Jesus of Nazareth

by Gerhard Lohfink

  2. Not “[he] put saliva on his eyes,” as the NRSV nicely has it.

  3. Quoted from Peter Brown, The World of Late Antiquity: From Marcus Aurelius to Muhammad (London: Thames and Hudson, 1971), 96.

  4. Athanasius, Vita Antonii 45: “When he was about to eat and sleep and provide for the needs of the body, shame overcame him as he thought of the spiritual nature of the soul. Often when about to partake of food with many other monks, the thought of spiritual food came upon him and he would beg to be excused and went a long way from them, thinking that he should be ashamed to be seen eating by others. He did eat, of course, by himself because his body needed it; and frequently, too, with the brethren—embarrassed because of them, yet speaking freely because of the help his words gave them.” Translation from St. Athanasius: The Life of St. Antony, trans. Walter J. Burghardt and Robert T. Meyer, ACW (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1950), 58.

  5. Josef Ratzinger, “Pastoralblatt” (Cologne, March 1988), quoted in Rudolf Pesch, Über das Wunder der Brotvermehrung, oder: Gibt es eine Lösung für den Hunger in der Welt (Frankfurt: Knecht, 1995), 40.

  6. The next section is treated more fully in Gerhard Lohfink and Rudolf Pesch, “Volk Gottes als ‘Neue Familie,’” 227–42, in Josef Ernst and Stephan Leimgruber, eds., Surrexit Dominus vere. Die Gegenwart des Auferstandenen in seiner Kirche. FS Erzbischof Johannes Joachim Degenhardt (Paderborn: Bonifatius, 1995).

  7. Cf. Norbert Lohfink, Church Dreams: Talking against the Trend, trans. Linda M. Maloney (North Richland Hills, TX: BIBAL Press, 2000), chap. 2, “The Will of God,” 15–46.

  8. Cf. Bernhard Lang, “Ehe,” NBL 1: 475–78, at 476.

  9. Cf., e.g., Exod 18:25; 1 Sam 12:6; 1 Kgs 12:31; 13:33; 2 Chr 2:17.

  10. In regard to this problem, which I have only hinted at here, everything depends on what one means by “church.” If by it we mean a new entity, a “new people” that has taken the place of Israel (substitution or supercessionist theory), then Jesus did not found a church. But if, in line with the New Testament writings, one understands the church as the eschatological Israel, then Jesus laid the foundations of the church by gathering Israel and constituting the Twelve. Of course, we could only speak of “church” in the modern sense at the moment when it became evident, after Easter, that the greater part of Israel had not come to believe. As a result, the church remained only a part of Israel. It rightly understood itself as the true eschatological Israel, but historically it only became what it was because the majority in Israel had not believed. This must necessarily be maintained in regard to the concept of the church. It is true that the church must be defined entirely in terms of Israel, but not only as the eschatological Israel that believed in Jesus; at the same time it must be seen as a fragment born out of the crisis of history and remaining, in its innermost being, entirely oriented to the whole Israel. Perhaps one may say that it is already the whole, but it is still the “whole in fragments.” For more on this, see Gerhard Lohfink, “Jesus und die Kirche,” in Walter Kern, Hermann Josef Pottmeyer, and Max Seckler, eds., Handbuch der Fundamentaltheologie, UTB 8172, 2nd ed. (Tübingen and Basel: Francke, 2000), 3:27–64.

  Chapter 9

  1. “Deeds of power” (dynameis): Matt 7:22; 11:20, 21, 23; 13:54, 58; Mark 6:2, 5; 9:39; Luke 10:13; 19:37. “Signs” (smeia): John 2:11, 23; 3:2; 4:48, 54; 6:2, 14, 26, 30; 7:31; 9:16; 10:41; 11:47; 12:18, 37; 20:30.

  2. There is a detailed and substantive discussion of the problems in the Testimonium Flavianum in Gerd Theissen and Annette Merz, The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide, trans. John Bowden (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), 65–74.

  3. Cf. Michael Wolter, Das Lukasevangelium, HNT 5 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 495–96.

  4. In the Hebrew text, however, it is ridiculed by being misspelled as “Beelzebub,” that is, “lord of the flies.”

  5. For the whole cf. Martin Ebner, Jesus von Nazaret. Was wir von ihm wissen können (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2007), 107–12.

  6. For what follows cf. Marius Reiser, “Die Wunder Jesu—eine Peinlichkeit?” EuA 73 (1997): 425–37.

  7. I am adopting this list, with small alterations, from Martin Hengel and Anna Maria Schwemer, Jesus und das Judentum (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 462–63.

  8. Cf. Otto Böcher, “Dämonen I,” TRE 8: 271.

  9. This is described in detail by Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, trans. John Bowden (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), 37–55.

  10. Tacitus, Histories IV, 81; Suetonius, Vespasian, 7.

  11. Josephus, Ant. 8, 2.5 (§§46-49).

  12. The only text in which Jesus prays in connection with a miracle is the raising of Lazarus (cf. John 11:41-42). But this text is composed altogether on the level of Johannine reflection.

  13. Rudolf Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition, trans. John Marsh (New York: Harper & Row, 1963), 221–26.

  14. Cf. Theissen and Merz, The Historical Jesus, 283–84.

  15. Marius Reiser has pointed this out to me.

  16. For what follows see, more fully, Gerhard Lohfink and Ludwig Weimer, Maria—nicht ohne Israel. Eine neue Sicht der Lehre von der Unbefleckten Empfängnis (Freiburg: Herder, 2008), 358–63.

  17. For the history of this formula and the ideal-typical forms in which it appears in the history of theology cf. Ludwig Weimer, Die Lust an Gott und seiner Sache. Oder: Lassen sich Gnade und Freiheit, Glaube und Vernunft, Erlösung und Befreiung vereinbaren? (Freiburg: Herder, 1981), 146–74, 223–303.

  18. Romano Guardini had already thought and written along these lines in his book, Wunder und Zeichen (Würzburg: Werkbund-Verlag, 1959). Cf. Bernhard Bron, Das Wunder. Das theologische Wunderverständnis im Horizont des neuzeitlichen Natur-und Geschichtsbegriffs (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1975), 188–89. Bron summarizes Guardini as follows: “Therefore the miracle does not destroy the unity of the world or set aside the natural order; instead it brings them to fulfillment and allows the eschatological aspect to be made manifest as the true meaning of the miraculous event” (p. 189).

  19. Certainly nature contains “not only linear cause-and-effect relationships, but also networked or functional retroactive causality, which is why complementary explanations (including ‘top-down’ ones) are necessary,” Siegfried Wiedenhofer, “Wunder III,” LThK (Freiburg: Herder, 3d ed. 2006), 10: 1318.

  20. Cf. Matt 8:10, 13; 9:2, 22, 28, 29; 15:28; 17:20; 21:21; Mark 2:5; 5:34, 36; 9:23, 24; 10:52; 11:22, 23; Luke 5:20; 7:9, 50; 8:48, 50; 17:6, 19; 18:42; John 4:50.

  21. C. S. Lewis describes what I mean by “malleability” here in Miracles. A Preliminary Study (New York: Macmillan, 1947; repr. in The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics [San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2002], 242): “If I knock out my pipe I alter the position of a great many atoms: in the long run, and to an infinitesimal degree, of all the atoms there are. Nature digests or assimilates this event with perfect ease and harmonises it in a twinkling with all other events.… I have simply thrown one event into the general cataract of events and it finds itself at home there and conforms to all other events.” Natural scientists will describe what Lewis is getting at in more professional terms, but unless they are monists and determinists they will say the same thing.

  22. Theissen and Merz, Historical Jesus, 312.

  23. Cécile Ernst, Teufelsaustreibungen: die Praxis der katholischen Kirche im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert (Bern: Huber, 1972).

  24. Cf., e.g., Joachim Gnilka, Das Evangelium nach Markus, vol. 1, EKK (Zürich: Benziger; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1978), 226: “The demonic worldview is unacceptable to us.”

  25. I cannot at this point enter into the question of the reality of evil as a personal power, since it is something that cannot be summarized in a few sentences. Let me instead refer to the work of Jürgen Bründl, Masken des Bösen. Eine Theologie des Teufels, BDS 34 (Würzburg: Echter, 2002).

  26. See Hengel and Schwemer, Jesus und das Judentum, 479. [Translator’s note: “Mirakel” in German
is dismissive, unlike English “miracle,” which is equivalent to German “Wunder.”]

  27. Mark 11:12-14, 20-21 is, of course, not a miracle on his own behalf. The difficult narrative depicts a punishment miracle. Perhaps it rests on a saying of Jesus about an Israel that bore no fruit: cf. Mic 7:1-2.

  28. See, e.g., the Infancy Gospel of Thomas 3, 4, 8; Acts of Andrew: Gregory of Tours, Liber de miraculis 4, 12; Acts of Paul: Heidelberg Coptic Papyrus, 32; Acts of Thomas 8–9.

  29. Ant. 20, 8.6 (§§ 167–170). Translations of Josephus in this book are by William Whiston in The Works of Josephus, Complete and Unabridged, new updated ed. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1987). Cf. also Bell. 2, 13.4-6 (§§ 258–264).

  30. Cf. Hengel and Schwemer, Jesus und das Judentum, 194, 257–58.

  31. Philostratus, Vita Apollonii IV, 45. Translation by F. C. Conybeare.

  32. Ibid., IV, 10.

  33. For what follows cf. Christoph Kleine, “Wunder I,” TRE 36: 380–81.

  34. Reference is made here to Ernst Bloch, The Principle of Hope, vol. 3 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1986), 1265.

  35. For the referential context of Jesus’ mighty deeds cf. also Peter Stuhlmacher, Biblische Theologie des Neuen Testaments, vol. 1 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992), 81–83. See also Marius Reiser, “Die Wunder Jesu,” 434–37, on Jesus’ miracles as sign actions.

  Chapter 10

  1. The Jesus Seminar has engaged intensively with the question of the authenticity of the traditional sayings of Jesus and published the results in a book. All the words of Jesus declared to be genuine are printed in red, all those considered ungenuine are in black. One result is that all Jesus’ sayings about judgment are printed in black. The accompanying commentary grounds this by saying, “The vindictive tone of these sayings is uncharacteristic of Jesus.” No other reason is given. See Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels: What Did Jesus Really Say? The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus (New York: HarperCollins, 1996), 188.

  2. “Up in the Gallery,” in Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, and Other Stories: With Two New Stories, trans. Joachim Neugroschel (New York: Scribner Paperback Fiction, 2000), 244–45.

  3. Marius Reiser, Jesus and Judgment: The Eschatological Proclamation in Its Jewish Context, trans. Linda M. Maloney (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997). For the statistics, see pp. 303–4.

  4. “Glutton and drunkard,” Luke 7:34; “friend of sinners,” Luke 7:34; “possessed,” Mark 3:22; possessed “Samaritan,” John 8:48; “impostor,” Matthew 27:63; “deceiver of the people,” John 7:12; “apostate to the faith,” cf. Mark 3:22. We can conclude from Matthew 19:12 that people accused Jesus of being a eunuch; in that passage Jesus reacts to the accusation in his own way.

  5. Reiser, Jesus and Judgment, 289–90.

  6. For discussion of the details, see Anton Vögtle, Gott und seine Gäste. Das Schicksal des Gleichnisses Jesu vom grossen Gastmahl. (Lukas 14, 16b-24; Matthäus 22,2-14), BThS 29 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1996). There is a general consensus that in his version Matthew reshaped the parable secondarily and made of it an allegory of salvation history.

  7. The last sentence of the parable says literally, “For I tell you: none of those men who were invited will taste of my meal” (v. 24). In narrative terms, the “you” here is problematic because it is still the servants who are being addressed. Did Luke have in mind a shift in the audience, so that in this sentence Jesus himself is speaking to those listening to him? In that event Luke failed to mark the shift. But for us the problem is more or less irrelevant, because v. 24 touches precisely the essential meaning of the parable.

  8. Cf. Reiser, Jesus and Judgment, 258–62.

  9. Norbert Lohfink, “’Ich komme nicht in Zornesglut’ (Hos 11,9). Skizze einer synchronen Leseanweisung für das Hoseabuch,” 163–90, in Ce Dieu qui vient. Mélanges offerts à Bernhard Renaud, LD 159 (Paris: Cerf, 1995), at 188. I am following this essay in interpreting the text of Hosea.

  Chapter 11

  1. Cf. Gunther Wanke, “Bibel I. Die Entstehung des Alten Testaments als Kanon,” TRE 6: 1–8.

  2. For the reasons for this translation and the intent of the text, cf. Norbert Lohfink, “Der Glaube und die nächste Generation. Das Gottesvolk der Bibel als Lerngemeinschaft,” 144–66, in idem, Das Jüdische am Christentum. Die verlorene Dimension (Freiburg: Herder, 1974).

  3. Here I am following Henry M. Shires, Finding the Old Testament in the New (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1974), 66, 70–71.

  4. Raymund Schwager wrote a moving book some years ago in which he attempted to tell Jesus’ inner history in the form of a free meditation. What is crucial in this depiction is how Jesus learns to understand himself and his task through Scripture. Raymund Schwager, Jesus of Nazareth: How He Understood His Life (New York: Crossroad, 1998).

  5. For the oral Torah and the means of its transmission, cf. Hermann L. Strack and Günter Stemberger, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash, trans. and ed. Markus Bockmühl (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1991).

  6. For more detail, see Peter Stuhlmacher, Biblische Theologie des Neuen Testaments I (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992), 68–70.

  7. Cf. Erich Zenger, “Herrschaft Gottes / Reich Gottes II. Altes Testament,” TRE 15: 172–244, at 187.

  8. Cf. Ismar Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy: A Comprehensive History (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1993), §9a.

  9. Matt 11:5; cf. Isa 35:5-6; 61:1-2.

  10. E.g., in the writings and fragments found at Qumran; cf. Martin Hengel and Anna Maria Schwemer, Jesus und das Judentum (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 410, 467. Now fundamental to this topic is Johannes Zimmermann, Messianische Texte aus Qumran. Königliche, priesterliche und prophetische Messiasvorstellungen in den Schriftfunden von Qumran, WUNT 2d ser. 104 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998), esp. 389–412, 467–69.

  11. For more detail on this subject, see Gerhard Lohfink, Das Vaterunser neu ausgelegt, Urfelder Reihe 7 (Bad Tölz: Verlag Urfeld, 2007).

  12. For extensive discussion of the ‘Amida (= Tefilla) see Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy, §§8, 9.

  13. Introduction and text: Svend Holm–Nielsen, Die Psalmen Salomos, JSHRZ IV/2 (Gütersloh: Mohn, 1977); for a critical English edition, see Robert B. Wright, The Psalms of Solomon: A Critical Edition of the Greek Text, Jewish and Christian Texts in Contexts and Related Studies 1 (London, et al.: T & T Clark, 2007).

  14. Cf. János Bolyki, Jesu Tischgemeinschaften, WUNT 96 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998), 181.

  15. Cf. Erich Zenger, et al., Einleitung in das Alte Testament, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1996), 22–24.

  16. For what follows, see Norbert Lohfink, “Death at the River Frontier: Moses’ Incomplete Mission and the Contours of the Bible,” 1–14, in idem, In the Shadow of Your Wings: New Readings of Great Texts from the Bible, trans. Linda M. Maloney (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2003).

  17. Cf. Rainer Albertz, A History of Israelite Religion in the Old Testament Period, 2 vols., trans. John Bowden (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), 2:472.

  18. For what follows, see Norbert Lohfink, “Distribution of the Functions of Power,” 55–75, in idem, Great Themes from the Old Testament, trans. Ronald Walls (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1982); idem, In the Shadow of Your Wings, 1–14.

  19. This is demonstrated in terms of Psalms 137 and 138 in Gerhard Lohfink, Beten schenkt Heimat. Theologie und Praxis des christlichen Gebets (Freiburg: Herder, 2010), 162–64.

  20. This is the formulation in “Gerechter Friede [Just Peace],” a pastoral letter of the German Catholic Conference of Bishops of 27 September 2000 (Bonn: Sekretariat der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz), 24.

  21. The confession of the kings and nations is announced by God himself in Isa 52:15. It comprises Isa 53:1-11a. Then God speaks again. The beginning of the confession remains unclear in our Bible translations because it is simply translated “what we have heard,” but in Hebrew the phrase can mean either “what we have
said” or “what we have heard.” In light of the context the second translation is more probable.

  22. “Gerechter Friede,” 25.

  23. Cf. the brief summary of the discussion in Zenger, et al., Einleitung in das Alte Testament, 14–16.

  Chapter 12

  1. We are in the fortunate position of possessing records of the trial of Justin and his companions before the city prefect Junius Rusticus and of their martyrdom. For an English translation, see E. C. E. Owen, Some Authentic Acts of the Early Martyrs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927), 47–52.

  2. Cf. Stefan Heid, “Justinos, Märtyrer,” LThK3 5: 1112–13.

  3. Justin, Dialogue with Trypho, 11, 2. Translation from Early Christian Writings, http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/justinmartyr-dialoguetrypho.html.

  4. “New lawgiver”: Dial. 14, 3; 18, 3; cf. 12, 2; “new law”: Dial. 11, 4; 12, 3; “eternal law”: Dial. 122, 5. For Tertullian (see De praescriptione haereticorum 13, 4) the “preaching of the new law” by Jesus is even considered the rule of faith.

  5. The New Testament does not yet speak of a “new people of God,” but the expression appears already in the Letter of Barnabas and then in many of the Fathers. Cf., e.g., Barn. 7.5; Justin, Dial. 119, 3; Clement of Alexandria, Paidagogos I, 14.5; 58.1; Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. I, 4.2; Augustine, John, 65.1; Zeno of Verona, Tractates II, 14.4. The expression “new people of God” achieved renewed popularity in twentieth-century theology. The documents of Vatican II use it unquestioningly. Cf. Lumen gentium 10.13.26; Nostra aetate 4.

  6. We find the pericope with the question about the highest commandment in Mark 12:28-34; Matt 22:34-40; and (in a different context) Luke 10:25-28. In this particular case (because of a number of minor agreements between Matthew and Luke), there is dispute about whether Mark or Matthew contains the oldest tradition. For the sake of simplicity, I will base my analysis on Matthew’s version.