Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

THE QUESTION OF JESUS' SELF-UNDERSTANDING §15.3
place (eremos, 6.32), then it would probably carry strong messianic overtones for
those with even half an ear. Such an event might well recall the manna miracle of
Israel's wilderness wanderings or evoke the prophetic hope of a fruitful desert in
the age to come (Isa. 32.15; 35.1-2), the expectation of another David who would
feed the flock of Israel (Ezek. 34.23), or the same association as we find in the
wilderness community of Qumran between the communal meals they were enjoying
at that very time and the messianic meals awaited in the future (lQSa). 152
Most striking is the note in John 6.15 that the episode ended with the
crowd threatening to 'take Jesus by force to make him king', causing him to
withdraw from the scene. Had John's note stood alone it could well have been
discounted, even though it is not particularly characteristic of John's own plotline.
But it seems to be matched by a curious feature at the same point in Mark's
version: at the end of the meal Jesus 'compelled (enankasen) his disciples to embark
on the boat and to go ahead to the other side' (6.45). Mark leaves the word
without explanation: why should Jesus have chosen to force his disciples to
leave, and to do so before he 'dismissed the crowd' (6.45)? The link with John
6.15, for which there is no evidence of collusion on either side, suggests an obvious
answer. Part of the crowd had indeed seen a messianic significance in the
event; the disciples had been caught up in a mounting wave of enthusiasm; Jesus
responded first by forcing the disciples to embark on the lake; and then, perhaps
only then, could he successfully dismiss the crowd. 153 Mark also reports that Jesus
himself then withdrew into the hills to pray (6.46), and since he reports only
three such occasions during Jesus' mission, perhaps he intended to imply that a
critical juncture in Jesus' mission had been reached (cf. 1.35, 38; 14.35-36).
To sum up, we have been able to identify a number of incidents during Jesus'
mission which, in terms of tradition formation, all seem to be more or less
firmly rooted in earliest memories and which all raised in one way or another
the question whether Jesus was to be regarded as the expected royal Messiah. 154
It would be simply unrealistic and (historically speaking) irresponsible to consign
all these traditions to the post-Easter faith of Jesus' disciples. The question
posed by Pilate, providing him with the legal justification for Jesus' execution,
was surely posed by others at earlier stages in Jesus' mission. 155 We can be
152. J. C. O'Neill, 'The Silence of Jesus', NTS 15 (1968-69) 153-67 (here 163-64).
153. Dodd, Historical Tradition 212-17.
154. Although Mark undoubtedly saw christological significance in Jesus' talk of the
bridegroom in 2.19-20 and the reference to David in 2.25-26, it is quite another question as to
what Jesus may have intended by these references (see, e.g., Roloff, Kerygma 58; Davies and
Allison, Matthew 2.110; Guelich, Mark 1.123). See also above, chapter 12 n. 289.
155. 'It is inconceivable, in the light of the eschatological character of Jesus' message,
that the messianic issue would not have come up either for Jesus or his contemporaries'
(Rowland, Christian Origins 182).
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