Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

THE MISSION OF JESUS §12.1
churches, it is true that Acts does continue the prominence of the motif 14 and indeed
brackets its account of Christianity's beginnings with references to the kingdom
(Acts 1.3,6; 28.31). But most of these references are to Paul's preaching. And
in Paul's own letters, the dominant voice still audible to us from first-generation
Christianity, the theme is hardly prominent. 15 The strongest use of the theme is
'(not) inheriting the kingdom', 16 which looks as though it is traditional (also Jas.
2.5) but is not found in the Gospels apart from the Matthean 25.34. Probably the
formulation emerged in early Christian thought (Paul himself?) as Jesus' talk of the
kingdom was blended with the much older imagery of inheriting the land of promise.
17 The point is that the overt overlap between Pauline usage and the Jesus tradition
is minimal. 18 In other words, the prominence of the kingdom motif in the Jesus
tradition cannot be explained as a reflection of a similar prominence of the motif
within either the Judaism of Jesus' day or the teaching of the early churches. Once
again, we have little choice but to attribute the prominence of the motif in the Jesus
tradition to a memory of its prominence in Jesus' own teaching and preaching.
The point is all the stronger when we recall Jeremias's argument that the
Jesus tradition has retained distinctive features of Jesus' teaching on the kingdom.
19 The imagery used in the tradition is indeed rather striking: the kingdom
'has drawn near', 20 it will 'come', 21 it 'has come upon' (Q 11.20), it is to be
her concordance to the often fragmentary texts (4Q400-407, 11Q17), Newsom lists over 50 references
to God as 'king' (mlk) and 25 to God's 'kingdom' (mlkut), typically 'his glorious kingdom',
or 'the glory of his kingdom' (424-26). The Qumran Songs can properly be described as
'the most important pre-Christian Jewish text on the theme of "God's kingship"' (A. M.
Schwemer, 'Gott als König und seine Königsherrschaft in den Sabbatliedern aus Qumran', in
M. Hengel and A. M. Schwemer, eds., Königsherrschaft Gottes und himmlischer Kult im
Judentum, Urchristentum und in der hellenistischen Welt [WUNT 55; Tübingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 1991] 45-118 [here 115]). See further below (§12.2).
14. Acts 1.3, 6; 8.12; 14.22; 19.8; 20.25; 28.23, 31.
15. 'Kingdom' appears eight times in the undisputed Paulines: Rom. 14.17; 1 Cor. 4.20;
6.9-10; 15.24, 50; Gal. 5.21; 1 Thess. 2.12; also Eph. 5.5; Col. 1.13; 4.11; 2 Thess. 1.5; 2 Tim.
4.1, 18.
16. 1 Cor. 6.9-10; 15.50; Gal. 5.21; Eph. 5.5.
17. The traditional idea of inheriting the land, which stemmed from the promise to
Abraham (Gen. 15.7, 18, etc.), elsewhere in Judaism was transposed into the hope of inheriting
eternal life (Pss. Sol. 14.10; / En. 40.9; Mark 10.17 pars.; Matt. 19.29; Luke 10.25), the kingdom
of God (Matt. 21.38, 43; see also 5.5), or the world to come (2 Bar. 14.13; 51.3). Cf. already
Deut. 10.9: Levi has no inheritance in the land; the Lord is his inheritance. See also below,
n. 73.
18. Rom. 14.17, not typical of Paul, may well reflect influence from the Jesus tradition
(my Theology of Paul 191-92).
19. Jeremias, Proclamation 32-34.
20. Mark 1.15; Q 10.9; Luke 10.11.
21. Matt. 6.10/Luke 11.2; Luke 17.20; 22.18.
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