Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§4.7 The Flight from Dogma
The most consistent advocate of a non-eschatological Jesus has been
Marcus Borg. In his revised doctoral thesis (completed in 1972 under G. B.
Caird) he examined the Synoptic 'threat' tradition and argued that, despite the
dominant tradition of scholarship since Schweitzer, the only imminent catastrophe
in view was the destruction of Israel. So too, the coming Son of Man sayings
are evidence of the developing images and beliefs of the early Christians rather
than of any sense on the part of Jesus of an imminent end to history. 173 Since then
the renunciation of Schweitzer has become a mark of the neo-Liberal quest. Funk
can indeed claim that 'the liberation of the non-eschatological Jesus of the aphorisms
and parables from Schweitzer's eschatological Jesus is the fifth pillar of
contemporary scholarship'. 174 And of course, the argument that the apocalyptic
elements in Q are revisions of an original wisdom Q 175 has greatly reinforced the
trend. The extent of the flight from Schweitzer is indicated by the fact that Tom
Wright, no friend of the Jesus Seminar, 176 but also owning his debt to Caird, has
become quite as strong a critic of Schweitzer as anyone. He has particularly
pressed the point that apocalyptic language has to be understood metaphorically
in reference to historical and political events rather than literally in reference to
'the end of the world'. Neither Jesus nor his Jewish contemporaries were expecting
the end of the space-time universe. Schweitzer's was 'a bizarre literalistic
reading of what the first century knew to be thoroughly metaphorical'. 177
The pictures which emerge are riveting: a Jesus who was 'a Galilean devi-
173. M. J. Borg, Conflict, Holiness and Politics in the Teachings of Jesus (New York:
Meilen, 1984) 201-27. See also his 'An Orthodoxy Reconsidered: The "End-of-the-World Jesus'",
in L. D. Hurst and N. T. Wright, eds., The Glory of Christ in the New Testament, G. B.
Caird FS (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987) 207-17; also Jesus in Contemporary Scholarship (Valley
Forge: Trinity, 1994) 7-9, 30-31, chs. 3 and 4; e.g., 'without the coming Son of man sayings,
there is no reason to think of the kingdom of God as the imminent end of the world' (Jesus in
Contemporary Scholarship 54).
174. Funk, ed., Five Gospels 4. B. B. Scott, who describes himself as 'a charter member'
of the Jesus Seminar, observes that the presumption against the authenticity of apocalyptic material
in the Jesus tradition was strengthened by the fact that 'many of those who supported the
apocalyptic position gradually quit attending the Seminar sessions' ('New Options in an Old
Quest' 34-37). It should be noted that Koester distances himself from the Jesus Seminar's neo-
Liberalism at this point: he questions whether the early stage of Q can really be defined as
noneschatological, and notes that Thomas presupposes a tradition of eschatological sayings of
Jesus ('Jesus the Victim' 7; see also above, n. 157).
175. Above, n. 166.
176. Wright, Jesus 29-35; also 'Five Gospels but No Gospel: Jesus and the Seminar', in
B. Chilton and C. A. Evans, eds., Authenticating the Activities of Jesus (NTTS 28.2; Leiden:
Brill, 1999) 83-120; for critique of the Jesus Seminar see also Witherington, Jesus Quest da. 2.
177. Wright, Jesus 81, 95-97, 202-11. Also Horsley, Jesus 157-60, 168-72, though not
so trenchantly. Cf. Morgan, Biblical Interpretation: 'Religious symbols ... are not to be analysed
as information about the end of the world' (245).
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