Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

THE QUESTION OF JESUS' SELF-UNDERSTANDING §15.3
as our sources indicate; at least no hint is given that any such claim was disputed.
64 And the reports that the Baptist was considered a possible candidate to
messiahship 65 need not be wholly discounted. In fact, there are several incidents
involving Jesus, whose historicity in toto is very hard to dismiss and in which the
issue of messiahship (or the equivalent religio-political claim) is central. 66 We
will begin with the climax of Jesus' 'career', his trial and condemnation, since
the case is almost indisputable there, 67 and work backwards.
a. Jesus' Trial and Condemnation (Mark 15.1-39 pars.) 68
One of the clearest and most striking facts regarding Jesus is that he was executed
as a messianic pretender. (1) He was condemned for claiming to be 'the
king of the Jews', as all four canonical Gospels agree (Mark 15.26 pars.). 'King
of the Jews' was never a Christian title, so the only reason for its appearance in
the account of Jesus' execution is that it summed up the charge on which he was
executed. 69 That is, he could be credibly (or mockingly) treated as an aspirant to
the throne of Herod and therefore a challenge to Rome's rule. 70 (2) He died by
crucifixion; he was executed (15.15, 20, 24, 37 pars.). The point is deeply rooted
in the earliest Christian traditions 71 and has never been seriously questioned.
Crucifixion was a Roman punishment; it could have been ordered only by Pilate
64. See above, §11.1.
65. Luke 3.15; John 1.19-20.
66. The issue is clearest in the following (Markan) texts; but E. P. Meadors argues for
'The "Messianic" Implications of the Q Material', JBL 118 (1999) 253-77, referring to Q 4.1-
13; 6.20; 7.22; 10.22; 11.20, 31b; 13.34-35; 22.29-30.
67. I follow the same logic as Harvey, Jesus ch. 2.
68. To analyse the full account synoptically would be too space-consuming; we will focus
on the key elements here and take up other questions in §17.1 below.
69. 'Could the formulation really represent the historicization of a dogmatic motif? This
is highly implausible' (Dahl, 'Crucified Messiah' 37). 'It was precisely the suggestion that Jesus
represented some kind of political threat to the Roman authorities that Christians of the
early centuries had most strenuously to deny' (Harvey, Jesus 13). Similarly Hengel, 'Jesus, the
Messiah of Israel' 45-47, 58; Wright, Jesus 486-89; Theissen and Merz, Historical Jesus 458-
59; Becker, Jesus 353-54. Surprisingly, D. R. Catchpole ('The "Triumphal" Entry', in Bammel
and Moule, Jesus and Politics 319-34) concludes from a sequence of inconsequential arguments
that 'the historicity of the titulus has to be doubted' (329-30), in agreement with
Bultmann, History 284. Contrast Hengel 47-50 and Lüdemann, Jesus 108. Other bibliography
in Evans, 'Authenticating the Activities of Jesus' 24 n. 52.
70. Note R. A. Horsley, 'The Death of Jesus', in Chilton and Evans, eds., Studying the
Historical Jesus 395-422 (here particularly 413-14).
71. 1 Cor. 1.17-18, 23; 2.2, 8; 2 Cor 13.4; Gal. 3.1; 6.12, 14; Phil. 2.8; 3.18; Col. 1.20;
2.14; Heb. 12.2; Rev. 11.8.
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