Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

THE MISSION OF JESUS §12.4
Given, then, that we want to be looking at the broad picture rather than attempting
to draw large conclusions from individual texts (§10.2), I will focus primarily
on characteristic emphases and themes in the Jesus tradition. The fact that
the performers of the Jesus tradition evidently grouped similar thematic material
(as we shall see) encourages the view that from earliest days in the traditioning
process characteristic emphases in Jesus' teaching formed stable reference points
round which other Jesus tradition could be gathered. In so saying I do not at all
dispute that there is good evidence of compositional technique and redactional
material in the present forms of the tradition and in the Q material evident behind
Matthew and Luke. 122 My point is rather that whole themes are usually left
largely unaffected by the redaction and are not best explained by being attributed
holus-bolus to factional redaction. The consistency of such emphases across
Mark, Q, Matthew, and Luke (and often Thomas, too) surely bears evidence of
the impact made by the teaching of Jesus himself.
We have already gleaned a summary grasp of Jewish eschatological expectation
regarding the exercise of God's kingship. And Jesus' mentor, the Baptist,
certainly proclaimed a future and imminent judgment. So it makes sense to start
with a review of the future emphasis in Jesus' preaching of the kingdom. And
since it is the future emphasis of Jesus' own teaching which has once again become
most controversial, it will require special attention. I will structure the review
round the explicit kingdom references but include other elements of Jesus
tradition with the same or related emphases. 123
12.4. The Kingdom to Come
The future emphasis in Jesus' kingdom proclamation can be exposed to view
fairly readily.
122. Well marshalled and discussed, e.g., by Schürmann, Gottes Reich; Kloppenborg,
Formation; Catchpole, Quest.
123. But I leave aside the Son of Man material for the time being. In the neo-Liberal
quest (Crossan, Historical Jesus 238-59; also Borg — see chapter 4 n. 173 above) and in discussions
of Q (chapter 4 n. 175), the Son of Man motif has tended to determine the issue of eschatology
(versus apocalyptic) in the Jesus tradition. It is important, therefore, to recognize the
extent and character of the Jesus tradition's eschatology (including future eschatology) apart
from the Son of Man issue (cf. Meier, Marginal Jew 2.350; Reiser, Jesus and Judgment 203-
204). C. A. Evans, 'Daniel in the New Testament: Visions of God's Kingdom', in J. Collins and
P. Flint, eds., The Book of Daniel (Leiden: Brill, 2001) 2.490-527, argues that much of Jesus'
eschatology was influenced by themes and images derived from Daniel, including the kingdom
of God, its imminence, and its mysteriousness (510-23).
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