Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

THE MISSION OF JESUS §12.4
in close association with the engys passage already reviewed (Mark 13.28-29):
'Truly I tell you, this generation will have by no means passed away before all
these things happen' (13.30 pars.). In the context of Mark's Gospel 'these things'
can only refer to the days of final tribulation, cosmic turbulence, the coming of
the Son of Man and the final ingathering of the elect (13.19-27), which Mark
seems to relate to the (anticipated) fall of Jerusalem (13.14-18). And, as Kümmel
justifiably argues, 'it is beyond dispute he genea haute [this generation] can only
mean the contemporaries of Jesus'. 259 The implication is again clear that Jesus
expected a final catastrophe within the lifetime of his own generation. And even
if the present context of 13.30 (and 13.30 itself) is the result of much reworking
of tradition, 260 the readiness of the tradents of the Mark 13 traditions to attribute
such a note of imminent expectation to Jesus presumably indicates their own and
their community's conviction that the note was consistent with the longer established
elements of the Jesus tradition.
The third of Kümmel's texts is what we might call Schweitzer's text, the
text on which the latter's reconstruction of Jesus' mission largely turned 261 —
Matt. 10.23: 'when they persecute you in one town, flee to the next; for truly I
tell you, you will not have completed the towns of Israel before the Son of Man
comes' . 262 The text is the most difficult of the three: only Matthew has it; he has
attached it to a section drawn from Mark's apocalyptic discourse (Mark 13.9-13/
Matt. 10.17-22) generally regarded as the section of the 'little apocalypse' which
reflects most clearly the circumstances of the later (Christian) mission; and the
expectation of the Son of Man's (second) coming/return (to earth) may well also
reflect a developed Son of Man Christology. 263 So it is certainly possible to conceive
of this saying emerging as a prophetic utterance within the earliest
churches' mission, 264 that is, before a Gentile mission got underway or was fully
accepted among the churches of Judea and Galilee. 265
On the other hand, the Gentile mission did begin very early and was evi-
259. Kümmel, 'Eschatological Expectation' 38; also Promise 60-61; Davies and
Allison, Matthew 19-28 367-68 concur.
260. As many conclude; see, e.g., Meier, Marginal Jew 2.344-47; Pesch argues that
Mark 9.1 was the basis for 13.30 (Markusevangelium 308), whereas Beasley-Murray follows
A. Vögtle in arguing that the influence was the other way round, with 13.30 closer to the Q saying
Matt. 23.36/Luke 11.51 (Jesus and the Kingdom 190-93); but the difference between the
latter and Mark 13.30 is too wide to provide much support for the hypothesis (Gundry, Mark
791).
261. See above, chapter 10 n. 3.
262. Kümmel, Promise 61-64; 'Eschatological Expectation' 44-45.
263. See below §16.4f.
264. Boring, Sayings 209-11; Meier, Marginal Jew 2.339-41; cf. Lüdemann, Jesus 168.
265. 'The towns of Israel' might include Samaria (though note Matt. 10.5), but no diaspora
settlement would be so designated.
434