Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

THE MISSION OF JESUS §14.3
other relations were involved in that first discipleship, it was determined primarily
by the relation of the disciple to Jesus. The discipleship for which Jesus called
was discipleship of Jesus.
Martin Hengel, whose richly documented study on The Charismatic
Leader and His Followers remains fundamental, has stressed that this was a feature
which clearly distinguished the discipleship for which Jesus called from the
other voluntary groupings of the time. There are no equivalent stories of 'calling'
and 'following after' in rabbinic tradition. 58 And there is no hint that the recruits
who joined the Qumran community were responding to some call. Both groups
certainly attracted pupils and members, but the element of personal call to (as it
would appear) targetted individuals was distinctive of the group round Jesus.
Earlier on we hear of disciples of prophets ('sons of the prophets'), 59 but the only
close parallel or precedent is Elijah's summons of Elisha to be his successor. 60
However, there is some danger of exaggerating the distinctiveness of the
immediate discipleship of Jesus, and Hengel discounts too quickly the idea of Jesus
as 'example' or 'imitation' of Jesus in the Gospels. 61 Attention should also be
given to the following features.
a. Learning
As disciples, the group round Jesus was a learning community. As disciples
(mathetes), they were learners (from manthanö, 'to learn'), with Jesus as their
teacher (didaskalos). 62 Mark explicitly states that Jesus chose twelve 'in order
58. Hengel, Charismatic Leader 50-51; see also his response on this point (84-86) to
H. D. Betz, Nachfolge und Nachahmung Jesu Christi im Neuen Testament (Tübingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 1967) 27-43. But he also notes that the adherents of first-century 'prophets' reported
by Josephus 'followed' them, to the Jordan (Ant. 20.97) or into the desert (20.167, 188) {Charismatic
Leader 21 n. 19). See also Meier, Marginal Jew 3.50-54.
59. 2 Kgs. 2.3, 5, 15; 4.1; 5.22; 6.1; 9.1; Isa. 8.16; Jer. 36.4-10, 32; Amos 7.14.
60. See further Hengel, Charismatic Leader 16-18. Schräge, Ethics 46-49, Gnilka, Jesus
161-64, and Theissen and Merz, Historical Jesus 214-15, follow Hengel on the substance of
this paragraph. See also Meier, Marginal Jew 3.91-92 nn. 25, 26.
61. Hengel, Charismatic Leader 1-2, 42-50, 53.
62. Data already in §8.1b. Occasionally in the Jesus tradition Jesus is even addressed as
'Rabbi'/'Rabbouni' (Mark 9.5; 10.51; 11.21; 14.45 par.; Matt. 26.25; John 1.38, 49; 3.2; 4.31;
6.25; 9.2; 11.8); indeed, the Baptist (John 3.26) and Jesus are the earliest Jewish teachers for
whom such an address is attested (see also Theissen and Merz, Historical Jesus 354-55).
Hengel makes too much of the relative absence of manthanö in the Synoptic tradition — only
once in Mark 13.28/Matt. 24.32; he attributes the other two references (Matt. 9.13; 11.29) to redaction
(Charismatic Leader 51). There is truth in his further assertion that Jesus' intention was
not 'to create a new tradition, but to prepare for the service of the approaching rule of God'
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