Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§15.8 Who Did They Think Jesus Was?
exousian)! He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him' (Mark
1.27); 'Where does he get all this? What wisdom has been given to him! Such
mighty works take place through his hands!' (6.2). The centurion at Capernaum
is recalled as likening Jesus' authority to his own: 'I too am someone under authority,
having soldiers under me; and I say to one "Go", and he goes, and to another
"Come", and he comes, and to my slave "Do this", and he does it' (Matt.
8.9/Luke 7.8). As a final example we should note the tradition that a highpowered
delegation 400 asked Jesus, 'By what authority do you so act? Who gave
you this authority?' (Mark 11.28 pars.). The considerations of Taylor and Pesch
in favour of the historicity of the encounter 401 have not won very much support.
402 But such an encounter would have been memorable, and it is less plausible
to explain the origin of the exchange in the subsequent history of the early Jerusalem
community (contrast Acts 3-5), as Bultmann suggested. 403
In short, the motif of surprise at the authority implicitly claimed by Jesus
has undoubtedly been made much of in the telling and retelling of the Jesus tradition
— understandably so. But it would be even more surprising if the motif was
not well rooted in memories of the reactions which Jesus' teaching evoked. The
character of so much of the teaching still raises eyebrows today. How much more
then! The quest for an uncontroversial Jesus whose mission created no furore
must be about the most futile of all the quests.
What was it about the authority implicit in Jesus' teaching which caused
surprise and offence? Several answers have established themselves with a fair
measure of consensus and can be rehearsed quite briefly.
(1) He lacked formal training. He came from a very modest background;
his level of literacy may not have been very high (§9.9b). The only teacher he
was known to have associated with was John the Baptist, who evidently also
lacked formal training.
(2) His teaching did not appeal to past tradition or earlier authorities. Such
appeal certainly became the standard form for subsequent rabbinic teaching, but
400. This is the only occasion in which 'chief priests and elders' are recalled as engaging
Jesus in dialogue.
401. Taylor, Mark 468-69; Pesch, Markusevangelium 2.212; see also Dunn, Jesus and
the Spirit 77; Fitzmyer, Luke 2.1272-7'4; Davies and Allison, Matthew 3.157-58.
402. Funk, Five Gospels 100; Lüdemann, Jesus 80.
403. History, 19-20. The Jesus Seminar voted strongly against the historical value of the
episode, because Jesus' words 'did not take the form of a parable or an aphorism, which means
that it is difficult to imagine how they could have been transmitted during the oral period, except
as part of this story' {Five Gospels 100); this concept of oral tradition suffers from acute
anorexia. Dodd notes that the implication of Jesus' reply 'is that there is a kind of authority
which is self-authenticating; either you recognize it or you don't, and if you don't there is nothing
more to be said' (Founder 148).
699