4. Herbert Braun, Jesus of Nazareth: The Man and His Time (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979), 56–57.
5. This schematic distinction, which played a major role for Rudolf Bultmann, is outdated. Cf. esp. Martin Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism: Studies in Their Encounter in Palestine during the Early Hellenistic Period (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974).
6. There were certainly influences from Hellenistic cultic meals, but there were also profound differences. The sole basis for the early Christian eucharistic celebration is Jesus’ last meal. Cf. Hans-Josef Klauck, Herrenmahl und hellenistischer Kult. Eine religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung zum 1. Korintherbrief, NTA n.s. 15, 2nd ed. (Münster: Aschendorff, 1986).
7. Thus Peter Fiedler, “Sünde und Vergebung im Christentum,” Concilium 10 (1974): 568–71; idem, Jesus und die Sünder, BET 3 (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1976), 277–81.
8. For what follows, see also Rudolf Pesch, Das Abendmahl und Jesu Todesverständnis, QD 80 (Freiburg: Herder, 1978), 103–11.
9. Cf. Michael Wolter, Das Lukasevangelium, HNT 5 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 498.
10. Pesch, Abendmahl, 106.
11. Cf. Hartmut Gese, “The Atonement,” 93–116, in idem, Essays on Biblical Theology, trans. Keith Crim (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1981); Bernd Janowski, Sühne als Heilsgeschehen. Studien zur Sühnetheologie der Priesterschrift und zur Wurzel KPR im Alten Orient und im Alten Testament, WMANT 55 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1982); idem, Stellvertretung. Alttestamentliche Studien zu einem theologischen Grundbegriff, SBS 165 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1997); Peter Stuhlmacher, Biblische Theologie des Neuen Testaments 1 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992), 136–43.
12. Exod 24:4-11.
13. Jer 31:31-34; cf. Jer 34:40; Ezek 16:59-63; 37:21-28.
14. Isa 52:13–53:12.
15. See in more detail Gerhard Lohfink and Ludwig Weimer, Maria—nicht ohne Israel. Eine neue Sicht der Lehre von der Unbefleckten Empfängnis (Freiburg: Herder, 2008), 223–30.
16. Rudolf Bultmann, “New Testament and Mythology: The Problem of Demythologizing the New Testament Proclamation,” 1–44, in idem, New Testament and Mythology and Other Basic Writings, ed. and trans. Schubert M. Ogden (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984).
17. Immanuel Kant is frequently cited in this connection by many authors: “Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason,” II.1.c., in idem, Kant: Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason: And Other Writings, trans. Allen Wood, et al., Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
18. Cf. the comprehensively informative work of Karl-Heinz Menke, Stellvertretung. Schlüsselbegriff christlichen Lebens und theologische Grundkategorie (Einsiedeln: Johannes, 1991), 17. At this point he refers to Dorothee Sölle, Stellvertretung. Ein Kapitel Theologie nach dem “Tode Gottes,” 2nd ed. (Stuttgart: Kreuz-Verlag, 1982), English: Christ the Representative: An Essay in Theology after the “Death of God” (London: SCM, 1967).
19. Or “you can because you must.” Cf. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason and Other Works on the Theory of Ethics, trans. Thomas Kingsmill Abbott (London: Longmans, Green, 1898; repr. Charleston, SC: Forgotten Books, 2008), 25: “He [= one who in a difficult situation and must decide according to conscience—Author] judges, therefore, that he can do a certain thing because he is conscious that he ought, and he recognizes that he is free—a fact which but for the moral law he would never have known.” Apparently “you can because you should/must” was later abstracted from this text. At any rate, in 1942 Walter Schmidkunz edited a collection of Kant citations in the Münchner Lesebogen 11, titled “I. Kant, Du kannst, denn du sollst. Vom Ethos der Pflicht.” The phrase in the title did not, however, appear within the collection. I am grateful to Fr. Giovanni Sala, SJ, for this information.
20. I thank Ludwig Weimer for this formulation.
21. Cf. Gese, “The Atonement,” 95–96, 106.
22. For an extended discussion of this point see Lohfink and Weimer, Maria, 37–64.
23. Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings, trans. Leif Sjöberg and W. H. Auden (New York: Ballantine Books, 1983), 173.
24. Thus, e.g., Jürgen Becker, Das Evangelium nach Johannes. Kapitel 11–21, ÖTK 4/2 (Gütersloh: Mohn, 1981), 592.
Chapter 17
1. Cf. Rudolf Pesch, Das Markusevangelium, Part 2, HTKNT II/2 (Freiburg: Herder, 1977), 21.
2. Cf. Gerhard Lohfink, Das Vaterunser neu ausgelegt, Urfelder Reihe 7 (Bad Tölz: Verlag Urfeld, 2007), 29–34. Still fundamental is Joachim Jeremias, Abba. Studien zur neutestamentlichen Theologie und Zeitgeschichte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966), 15–67. Available in English in idem, Jesus and the Message of the New Testament, ed. K. C. Hanson (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002), esp. 39–74.
3. Ps 11:6; Isa 51:17, 22; Ezek 23:32-33.
4. Cf. Martin Hengel and Anna Maria Schwemer, Jesus und das Judentum (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 588. The references for Celsus and Julian can also be found there.
5. Cf. in the Old Testament the distress of the prophet Jeremiah (e.g., Jer 20:7-18) and in the New Testament Paul’s statements about himself (e.g., 2 Cor 4:7-18).
6. Thus, probably correctly, John 18:12-15.
7. Thus Hengel and Schwemer, Jesus und das Judentum, 593.
8. Cf. esp. Josef Blinzler, The Trial of Jesus: The Jewish and Roman Proceedings against Jesus Christ Described and Assessed from the Oldest Accounts (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1959), 117–21; also 86–89. In my description of Jesus’ last day I am grateful to be able to follow this foundational work in many details.
9. Cf. in the Old Testament: Num 35:30; Deut 17:6; 19:15.
10. Thus Mark 8:29-30; 9:7-9.
11. The suggestion that Jesus did not use the Son of Man title is utterly unfounded. It appears in the New Testament almost nowhere but on the lips of Jesus. And later Christology had no idea what to do with the title. Cf. the persuasive and well-considered presentation in Hengel and Schwemer, Jesus und das Judentum, 526–41; see also chap. 19 below.
12. Cf. m. Sanh. VII, 5. The command, however, is older than the law in the Mishnah: cf. 2 Kgs 18:37–19:1.
13. There is no basis in the Markan text for two different meetings of the Council; it is also improbable that the Sanhedrin only assembled in the early morning, as supposed by Willibald Bösen, Der letzte Tag des Jesus von Nazaret. Was wirklich geschah (Freiburg: Herder, 1994), 174–77.
14. An overview of the shifting discussion on this point can be found in Pesch, Markusevangelium, Part 2, 418–19.
15. In the Fourth Gospel account Jesus’ scourging precedes the death sentence (John 19:1; cf. Luke 23:16). In that case it would have been a final attempt on the part of Pilate to avoid sentencing Jesus to death.
16. See b. Sanh. 43a: “When one is led out to execution, he is given a goblet of wine containing a grain of frankincense, in order to benumb his senses, for it is written, Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto the bitter in soul” (Sanhedrin, trans. Jacob Schachter and Harry Freedman, ed. Isidore Epstein [London: Soncino, 1987]).
17. Thus Hengel and Schwemer, Jesus und das Judentum, 617; Schalom ben Chorin, Brother Jesus: The Nazarene through Jewish Eyes (Atlanta: University of Georgia Press, 2001), 184.
18. 11Q Temple 64, 6-10. Cf. Peter Stuhlmacher, Biblische Theologie des Neuen Testaments 1 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992), 155–56.
Chapter 18
1. Only in the so-called canonical ending of Mark (Mark 16:9-20), which, however, stems from the second century, is anything said (at v. 14) about the eleven (disciples).
2. Since there is probably an existing tradition behind John 16:32 the redactional tension with John 20, in which the disciples remain in Jerusalem after all, need not exclude this interpretation.
3. See in detail Gerhard Lohfink, Die Himmelfahrt Jesu. Untersuchungen zu den Himmelfahrts-und Erhöhungstexten bei Lukas, SANT 26 (Munich: Kösel, 1971), 262–65.
4. Cf. Luke 24:6 (
which retains a reminiscence of Galilee) with Mark 16:7.
5. “Disclosure situation” is the phrase used by Ian T. Ramsey, Wilhelmus A. de Pater, and others. It refers to a moment in which, through a concrete event, a new view of things suddenly appears. For extensive discussion, see Tullio Aurelio, Disclosures in den Gleichnissen Jesu. Eine Anwendung der disclosure-Theorie von I. T. Ramsey, der modernen Metaphorik und der Theorie der Sprechakte auf die Gleichnisse Jesu, RST 8 (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1977), 28–41.
6. The natural aspect of genuine visions is treated extensively in Karl Rahner, Visions and Prophecies, trans. Charles H. Henkey and Richard Strachan (London: Burns & Oates, 1964).
7. Cf., e.g., Pss 16:10-11; 17:15; 27:13; 41:13; 49:16; 73:24; 143:7. All these passages oscillate between hope for newly given life in this time and hope for life beyond the bounds of death. The speaking subject is always an individual.
8. John 12:32; Acts 2:33; 5:31; Rom 1:4; Eph 1:20-22; Phil 2:9; Heb 1:3; 2:9; 5:5-6; 8:1; 10:12-13.
9. Luke 24:51; Acts 1:9; 3:21; 1 Tim 3:16.
10. Luke 24:34; Acts 10:40; Rom 4:24, 25; 8:11; 10:9; 1 Cor 6:14; 15:4; Gal 1:1; 1 Thess 1:10; 1 Pet 1:21, and frequently elsewhere.
11. Thus Rudolf Pesch, Das Markusevangelium, Part 2, HTKNT II/2 (Freiburg: Herder, 1977), 529.
12. The Hosea passage is cited nowhere in the New Testament, and even possible allusions are uncertain.
13. Cf. Matt 28:9-10; Mark 16:9; John 20:11-18.
14. For the opponents’ assertion of theft of the body, see Matt 28:11-15; for transfer by a gardener, see John 20:15. The sudden and unexplained appearance of the “gardener” in the text is an allusion to the polemic of the Jewish opposition.
15. “A sign” because the fact of the empty tomb is not the resurrection itself. The earliest Christian tradition held that opinion also. In all four gospels the meaning and significance of the empty tomb must first be explained by angels.
16. The Jewish texts, especially those of Philo, are handily summarized in Rudolf Pesch, Die Apostelgeschichte, Vol. 1, EKK V/1 (Einsiedeln: Benziger; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1986), 101–2.
17. Paul speaks of this in 1 Corinthians 14 in the same terminology: lalein glssais, “speaking in tongues.” The pre-Lukan narrative layer made this into a lalein heterais glssais (Acts 2:4), “speaking in other tongues,” that is, foreign languages.
18. It is true that Luke, or the tradition that preceded him, has inserted “in the last days,” but the context in Joel speaks unmistakably of the end time.
19. Cf. Gerhard Lohfink, “Der Ursprung der christlichen Taufe,” TQ 156 (1976): 35–54.
20. Behind this is, of course, the complex of ideas surrounding the pilgrimage of the nations: at the end of time the nations will come as pilgrims to Zion to hear the word of God. Cf. esp. Isa 2:1-5; 60:1-6, and frequently elsewhere. The success of the Gentile mission (= the self–fulfillment of the promise of the pilgrimage of the nations) was also part of the end–time horizon of the early church.
21. I am here adopting a reflection by Karl Rahner. Cf. his “Warum gerade ER? Anfrage an den Christusglauben,” TG 22 (1979): 65–74, at 66–67. English: “Why Him?,” 85–104, in Karl Rahner and Karl–Heinz Weger, Our Christian Faith: Answers for the Future (London: Burns & Oates, 1980).
Chapter 19
1. The Greek kai is a kai explicativum, i.e., an explanatory “and.”
2. Cf. also Matt 21:11, 46; Luke 24:19; John 4:19; 6:14; 9:17.
3. Deuteronomy 18:18 only means to say that Israel will always have a prophet, but later, in light of Deut 34:10, the text was read to indicate the coming of a single end-time prophetic figure.
4. Mark 6:4 and Luke 13:33 seem to contradict this statement, but both these passages are about “rule sayings” (Odil Hannes Steck) that do not permit us to draw any conclusions about Jesus’ sovereign claim. Mark 6:4 in particular is similar to other proverbial expressions in Hellenistic culture.
5. Cf. Horst Dietrich Preuss, Old Testament Theology, vol. 2, trans. Leo G. Perdue (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1996), 73.
6. Or “truly I tell you.” See the details in Joachim Jeremias, Abba. Studien zur neutestamentlichen Theologie und Zeitgeschichte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966), 148–51. For an English translation, see idem, Jesus and the Message of the New Testament, ed. K. C. Hanson (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002), 10.
7. Cf. Matt 9:27; 12:23; 15:22; 21:9, 15.
8. The oldest and clearest evidence is PsSol 17:21.
9. For “messianic” texts in the Old Testament, see esp. Ps 72; Isa 9:1-6; 11:1-10; Jer 30:8-9; 33:14-16; Ezek 34:23-24; 37:24-25; Mic 5:1-4; Zech 9:9-10. Others, such as Gen 49:10-12; Num 24:17-19; or Amos 9:11-12 were interpreted as messianic, at least later. “Messianic” here does not mean that the title “messiah” was used. That title for a future figure who will bring salvation appears for the first time in the first century BCE in the Psalms of Solomon.
10. “Son of Man” appears in the NT in only four passages outside the gospels; of these, Heb 2:6 and Rev 1:13; 14:14 are quotations from the Old Testament, leaving only Acts 7:56.
11. The exception is John 12:34.
12. Joachim Jeremias collected the precise findings; cf. his New Testament Theology, Part 1: The Proclamation of Jesus, trans. John Bowden (London: SCM, 1974), 257–76, at 260. In his search, however, Jeremias looked for instances that are certainly authentic and his method was much too mechanical. He separated out a number of logia in which the parallel tradition has “I” instead of “Son of Man.” These should instead be discussed case by case. Cf. the lists in Martin Hengel and Anna Maria Schwemer, Jesus und das Judentum (Tübingen: Mohr, 2007), 534–41.
13. This does not exclude the possibility that within the transmission of the Jesus tradition the Son of Man title could be replaced by an “I” or the reverse, that “Son of Man” could be introduced in place of an “I.” Cf., e.g., Matt 16:13, differently Mark 8:27.
14. Cf. 1 En. 45:3-6; 46:1-6; 48:2-7; 49:2-4; 61:5-62:16; 71:13-17; 4 Ezra 13.
15. Cf. Rudolf Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2007), 9; also, e.g., Günther Bornkamm, Jesus of Nazareth (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), 176; Ferdinand Hahn, The Titles of Jesus in Christology: Their History in Earliest Christianity (Cambridge: James Clarke, 2002), 23.
16. Cf. Matt 5:25-26; Mark 9:43-48; Luke 12:54-57; 13:1-5, 25-27; 16:1-8; 17:26-30.
17. For this whole literary genre, see Martin Hengel, Was Jesus a Revolutionist? (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971), 4–9.
18. A literal translation of Matt 10:34 would be: “I have not come to cast peace, but the sword.”
19. At least the first and second antitheses (Matt 5:21-22, 27-28) are regarded by many scholars as authentic. There is no genuine parallel among the rabbis for Jesus’ “but I say to you.”
20. Mark 2:1-12; Luke 7:36-50. This corresponds to Jesus’ table fellowship with toll collectors and sinners. In Mark 2:5, the most important text, Jesus does say to the lame man “your sins are forgiven,” that is, “they are forgiven you by God,” but it is Jesus himself who asserts it and thus acts authoritatively.
21. Cf. Matt 24:43-44; Luke 12:40; 1 Thess 5:2, 4; 2 Pet 3:10; Rev 3:3; 16:15.
22. For the following interpretation, see Tim Schramm and Kathrin Löwenstein, Unmoralische Helden. Anstössige Gleichnisse Jesu (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986), 50–53. Previously C. H. Dodd, The Parables of the Kingdom (New York: Scribner, 1961), 126, had exegeted the text in the same sense.
23. Interpreters disagree about who it is that is entering the strong man’s house. Is it God, or Jesus? Cf. Michael Theobald, “’Ich sah den Satan aus dem Himmel stürzen…’” BZ 49 (2005): 174–90, at 189–90. But the two are really inseparable. Obviously Jesus himself conquers and binds Satan, but he does it “in the power of God” (cf. Luke 11:20).
Chapter 20
1. The problem at Chalcedon was the relationship of the two “natures” in Christ,
that is, the relationship of divinity and humanity. That Jesus Christ is true human and true God is already stated in the New Testament, especially in the Christology of the Gospel of John.
2. English: The Religion of the Earliest Churches: Creating a Symbolic World, trans. John Bowden (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 41–60.
3. For the signs required to confirm the ascension, cf. Gerhard Lohfink, Die Himmelfahrt Jesu. Untersuchungen zu den Himmelfahrts– und Erhöhungstexten bei Lukas, SANT 26 (Munich: Kösel, 1971), 45–50.
4. Cf. Carsten Colpe, “Jesus und die Besiegelung der Prophetie,” BTZ 4 (1987): 2–18; idem, Das Siegel der Propheten: historische Beziehungen zwischen Judentum, Judenchristentum, Heidentum und frühen Islam, ANTZ 3, 2nd ed. (Berlin: Institut Kirche und Judentum, 2007), 12–16; 200–203.
5. Cf., e.g., Isa 25:6-8 or Ezek 43:1-7. Exod 29:45 could also be mentioned here, if the text is read eschatologically on the canonical level.
6. For these instances, see Adolf Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East: The New Testament Illustrated by Recently Discovered Texts of the Graeco-Roman World (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1965 [orig. pub. 1909]), 343-45.
7. See Marius Reiser, “Hat Paulus Heiden bekehrt?,” BZ 39 (1995): 76-91.
8. For the question of these so–called adoptionist formulae, cf. Peter Stuhlmacher, Biblische Theologie des Neuen Testaments 1 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992), 185–88; Martin Hengel and Anna Maria Schwemer, Der messianische Anspruch Jesu und die Anfänge der Christologie. Vier Studien, WUNT 138 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001), 13; Walter Kasper, Jesus the Christ (New York: Paulist Press, 1976), 233–34; Karl-Heinz Menke, Jesus ist Gott der Sohn. Denkformen und Brennpunkte der Christologie (Regensburg: Pustet, 2008), 166–68.
9. The translation of this passage is uncertain. The Septuagint has rendered the Hebrew môn with harmozousa, “the one who orders all things.” Aquila’s later Greek translation substituted tithēnoumenē, “nursling, darling child.” Both refer amon to Wisdom, as have all interpreters up to modern times. But the word can also apply to God, in which case the text speaks of God as the artist, the master builder of the world.
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