of this dead end has seemed to emerge. A noteworthy number of Orthodox biblical scholars started training in Western universities and have been intensively seeking a common language between their rich theological tradition and the highly developed biblical scholarship of the West. However, in the Orthodox setting, the question about the historical Jesus has not received sufficient consideration, as it constitutes a very complex and sensitive set of problems from church-political and doctrinal points of view. The question that is raised at this point with regard to historical Jesus research, is whether Orthodox and Western biblical scholars are currently confined within a set of problems that originated in an earlier time than our own and perhaps do not correspond to the contemporary state of scientific epistemology.

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5 The Postmodern Understanding of History with Regard to the Question about the Historical Jesus Nowadays, history tends to be viewed from a rather different perspective than that which dominated the field of historical studies only a couple of decades ago. I will here simply refer to the book by the English history professor Keith Jenkins, Rethinking History (London 1991). Jenkins has in a very clear way presented a postmodern understanding of history, according to which history is only a narrative. History is not identical with the past itself but is our narrative about the past. Therefore, history always has a certain target, while past events per se do not have any target whatsoever. The historians are the ones who see a meaning in the past events. Furthermore, the historians cannot intrude into the mind of a personality of the past and perceive its intentions through its actions. History is not a window for knowing the past but primarily a mirror in which we get to see our own present; it is a mirror that reflects ourselves. It is not enough to know theoretically the events of the past to know the reality of the past. History is not an empirical science but a form of literature, which is based upon our own philosophy of life. There is no hidden or true history, which would have to be uncovered. There is no privileged, right way that would lead us to the authentic past. Historians always have in front of them open scientific alternatives, they make preliminary decisions, and they have concrete methodological preferences. On the basis of the above, we note that the time has passed since scholars could be certain that objective reality is accessible and that they will be able to conquer it in some way or another, provided that they utilize their scholarly methods in a consequent and objective manner. However, this has actually never been the case, and this fact holds true with the quest of the historical Jesus as well. In research, there is no consensus about the identity of the historical Jesus, what he did and what he did not do, which of his words in the Gospels are ipsissima verba and which originate from later compilers and redactors, how he thought about himself and about his mission, whether or not he intended the formation of the church, his eschatological expectations, and so forth. That means that the time of historical positivism is over. On the scientific level, biblical scholars can no longer claim to know all this information with certainty. They have to reckon with the possibility that they might be totally wrong about it. While they can certainly discuss and speculate about it, they should be alert to the fact that their reading and their rewriting of history is just a subjective reconstruction, which may very well be erroneous. Modern scientific positivism has given way to postmodern scientific relativism.

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How then can we speak about the historical Jesus at all? According to the postmodern understanding of history outlined above, the historical Jesus is actually our construct, and he has never existed in the way that we try to reconstruct him. We do not have any objective access to the Jesus who did indeed live during the first century A.D. in Palestine and died on the cross. Consequently, we cannot speak about proven scientific knowledge but only about our own speculations and hypotheses.

6 The Historical and the Literary Jesus There seems, however, to be a safer way to access Jesus than the historical one. We can still have access to the Jesus of the texts. We may not actually know the historical Jesus, but we know the Jesus of the Gospels in the way that their authors presented and interpreted him in their own narratives. Since history is not identical with the past but only a literary account of the past – that is, a narrative – this is also the case with the Gospels, which are mainly narratives about Jesus. The literary access to Jesus has important advantages and makes it possible for Orthodox theology to participate in the scholarly dialogue without being compelled to abandon its theological principles and its firmly established theological tradition. According to this view, the question about whether and to what extent the gospel narratives reflect the historical truth about Jesus is irrelevant and cannot be adequately answered on scientific grounds. Accordingly, the question about whether Jesus did indeed think about himself the way we think about him or whether he was a radically different person, is not a matter of concern. Such provocative and therefore highly intriguing questions can be altogether avoided according to the postmodern understanding of history presented above, as they cannot be answered with certainty. The literary level remains the only ground on which exegetes can examine the sayings and narratives of the Gospels with commonly accepted methodological tools and can probably reach a broader consensus than has ever been possible in the past with regard to the historical Jesus quest. Nonetheless, historical Jesus research has indeed been useful. We have learned a good deal about Jesus᾽s time; we have tried to understand him in light of his own time and to explain his uniqueness in various ways. Through this process, we have come to understand ourselves anew. After the holocaust humanity is not the same anymore. Since that time, it has gradually become more and more important to demonstrate and underline that Jesus was indeed a Jew. Quite differently, after the Enlightenment, it was crucial to demonstrate that Jesus was a human being like ourselves, who thus provided an outstanding ethical example for us to follow. In ear-

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lier times, his divinity was underlined; only if he is indeed truly God can we be saved through him, as no simple human being can vicariously redeem the whole of humankind through his or her sacrifice. In all these examples, theologians have interpreted Jesus according to their own contemporary conceptions and needs. What we learn from the postmodern understanding of history is that these various focal points with regard to the historical interpretation of Jesus᾽s person are unavoidable and in this sense also legitimate. We have to be aware of this fact and therefore be modest in our conclusions, as we do not know the actual historical truth, and we will never know it in an objective manner.

7 The Orthodox Access to Jesus as a Legitimate Alternative Is the Orthodox perspective compatible with the above-presented postmodern notion of history? In my opinion, the answer cannot but be positive. When reading the exegetical texts of the church fathers, we notice that some of their principles also apply to concrete currents of contemporary biblical scholarship, such as: (a) the literary unity of the texts regardless of possible sources that have been used in the process of their composition, (b) the relativization of the significance of the “historical truth,” and (c) the legitimation and use of a great variety of exegetical methods and hermeneutical perspectives. The church fathers understand the biblical texts as theological narratives and not as precise historical documentations according to the modern understanding of the term “historical.” They read them not only on the literary or narrative level but first and foremost on the pastoral and spiritual level, which opens up the possibility for a wider spectrum of theological interpretations. Furthermore, they are aware that they are not indisputable authorities with respect to the interpretation of the Bible. According to their understanding, the ultimate authority in this regard is the church as a whole. Therefore, they are conscious of the fact that their exegesis is just an attempt to contribute to the contemporary needs of the church. Finally, they do not look for the historical Jesus behind the gospel narratives, but they fully accept and deal with Jesus as presented by these very narratives. In our postmodern time, these are noteworthy concepts and principles that are not to be a priori rejected but can indeed be discussed and further explored. Obviously, it is not enough for present-day Orthodox theologians to cite the church fathers. They have the responsibility – whether they are aware of it or not – to adopt and use the language of their present scholarly context, just like the church fathers did in their own time. The relativism and

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the skepticism that nowadays dominate even in science allow Orthodox theology to reintroduce its understanding of Jesus based on the texts of the New Testament and its own long exegetical tradition. However, it cannot anymore raise the absolute truth claim, which had been self-evident and characteristic of it in the past. Now Orthodox theology will have to present its view as an alternative and try to convince its dialogue partners, if it really intends to communicate with our postmodern world. At this point, I would like to bring my reflections to an end by referring to the Areopagus speech of the Apostle Paul. Paul evidently had an absolute truth claim of his own. According to the narrative of Acts, when he spoke to the Athenians, he did not raise this claim of his in a clear way but offered them an alternative to their beliefs in their own religious language. The Athenians listened to him but were not persuaded by his speech. This was, however, just the beginning of a communication between Christians and Gentiles that lasted for centuries to come. Perhaps, the time is now ripe for Orthodox theology to be inspired by the example of Paul in this story. Using the language of today᾽s biblical scholarship, Orthodox theology could possibly contribute to the opening of new paths in Jesus research. However, it should be prepared to leave aside its absolute truth claim in its rhetoric, so that it can enter into dialogue with modern biblical scholarship using contemporary exegetical tools and terminology. On the other hand, contemporary biblical research could perhaps also profit from the Orthodox perspective, as it is always in search of exegetical and hermeneutical alternatives. The Orthodox alternative of an access to Jesus through faith, liturgical participation, sacraments, prayer, and so on, which is based upon a centuries-long tradition but which at the same time will be expressed in modern theological language, can be interesting, perhaps even attractive, and nowadays in any case legitimate. The question of whether or not such an alternate exegetical approach can also prove convincing, will at present have to remain open.

“Historical Jesus(ses)” and the Christ of Christian Belief A Catholic Perspective TOBIAS NICKLAS

In his two volumes on “Jesus von Nazareth,” Pope Benedict XVI / Joseph Ratzinger more than once stresses the importance of a “hermeneutics of belief.”1 What follows is a discussion of the importance of the “historical Jesus” for this kind of hermeneutics. 1. If the sentence “Jesus is Christ” is central to Christian belief, then the quest for the historical Jesus belongs to the center of Christian belief. The confession “Jesus is Christ” connects the historical figure Jesus of Nazareth with the theological interpretation of this figure as “Christ” – that is, “the Messiah.” Christian confession ties both dimensions inseparably together; where one of these dimensions is cut off from the other or where one suffocates the other, the danger of christological misunderstanding is present. To blind ourselves to the historical figure Jesus of Nazareth would mean to be in danger of docetism, the belief that Jesus was only seemingly a human being. Even one who does not go so far is always in danger of minimizing the idea of God’s incarnation in Jesus. Jesus’s humanity is concrete, historically conditioned humanity – otherwise, Jesus would not have been a real, concrete human being. To rely absolutely on the quest for the historical Jesus, however, would mean to reduce Jesus’s theological significance, to make him a purely historical person – though perhaps a very important one – comparable to other important figures in human history.

1

J. Ratzinger / Benedikt XVI., Jesus von Nazareth I−II, (Freiburg et al., 2006; 2011). For a discussion of these hermeneutics, see my article T. Nicklas, “Die Passion des “realen Jesus”. Anstöße aus dem Jesusbuch des Papstes,” in: Tod und Auferstehung Jesu. Theologische Antworten auf das Buch des Papstes (ed. T. Söding; Theologie kontrovers; Freiburg et al., 2011), 65‒76.

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2. The New Testament Gospels are our most important witnesses to the historical Jesus. Even in passages where the historical quest leads to the conclusion that parts of the Gospel evidence are historically dubious or even wrong, the Gospels’ claim to tell the truth about Jesus (and God) is not shown as illegitimate. It is necessary to distinguish between the issue of the correctness of facts and the question of the deeper truth of a story. Historians are interested in the reconstruction of facts from the past of Jesus’s life. Afterwards, they have to connect these facts into a plausible “story” that makes sense and thus becomes “history.” This, however, does not allow them to judge the dimension of God’s truth that a believer can see behind the stories about Jesus of Nazareth. Even where facts and details may be wrong, Gospel stories may tell “truth.” One of the clearest examples to illustrate this idea is the Matthean genealogy opening the New Testament (Matt 1:1-17), a text impossible to harmonize with Luke 3:23-38. Even when it is clear that at least one of these genealogies must be historically wrong, this does not have any impact on the text’s theological truth: Matt 1:1-17 deals with Jesus’s roots in Israel, an Israel, however, that already shows universal dimensions via the non-Israelite women woven into the text. The text deals with Jesus as the “son of David” and Messiah and – at least indirectly – it attempts to show that he is the “Son of God.” These dimensions of “truth” are not accessible to historical methods; it is, however, the task of the Christian theologian to deal with them. Their truth cannot be proven or disproven by historical methodology; they can, however, be accepted (and experienced) by the Christian believer. 3. Nevertheless, the quest for the historical Jesus can help to better understand and even deepen belief in Christ. If the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon (451 CE) understands Christ as vere homo, then homo does not mean a kind of a transhistorical humanity but the concrete historical person Jesus of Nazareth. It is not by chance that Jesus was born in Israel, as a believing Jew. Thus, Franz Mußner speaks about Jesus as vere homo judaeus.2 This important insight would not have been possible without looking at the historical Jesus. It is, however, of utmost importance for Christian belief and theology.

2

See F. Mußner, “Der ‘Jude’ Jesus” (1971), in idem., Jesus von Nazareth im Umfeld Israels und der Urkirche (WUNT 111; Tübingen, 1999), 89‒97, here 97: “Die christologische Glaubensformel des Konzils von Chalzedon: Jesus Christus ‘vere deus – vere homo’ ist im Hinblick auf den Juden Jesus und sein Jude-Sein ergänzungsbedürftig, nämlich so: Jesus Christus ‘vere deus – vere homo judaeus’!”

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4. If “history” is not just the “past” but always a historian’s “story” about the past, “history” is never purely objective but always contains a “subjective” dimension. Thus, it is not possible to reconstruct an “objective” historical Jesus but only to construct images that at least partly have to do with the person constructing them. This is not just a negative observation, for it also means that even the “historical Jesus” I construct is always relevant to me, part of myself. 5. Even if a purely objective reconstruction of the historical Jesus is methodologically impossible, this does not mean that constructions of the “historical Jesus” may be purely subjective. All historians must use sound historical methodology; their arguments have to make the emerging image comprehensible in an “intersubjective” way. 6. Significant New Testament stories about Jesus of Nazareth cannot be verified by historical methodology. One of the most important examples is the confession of Jesus’s resurrection. This does not mean that Jesus’s resurrection is not deeply true but rather that historical methods cannot comprehend God’s acts, not even God’s acts in history. Historians have to be aware of these limits of their work; otherwise, they come to conclusions that are not appropriate to their methodology. 7. The truth of Christian belief cannot be grasped fully by a catechism or even a confession. Even if Christian belief has an important historical dimension, it does not depend solely on facts of the past. As a “living truth,” it happens and can be experienced in God’s Spirit. In this way, the believer can say: “Jesus,” the “way, the truth and the life” (John 14:6), really lives!

Which Jesus Are We Proclaiming? Some Reflections from a Lutheran Perspective with Reference to Martin Kähler KARL-WILHELM NIEBUHR

The church has never made herself at home with Jesus. Even in the biblical canon, the church was not content with only one single view on Jesus but declared four to be binding without ranking them. As a result, any onesidedness in the perception of Jesus by the church would always be balanced ‒ if one was only willing to wait for a while. But how can we deal with this “fourfold Jesus” in a sermon? Preaching is, in some respects, the moment of truth. There we cannot be satisfied with allowing one Jesus to act side by side with another, like actors on a stage, and leave the decision to the congregation as to which Jesus will be their favourite. Biblical scholarship during the last 250 years has taught us to distinguish between diverging views on Jesus in the New Testament, to separate their origins, and only afterwards to relate them again to each other. But the question is why, to what end, we should do this, if, after all, we do not want to preach anything else but the one gospel of Jesus Christ as testified by the New Testament, to be proclaimed in the pulpit as well as in church life. The issue of unity and diversity in the New Testament, even with regard to its views on Jesus, inevitably results from reading the gospels, if only we read them with open eyes. Of course, we can also close our eyes in the face of this diversity. But this was not what the church fathers did in ancient times. Eusebius, for instance, in his letter to Carpian, carefully listed the fourfold, threefold, double, and single traditions in the gospel pericopes and registered them in his famous canon tables. In other writings, he dealt at great length with differences and agreements between the Gospels with regard to the childhood of Jesus and the stories of the appearance of the risen Christ. The quest for the one Jesus of history who underlies and precedes the variegated perspectives on him in the New Testament was alive long be-

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fore the “historical Jesus” of the nineteenth century was invented. This quest necessarily emerges for anyone for whom Jesus means more than a fairy-tale figure or an abstract idea. All testimonies to Jesus in the New Testament are in agreement that the biblical Jesus is also a figure of history. This is neither incidental nor merely a necessary evil but an indication of the incarnation of God, his taking on human shape and entering history. Therefore, if the biblical Jesus is a figure of history, then access to him is impossible without the quest for his history. The specific importance of historiography with regard to the NT Gospels consists in their interpretation of the Jesus story. The stories of Jesus that the Gospels are telling are interpreted as the one story of God in his acts towards humankind. This confluence of the history of Jesus with the history of God is determinative for the literary genre of the Gospels. Thus, they follow a certain model of narratives in biblical and Jewish literature but develop it further with respect to the very specific, even contemporaneous, story of Jesus. In an article entitled “The So-Called Historical Jesus and the Biblical Christ of History” (1892), the German Lutheran theologian Martin Kähler (1832-1912) wrote: “Noboby will be able to make the figure of Jesus into an object of merely historical research like any other figures of the past; far too powerful has been the effect of the figure of Jesus on broad circles at all times, far too definite is his claim of authority that confronts everybody.” Kähler does not identify the “historical Jesus” (“historischer Jesus”) with the “Christ of history” (“geschichtlicher Christus”) but puts them into opposition with each other. It is not the “historical Jesus” who is the “real” Jesus of the Bible, but the “biblical Christ of history” (“der geschichtliche, biblische Christus”). By making this distinction, Kähler did not dismiss all historical research on Jesus nor even historical study of the Bible as such. Rather, he wanted to grasp the biblical Jesus as he who concerns people at any time and even today – that is, the “real” Jesus in the sense of the “affecting” Jesus who makes an impact on history. Indeed, one historical factor about Jesus, according to Kähler, is that he is “an originator and agent of continuing reception” (37). The “real” Jesus, according to Kähler, is therefore the one, complete Jesus of the New Testament, not a reconstructed, “fragmented,” isolated, preEaster, earthly, or “historical” Jesus, not the sum total of the historically identifiable minimum of verified pre-Easter words of Jesus, not the remains of historically credible memories of his deeds, not the common denominator of all views on Jesus transmitted by the New Testament, but the one, single event that underlies all such testimonies, Jesus Christ, God’s word in human shape.

List of Contributors Dr. CHARALAMPOS ATMATZIDIS Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Department of Theology Thessaloniki 54124, Greece, Email: [email protected] Prof. Dr. REIMUND BIERINGER Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Faculty of Theology St Michielsstraat 4, bus 3101, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium E-mail: [email protected] Dr. PREDRAG DRAGUTINOVIĆ Theological Faculty of University of Belgrade Mije Kovacevica 11b, 11 060 Beograd, Serbia Email: [email protected] Prof. Dr. CARL R. HOLLADAY Emory University, Candler School of Theology 1531 Dickey Drive, Atlanta GA 30307, USA E-mail: [email protected] Prof. Dr. CHRISTOS KARAKOLIS Nymphon 2, 15236 Penteli, Greece E-mail: [email protected] Dr. DOMINIKA KUREK-CHOMYCZ Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Faculty of Theology Celestijnenlaan 21/2, B-3001 Leuven, Belgium Email: [email protected] Prof. Dr. ULRICH LUZ Marktgasse 21, CH-3177 Laupen, Switzerland E-mail: [email protected] Prof. Dr. JOEL MARCUS Duke Divinity School, Box 90968, Durham NC 27708, USA E-mail: [email protected]

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Fr. Prof. Dr. VASILE MIHOC Facultatea de Teologie 'Andrei Saguna' 20, Mitropoliei str., RO-550227 Sibiu, Romania E-mail: [email protected] Prof. Dr. TOBIAS NICKLAS Katholisch-Theologische Fakultät Universität Regensburg Universitätsstraße 31, D-93053 Regensburg, Germany E-mail: [email protected] Prof. Dr. KARL-WILHELM NIEBUHR Theologische Fakultät, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Fürstengraben 6, D-07743 Jena, Germany E-mail: [email protected] METROPOLITAN PHILARET (Vahromeev) c/o Sviatoslav Rogalsky Prof. Dr. ARMAND PUIG I TÀRRECH Camí de l'Horta 7, E-43470 La Selva del Camp, Catalonia, Spain E-mail: [email protected] Prof. Dr. MARIUS REISER Taunusstr. 30, 55262 Heidesheim, Germany E-mail: [email protected] Dr. SVJATOSLAV ROGALSKY Volgogradskaya str., 49-63, Minsk 220049, Belarus Email: [email protected] Prof. Dr. EKATERINI TSALAMPOUNI Fleming Str. 39, 55133 Thessaloniki, Greece Email: [email protected] Prof. Dr. MANUEL VOGEL Theologische Fakultät, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Fürstengraben 6, D-07743 Jena, Germany E-mail: [email protected] Prof. Dr. URS VON ARX Neuhausweg 53, CH-3097 Liebefeld, Switzerland E-mail: [email protected] Dr. KONSTANTINOS TH. ZARRAS 16 Paparrigopoulu Str., 351 00, Lamnia, Greece E-mail: [email protected]

Participants of the Symposium 1. Prof. Dr. Vitaly Akimov 2. Prof. Dr. Anatoly A. Alexeev 3. Dr. Valery A. Alikin 4. Dr. Maja Artomova 5. Prof. Dr. Urs von Arx 6. Dr. Charalampos Atmatzidis 7. Dr. Dace Balode 8. Dr. Dmitriy Baritsky 9. Prof. Dr. Reimund Bieringer 10. Dr. Alexey Bodrov 11. Prof. Dr. Peder Borgen 12. Prof. Dr. Ivan Dimitrov 13. Dr. Predrag Dragutinovic 14. Dr. Aliaxei Famiay 15. Dr. Nikolay Generalov 16. Prof. Dr. Sergiy Gordun 17. Dr. Ratomir Grozdanoski 18. Prof. Dr. Carl Holladay 19. Prof. Dr. Iannuary Ivliev 20. Prof. Dr. Ivor Jones 21. Prof. Dr. Christos Karakolis 22. Prof. Dr. Dimitar Kirov 23. Dr. Dominika KurekChomycz 24. Prof. Dr. Bishop Leonid (Phil) 25. Fiodar Litvinau 26. Prof. Dr. Ulrich Luz 27. Prof. Dr. Joel Marcus 28. Prof. Dr. Petr Marecek 29. Prof. Dr. Vasile Mihoc

30. Prof. Dr. Archimandrite Ioasaf (Morza) 31. Dr. Ivaylo Naydenov 32. Dr. Anton Nyebolszin 33. Prof. Dr. Tobias Nicklas 34. Prof. Dr. Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr 35. Prof. Dr. Mitropolitan Philaret (Vahromeev) 36. Dr. Jerzy Ostapczuk 37. Dr. Sergiy Ovsiannikov 38. Prof. Dr. Marius Reiser 39. Dr. Gottfried Schimanowski 40. Prof. Dr. Bishop Serafim (Belonozhko) 41. Dr. Viktor Shlenkin 42. Olga Shubaro 43. Dr. Alexey Somov 44. Prof. Dr. Armand Puig i Tàrrech 45. Prof. Dr. Stelian Tofana 46. Prof. Dr. Ekaterini Tsalampouni 47. Dr. Sergej Ursta 48. Prof. Dr. Aliaksei Vasin 49. Dr. Marian Vild 50. Dr. Vadim Vitkovsky 51. Prof. Dr. Manuel Vogel 52. Prof. Dr. Konstantinos Zarras

1

Index of Ancient Sources

Index of Ancient Sources Abbreviations follow the SBL Handbook of Style for Ancient Near Eastern, Biblical, and Early Christian Studies (ed. P.H. Alexander, J.F. Kutsko, J.D. Ernest, S. Decker-Lucke, D.L. Petersen, Peabody, 1999).

1 Old Testament Isaiah 9:1–12 42:1 52:7

342 352 351

Ezekiel 1 9 34 34:4, 16 34:5, 8 34:11–16 34:13 34:16

120 325 281, 283 282, 288 282 265 265 265, 273, 286

Psalms 2:7 22 23:4 42 42:2, 10 42:5, 10 42:9 110 110:1 118:22–23 (LXX)

352 368f. 265 367 367 367 367 318, 363 363 363

Daniel 7:13

36

2 Other Jewish Texts 2 Maccabees 2:32–42

220

1 Enoch 37–71

317

Josephus, Ant. 12.274–278 18.63–66 20.200

220 85 85

Rabbinic Texts m. Yoma 8:6 b. ‘Abod. Zar. 50b b. Yoma 85b y. Qidd. 66a y. Yebam. 9b

221 217 221 217 217

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3 New Testament Matthew 4:12–17 4:13 7:15 8–10 8:23–27 9:11 9:12–13 9:20–22 9:21 10:23 11:19 11:25–27 12:12 13:55 15 15:21–28 18:10, 12–14 18:12–14 18:14 19:1 24:11 24:45–51 26–27 26:42 28:11–15 28:18–20

338 145 280 340ff. 343 273 274 218 219 321, 333 273f. 228 221 216 240 7 288 7, 259, 280 260, 276, 278 338 280 302 143 228 67 343

Mark 1:1–15 1:1 1:9–11 1:11 1:12–13 1:13 1:14–10:1 1:14–15 1:15 1:21–28 1:22 1:29–34 1:35–39 2:1–12 2:16 2:17 2:27 4:10–12

350ff. 349, 350, 351 352 352 352 353 337 351, 353 351 354 354ff. 354 356 356 273 274 220 355

4:35–41 5:31 6:1–16 6:3 6:30–52 7 7:1–23 7:15 7:17–19 7:24–30 8:27–33 8:31–33 9:1 9:2–10 9:30–32 10:32–34 10:47–48 10:52 12:1–11 12:10–11 13:26–27 13:32 14:3–9 14:27 14:29, 31 14:34 14:39 14:66–72 15:21 15:33 15:34 15:39

358 358 315 216 358 240f. 111 240f., 244 243 7, 244f. 359ff. 362 248 364 362 362 365 365 362 363 363 248f. 366 367 367 367 368 367 366 135 368f. 369

Luke 1:3 1:16–17 1:32–35 1:32–33 1:32, 35 1:43 1:76 1:78 2:11 2:41–52 3:1–4:14 3:1–22 3:2

176 165 163 178 165 165 165 165 166 169 169 170 150

447

Index of Ancient Sources 3:23 4:14–9:50 4:14–30 4:14–15 4:17 5:30 5:31–32 6:1–5 6:13 7:11–17 7:22 7:34 8:1 9:28–36 9:51–13:21 9:51 10:4 10:29 10:30–37 12:11–12 13:22–21:38 15:4–7 15:7 16:16 19:1–10 19:7 21:14–15 24:6–8 24:25–27 24:44–48 John 1:1–18 1:43 2:19–21 3:22–24 3:26 7:10–13 8:36 8:56–57 8:57 10:29 13:16 13:31–14:31 13:31–32 13:33–14:7 14:8–24 14:25–31

137 171 171 339 177 273 274 220 227 178 177 273f. 179 173 173 339 144 308 301, 308 176 173 7, 259, 278, 287f. 260, 278 173, 180 279 273 176 177 177 177

119 339 138 145 145 340 115 138 137f. 186f. 185, 191 192–198 194 194ff. 195–198 199–202

14:28 17:12

6, 181ff., 411 272

Acts 28:31

179

Romans 4:25 10:2

380f. 140

1 Corinthians 2:8 4:9 11:23–25 11:23 11:26 15:3

378 396, 399 382 383 386ff. 383

2 Corinthians 3:14–18 4:7–15 4:10–11 4:12 5:16

117 392, 395 392 395 72

Galatians 3:1 5:17 6:17

390 146 392

Colossians 2:14

374

1 Thessalonians 2:15

376

1 Timothy 6:13

375

Hebrews 1:1–2

118

1 John 1:1–2

119

Revelation 4:6–7 19:13

120 119

448

Index of Ancient Sources

4 Other Christian Texts Augustine Doctr. chr. 1.36 (40) Tract. Ev. Jo. 13.16–17 Gospel of Thomas 8 76 107

308 119

107:1–2 107:2 107:3 109

282 283 263, 274, 282f. 288 283 284, 288 283

Gospel of Truth 31–32

264

Gregory of Nyssa Hom. 1–15 in Cant. prol

312

Irenaeus, Haer. 1.8.1 5.16.10–18

304 233

John Chrysostom Adv. Jud. (PG 48:911) 231 Hom. Matt. 13:34–35 (47) 301 Hom. Matt. 25:1–30 (78) 302, 308 John of Damascus Exp. fid. 18.91

90

Maximus Confessor Myst. (PG 111:377–402) 232 Origen Hom. Luc. 34.3

301

Index of Modern Authors Abegg, M.G. Jr. 213 Abzedarsky, L. 24 Aeby, G. 119 Agouridis, S. 86, 296, 298, 299, 310 Ahearne-Kroll, S.P. 367, 369 Albertz, R. 172 Alfeyev, A. 298 Allison, D.C. 53, 56, 247, 248, 379 Alon, G. 212 Altizer, J. 75 Anderson, J.N.D. 135 Anderson, P.N. 104 Andriopoulos, P. 85 Armstrong, J. 147, 149, 150, 151, 152 Arnal, W.E. 75 Atmatzidis, C.G. 228, 230 Bailey, K.E. 81, 265 Bakker, E.J. 80 Barclay, J.M.G. 391 Barnes, T.D. 148 Barrett, C.K. 189 Bauckham, R. 55, 75, 81, 83, 89, 126, 276, 291 Bauman, R. 390 Baumgarten, A.I. 226 Baumotte, M. 68 Beacham, R.C. 398, 399 Beck, L. 237 Becker, J. 304 Beilby, J.K. 68, 74, 76, 77 Belezos, K.-I. 306 Belonozhko, A. 15 Ben Chorin, S. 56 Benton, R.C. 20 Berényi, G. 380 Berger, D. 247 Betz, H.D. 237, 391, 392 Betz, O. 180 Beyerle, S. 370, 371

Bieringer, R. 392 Bird, M.F. 84, 154 Blank, J. 190 Bock, D.L. 161, 178 Bolton, D.J. 377, 378 Bond, H.K. 375 Borg, M. 56, 74 Borgen, P. 213 Bormann, L. 363 Bornkamm, G. 49, 295 Bovon, F. 155, 156, 160, 171, 274 Boyarin, D. 209, 236, 242 Boyd, G.A. 85 Bradshaw, P.F. 382 Brandon, S.G.F. 132 Bratsiotis, P.N. 296 Bratton, F.G. 140, 141 Braun, H. 50 Brewer, I. 218 Breytenbach, C. 381 Broer, I. 351, 358, 387, 388 Brown, C. 94 Brown, R.E. 183, 188, 191, 192, 193, 200 Brox, N. 310 Bruce, F.F. 131, 134, 135 Buchler, A. 216 Buckwalter, H.D. 161, 162, 176 Bulgakov, S. 36 Bultmann, R. 48, 71, 78, 171, 185, 186, 190, 192, 193, 207 Burger, C. 160 Butkevich, T. 32 Cadbury, H. 154 Carlson, M. 390 Carson, D.A. 184, 191, 192, 200 Castelli, E.A. 395 Cerulli, E. 132 Chancey, M.A. 79

450

Index of Modern Authors

Charlesworth, J.H. 55, 84, 213, 216, 255, 291, 292 Chesterton, G.K. 112 Childs, B. 303, 306 Chistovich, H. 25, 28 Claudius, M. 99, 100 Claußen, C. 81, 83, 84 Cobrink, H.J.B. 368 Cohen, S.J.D. 236 Coleman, K.M. 397 Collins, A.Y. 349, 352, 363, 364, 365, 368 Collins, J.J. 213, 229 Conzelmann, H. 156, 157, 170, 173 Corbu, A. 117 Cosgrove, C. H. 178, 309 Cowan, C. 189 Craffert, P. 70, 80 Cranfield, C.E.B. 381 Croatto, S. 307 Crossan, J.D. 53, 55, 56, 74, 76, 78, 79, 80, 107, 217, 239, 253 Crouzet-Pavan, E. 231 Crozier, W.P. 132 Cutler, I. 398 Cuvillier, E. 353, 360, 369 Danielou, J. 119 Daniel-Rops, H. 133 Davey, J.E. 189 Davies, P.R. 213 Davies, W.D. 238, 239 Davis, B.S. 390, 391 Delorme, J. 258 Deutsch, N. 209 Dibelius, M. 71, 156, 214 Dillistone, F.W. 107 Dobschütz, E. von 132 Dodd, C.H. 104, 107, 256, 308 Doewe, J.W. 221 Doherty, E. 76 Donahue, J.R. 360 Donaldson, T.L. 246 Dornier, P. 132 Downing, F.G. 398 Dschulnigg, P. 354, 366 Duncan, A. 389, 390, 394, 395, 399 Dunn, J.D.G. 53, 58, 59, 74, 76, 78, 80, 81, 82, 226, 228, 230, 276, 297, 309, 380, 381, 392

Dupont, J. 256, 259, 274, 276, 278, 279 Durant, W.J. 135 Ebeling, G. 43, 49 Ebner, M. 365, 394 Eco, U. 307 Eddy, P.R. 68, 74, 76, 77, 85 Edwards, D.R. 79 Eggen, R.-B. 294, 295 Ehrhardt, A. 132 Ehrmann, B.D. 56, 365 Eichrodt, W. 118 Ekonomtsev, I. 22 Elbogen, I. 229 Eleonsky, F. 30 Eleonsky, N. 32 Elliott, J.H. 80 Elliott, J.K. 132, 350 Ellis, E.E. 160, 379 Ericksen, R.P. 239 Erlemann, K. 295 Ernest, J.-D. 298 Eschner, C. 381 Evans, C. 76 Falk, H. 220 Fee, G.D. 377 Feneberg, R. 352, 354, 355, 359, 360, 362, 367, 368, 369 Fiebig, P. 276 Fiedrowicz, M. 298, 300 Filson, F.V. 245 Finkel, A. 220 Fitzgerald, J.T. 393, 394 Fitzmyer, J.A. 382, 383, 387 Florovsky, G. 30 Flusser, D. 56, 214, 217, 218, 220, 223 Foley, J.M. 80 Fowl, S.E. 386 Frame, J.E. 377 France, R.T. 352, 356, 366 Franklin, E. 160 Fredriksen, P. 239 Frei, H.W. 42 Frey, J. 57, 89 Freyne, S. 53, 55, 79, 211, 212, 213 Fuchs, E. 51 Funk, R.W. 74 Furnish, V.P. 380, 385

Index of Modern Authors Gager, J.G. 239 Gallagher, E.V. 148 Gaventa, B.R. 386, 388 George, A. 160 George, M. 309 Georgi, D. 75 Gerhardsson, B. 52 Gese, H. 369 Gils, F. 159 Glazer, N.N. 209 Glombitza, O. 169 Glubokovsky, N. 19, 33, 34, 35 Gnilka, J. 350, 354, 355, 361, 365, 366 Goldberg, R. 389 Goodman, M. 235, 236 Gorsky, A. 27 Goulder, M.D. 155 Grabbe, L.L. 210 Graf, F.W. 102 Grant, R. 147, 148 Green, J.B. 158, 305 Green, W.S. 222 Gregory, A. 154 Grelot, P. 119 Grintz, J.M. 216 Guttenberger, G. 359, 367 Güttgemanns, E. 392 Habermas, G.R. 125, 133 Haenchen, E. 156 Hahn, F. 164, 165, 167, 174, 175, 349, 350 Hamilton, W. 75 Hanson, K.C. 80 Harnisch, W. 267 Harrington, D.J. 360 Harris, M.J. 392 Hartin, P.J. 220 Harvey, A. 74 Hase, K.A. 331 Hasler, J.I. 245 Hays, R.B. 373, 395 Head, P.M. 349 Hedrick, C.W. 84, 293 Hengel, M. 53, 74, 79, 109, 110, 210, 216, 218, 223, 225, 228, 350 Heschel, S. 238, 239 Hoegen-Rohls, C. 183, 184, 192 Hoffmann, P. 258 Hofius, O. 87, 382, 387

451

Hollingsworth, M. 220 Hooker, M.D. 154, 361, 388 Horsley, R.A. 53, 55, 56, 58, 79, 211 Horton, F.L. 178 Hoskyns, E.C. 183, 192 Howard-Brook, W. 192 Hug, J.L. 102 Hultgren, A.J. 157, 257, 269, 279, 280 Hurtado, L.W. 83, 84, 89 Idelsohn, A.Z. 229 Iersel, B. van 354 Ignatiev, A. 35 Innocent (Borisov) 27 Ioann (Snychev) 22 Ivliev, I. 15 Iwand, H.J. 87 Jacobs, L. 208 Jacoby, F. 135 Jaffé, D. 222 Jastrow, M. 217 Jenkins, K. 308, 431 Jeremias, J. 52, 53, 166, 171, 247, 256, 263 Johnson, L.T. 76, 166, 376 Johnson, M.D. 171 Jones, L.B. 61 Jonge, H.J. de 68 Judd, F.F., Jr. 132, 133 Jülicher, A. 276, 294, 314 Jüngel, E. 87 Kähler, C. 292 Karakolis, C. 216, 301, 303, 312 Karatkevich, U. 24 Karavidopoulos, I. 85, 86, 296 Karmanov, E. 29 Kartashev, A. 37 Käsemann, E. 48, 49, 50, 72, 73, 190, 379, 384 Keck, L.E. 77 Kee, H. 79 Keener, C.S. 53, 55, 57 Keim, T. 332 Kelber, W.H. 76 Kingdon, P. 211 Kissinger, W.S. 301 Klauck, H.-J. 257 Klausner, J. 54, 56, 238, 245

452

Index of Modern Authors

Klawans, J. 242 Klein, D. 94, 96 Klibanov, A. 21 Klinghoffer, D. 231 Kloppenborg, J.S. 258 Klumbies, P.G. 350, 355, 357, 359, 364 Knibb, M.A. 213 Koester, H. 55, 75 Kränkl, E. 157 Krivonos, Th. 14 Kruse, H. 242 Kuhn, P. 306 Kümmel, W.G. 173 Kurek-Chomycz, D.A. 392 Kyle, D.G. 397 Lagrange, M.-J. 104, 105 Lamarche, P. 360 Lambrecht, J. 394 Lampe, G.W.H. 159 Lampe, P. 302 Landmesser, C. 82, 89 Laurentin, R. 169 Lauterbach, J.Z. 220 Leaney, A.C.R. 160 Lebreton, J. 119 Lee, A.H.I. 363 Lee, S.S. 364 Leithart, P.-J. 300 Lemcio, E. 303 Leroy, H. 74 Levine, A.-J. 205, 206, 218, 219, 230, 231, 239 Liebenberg, J. 253 Lim, K.Y. 386, 394 Lindemann, A. 303 Link, C. 310 Linnemann, E. 267 Lipsius, R.A. 132 Logopatis, S. 296 Lohfink, N. 118 Lohse, E. 157 Loisy, A.F. 138 Lonergan, B.F. 113 Louw, J.P. 390 Lüdemann, G. 53 Lührmann, D. 350, 352, 360 Lundsteen, A.C. 96

Luz, U. 57, 206, 221, 224, 227, 228, 229, 230, 280, 284, 285, 292, 294, 297, 303, 304, 307 Lyons, W.J. 77 Machen, J.G. 385 Mahan, W.D. 132 Marchasson, Y. 103 Marcus, J. 214, 216, 227, 243, 244, 350, 352, 354, 356, 358, 359 Marrou, H.-I. 101 Marshall, I.H. 153, 154, 157, 164, 166, 168, 170, 171, 172, 175, 259, 375 Martyn, J.L. 237 März, C.P. 173, 175 Matera, F.J. 395 Matsoukas, N. 87, 88, 89 McCollouth, C.T. 79 McDowell, J. 129 McGiffert, A.C. 134, 136 Meier, J.P. 50, 53, 54, 56, 58, 61, 73, 74, 77, 78, 84, 111, 150, 235 Men, A. 20, 22, 25, 27, 28, 29, 33, 37, 41 Merz, A. 53, 55, 68, 69, 74, 79, 85, 89, 110, 115, 385, 417 Metzdorf, C. 108 Metzger, B.M. 187 Meyer, B.F. 74, 108, 111 Meyer, P.W. 190 Michok, V. 312 Minear, P.S. 159, 163, 179 Mitchell, M.M. 384 Moessner, D.P. 159 Moffitt, D.M. 383 Montefiore, C.G. 206, 238 Moore, G.F. 206, 208, 209, 238 Müller, W.G. 178 Mußner, F. 436 Nadich, J. 215 Nanos, M.D. 239 Nathan, E. 392 Negrov, A. 20, 21, (23), 30, 32 Neumann, K. 306 Neusner, J. 75, 207, 209, 218, 223, 224, 241 Newsom, C. 213 Nguyen, V.H.T. 396 Nicanor (Kamensky) 33

Index of Modern Authors Nicklas, T. 349, 435 Nicoll, A. 398 Nida, E.A. 390 Nikolakopoulos, K. 296 Nolland, J. 162, 170, 174, 178 O’Day, G.R. 191 Oakman, D.E. 80 Oeming, M. 303 Oldenhage, K. 306 Olson, K.A. 150 Overbeck, F. 110 Paget, J.C. 314 Panagopoulos, I. 159, 298, 300 Papamichael, G. 85 Parsons, M.C. 154 Pascal, B. 96 Patronos, G. 86 Pellegrini, S. 351 Perdue, L.G. 217 Perrin, N. 50, 257 Pervo, R.I. 154 Peter, N. 102 Peterson, E. 106 Pickett, R. 388 Pokorný, P. 163 Pollefeyt, D. 377, 378 Polotebnov, A. 33 Popkes, W. 380 Potter, D.S. 396, 397 Powell, M.A. 74, 77 Price, R.M. 76, 78 Puech, E. 229 Puig i Tàrrech, A. 176, 256, 257, 276, 282 Räisänen, H. 359 Ramelli, I. 131, 133 Ratzinger, J./ Benedikt XVI. 61, 435 Rau, E. 257 Reed, J.L. 79 Reemts, C. 96 Reichardt, M. 370 Reiser, M. 94, 95, 98, 102, 105, 113, 292, 298, 414, 417 Rensberger, D. 223 Rese, M. 161 Reventlow, H. Graf 94, 96 Rhoads, D. 400

453

Riaboy, S. 16 Riches, J. 74 Ricœr, P. 256 Riesner, R. 217 Rizhsky, M. 21 Robinson, J.M. 48, 258 Rogalsky, S. 16 Rose, C. 352, 353, 356, 365 Rowe, C.K. 160, 165 Rowland, C. 226 Saldarini, A.J. 206, 209, 240 Samuelsson, G. 374 Sanders, E.P. 53, 56, 57, 74, 78, 206, 227, 230, 236, 239, 240, 247 Sandnes, K.O. 398 Scheidweiler, F. 129, 131 Schelbert, G. 367 Schenke, L. 350, 352, 354, 356, 360, 362, 365 Schenkel, D. 331 Schiefer Ferrari, M. 394 Schmidt, K.L. 48 Schnackenburg, R. 182, 185, 187, 191, 193 Schneider, G. 158, 159, 176 Schottroff, L. 293, 307 Schramm, C. 353 Schreiber, St. 351 Schremer, A. 236 Schrenk, G. 208 Schröter, J. 53, 63, 82, 89, 303, 308, 382 Schubert, P. 164 Schürer, E. 211, 212 Schürmann, H. 52, 171 Schütz, F. 158 Schwartz, D. 240 Schwartz, S. 236 Schweizer, E. 50, 352 Schwemer, A.M. 74, 109 Scott, B.B. 217, 257, 265, 269, 270 Silver, D.J. 232 Smith, M. 210 Snodgrass, K.R. 254, 256, 257, 259, 265, 276 Sobrino, J. 77 Sordi, M. 131 Sorokin, A. 15 Spitta, F. 135

454

Index of Modern Authors

Stacey, D. 388, 398 Stackelberg, R. 237, 238 Stegemann, W. 53, 90 Stegmann, T. 386 Strauss, M.L. 160 Strecker, C. 83, 89, 90 Studer, B. 298, 301 Stylianopoulos, T.G. 296, 299 Swidler, L. 220 Tannehill, R.C. 155, 393 Taylor, J. 245 Theissen, G. 50, 53, 55, 56, 58, 59, 68, 69, 74, 79, 83, 85, 89, 110, 115, 245, 385, 417 Theobald, M. 230, 415 Thiselton, A.C. 307, 378, 387 Tholuck, A. 101 Thomas, R. 80 Thompson, M.M. 184, 189, 190 Thrall, M.E. 392, 393, 394 Thyen, H. 415 Tihomirov, B. 26 Tilly, M. 363 Toit, D.S. du 58, 74, 364, 366 Tolbert, M.A. 253, 254, 309 Trakatellis, D. 117 Trempelas, P. 85 Trobisch, D. 400 Trocmé, E. 86 Troitsky, N. 32 Tsypin, V. 30 Tuckett, M.C. 175 Unnik, W.C. van 153, 157 Urbach, E.E. 208, 209 Vasin, A. 16 Vassiliadis, P. 86, 296, 304 Verheyden, J. 154, 178 Vermes, G. 53, 56, 60, 74, 205, 207, 212, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 221 Via, D.O. 293, 295 Vielhauer, P. 156 Vitaly (Grechulevich) 33 Vogel, H. 101 Voltera, E. 131 Voss, G. 158

Vouga, F. 89 Wahlde, U.C. von 104 Wahlen, C. 354 Wall, R.W. 303 Wallace-Hadrill, J.M. 151 Walters, P. 154 Ware, K. 305 Watson, F. 383 Weder, H. 255, 257, 300, 307 Weidemann, H.U. 351, 358 Weihs, A. 362 Weisse, C.H. 332 Weizsäcker, K.H. 331 Welborn, L. 397, 398 Welch, J. 309 Wengst, K. 202 Wernle, P. 314 Westcott, B.F. 188 Whittaker, M. 240 Wilken, R.L. 107 Wilson, B. 129 Wilson, E. 176, 179 Wilson, M.R. 230 Wilson, S.G. 167 Winn, A. 359 Winston, D. 213 Winter, D. 50, 58, 59, 79 Winter, P. 133 Wischmeyer, O. 306 Witherington III, B. 155, 217, 218 Wolff, C. 387 Wolff, H. 61 Wolfson, E.R. 247 Wolter, M. 164, 165, 166, 169, 170, 171, 173, 174 Wright, N.T. 74, 77, 81, 84, 107, 108, 109, 150, 248 Young, B.H. 206, 218 Young, F.M. 310, 311 Zarras, K.T. 222 Zeitlin, I.M. 210, 211, 218 Zimmermann, R. 293, 297 Zimmermann, Z. 229 Zingg, E. 191 Zumstein, J. 192

Index of Subjects Abraham, children of 233 Acting theories 394 Actors in ancient Rome 399 Acts of Pilate 128f., 132f., 151 Alexiy, Metropolitan 21 Annas, high-priest 208 Anti-Semitism 235, 237ff., 410 Antitheses 219 Apostolic mimesis 396 Apostolic preaching 149 Benedict XVI. 61, 97, 435 Bible − authority of Holy Scriptures 116 − contradictions between texts 119 − divine authorship 117 − Russian translation 22, 24−29 Biography 405 Blasphemy 356 Buharev, Alexander 31 Census under Quirinius 127, 129 Chagall, Marc 249 Chalcedonian Dogma 6, 42, 62f., 409, 422, 436 Christ 115f., 364, 370, 393, 427, 435 − human and divine natures 4, 409 − in scriptures 118 − Logos of the Father 119 − participation in 395 Christology − from below 413 − Gospel of John 181, 405f. − Gospel of Luke 5, 406 − Gospel of Mark 8, 349ff., 370f. − Gospel of Matthew 342 − of glory 364 − redemptive 158 − relation father-son 181, 186ff., 367f. − titles 411

Church 1, 3, 13, 89 − and Synagogue 230 − Fathers 406f., 411, 433 − Latin 205 − tradition 139f. Claudius, Matthias 98ff. Commandment 228 Confession − Peter’s 360 − centurion’s 369, 371 Creed 411 Cross 233, 365f., 405 Deism 67 Dialectic theology 71 Disciples 125f., 227 Docetism 90 Eclipse of the sun 135 Elijah 172, 324 Elishah 172 Enlightenment 4, 42f., 60, 407, 415 Eschatology − Danielic 317 − idea of metamorphosis 321f. − of Jesus 57, 247ff., 320 − prophetic 317 − Schweitzer’s view of 314 Essenes 213 Eusebius 147ff. Farewell discourse 192−202 Fedorov, Ivan 24 Feeding of the multitudes 324 − as sacramental event 324, 334 Galilee 212, 225, 337ff. Gamaliel the Elder 210 Geiger, Abraham 54 Gennady of Novgorod, Archbishop 22

456

Index of Subjects

Gentiles 244−247 Gnosticism 125, 137 God − nimshal 275−278, 287 − revelation in Jesus 192, 198 − Silence of 366ff. Gospel 121, 227, 329f. − as witness to the historical Jesus 240, 436 − canon of four gospels 119f., 439f. − discrepancies of 120f., 144f. − hermeneia of 228 Gospel of John 415 − exaltation of the cross 200 − Jesus’ ministry 339 − love 184, 195, 197f., 199, 201 − subordination 184ff. Gospel of Luke 5 − fulfillment of Scriptures 176 − history of salvation 157, 179 − Holy Spirit in Luke-Acts 5, 175 − interfigurality 178 − intertextuality 165, 178 − Jesus’ ministry 338f. − narrative theology 168 − subordination 157 − typological reading 155, 161 − unity of Luke-Acts 154 Gospel of Mark − Baptism of Jesus 352 − Jesus’ ministry 337f. − messianic secret 70, 319, 355, 357ff., 370 − narrative passion 9, 371 − understanding of the disciples 357f. Gospel of Matthew − discipleship 343 − Jesus’ ministry 338 − miracles 341f. − universal mission 342 Gospel of Nicodemus 128 Gospel of the Cross 54 Gospel of Thomas 54 Griesbach Hypothesis 331 Handwashing 240-243 Hanina ben Dosa 212, 222 Harnack, Adolf v. 45 Hebrew Bible 231 Herder, Johann Gottfried 98ff.

High priest 231 Hilarion (Troitzky), Archbishop 36 Hillel 208f. Historical-critical exegesis 15, 105, 143, 429f. − form criticism 71 − historical relativism 66 − redaction and narrative criticism 333 − source criticism 65, 415f. History 122f., 323, 431, 437 Holy Spirit 164, 352 Holtzmann, Heinrich Julius 45 Honi the circle-drawer 212, 222 Irenaeus of Lyon 137ff. Ivanov, Alexander 93 Jesus − genealogy 122, 136, 163, 170 − impact 79, 82, 84, 89, 169, 177, 246, 248f., 354, 356, 370 − incarnation 183, 188f., 191f., 202f., 226 − life of 57, 126ff., 137f., 149, 214f., 315, 366f. − messianic consciousness 8, 314, 318, 322, 335f. − ministry 8, 125, 318f., 327, 331ff., 337ff., 345 − passion 9, 57, 134f., 137, 173f., 201ff., 224, 328, 353, 368, 392 − resurrection 123f., 132, 202, 411 − titels 97, 159ff., 162ff., 166, 171f., 191f., 228f., 316, 351, 353, 361ff., 365, 368, 370 Jew 376 − prayer 218 − Jesus as Jew 4, 6, 54ff., 60, 236ff., 407f., 410, 422ff. − victimization of 231 John the Baptist 150, 169, 174, 213, 315, 324, 351 Joseph the carpenter 216 Josephus Flavius 209, 211, 214 − Testimonium Flavianum 85, 150f., 217f. Judas, betrayel of Jesus 328 Julius Africanus 133ff. − Chronikon 134 − Epistle to Aristide 135

Index of Subjects Justin Martyr 129 Kähler, Martin 45, 47, 440 Kerygma 49f., 71, 383 Kingdom of God 176, 282, 288, 355 Konstantin of Ostrog, Prince 24 Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim 42ff., 94f. Liberal theology 45, 69 Life-of-Jesus research 313, 432f. − consequent eschatology 46 − criteria 50f., 53, 58f., 61f., 73, 78f., 421 − First Quest 43-48 − historical Jesus 43, 255, 421, 427f. − methods 46, 50, 55, 58, 88 − mythological interpretation 44, 68 − Second Quest (New Quest) 48−53, 72, 276 − Sources 51, 54, 58, 69, 80f., 83f., 276 − Third Quest 53−60, 66, 74, 405 Lihudos, Sophronios and Ioannikios 22 Lopuhin, Alexander 33 Lord’s Supper 382, 386ff. Makary (Gluharev), Archimandrite 28 Mahloket 209 Mattathias, the priest 220 Maxim the Greek 22 Maximus the Confessor 232 Messianic woes 322 Metaphor − harvest 320 − Old Testament 264 − in parables 254, 286, 294, 300, 307ff. Methodius and Cyrill 20 Mikhail (Luzin), Archbishop 31 Miracles of Jesus 97, 106, 111, 146, 152, 417 Moses 215 Myth 100ff. Nicodemus 223 Nikon (Nikita Minov), Patriarch 22 Nostra Aetate 232 Old-Ritual Schism 22 Origen 139ff.

457

− Contra Celsum 142 − De Principiis 142 Orthodox Biblical Scholarship 85ff., 89f., 430ff. Parables 7, 218, 255, 291ff., 308 − allegory 278, 301ff. − dialogue in 267, 286 − interpretation 7, 284f., 289, 296ff., 301−305, 307, 309, 311f. − as metanarratives 292, 300, 307, 310, 312 − narrativity 256ff., 271, 286 − research on 253f., 262ff., 285, 293f. Parousia, delay of 156, 323, 329 Passion traditions 374, 378ff., 383 Patristic tradition 428f. Paul − and Gospel of Mark 243f. − and Jesus 376ff., 381, 385, 393, 400 − apostolic identity of 391, 401 − embodied proclamation 399f. − pre-Pauline traditions 379 Paulus, Heinrich Eberhard Gottlob 44 Pavsky, Gerasim, Archpriest 27 Performance 389ff., 394, 397ff. Pharisees 221, 225, 238, 240−244 Philaret (Drozdov), Metropolitan 27f., 30 Philosophy 67, 71 Platon (Levshin), Metropolitan 23 Pogrom 232 Pontius Pilate 128, 130ff., 207, 375 Porphyry 107 Proclamation 386ff., 393, 399 Q (source) 54, 173 Qumran 213, 222 Rationalism 44, 143, 423 Regula fidei 421f. Reimarus, Hermann Samuel 4, 43f., 61, 94ff., 414 Renan, Ernest 4, 103ff. Resurrection 124 Russia − Baptism of Rus 20 − Russian Biblical scholarship 19, 30, 35ff. − Russian Bible Society 25

458

Index of Subjects

− Russian Orthodox Church 21 − Russian religious and philosophical awakening 29 Sabbath 220, 243 Scepticism 93, 101, 105, 314 Schlatter, Adolf 418f. Schweitzer, Albert 5, 8, 43, 46f., 60f., 315, 326, 330, 344f. Secret Gospel of Mark 54 Sergiy of Radonezh 21 Shammai 208 Skorina, Francišak 2, 24 Strauss, David Friedrich 4, 44f., 100ff., 414

Talmud 214, 223, 232 Theophan the Recluse (Govorov) 32 Tolstoy, Lew N. 93, 99 Torah 237, 239−244, 407, 410 Troeltsch, Ernst 46f., 63 Two-Source Hypothesis 69, 314, 331 Vasily (Bogdashevsky), Archbishop 32 Weiss, Johannes 46, 61 Wrede, William 47 Yohannan ben Zakkai 209 Yoseph Caiaphas, high-priest 208 Zealots 211