Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§12.6 The Kingdom of God
Jesus on that basis, quite as impressive and enchanting as Crossan's, as one
might have hoped for from two who take so seriously the medium of story in
their work.
The problems with Wright's exposition begin with his identification of the
grand narrative. He has no doubt that 'the controlling story' is that of 'exile and
restoration' : 418 that is, the conviction of most of Jesus' contemporaries that Israel
was still in exile 419 and the preaching of Jesus to the effect that the exile was now
over. The proclamation that 'the kingdom of God is at hand' summed up 'the entire
narrative of Israel's new exodus, her final return from exile'. 420 There are
three problems with this.
First, Wright exaggerates the importance of the theme of return from exile
in Palestinian Judaism. The return of the scattered outcasts of Israel to the homeland
in accordance with the original schema of Deuteronomy 30 was certainly a
feature of Jewish eschatological hope. 421 But there is no real evidence that those
who actually were living in the land thought of themselves as still in exile. Such a
hypothesis hardly squares with the amazing hymn of praise to Simon the High
Priest in ben Sira 50 422 or with the confidence that the purification of altar and
temple attested the restoration of Israel's heritage (2 Mace. 2.17). 423 And the
Sadducean priests responsible for the twice daily Tamid offering in the Temple
presumably did not think of themselves as still in exile. 424 The hypothesis hardly
418. Jesus 245, 576-77. Sanders speaks more cautiously of 'a common hope for the restoration
of Israel which could embrace a variety of themes' {Jesus and Judaism 124).
419. Particularly New Testament and People of God 268-72; Jesus xvii-xviii, 126-27,
203-204.
420. Jesus 244.
421. See above, §12.2c. Texts like Daniel, Tobit, and Baruch, of course, were written
from the perspective of those still scattered among the nations (Dan. 9.3-19; Tob. 13.3-18; Bar.
2.11-15; 3.7-14). Such imaginative living again (as in liturgy) through epochal events of Israel's
history — covenants with the patriarchs, passover and exodus, wilderness wanderings
and entry into the promised land, Davidic kingdom and resilient faith under oppression, exile
and return, Maccabean triumph, and loss of Temple (70 CE) — should not be treated woodenly
or reduced to a single motif.
422. See Hayward, Jewish Temple chs. 3-4. The prayer in Sir. 36.13, 16 ('Gather all the
tribes of Jacob, that they may inherit the land as in days of old') 'is for God to bring back to the
Holy Land all the Jews who never returned after the Exile' (P. W. Skehan and A. A. Di Leila,
Ben Sira [AB 39; New York: Doubleday, 1987] 422). The appeal for deliverance from oppression
(36.1-22) is of a piece with the lamentation Psalms (Psalms 43, 54-57, 109, 140-41, and
143) and does not presuppose that the speaker believed himself or those who had already returned
to the promised land to be still in exile.
423. I. H. Jones, 'Disputed Questions in Biblical Studies: 4. Exile and Eschatology',
ExpT 112 (2000-1) 401-405, justifiably criticizes Wright for taking texts out of context, referring
to Tob. 13.5-7; 2 Mace. 1.27-29; and Bar. 3.6-8 (402).
424. M. Casey, 'Where Wright Is Wrong', JSNT 69 (1998) 95-103 (here 99-100). R. P.
473