Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§12.6 The Kingdom of God
sanctified') could evoke the prophecy of Ezek. 36.22-28. 443 For the most part,
however, Wright is content to read the Jesus tradition through the lens of his
grand narrative without further attempt at justification. 444 But in squeezing the
diversity of Jesus' proclamation of the kingdom into conformity with that single
controlling story 445 he misses much that is of central significance within that
proclamation — not least Jesus' own critique of Israel's current leadership and
concern for the 'poor' and 'sinners'. 446
In short, we can be sure that Jesus the Jew shared in his people's confidence
in God with regard to Israel and the future. But otherwise we should heed
postmodernism's warning against uncritical dependence on grand narratives,
against the superimposition of a unitary meta-narrative on much more complex
data. 447
443. Jesus 293; and particularly G. Lohfink, Jesus and Community (Philadelphia: Fortress,
1985) 15-17. McKnight also presses the implication of the first petition of the Lord's
Prayer (New Vision 24-26), though the implications are broader than simply the restoration of
Israel to the land (Fitzmyer, Luke 898-99). And it is hardly enough to respond to the question
why Jesus did not use 'exile' terms by simply asserting 'Kingdom language is "end of exile"
language; "end of exile" is the negative to the positive "kingdom"' {New Vision 83 n. 51).
444. Evans also comes to Wright's support by finding other indications of exile theology
in Jesus' teaching ('Exile' 316-27): the 'sign from heaven', Mark 8.11-13 (dependent on Evans's
assumption that the 'sign prophets' of Josephus were enacting return from exile; above,
n. 430); the allusion to Isa. 56.7 in Mark 11.17 pars, (but an allusion to returning outcasts flsa.
56.8] is twice removed; see further below, §§ 15.3d and 17.3); the gathering of the elect from
the ends of the earth in Mark 13.27 (the allusion is to the LXX, not MT, of Zech 2.6 [LXX 10];
he assumes that 'the "elect" ... include the exiles of Israel'); threat of exile implied in the woes
uttered against Chorazin and Bethsaida (Matt. 11.21-23/Luke 10.13-15). When one has to
strain so hard to find allusions to a 'controlling story' it must raise serious doubts as to whether
'return from exile' was indeed the 'controlling' story.
445. For example: Jesus' welcome of the poor was a sign of return from exile (Jesus
255); 'forgiveness of sins is another way of saying "return from exile"' (268-72); Mark 13 is
'the story of the real return from exile', and the anticipated destruction of Jerusalem marks the
end of exile (340-43, 358-59, 364).
446. See below, §§13.5; 14.4, 8. On the other hand, simply to deny that Jesus made any
use of the theme of the return of the exiles, as Becker does (Jesus 129), hardly does justice to
the issues raised by Wright. For Becker, creation, not salvation history, is the focus of Jesus'
kingdom message (125-35); but the distinction owes more to a debate within German scholarship
than to the Jesus tradition, and the anti-Israel overtones of 136-37 are disturbing.
447. Cf. the critique of C. Marsh, 'Theological History? N. T. Wright's Jesus and the
Victory of God', JSNT 69 (1998) 77-94 (here 87-88, 91-92).
477