aikido7

Biblical Scholar Norman Perrin is the author of a book called "Jesus and the Language of the Kingdom." He pays close attention to Jesus' distinctive voice in his aphorisms and parables which seem to subvert the dominant social, religious and political paradigms of the first century in Palestine.

Over and over again the parables point toward a "hiddeness" in the power of the Kingdom of God--an occult surprise which turns normal expectations upside down.

He does this markedly in comparing the kingdom to leaven (traditionally associated with uncleanliness/sin in ancient Hebrew thought), or by telling his listeners that the Kingdom of God is like the mustard plant, an obnoxious weed. This last parable is certainly to be seen in contrast to the well-known image of the mighty cedar of Lebanon to connote earthly power of Jewish rule.

Jesus does not reach out for a militant image of cosmic dramas of death and destruction. The apocalypticism of John of Patmos had yet to be written, and the Enoch and Daniel scenarios were not emphasized.
Jesus had something else on his mind besides "Punish thine enemies."

rodahi

Bart D. Ehrman has written a book, to a certain degree inspired by the likes of brilliant scholars Albert Schweitzer and Charles Guignebert, entitled Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millenium. In the book, Ehrman uses the only evidence we have available, the text of the NT and other surviving "gospels", to make his case "that Jesus can best be understood as an apocalyptic prophet, a man convinced that the world would end dramatically within his lifetime, and that the new kingdom would be created on earth..."

Over and over again Jesus is quoted. For example, in Mark Jesus states, "Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away before all these things [the sun and moon will grow dark, the stars will fall from the sky, the powers of the sky will be shaken, the Son of Man will come on the clouds with great power to judge the elect] take place."

This fits perfectly well with the apocalypticism of the Book of Enoch and Daniel, both of which were written BEFORE the time of Jesus.

Perrin can make his case ONLY by ignoring virtually ALL of the NT.

rodahi

aikido7

You are correct; there is a definite strain of apocalypticsm in the New Testament which was written before Jesus' ministry.

Perrin (if I may second-guess him) may be choosing to focus on the distinctive speech of Jesus which would enable one to pick out his individual voice from a first-century crowd. In order to do that, Perrin seems to have been concerned mainly with Jesus' parables and one-line aphoristic sayings. These are overwhelmingly found in the synoptic gospels (of which Mark is the earliest). Unfortunately, the parables of Jesus are not near as stressed or studied by mainstream Christains as is Christian dogma. Most believers seem to have elevated John's anti-parabolic Jesus to center stage (which may be why we keep seeing the sign reading "John 3:16" in the end zones of NFL games!).

The problem as always is that history is not theology and the gospel accounts are not historical records. And historical reconstruction is at best, connecting the dots of facts and evidence.

I don't believe there is anything wrong with Ehrman's interpretation. I need to re-read his book. I read it in advance of its publication and found a lot in it to recommend. I just did not find his conclusion useful. I prefer a Christianity that survived because the ministry of Jesus was a "new way of connecting the dots" for the Judean religious, political and cultural traditions undergirding a people who were trying to survive living in difficult times.

If Jesus was apocalyptic, then continually moving the "end times" forward to succeeding generations of believers after the crucifixion would not work unless there was a core of historical remembrance carried along with the threat of divine ethnic cleansing. The apocalyptic interpretation is also the backbone of fundamentalism and tends to give me the uneasy and unethical answer to my question "Does your god want to kill me?"

[ August 04, 2001: Message edited by: aikido7 ]

Rich

If this was the case, why would any of the writers include those apocolyptic quotes over 50 years later when Jesus was dead and they were close as well? They certainly wouldn't help to convince anyone.

offa

Jesus survived the crucifixion. Had he perished we would not have a story. He wrote JOHN. Of course he had editors and help. Jesus died shortly before the War of the Jews. All the posts on this fundie atheist board are about a Jesus who did not survive the crucifixion.

thanks, offa

Peter Kirby

Hello,

I have not yet read Ehrman's book, but I have got it on order. I will have to see what kind of case that he makes.

However, it should be noted that the majority of contemporary scholars would side with Perrin instead of Schweitzer (both of whom were quite brilliant, I should say). According to a survey conducted by Marcus Borg of gospel scholars in the SBL in 1985, only one third still believed that Jesus preached an imminent eschaton, while the other two thirds did not. This is the viewpoint of contemporary scholars including Michael Grant, Marcus Borg, J. D. Crossan, Robert Funk, Mahlon Smith, Stephen Patterson, and most of the Jesus Seminar. Scholars like Bart Ehrman and E. P. Sanders are bucking the trend.

I would say this quote of Jesus in Mark's "Little Apocalypse" in chapter 13 is not good evidence. It is clear that the "Little Apocalypse" was written in part as a vaticinum ex eventu after the events of the first Jewish revolt. That this is Mark's authorial creation is supported by the detail that Jesus takes aside three apostles in order to explain the matter to them alone, which seems to explain why these words were not circulated before Mark.

There are sayings in the tradition that show support for a realized eschatology instead of an imminent eschatology.

Luke 17:21. "On the contrary, God's imperial rule is right there in your presence."

Thomas 113. "It will not come by watching for it. It will not be said, 'Look, here!' or 'Look, there!' Rather, the Father's imperial rule is spread out upon the earth, and people don't see it."

Luke 11:20. "But if by God's finger I drive out demons, then for you God's imperial rule has arrived."

Matt 6:10. "Enact your will on earth as you have in heaven."

So you have to make a decision: which represents the view of Jesus better, the present eschatology sayings or the future eschatology sayings?

In support of judging in favor of present eschatology sayings, there is the criterion of dissimilarity: what disagrees with the teaching of the church and with contemporary Judaism is not likely to have been falsely attributed to Jesus. Apparently John the Baptist was an apocalyptic prophet, while Paul and Mark also believed in the imminent end of the world. This means that the distinctive voice of Jesus is likely to be in the present eschatology sayings.

One claim of the Jesus Seminar is that Jesus was not apocalyptic: "The views of John the Baptist and Paul are apocalyptically oriented. The early church aside from Paul shares Paul's view. The only question is whether the set of texts that represent God's rule as present were obfuscated by the pessimistic apocalyptic notions of Jesus' immediate predecessors, contemporaries, and successors. If Jesus merely adopted the popular views, how did sayings such as Luke 17:20-21 and Luke 11:20 arise? The best explanation is that they originated with Jesus, since they go against the dominant trend of the unfolding tradition. Fellows of the Jesus Seminar are convinced that the subtelty of Jesus' sense of time - the simultaneity of present and future - was almost lost on his followers, many of whom, after all, started as disciples of John the Baptist, and are represented, in the gospels, as understanding Jesus poorly." (The Five Gospels, p. 137)

Stephen Patterson writes: "Of particular importance is Kloppenborg's influential study of the redaction of Q. Just as we have already seen that Thomas and Q1 agree in opting for a non-apocalyptic interpretation of Jesus preaching, so also now it is to be noticed that neither Thomas nor Q1 seem to be much interested in Jesus' death. It is, at any rate, not a primary point of departure in their respective theological orientations. The convergence of Thomas and Q1 on these points is very important, for it helps us clearly to locate reflection upon the death of Jesus and the use of apocalyptic scenarios in the sayings tradition to the synoptic trajectory alone, and to its later stages at that. It is becoming ever more difficult to imagine a Jesus who reflected upon his own death, and preached an imminent apocaylptic judgment to be visited upon the world." (The Gospel of Thomas and Jesus, p. 231)

Mahlon Smith writes on XTalk: "The priority of parables & aphorisms in HJ research has been taken for granted by most gospel researchers since Bultmann (just weigh the volume of the literature!). The realization that most of these sayings do not presuppose an imminent eschatology and even presuppose the opposite (a benign Providence that sustains the current world) has emerged slowly during the last 3 decades."

Mahlon Smith also writes on XTalk: "Since an eschatological worldview was shared by other early Xns (like Paul) it is less likely early
Christians concocted the non-eschatological worldview of the synoptic parables & aphorisms than the eschatology of the coming S of M sayings & a few prophetic woes."

So a case can be made against Ehrman's view that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet.

best,
Peter Kirby http://home.earthlink.net/~kirby/writings/

rodahi

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by rodahi:

This (Mark's apocalyptic gloss) fits perfectly well with the apocalypticism of the Book of Enoch and Daniel, both of which were written BEFORE the time of Jesus.

Perrin can make his case ONLY by ignoring virtually ALL of the NT.

rodahi


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ak: You are correct; there is a definite strain of apocalypticsm in the New Testament which was written before Jesus' ministry.

Yes, and I think this is not to be ignored.

ak: Perrin (if I may second-guess him) may be choosing to focus on the distinctive speech of Jesus which would enable one to pick out his individual voice from a first-century crowd. In order to do that, Perrin seems to have been concerned mainly with Jesus' parables and one-line aphoristic sayings. These are overwhelmingly found in the synoptic gospels (of which Mark is the earliest). Unfortunately, the parables of Jesus are not near as stressed or studied by mainstream Christains as is Christian dogma. Most believers seem to have elevated John's anti-parabolic Jesus to center stage (which may be why we keep seeing the sign reading "John 3:16" in the end zones of NFL games!).

Who knows what the "distinctive speech of Jesus" was? No one. All we can do is read the propaganda of early followers of Jesus and attempt to make some sense of it. In my opinion, it is not good scholarship to ignore almost all of what Jesus reportedly said and focus on a select few simple one-liners and parables to force Jesus to become something he is not depicted as being.

ak: The problem as always is that history is not theology and the gospel accounts are not historical records. And historical reconstruction is at best, connecting the dots of facts and evidence.

I agree totally. We can never know who Jesus really was, presuming he existed, but we can arrive at conclusions, based on the available evidence. I just think that ignoring the vast bulk of that evidence is not good scholarship.

ak: I don't believe there is anything wrong with Ehrman's interpretation. I need to re-read his book. I read it in advance of its publication and found a lot in it to recommend. I just did not find his conclusion useful. I prefer a Christianity that survived because the ministry of Jesus was a "new way of connecting the dots" for the Judean religious, political and cultural traditions undergirding a people who were trying to survive living in difficult times.

Why do you “prefer” a specific type of Christianity? I thought you were not a Christian.

ak: If Jesus was apocalyptic, then continually moving the "end times" forward to succeeding generations of believers after the crucifixion would not work unless there was a core of historical remembrance carried along with the threat of divine ethnic cleansing.

The apocalyptic message was carried forward with less and less emphasis until it was dropped in “John.”

ak: The apocalyptic interpretation is also the backbone of fundamentalism and tends to give me the uneasy and unethical answer to my question "Does your god want to kill me?"

Bart D. Ehrman is not a fundamentalist, nor were Schweitzer and Guignebert. Further, it is obvious that Jesus, John the Baptist, Paul, John of Patmos, etc. were simply mistaken in their belief that an End was imminent. This causes me zero distress or uneasiness. I am not concerned with what fundamentalists think their imaginary god wants to do, nor am I out to exonerate Jesus or any other NT character.

rodahi

rodahi

quote:

Originally posted by rodahi:
Bart D. Ehrman has written a book, to a certain degree inspired by the likes of brilliant scholars Albert Schweitzer and Charles Guignebert, entitled Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millenium. In the book, Ehrman uses the only evidence we have available, the text of the NT and other surviving "gospels", to make his case "that Jesus can best be understood as an apocalyptic prophet, a man convinced that the world would end dramatically within his lifetime, and that the new kingdom would be created on earth..."
Over and over again Jesus is quoted. For example, in Mark Jesus states, "Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away before all these things [the sun and moon will grow dark, the stars will fall from the sky, the powers of the sky will be shaken, the Son of Man will come on the clouds with great power to judge the elect] take place."
This fits perfectly well with the apocalypticism of the Book of Enoch and Daniel, both of which were written BEFORE the time of Jesus.
Perrin can make his case ONLY by ignoring virtually ALL of the NT.
rodahi

PK: Hello,
I have not yet read Ehrman's book, but I have got it on order. I will have to see what kind of case that he makes.

I think you will find his argument persuasive. It is based on solid evidence.

PK: However, it should be noted that the majority of contemporary scholars would side with Perrin instead of Schweitzer (both of whom were quite brilliant, I should say). According to a survey conducted by Marcus Borg of gospel scholars in the SBL in 1985, only one third still believed that Jesus preached an imminent eschaton, while the other two thirds did not. This is the viewpoint of contemporary scholars including Michael Grant, Marcus Borg, J. D. Crossan, Robert Funk, Mahlon Smith, Stephen Patterson, and most of the Jesus Seminar. Scholars like Bart Ehrman and E. P. Sanders are bucking the trend.

I personally don’t think surveys prove much. Anyway, unless Michael Grant has changed his mind, there is a problem with lumping him with those who argue against the views of Ehrman, Schweitzer, Silver, Guignebert, Sanders, et al. A reading of his introductory chapter in Jesus: An Historian’s Review of the Gospels clearly demonstrates that Grant wholeheartedly AGREES with Ehrman. Grant states:

“Such expectations [that the End was near] were fervently stimulated by the sudden emergence in the desert near Qumran, of a religious leader, John the Baptist, who placed the proclamation of the imminent Kingdom of God at the centre of his mission. And it was to the Baptist...that Jesus owed his own message of the coming Kingdom, as he [Jesus] specifically admitted. For Jesus proclaimed it, as John had done...And he, like the people of Qumran, was convinced that this expected end of the world was going to come very soon. True, when asked to specify the exact date by enemies who hoped to lure him into unfulfilled and thus unwise predictions he refused to do so. But on other occasions he explicitly declared that the Kingdom of Heaven has ‘come near’ (engiken). It was the very term that John the Baptist was said to have used. For God ‘has cut short the time’, as many Jewish apocalyptic writers likewise declared.
When the evangelists attribute the same view to Jesus we must believe them since they would have not included a forecast which remained unfulfilled unless it had formed part of an authentic, ineradicable tradition. Indeed, they even admit that Jesus was on occasion extremely imperative, precise and specific in his utterance of this erroneous forecast. ‘Before you have gone through all the towns of Israel,’ he declared to his apostles, the great day will come. [Mt. 10:23: “When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next; for truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel, before the Son of man comes.”] pp. 18-19.

Further, Charles Guignebert states the following:

“...it is obvious that Jesus’ picture of the last things, in so far as the cursory indications of the Gospels enable us to reconstruct it, was neither clear, coherent, nor complete. It is certainly improbable that he entirely discarded the popular apocalyptic. Indeed, it is to be noted that in the last passages in which he is recorded as describing the Last Day, he not only adopts the language of apocalyptic, but follows the general plan of the apocalyptic drama. There may have been later glosses or additions intended to supplement his silence concerning certain points, but it is hard to explain his silence save by the hypothesis that he accepted the views current in his time. Hence the views which the Gospel writers attribute to him would probably show no great divergence from those which he would himself have expressed.” Jesus, P. 390.

PK: I would say this quote of Jesus in Mark's "Little Apocalypse" in chapter 13 is not good evidence. It is clear that the "Little Apocalypse" was written in part as a vaticinum ex eventu after the events of the first Jewish revolt. That this is Mark's authorial creation is supported by the detail that Jesus takes aside three apostles in order to explain the matter to them alone, which seems to explain why these words were not circulated before Mark.
There are sayings in the tradition that show support for a realized eschatology instead of an imminent eschatology.

I disagree. Even if some of what Jesus reportedly says in Mark 13 came later than Jesus, it [the imminent End concept] is consistent with what he says in the rest of that early and anonymous narrative. It also correlates well with what John the Baptist preached and what Paul and John (of Patmos) expected. Further, similar utterances can be found in the other earliest sources, i.e., Q, M, and L. ALL of this is consistent with EARLY Jewish apocalyptic literature, i.e., Daniel, Psalms of Solomon, Assumption of Moses, I Enoch, etc.


PK: Luke 17:21. "On the contrary, God's imperial rule is right there in your presence."
Thomas 113. "It will not come by watching for it. It will not be said, 'Look, here!' or 'Look, there!' Rather, the Father's imperial rule is spread out upon the earth, and people don't see it."
Luke 11:20. "But if by God's finger I drive out demons, then for you God's imperial rule has arrived."
Matt 6:10. "Enact your will on earth as you have in heaven."
So you have to make a decision: which represents the view of Jesus better, the present eschatology sayings or the future eschatology sayings?

I have made a decision. The EARLIEST tradition depicts an apocalyptic Jesus and it fits perfectly well with well-known Jewish beliefs current BEFORE Jesus showed up. Not one of the above quotes proves that Jesus was not an apocalyptic prophet type. According to Grant,

“The full bloom [of the imminent Kingdom] has not yet appeared, but the bud is already visible and must be shown to all Jews far and wide. The tidal wave of divine victory which will soon engulf the whole world has already started on its course--for many to see. The Kingdom will appear in its full splendour at the end of the age, but it has already come into human history in the person of Jesus. In the vast cosmic drama of the Two Ages, there is a continual tension between what is happening now and what will happen before long. The final illumination is still to come, but the present is already glorified by some of its rays here and now.” Ibid. P. 22.

“Jesus’ own moral teaching was entirely directed towards preparing people for that Kingdom and for its first fruits which he believed himself to be creating.” Ibid. P. 24.

“Since, then, the Kingdom of God according to Jesus’ conviction was not only about to be consummated in the immediate future but was already dawning by his own agency, the Gospel’s claims that his miraculous actions conquered and reversed the processes of nature in the world and among human beings constituted an assertion that these deeds both prefigured the Kingdom’s imminent consummation and symbolized and actually formed part of its current initial unfolding.” Ibid. P. 44.

Ehrman states,

“[Jesus] did not propound his ethical views to show us how to create a just society and make the world a happier place for the long haul. For him, there wasn’t going to be a long haul. The judgment of God was coming soon with the arrival of the Son of Man--and people needed to prepare for its coming by changing the way they lived. Preparation for the Kingdom--that’s what ultimately lies at the heart of Jesus’ ethics...” Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium, P. 162.

H. Silver has this to say:

“Jesus’ essential mission was apocalyptic...He was more of the mystic than the moralist. His impassioned concern was not to reconstruct society but to save it from the winnowing and retributive judgment which was imminent in the van of the approaching Millennium. He sought to save men from the birth-throes of the Messianic times. The ethical counsel which he gave to his followers was for a world in extremis...The whole epic of Jesus must be read in the light of this millennium chronology of his day, or it remains unintelligible...
The crash and doom of the world was at hand and therefore there was no longer time for the ordinary pursuits of life, for its commonplace commerce and traffic, for concerns about food, raiment, and shelter: ‘Be not therefore anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink, or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?’ The end is approaching! The unquenchable fires of judgment are upon us! Therefore, ‘Seek ye first His kingdom and His righteousness.’ A man must disencumber himself of all those things which are likely his mind and soul entangled in the affairs of this perishing world. Wealth, Jesus felt, would of all things prove the most difficult obstacle in the way of men’s preparation for the Kingdom...
“Jesus’ attitude toward the Law was determined by his views concerning the approaching end. He did not oppose the Law in part or in whole. He did not seek to abrogate it. He did not wish to substitute for it. It was not necessary. The incoming Millennium would of itself do away with the Law entirely. This was the view commonly held by the contemporaries of Jesus.” A History of Messianic Speculation in Israel, pp. 7-9.


PK: In support of judging in favor of present eschatology sayings, there is the criterion of dissimilarity: what disagrees with the teaching of the church and with contemporary Judaism is not likely to have been falsely attributed to Jesus.

There is nothing in what Jesus reportedly said that precludes the probability that he believed in the imminence of the End times and the coming of the Son of man. The criterion of dissimilarity is not relevant here.

PK: Apparently John the Baptist was an apocalyptic prophet, while Paul and Mark also believed in the imminent end of the world. This means that the distinctive voice of Jesus is likely to be in the present eschatology sayings.

Apparently, Jesus agreed with John the Baptist, Paul, and every other apocalyptic Jew. This is evident in Mark, M, L, Q, all early sources of tradition.

PK: One claim of the Jesus Seminar is that Jesus was not apocalyptic: "The views of John the Baptist and Paul are apocalyptically oriented. The early church aside from Paul shares Paul's view. The only question is whether the set of texts that represent God's rule as present were obfuscated by the pessimistic apocalyptic notions of Jesus' immediate predecessors, contemporaries, and successors. If Jesus merely adopted the popular views, how did sayings such as Luke 17:20-21 and Luke 11:20 arise? The best explanation is that they originated with Jesus, since they go against the dominant trend of the unfolding tradition. Fellows of the Jesus Seminar are convinced that the subtelty of Jesus' sense of time - the simultaneity of present and future - was almost lost on his followers, many of whom, after all, started as disciples of John the Baptist, and are represented, in the gospels, as understanding Jesus poorly." (The Five Gospels, p. 137)

I disagree with the conclusions reached by the Jesus Seminar. See above.


PK: Stephen Patterson writes: "Of particular importance is Kloppenborg's influential study of the redaction of Q. Just as we have already seen that Thomas and Q1 agree in opting for a non-apocalyptic interpretation of Jesus preaching, so also now it is to be noticed that neither Thomas nor Q1 seem to be much interested in Jesus' death. It is, at any rate, not a primary point of departure in their respective theological orientations. The convergence of Thomas and Q1 on these points is very important, for it helps us clearly to locate reflection upon the death of Jesus and the use of apocalyptic scenarios in the sayings tradition to the synoptic trajectory alone, and to its later stages at that. It is becoming ever more difficult to imagine a Jesus who reflected upon his own death, and preached an imminent apocaylptic judgment to be visited upon the world." (The Gospel of Thomas and Jesus, p. 231)

The problem here is that Jesus did not have to reflect upon his own death in order to believe that the End was imminent. He considered himself the herald of the Son of man, not the Son of man himself. BTW, the Gospel of Thomas is not a narrative; it is a collection of sayings. I see no good reason to think it dates earlier than Mark, M, L, or Q. Further, any division of Q is purely hypothetical, just like Q itself.

PK: Mahlon Smith writes on XTalk: "The priority of parables & aphorisms in HJ research has been taken for granted by most gospel researchers since Bultmann (just weigh the volume of the literature!).

So what?

PK: The realization that most of these sayings do not presuppose an imminent eschatology and even presuppose the opposite (a benign Providence that sustains the current world) has emerged slowly during the last 3 decades."

In order to come to this conclusion, one must ignore the vast majority of the earliest NT tradition, early Jewish apocalyptic literature, and the social milieu Jesus preached in--ALL to force “the realization that most of these sayings do not presuppose an imminent eschatology and even presuppose the opposite...” I will repeat what I said earlier--This is not good scholarship.

PK: Mahlon Smith also writes on XTalk: "Since an eschatological worldview was shared by other early Xns (like Paul) it is less likely early
Christians concocted the non-eschatological worldview of the synoptic parables & aphorisms than the eschatology of the coming S of M sayings & a few prophetic woes."

There is no “non-eschatological worldview” in the synoptic tradition. That is, unless someone forces one based on a narrow interpretation of a few sayings found in Christian propaganda. Some of the sayings most probably date AFTER Mark.

PK: So a case can be made against Ehrman's view that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet.

Not really.

rodahi

[ August 04, 2001: Message edited by: rodahi ]

Peter Kirby

I don't think surveys can prove anything, but they are useful for getting a sense of what people think.

My information on Grant came second hand from Michael Martin, who in his _The Case Against Christianity_ cites Grant for the opinion that the historical Jesus did not have an apocalyptic view. If Martin was fibbing, now I know.

It appears from your quotes that Grant, like J. P. Meier, believes that Jesus had both present and future eschatologies. That is certainly one possibility, although it seems to me to be predicated on a harmonizing approach to the statements in the Gospels. There are no statements in the Gospels in which Jesus is supposed to have said "The Kingdom of God is here, and the Kingdom of God is coming" -- you can only get such a paradox out of harmonizing different kinds of traditions.

An apocalyptic point of view is not evident in all the sources for Jesus. It is entirely absent in John, Thomas, and even Kloppenborg's Q1. Division of Q is a hypothesis, but the historicity of Jesus is also a hypothesis.

One doesn't need to ignore the milieu in order to avoid the conclusion that Jesus was an apocalypticist. It comes in paying attention to the milieu that the present eschatology presupposed by most of the parables and a few sayings shows itself to be the distinctive teaching of the historical Jesus by the criterion of dissimilarity. Although the present eschatology sayings can be thus traced back to the HJ, the future eschatology sayings cannot, as they reflect the views of the early church as well as contemporary Judaism and so could easily have been placed on the lips of Jesus falsely.

There is no hostility in me in this exchange. I am not saying that an apocalyptic view of Jesus has nothing to commend it. But I just wanted to point out that the matter is not nearly so clear-cut as you had seemed to think.

best,
Peter Kirby
http://home.earthlink.net/~kirby/writings/

aikido7

[QUOTE]Originally posted by rodahi:
[QB]quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by rodahi:

This (Mark's apocalyptic gloss) fits perfectly well with the apocalypticism of the Book of Enoch and Daniel, both of which were written BEFORE the time of Jesus.

Perrin can make his case ONLY by ignoring virtually ALL of the NT.

rodahi


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There are many, many scholarly opinions around this topic. I recently looked through Burton Mack's THE MYTH OF INNOCENCE, in which he deals with exactly this subject.

I simply feel that Jesus did not teach a future apocalyptic coming involving a violent and cataclysmic restoration of the cosmos to God's order. I use the term "apocalyptic" very methodically and literally in this sense. The argument has been accused of being circular in that one of the criteria for being authentic was not being apocalyptic and "no authentic sayings of Jesus are apocalyptic."

I believe most of the Jesus Seminar feel that the Baptizer was definitely an apocalyptic prophet and Jesus was his follower for a time but broke with John and ultimately rejected his teachings. Jesus turned to favor an incipient wisdeom teaching that would insert itself into society and transform it from within, like weeds in a field or yeast in flour. Traditional apocalyptic saw drastic and rather immediate change of the whole society, where God's power would establish justice on earth. Jesus--according to what I hold to be his authentic sayings--seem not to talk about a specific program, but rather the power of the words and ideas to transform from within. The images closest to his vision seem to be growth, a general hiddeness and a major surprise at the outcome.

Personally, I see things a little differently. Although he rejected the Baptizer's apocalyptic preachings, Jesus may well have also had people who knew him to preach as John did. Mark's gospel hints at this, and if Jesus followed the Baptizer, it seems likely that he may well have begun as an apocalyptic prophet. I see in some gospel stories signs of Jesus changing his mind. He became more inclusive after his meeting with the Syro-Phonecian woman who drubbed him in dialogue.

I must at the same time, however, be alert to the dangers in seeing the failure of apocalyptic after 2000 years of hindsight. I may certainly have a bias in finding something different.

Over the last 200 years we have dealt with the fire-and-brimstone vision of Jesus, only to find it sadly devoid of anything historically useful. He may have had some apocalyptic thoughts, but he was also clearly an awesome thinker and a teacher of wisdom in line with the other great teachers who appeared along with him at about the same time in history. His sayings and parables are truly poetically powerful and transforming for me and the non-apocalyptic Jesus is defintely one I can put into practice day by day. I can also plant seeds, knead the dough of the bread of life, see beauty in a weed.

This has nothing to do with Christianity or religion but with living a life with integrity and forever open to possibilities.

The awesome wonder is not that a world has been changed from darkness to light in a cataclysmic moment of retribution, but that people can be transformed daily into subversive lovers of a troubled world and its troubled people.

When fundamentalists and evangelicals--especially those in government--start thinking apocalyptically and making quasi-biblical pronouncements regarding the end of the world (as Energy Secretary Watt did and his President Ronald Reagan), I start to be concerned.

Many evangelicals I know talk about the beatings they received at the hands of their parents and always end with "Well, I deserved it." No child deserves to be hit and no world deserves to be destroyed.