Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

THE QUESTION OF JESUS SELF-UNDERSTANDING
Matt. 27.11
And the ruler asked him, saying,
'Are vou the king of the Jews?'
Jesus replied,
'You say'.
Mark 15.2
And Pilate asked him,
'Are you the kins of the Jews?'
But he answered him and says,
'You say'.
Luke 23.3
§15.4
And Pilate asked him, saying,
'Are vou the king of the Jews?'
But he answered him and said,
'You say'.
Apart from Mark 14.62 all the replies are at best ambivalent: 'You say (su eipas,
su legeis)'. There is some doubt about the Markan exception. 170 But even if we
conclude that the original text of Mark was indeed the unambivalent 'I am (egö
eimiy, it is more likely that Mark has modified an ambiguous 'You say' (or
equivalent) by making Jesus' response a resounding affirmation, than that Matthew
has transformed such an unequivocal 'Yes' to the unsatisfactory 'You say
so' = 'That's your way of putting it'. 171
The point, then, is that the reply Jesus is recalled as giving both to Caiaphas
and to Pilate was probably the same: 'You say so'. What was being thus signified?
At least an unwillingness to accept the title of Messiah/king, or, to be more precise,
an unwillingness to accept the role which the title indicated to the questioner.
Is the implication, then, that Jesus accepted the title in a different sense? All apart
from Mark, and only in the answer to Caiaphas, indicate that 'Messiah' was a term
Jesus preferred not to use for his own role. 172 These exchanges are important. For
they exemplify a dilemma which must frequently have confronted Jesus: could he
accept or use a title which implied a role he was unwilling to embrace?
To sum up this probe into one of the most sensitive titular claims made for
Jesus, sensitive to both Jews and Christians: Was Jesus remembered as claiming
to be the royal Messiah of prophetic and eschatological expectation? And can we
deduce from the evidence reviewed whether Jesus regarded himself as the royal
Messiah? Despite the doubts of those who focus more on the stage of tradition
re-presented by Mark and the other Synoptic Evangelists, it is certainly possible
to offer a historically responsible answer to the former question. Indeed, it is almost
impossible to escape the conclusion that the issue of Jesus' messiahship
was raised during the latter stages of his mission and that he was remembered as
reacting to the issue on his own account. So how did he react? Did he claim to be
the long-hoped-for David's royal son? In the light of our findings above, the answer
has to be a qualified No! 173
170.1 had previously followed Taylor, Mark 568, in suggesting that the very weakly attested
longer reading ('You say that I am') is original ('Messianic Ideas' 375-76).
171. 'There is no sufficient evidence that this was an accepted form of affirmation, either
in Greek, or in Hebrew or Aramaic' (Dodd, Founder 101); though Dodd also points out that
'a title which he would not deny to save his life cannot have been without significance for him'
(103). See also my 'Are You the Messiah?' 11-12.
172. Similarly Cullmann, Christology 118-21; Vermes, Jesus the Jew 148-49.
173. Cf. Bornkamm's conclusion; 'We should not speak about Jesus' non-Messianic history
before his death, but rather of a movement of shattered Messianic hopes ...' (Jesus 172).
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