Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

THE MISSION OF JESUS §12.2
using the term (the kingdom of God) without explanation — as though its reference
would have been self-evident to their hearers. So the question still arises:
what meaning would the term have had in those circumstances?
a. The Connotation of Basileia
It has always been clear from lexicography that all the key terms had a breadth of
meaning — Greek (basileia), early Hebrew (mamlaka), postexilic Hebrew and
Aramaic (malkut). Without putting too fine a point on it, they all denoted 'kingship'
in its various aspects, particularly the exercise of kingship, hence 'reign',
and the territory ruled over, hence 'kingdom' . 27 This insight proved helpful to a
European scholarship struggling to come to terms with late-nineteenth-century
imperialism and helped broaden a sense which had been too narrowed by the
German translation 'Reich' and the English translation 'kingdom'. 28 More to the
point, the recognition that here was a term which was not monovalent but could
express God's sovereignty (to use Dalman's term) in its different aspects helped
make best sense of the usage attributed to Jesus. For on the one hand, talk of 'entering'
the kingdom or 'reclining at table' in the kingdom, or of being 'great' in
the kingdom 29 obviously evokes a spatial or territorial image. 30 But a more dynamic
sense certainly seems to be implied in talk of the kingdom 'coming', having
'drawn near', and having 'come'. 31
27. LSJ, basileia; BDB, mamlaka, malkut; Dalman, Words of Jesus 91-96; K. Seybold,
'melek', TDOT 8 (1997) 359-60. Dalman preferred the term 'sovereignty'.
28. Dalman's observation — 'No doubt can be entertained that both in the Old Testament
and in Jewish literature malkuth, when applied to God, means always the "kingly rale",
never the "kingdom", as if it were meant to suggest the territory governed by him' (Words of Jesus
94) — had a major impact on twentieth-century study of Jesus' teaching. See, e.g., G. E.
Ladd, Jesus and the Kingdom: The Eschatology of Biblical Realism (London: SPCK 1966) ch.
5: God's kingdom as 'a dynamic power at work among men in Jesus' person and mission'
(135).
29. 'Enter' — see n. 23 above. 'Recline' — Matt. 8.11/Luke 13.29; Mark 14.18 pars.;
Luke 14.15. 'Least/great'— Matt. 5.19; 11.11 par.; 18.1, 4; 20.21.
30. But J. Marcus defends the sense of 'Entering into the Kingly Power of God', JBL
107 (1988) 663-75.
31. In a sequence of contributions, Bruce Chilton, drawing especially on theTargumof
Isaiah, has argued that the emphasis in the phrase is on 'the dynamic, personal presence of
God', 'God in strength', 'the sovereign activity of God', 'the saving revelation of God Himself;
see particularly his God in Strength: Jesus' Announcement of the Kingdom (SNTU Bl;
Freistadt: Plöchl, 1979); also 'The Kingdom of God in Recent Discussion', in Chilton and Evans,
Studying the Historical Jesus 255-80; also Pure Kingdom: Jesus' Vision of God (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996) 10-16. Earlier Goppelt: 'the coming of the kingdom was seen here [in
the Beatitudes] first and foremost theocentrically as the personalized activity of God among his
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