Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

THE CLIMAX OF JESUS' MISSION §17.1
pels. This suggests in turn a tradition rooted in the memory of the participants
and put into that framework by them.
That this was likely to have been the case has been long recognized in the
case of 'the Passion narrative' (Mark 14-15). 2 It is inherently probable that its
two principal features (the 'last supper' and the story of Jesus' arrest, condemnation,
execution, and burial) would have been important for the identity of each
new group or church from the day of its establishment. 3 The a priori probability
is borne out by the already traditional formulations cited or alluded to by Paul.
The Lord's Supper was clearly a central identifying and bonding feature of his
churches (1 Cor. 10.14-22; 11.17-22) and was based entirely on the memory of
the last supper and what happened there as already sacred tradition (11.23-26). 4
Various formulae had quickly become established and are often echoed: that he
had been 'handed over (pamdidömi)' 5 and 'died'. 6 'The cross' and the memory
of Jesus' shameful death by crucifixion are already established features in early
preaching. 7 The memory of his suffering quickly became a powerful factor in
Christian spirituality. 8 And the Apostles' Creed's commemoration of Pontius Pilate
is already foreshadowed in 1 Tim. 6.13. In other words, here we have an extended
example of the pattern of oral tradition in its stability of structure and
theme and in the focus on core elements. 9
2. Scholarship on this subject is heavily in debt to the massive and magisterial treatment
of Raymond Brown, The Death of the Messiah, here on the interrelation of the Gospel narratives
36-93, with full bibliographies 94-106. See also particularly J. B. Green, The Death of Jesus:
Tradition and Interpretation in the Passion Narrative (WUNT 2.23; Tübingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 1988); W. Reinbold, Der älteste Bericht über den Tod Jesu. Literarische Analyse und
historische Kritik der Passionsdarsteüungen der Evangelien (BZNW 69; Berlin: de Gruyter,
1994). Pesch, Markusevangelium 2.1-27, argued for a much more extended pre-Markan Passion
narrative, running from Mark 8.27, which he hypothesizes emerged in the Aramaicspeaking
Jerusalem community before 37 CE (21); but a firmer 'starting point' across the Gospels
is the entry into Jerusalem. See also A. Yarbro Collins, The Beginning of the Gospel: Problems
of Mark in Context (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992).
3. Put like that it becomes immediately obvious why Q does not have a Passion narrative,
since Q itself is not structured as a narrative but as a collection of Jesus' teaching, and why
also it is unlikely that Q was the only teaching or liturgical material possessed by most
churches.
4. See above, §8.5c.
5. Rom. 4.25; 8.32; 1 Cor. 11.23; Gal. 1.4; 2.20; Eph. 5.2, 25; 1 Tim. 2.6; Tit. 2.14;
/ Clem. 16.7.
6. Rom. 5.6, 8; 14.15; 1 Cor. 8.11; 15.3; 2 Cor. 5.14-15; 1 Thess. 5.10; Ign. Trail. 2.1;
see further my Theology of Paul 175.
7. Particularly 1 Cor. 1.17-18,23; 2.2, 8; 2 Cor. 13.4; Gal. 3.1; 5.11; 6.12, 14; Heb. 12.2.
8. Rom. 8.17; 2 Cor. 1.5; Phil. 3.10; Heb. 5.7-8; 1 Pet. 2.19-23.
9. Typical is the variability of the episode of Peter's denials within the structure (tabulated
by Brown, Death 418-19).
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