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An Unanswered Question: Apocalyptic Expectation and Jesus' Basileia Proclamation

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An Unanswered Question: Apocalyptic Expectation and Jesus' Basileia Proclamation Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 8 (2010) 67–79 brill.nl/jshj An Unanswered Question: Apocalyptic Expectation and Jesus’ Basileia Proclamation Stephen J. Patterson Eden Theological Seminary St. Louis, MI, USA [email protected] Abstract Th e several sayings from the Jesus tradition which explicitly deny an apoca- lyptic interpretation of the message of Jesus are surveyed, with the conclusion that this sentiment is to be found at every layer of the tradition, including its earliest. At the same time, it is acknowledged that apocalyptic materials are also to be found throughout the tradition. Th is conclusion is ventured: perhaps the tradition is authentically ambiguous about this issue because Jesus himself was undecided about this notion, which he inherited from John the Baptist. Keywords apocalyptic , apocalypticism , Gospel of Th omas , historical Jesus , John , John the Baptist , Luke , Mark , Paul , Q , Sayings Gospel Th e Question of Apocalyptic<Th e Apocalyptic Question?> Th ough the Jesus debate seems fi nally to have abated a little, there is still one question about which scholars remain quite divided: when Jesus spoke of a new reign of God, was he speaking apocalyptically or did he have something else in mind, say, God ruling here and now, ‘in your midst’ (Lk. 17.21)? Was Jesus’ reign of God a thing that God would initiate as a kind of cosmic battle between the forces of good and evil, that would remake the world and return it to its divinely ordained perfection, or was it a way of acting in accord with God’s will on the © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2010 DOI 10.1163/174551909X12607965419630 68 S.J. Patterson / Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 8 (2010) 67–79 presumption that God truly rules the world? Modern scholars are not the fi rst to debate this question. 1 To the contrary, our discussion today should be seen as part of a long-standing and still-unfolding debate about the nature of Christian eschatology itself. If I may invoke Crossan to summarize the matter with his characteristic elegant simplicity: are we waiting for God to act, or is God waiting for us to act? 2 When one examines the texts of earliest Christianity, there is no mys- tery about why interpreters have found themselves divided over this issue: the texts themselves are divided. Th at is the subject of this essay. I wish to show that at every layer of the tradition we fi nd this question coming to expression in a way that cannot be dismissed easily. Th is inconsistency in the texts cannot, for example, be resolved into a sim- ple both/and, the ‘already, not yet’ of the neo-orthodox theologians. 3 Th e texts that we shall examine do not permit a both/and approach: for they explicitly deny a future concept of the reign of God marked by apocalyptic signs and wonders, even while other texts explicitly affi rm specifi c signs and wonders that are to mark the true arrival of the end. Nor is it a matter to be resolved implicitly by the literary compatibil- ity of apocalyptic and wisdom materials in a text like, for example, the Wisdom of Solomon. 4 For the texts we shall examine below are explicitly polemical : they do not simply off er another way to understand 1 ) For a concise history of the question, see Bruce Chilton, Th e Kingdom of God (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), pp. 1-26. On the turn to non-apocalyptic interpreta- tions, see Stephen J. Patterson, ‘Th e End of Apocalypse: Rethinking the Eschatological Jesus’, Th eology Today 52.1 (1995), pp. 29-48; also idem and Dale C. Allison, Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan, Th e Apocalyptic Jesus: A Debate (ed. Robert J. Miller; Santa Rosa, CA: Polebridge, 2001). 2 ) See esp. John Dominic Crossan, Th e Birth of Christianity (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1998), pp. 283-84; earlier, similarly, idem , Th e Historical Jesus: Th e Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1991), p. 292. 3 ) For this formulation, esp. Oscar Cullmann, Salvation in History (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), but variously also Gunther Bornkamm, Jesus of Nazareth (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1960), pp. 90-95; or Werner Georg Kümmel, Promise and Fulfi llment: Th e Eschatological Message of Jesus (Naperville, IL : Allenson, 1957). 4 ) Th e matter has been explored by the Society of Biblical Literature Wisdom and Apocalypticism Group since 1994, and the results published in Benjamin G. Wright III and Lawrence Wills (eds.), Confl icted Boundaries in Wisdom and Apocalypticism (SBL Symposium Series, 35; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 2005). .
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