Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

THE CLIMAX OF JESUS' MISSION §17.3
(1) Jesus spoke of himself as the Son of Man who would 'come' to the Ancient
of Days to take the other throne with Yahweh (Dan. 7.9-14). I have already
speculated along the lines of such a possibility on my own account (Mark 14.62;
§ 16.4c), but remain unclear how such a future vindication/coming in or to
heaven (as Wright insists) relates to Jesus' earlier coming to Jerusalem on
Wright's thesis.
(2) Jesus' parable of the talents/pounds comes to us in its two forms (Matt.
25.14-30/Luke 19.12-27). 167 Matthew's version envisages a 'man' who, 'going
on a journey' (apodemön), entrusted his property to his servants (as in Mark
13.34), and who returned 'after a long time' to settle accounts (Matt. 25.19).
Luke's version has a nobleman (eugenes) who goes to a distant country 'to receive
a kingdom for himself and return', likewise expecting his servants to trade
profitably with the money he entrusted to them. Although only Luke talks in
kingly terms, 168 Wright deduces that the king/master in such teaching of Jesus
(as in other Jewish parables) would normally be taken to refer to Israel's God. 169
He likewise dismisses an interpretation of the master's/king's return in terms of
the 'second coming', and argues that it is better read as referring to Yahweh's return
to Zion 'and to the devastating results that this will produce'. 170
On this point too I have already indicated sympathy with the view that talk
of 'second coming' belongs more to the perspective of the subsequent retelling of
the parables of 'return' and other 'coming' sayings, than to the perspective of
first utterance. 171 And talk of a returning master/owner/bridegroom as symbol of
impending crisis and judgment is firmly enough rooted in the Jesus tradition
(§12.4g). But it is far from clear from these data that Jesus saw himself in this
role or his journey to Jerusalem as an enacting or embodiment of Yahweh's return
to Zion.
Here as before we must be careful not to impose an order or clarity of our
own creation on data that are characteristically parabolic/metaphorical. Talk of
'Yahweh's return to Zion' was certainly one important strand in the multiplex
strands of Jewish expectation, and it is quite likely that it influenced Jesus' own
formulation when he spoke of the mounting crisis confronting Israel and its lead-
167. See above, chapter 12 n. 210.
168. The echo of Archelaus' attempt to secure the full inheritance of his father's (Herod
the Great's) kingdom in 4 BCE is generally acknowledged (Josephus, War 2.1-38, 80-100; Ant.
17.219-49, 299-320); whether or not Jesus told the story in this form, the fact that an almost explicit
political comment was circulated among early Christian groups is itself noteworthy.
169. Jesus 634, citing e.g. Luke 16.1-13; Mark 12.1-12 pars; m. Abot 1.3; 2.14-16; 3.1,
17; 4.22; and quoting Dodd, Parables 151; Wright goes on to cite the parables of crisis and
other material surveyed above under §12.4e, g (Jesus 640-2).
170. Jesus 636.
171. See above, §§12.4g and 16.4f.
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