Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

THE CLIMAX OF JESUS' MISSION §17.3
would make his mission a cause of irritation to the Temple authorities and
make Jesus himself a target for their hostility.
In short, there are sufficient indications that the emphases of Jesus' teaching
and the manner in which he prosecuted his mission were likely to have
roused increasing anger and hostility towards him from the high priestly families
and Temple authorities. The symbolic action in the Temple and statement about
its destruction were likely only to confirm long germinating suspicions and to
persuade the policy-makers that Jesus should be silenced as soon as possible.
If then we can deduce a reasonable explanation for the events leading up to
Jesus' execution, what of Jesus' own intentions in all this? The question raises
complex and much disputed issues and is best broken down to a sequence of
questions. The discussion just completed immediately raises the first of these.
For if it is indeed the case that Jesus had already aroused priestly opposition and
that to go up to Jerusalem was to put himself within the grasp of his most powerful
opponents, we can hardly avoid asking why he went.
17.3. Why Did Jesus Go Up to Jerusalem?
Within the framework of the Gospels the answer is clear. The Evangelists, telling
the story in the light of the fuller insight which Easter brought, have no doubt
that the whole sequence was foreordained. Luke especially emphasizes the 'plan'
predetermined by God, 141 the divine necessity of what had happened, 142 and begins
his account of the journey to Jerusalem with the ominous words: 'When the
days drew near for him to be taken up (analempseös), he set his face to go to Jerusalem'
(Luke 9.51). 143 As before, 144 we need not infer that the whole motif is
the creation of a post-Easter perspective. We can hardly exclude the likelihood
that Jesus himself may have been driven by some sense of destiny. 145 But how
well rooted within the Jesus tradition is an answer along these lines? Those who
141. Boule ('plan') in Luke 7.30; Acts 2.23; 13.36; 20.27; horizö ('determine') in Luke
22.22; Acts 2.23; 10.42; 17.31.
142. Dei ('it is necessary that...'), eleven occurrences in Luke (particularly 9.22; 13.33;
17.25; 22.37; 24.7, 26,44) and seventeen in Acts; much less frequent in Mark and Matthew, but
most significantly in Mark 8.3 I/Matt. 16.21 (on the Passion predictions see below, § 17.4c). See
further Fitzmyer, Luke 1.179-80; J. T. Squires, The Plan of God in Luke-Acts (SNTSMS 76;
Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1993).
143. See again Fitzmyer, Luke 1.827-28.
144. See above, chapter 13 at n. 31.
145. 'When the details are bracketed out, what remains is the rudimentary sense of destiny'
(Keck, Who Is Jesus? 117-18). Contrast Becker: 'Jesus and his followers went to the city
of Zion simply to take part in the festival' (Jesus 345).
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