In The Challenge of Jesus, N. T. Wright correctly points out that we need to understand the “Kingdom of God” in terms of first century Judaism, not modern conceptions. For Wright, this means properly understanding the election of Israel as well as the eschatology of Israel (35). Israel was chosen by God to bless the whole world (Gen 12:1-3). But after centuries of exile and domination by foreign powers, some in Israel began to wonder how that blessing was going to happen.
Wright suggests three ways at least some of Jewish thinkers understood the problem (37). First, for Jews like the Qumran community withdrawal from society was the best option. Assuming the standard view of the Qumran community, it appears that this group went out in into the wilderness to “prepare the way of the Lord” by living an ultra-pure life in anticipation of the soon arrival of Messiah. Second, the opposite was the case for Jews like Herod. Herod was more or less a Roman, wholeheartedly buying into the a Roman worldview. Perhaps I would include Josephus here as well, since he seemed to think that the Roman victory over Jerusalem was “God’s will.” The third view was that of the Zealots, who did not meekly withdraw into the wilderness nor did the compromise. Rather, like Phineas in the Hebrew Bible or Judas Maccabees, they burned zealously for the traditions of the Jews and took up arms against the Romans.
What was common between the Zealots and the Qumran community, according to Wright, was the belief that the exile would come to an end soon. God was about to break into history and establish his kingdom in Jerusalem once and for all. The nations would be converted (or judged) and the whole world would worship at Jerusalem. While this eschatological view appears in slightly different ways among the various Jewish documents of the Second Temple Period, that God would establish his kingdom and end the exile is as much of a “standard” view as anything in this period.
How does the three-part description of Jewish Expectations help us to understand Jesus’ announcement that the Kingdom of God is “at hand”? Or better, how does this help us understand the idea of a “present kingdom” in Jesus Ministry?
Dear Phillip,
You end your essay with;
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How does the three-part description of Jewish Expectations help us to understand Jesus’ announcement that the Kingdom of God is “at hand”? Or better, how does this help us understand the idea of a “present kingdom” in Jesus Ministry?
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One thing you need to keep in mind is that what you call “Jesus announcement” is actually the announcement of other later writers.
All our “knowledge” about Jesus comes from later sources that were not eye witnesses, and were not even contemporaries of the supposed character of Jesus, See;
http://www.google.com/buzz/webulite/Lpq9ze3K4hq/Did-a-historical-Jesus-exist-Amazingly-the
All the claims we have of Jesus currently come from sources that are all “hearsay”.
The Dead Sea Scroll community is an example of a group that was motivated to “leave society”. And very often these groups felt that the wrongs committed against their beliefs would eventually be corrected, and their opponents would usually be punished by some supernaturalistic force or event.
This idea had a great effect on early Christianity. And many if not most early Christian groups felt that the world would some come to an end. How Christianity dealt with this original fail prediction is something very interesting to study. In addition to Christian aesthetic movement, which is the “leave society” group I talked about above, is also a very interesting group.
The study of early Christianity is very interesting. Aside from being influences as all religions after the Sumer and Egyptian originals as all later world religions were, the Christian religion represents a natural and understandable progression in religious thought influenced by Jewish, Hellenistic, and neo-platonic thought of the time.
I am happy to meet others that are also interested in this subject. And welcome emails from anyone that wishes to talk more about this or other topics in early Christian history.
Cheers! webulite@gmail.com
“One thing you need to keep in mind is that what you call “Jesus announcement” is actually the announcement of other later writers.”
Did they make up the announcement of the Kingdom out of their imaginations? It seems fairly likely a writer like Mark (or whatever you want to call him) had a variety of sources available to him. Since Jesus as a preacher of the Kingdom appears in every tradition, and in every strata of the tradition, it seems more or less likely he preached a kingdom of God.
What is more, his version of the kingdom as presented in the Synoptics is quite a bit different than the prevailing views of the second temple period. To quote Blomberg, he does not “mesh” with any existing Jewish group in the first century. Nor does what he is alleged to teach concerning the kingdom mesh very well with the church in the second century. Jewish expectations are fading among the increasingly gentile church, and they have no interest in maintaining those hopes – By Augustine there is no real future kingdom coming at all. Why would a later church make up a Jesus who taught something completely unlike what they believed?
Did I read you correctly, that you find the documents of the Qumran community more or less historical? Was there a Teacher of Righteousness and a Man of Lies? I am curious if your extreme historical skepticism hinders you from reading the Dead Sea Scrolls, or any other ancient document for that matter. Why single out Jesus as a mythical construct, but accept Qumran as historical? You must have a methodological reason for this.
BTW, what is your name? I feel a little odd calling you “Webulite”
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Did they make up the announcement of the Kingdom out of their imaginations?
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The idea of a kingdom of heaven, or god, or an afterlife in general is a very common idea. You will find all the way back to Egyptian times, and idea of an afterlife, and some kind of kingdom.
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It seems fairly likely a writer like Mark (or whatever you want to call him) had a variety of sources available to him. Since Jesus as a preacher of the Kingdom appears in every tradition, and in every strata of the tradition, it seems more or less likely he preached a kingdom of God.
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Not at all. Remember a number of things. You say “in every tradition…” but there is a great deal we do not know about early Christianity. After the flavor that we know of gained dominance, many many texts of other flavors were destroyed. So we know that there was a great deal more ideas in early Christianity, but the vast majority of the information that we have, if only information that the group that gained dominance did not destroy. Since that group ended up feeling that the world was going to end in the near future, it is natural that they would write into the mouth of the Jesus character things to this effect. In fact one thing you notice from the early period of Christianity even up till today, it the constant disagreement. Christianity has always had different sub groups with all kinds of different views right from the beginning.
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What is more, his version of the kingdom as presented in the Synoptics is quite a bit different than the prevailing views of the second temple period.
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I disagree, I think that the kingdom view is very much understandable as an evolution of jewish and hellenistic traditions. This is something we can talk more about over time.
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Did I read you correctly, that you find the documents of the Qumran community more or less historical? Was there a Teacher of Righteousness and a Man of Lies? I am curious if your extreme historical skepticism hinders you from reading the Dead Sea Scrolls, or any other ancient document for that matter. Why single out Jesus as a mythical construct, but accept Qumran as historical? You must have a methodological reason for this.
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The Qumran documents are historical in the sense that they were writings of a group that existed in the past. Whether their idea of a Teacher of Righteousness and the Man of lies are allegorical or represent actual people is unknown. I think that the most interesting aspect of the Qumran documents is they are documents that were “lost” for a long period of time. So they show us a view of thought that could not have been adulterated by later people over the years. In that they are very interesting. A work I would recommend, even though it is very difficult reading (cause the guy is a horrible writer) is a work by Robert Eiserman, _James the Brother of Jesus_ which examines the Qumram community, and the possibility that The character we know of as James the brother of Jesus, being the Teacher of Righteousness, and The character we know of as Paul being who I think you refer to as the “Man of lies”, which I think is referred to as “The wicked priest”. http://www.amazon.com/James-Brother-Jesus-Unlocking-Christianity/dp/014025773X
I don’t know what you mean by the phrase “extreme historical skepticism”, except perhaps it is different than your view. I don’t see anything extreme or extremely skeptical in any of my views.
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BTW, what is your name? I feel a little odd calling you “Webulite”
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It is true, I was not baptized webulite, my actual name is Rich.
Cheers! webulite@gmail.com
Hi Rich….I suspected you were reading Eisenmann. I’ve read him too, he is on the fringe of scrolls studies. There is no way that James is the Teacher of Righteousness, the documents describing the breach date 100-150 years before James. No one (except Eisenmann and few others) would date any of the pertinent documents to the mid-first century.
If the DSS are writings of a group that existed in the past, other than a priori assumptions, why would the gospels also not represent the writings of a group that existed in the past? The point of the “synoptic problem” is that Mt/Mk/Lk used sources, in some cases the same sources. That seems undeniable. If they used sources, those documents stand between the gospels and the events the purport to describe. You simply cannot say “Mark made the whole thing up.”
On the other end of things, Didache and 1 Clement (for example) are written before AD 100, and they cite the gospels as authority. Didache especially uses Matthew, although I anticipate you will deny that. Basically that gives you a range of 30 to 100 for the gospels as we know them to be written and distributed, by 125 even John is being professionally scribed in a codex form.
Seventy years is not enough time for the folk traditions you are suggestion to mutate into the Gospels. If a Sayings Source is accepted as a near-certainty, they that reduces the gap. I will state (without details, maybe later) that the fall of Jerusalem is not much of a factor in the gospels, other than a generic prediction based on OT prophecies. That may imply a date for Mark ten or more years before AD 70, reducing the gap to 40 years, or less with Q.
Setting the dating aside for a moment, you said “The idea of a kingdom of heaven, or god, or an afterlife in general is a very common idea.” Obviously, that is a fact. But you need to do a bit more reading in Jewish literature for what the Kingdom of God was supposed to be. You are importing other cultures and ideas into Kingdom and getting “heaven and an afterlife.” That is exactly the point of these two posts – Kingdom was never considered, by the Jews, to be “heaven” or an afterlife. It was a real kingdom restored to them by a davidic ruler.
The “Kingdom = heaven” thing is a later corruption of the Second Temple Period idea. We cannot import things from the Christian church several hundred years into the mouth of Jesus or Paul.
Dear Phillip,
I have to honestly say, that I have not read the complete Eisernam book. The book is so poorly written that after the first few hundred pages, I was actually screaming outloud saying “why the hell didn’t he get a grad student to clean it up if he can’t write!” Then I happened to see him talk on some YouTube videos, and found that he meanders the same way talking that he writes. I got some points from the book, but I don’t even know if he concludes with one or two or three major summary points. each few months I pick it up again, and read a few more paragraphs, so perhaps some day I will finish it, but who knows.
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If the DSS are writings of a group that existed in the past, other than a priori assumptions, why would the gospels also not represent the writings of a group that existed in the past? The point of the “synoptic problem” is that Mt/Mk/Lk used sources, in some cases the same sources. That seems undeniable. If they used sources, those documents stand between the gospels and the events the purport to describe. You simply cannot say “Mark made the whole thing up.”
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I am not saying Mark made up the whole thing. Heck, I don’t even know who wrote GMark. I know it is anonymous. In addition, various texts were edited or added to in either small or large amounts, so I am not even concerned with trying to determine if there was a particular original. For me, I am am simply interested in knowing when they put into the form we have them now, by who, and what were those folks main concerns. For me the origins of the various early Christian groups are at this point lost in a haze of history and while I am interested in trying to understand the foundation and early organization of the groups, and how they combined and such, I fully believe there will always be major holes in our knowledge unless more data is found. But is is a topic, I continue to have interest in and try to follow.
As far as datings of things are concerned, I have not been confident of any of the dates. One reason is that you have two things going on. First the folks writing the texts are what would be called today a special interest group, or a marketing department. They are like the marketing department of Toyota telling us how great Toyota cars are. So it is hard to separate the factual data from the marketing BS. Second, because Christianity is a living and still existing religion, there are many writing on the subject that are trying to justify their supernaturalistic beliefs in the stories of the religion. And those folks are not doing what I would call history, but what I call apologetics. So again with them, it is hard to separate good ideas from the apologetic BS.
In some ways it is easier to study ancient Egypt than early Christianity, even though the Egyptian religions are older. There is almost nobody that is trying to do apologetics on the Egyptian gods and myths, so what you get is more factual history papers on the subject. For me it is a constant search to find people that are actually doing and interested in historical study of the early Christian period, and getting access to their data. Many history and even NT Journals cost money to access and read, which is a drag. You kind of have to wait till those pay per view papers get read by enough people and that second wave of people start writing on what they read in the pay per view papers, to find out what is happening in the industry.
One additional thing. I am very much enjoying talking to you, and would be happy for you to convert over to posting me via email. One of the things I try to do is talk to my regular folks via email. The problem I have with blog comment systems (which I am writing an essay on and will give you a link if you post me) is that, blogs are like a persons living room, or them doing a lecture. The comment system is good to ask them a question. But the problem is that they you have to subscribe to the that comment thread to know if the person has answered you. When you to that, you also get all the other comments that people make. Then it becomes hard to determine when you get an email if this is a post in a convo you are having, or some other convo that is satrted. Plus is does not take long to be subscribed to dozens and dozens of comment RSS threads, and you end up getting loads and loads of email alerts, none of which you are really interested in.
So consider posting me, so that we can have ongoing conversations via email. BTW, when you do, make sure that in that email you include your blog URL, so that I can match up the email you with the blog you.
Cheers! webulite@gmail.com
When looking at these various first century Jewish mentalities, the subversiveness of Jesus’ living becomes clear as day. I feel like I’ve been noticing some common links to these various mentalities – whatever form this blessing of their nation was going to come in, it hasn’t come yet. And whenever it came, it was going to be big. So how wild is it that some guy claims that the Kingdom was available to them, right then and there. And furthermore, that this guy was already living it out. In first century Judaism, this was probably not easily conceived and completely unexpected. To me, for better or for probably worse, this makes it much more understandable that some “fell along the path” and others “fell on rocky places.”
While I have complete faith that God desires every one of his children to discover Him and His Kingdom, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’m confused as to why he would allow the “kingdom-announcement” to be at once simple and unrecognizable, not least to first century Jews. As an evangelical Christian, this contextual tension doesn’t seem to line up (wait, is this another problem/opportunity thing) with the simple message of the Gospel. Nevertheless, I can’t help but enjoy the layers of context unfolded by Wright, helping bring the sting of Jesus’ method and ministry into sharp focus.
“So how wild is it that some guy claims that the Kingdom was available to them, right then and there.” I have been asking myself the same question. Trying to understand a little more of the mind of people in Jesus’ day. Recorded in the gospels are some of the reactions various people groups had to Jesus. The Pharisees and teachers of the law questioned Jesus (Luke 5:21). People with illness, disease, and or disability sought Jesus out (Luke 4:38; 5:12; 5:18-19; 7:3). Crowds of people gathered wherever he was (Luke 4:31-32; 4:42;5:15). Jesus sought certain people out as well (Luke 5:10; 5:27; 6:13-16). Definitely, there was quite a buzz around everything related to Jesus but I wonder if others had the same popularity. Was Jesus just another teacher and healer of that day? Or was he different than other teachers and healers of that day? Like Stevie P. I wonder about how the “Kingdom announcement” and how it was perceived. It reminds me of the C.S. Lewis approach to Jesus either being a lair, lunatic, or Lord.
Alright, so how I understand these three groups is that the Qumran group did not live in the world or of it; the Herod group lived in the world and of it; the zealot group lived in the world but not of it. If I do not have the correct understanding please help me out. Wright says this of Jesus, “He was neither a quietist nor a compromiser nor a zealot. Out of his deep awareness, in loving faith and prayer, of the one he called ‘Abba, Father,’ he went back to Israel’s Scriptures and found there another kingdom-model, equally Jewish if not more so,” (37). The kingdom-model in which he is referring to is the kingdom of God. I agree with Stevie P. when he says that he doesn’t believe that all of the first century Jews believed him right away that the kingdom of God was right there at hand. I really liked how Anna went on to mention each of the groups of Jesus’ day and their reactions the him. That really make you wonder what it would have been like to have been in their position. Would you believe this man who claimed that the kingdom of God was “at hand?”
“Would you believe this man who claimed that the kingdom of God was ‘at hand?'”
This is a really challenging question – if I were hearing the teaching of Jesus right now, would he fit into my paradigm of what I think the Christ ought to say and do? Probably not, he would certainly challenge my pre-conceptions and reverse my thinking. Sadly, I think I might have sided with the Pharisees against Jesus – perhaps you would have too!
I also agree with N.T. Wright when he says we need to understand the “Kingdom of God” in terms of first century Judaism, and not with our own 21st century conceptions. I definitely think there is a huge difference in what my idea and a first century Jew’s idea of a Kingdom is. When I hear the phrase “Kingdom of God” I tend to just think of Heaven. With my understanding the early Jews thought the “Kingdom of God” as the end of the exile. Blomberg says, “Jesus developed the idea of breaking of God into history to realize his redemptive purposes but dissociated his current ministry from the establishment of a politically free Israel (448). N.T. Wright also says, “He was, in short, announcing the kingdom of God-not the simple revolutionary message of the hard-liners but the doubly revolutionary message of a kingdom that would overturn all other agendas, including the revolutionary one” (53). The so called “headline” of Jesus’ ministry is to show that we need to repent because the kingdom of God is near (Matthew 4:23). In Jesus and the Gospels it goes on to show how Jesus’ ministry is bound up in exorcisms and vanquishing of Satan, which shows that the kingdom has come upon those in His audience. I also thought Anna’s C.S. Lewis quote was quite interesting to ponder. No matter what Jesus said about the coming kingdom, some would completely blow it off because some thought he was a liar. I believe we cannot get wrapped up in with what we think is the correct conception of the kingdom but we need to put ourselves in “Early Jewish shoes” to understand the context better.
I found myself thinking the same thing as Greg. Before reading what N.T. Wright had to say on the Kingdom of God, I assumed it meant that they were talking about Heaven. Many of the Jews thought that this Kingdom of God was going to be bringing them out of Roman rule right then and there. Obviously having the benefit of hindsight, we can see that this isn’t the case. So therefore, the Kingdom of God being “at hand” had to have meant something other than restoration for Israel and deliverance from Rome. Chapter 2 of [i]The Challenge of Jesus[/i] really opened up my eyes to something I never knew before. I never thought to look at the Kingdom of God the way the original audience would have perceived it. It is easy for us to talk on the Kingdom of God because we have the entire completed bible and it is available for studying. The first century Jews were living this bible out, and were hearing everything by word of mouth and of their previous knowledge of the OT.
“It is easy for us to talk on the Kingdom of God because we have the entire completed bible and it is available for studying.” I really like what Andrew said here because it really does show a new perspective for all the groups of people who were living in the time of Jesus being on Earth. We also have to take into consideration that Jesus did in fact know the end and was preparing the people on Earth for the next event and a totally new way of living, a life where the gift is eternal life. People probably thought he was crazy, but he took a risk and taught what he knew would save and restore people.
Like Greg and Andrew, I have always read the “Kingdom of God” and “Kingdom of Heaven” statements in the Gospels as nothing more than the stereotypical apocalypse ideas that many evangelicals currently have. To actually think of these statements and claims that Jesus made in that time period really changes the way I look at those verses. Seeing the three main “options open to Jews in Jesus’ day” (37) reminded me so much of the same ways in which people respond currently. We have the option to separate from the rest of the world and wait for God to do what he is going to do, the compromise and hope that God validates option, and the zealot extremist who takes control into their own hands. The only problem with all of these options is that all three are directly built upon control. Each option, to some point, is opposite of what Jesus came and taught. He came teaching an incredibly risky way of life, with a core message that probably made no sense to those he was teaching. He taught, “the end of exile, the call of a renewed people, and the warning of disaster and vindication to come.” (39) This same message exists for us today. We are no longer in exile, we have been renewed, and disaster and vindication exists and is coming. We must live in this truth.
“He came teaching an incredibly risky way of life, with a core message that probably made no sense to those he was teaching” How was Jesus’ “way of life” risky? He did challenge the status quo, but Jews in the Second Temple Period were always challenging the status quo. Attack the temple was nothing new, Jews have been doing that since Jeremiah 7. If his message made no sense, why did they kill him on a cross? That is reserved for political criminals, enemies of the state. What is it about the pronouncement of the Kingdom that is so risky that someone would consider Jesus a threat?
Just like the last 5 or so people, I never payed very close attention to the phrase “Kingdom of Heaven”. I think we get wrapped up too much in merely thinking of God in His Kingship, that we overshadow the significance of His Kingdom. This leads me to think about the Kingdom being “at hand” in the context of first Century Judaism. The phrase applies to all beliefs and sects in the Jewish community, from Zealot to Essenes. Jesus was declaring to them that whether they saw it or not, the Kingdom was happening around them. Aspects of it had not been consummated yet, but it was already beginning to occur. When thinking of this in modern culture, I cannot even begin to imagine the effects this would have on me if I held such a distinct, passionate view of the Kingdom. Jesus was declaring more than a Kingdom, He was declaring a new way of thinking, living and understanding humanity as a whole.
The way Wright describes the Qumran community makes me think they are kind of like the Amish community. They separated themselves from any kind of influence of the world. According to Wright the Qumran was waiting on God (Wright 37). This group seems to desperately hold onto to their religion in this challenging time. Almost choking out any means of influencing the outside world. This group was responsible of providing some valuable historic writings (Dead Sea Scrolls) that have influenced many. The Zealots on the other hand did not seem like the waiting type. According to Wright this group was ready for war. They actively took over “Herod’s old fortress of Masasda” (Wright 37). The zealots took matters into their own hands. They justified their war by calling it a holy war (Wright 37). Kind of reminds me of recent wars the U.S. have been involved in. We justify all our wars by saying it’s our Christian duty and God is on our side.
How does the three-part description of Jewish Expectations help us to understand Jesus’ announcement that the Kingdom of God is “at hand”? Or better, how does this help us understand the idea of a “present kingdom” in Jesus Ministry?
“Only when we put Jesus in to this context do we realize how striking, how dramatic, was his own vocation and agenda.” (p. 37)
Understanding the descriptions of Jewish Expectations helps us understand what Jesus is actually speaking to throughout the Gospels, and to the people of that time. One of my favorite explaintions that Wright discusses is the statement Jesus makes, saying, “repent and believe.” (p. 43). This concept as Wright states can be looked at in other historical document from that time as meaning, “to give up their agendas and to trust him for his way of being Israel.” (p. 44). For us in the North American church we have taken this a bit out of context as Wright states. Chrust is simply saying to the people at that time to give up their personal view of what the Kingdom will look like, and how it will come, and just follow the ways that Christ lives.
How does the three-part description of Jewish Expectations help us to understand Jesus’ announcement that the Kingdom of God is “at hand”? Or better, how does this help us understand the idea of a “present kingdom” in Jesus Ministry?
This is a very interesting question that I think Wright covers in his book, and after reading Wright it helped me grasp a better understanding of what was going on during the era of Jesus ministry and the Jewish mindsets in that time. I’d like to refer to page 37, the whole last paragraph is really good in answering this question. “He (Jesus) was neither a quietest (Qumran), nor a compromiser, (herod) nor a zealot (sacarii)… he went back to Israel’s Scriptures and found there another kingdom-model.” In my own words Wright sums up that the Kingdom of God was coming forth through Jesus ministry.
I think it is important to note that Jesus was none of the above mindsets in the Jewish culture, and that helps me understand perhaps why Israel had been mislead in regards to Jesus as the Messiah. From my understanding they were in exile and were hoping for peace to come upon them through the means of ‘political gain’ (excuse my poor terminology). They wanted justice to be served and to be free from their oppressors. However, Jesus came and gave a much more radical call. To repent and believe, according to Wright meant to get rid of their revolutionary ways of conquering Rome or trust in Jesus and in his ways of inaugurating the kingdom as it was promised to Israel through God. This however, looked much different to them during this time and perhaps part of the reason why they (religious leaders) hated Jesus so much.
“In The Challenge of Jesus, N. T. Wright correctly points out that we need to understand the “Kingdom of God” in terms of first century Judaism, not modern conceptions. For Wright, this means properly understanding the election of Israel as well as the eschatology of Israel (35). Israel was chosen by God to bless the whole world (Gen 12:1-3). But after centuries of exile and domination by foreign powers, some in Israel began to wonder how that blessing was going to happen.” – Plong.
I think this frame of mind has to be crucial in our understanding of the Kingdom of Heaven. We have to realize that Jesus also came from this perspective. Jesus whole heartedly believed that the creator God had intended from the beginning to deal with the problems within his creation through Israel. Through Israel the creator God would heal the world. Israel wouldn’t be JUST the example, but would be the means. This does not change with the ministry of Jesus, but rather affirmed.
Example – Jesus was not just preaching good ideas. His parables were not just stories, or illustrations for people to say “good thought!” N.T. Wright hits it right on the head where he says that “the Gospel is NOT just good advice…it’s good NEWS [something that’s happening right here and now].” Jesus was announcing that the “kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
The type of people Jesus was talking to throughout the Gospels is important to know. It helps us understand why Jesus said the things He did. It helps us understand why Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom is important. Seeing as how there were three main groups who were anticipating Jesus’ arrival there must have been three separate hopes that these groups thought the new king would be. Little did they know but Jesus was more interested in setting up the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth, rather than saving Israel from the captivity of Rome.
Jesus probably upset all three of those main groups. For those in Qumran, they probably didn’t like it that Jesus was so bold to accept sinners into his household and to let the “impure” be in his presence. I’m sure they had some doubts that Jesus was the true Savior they had dreamed about in Qumran. For the “Herod” group I’m sure they didn’t like it that Jesus was “not of this world” as he said often throughout his ministry. He (Jesus) even told his followers to not be of the world. I’m sure that went over well with the “Herod” hopefuls. NOT! And for the Zealots I can guarantee they really didn’t like it that Jesus was such a “softy”. He wasn’t the type of Savior that was going to lead them to battle with Rome. In fact, Jesus told the people to “render unto Ceasers what is Ceasers.” He wasn’t about to go to battle.
Jesus’ words that the “kingdom of God was near” was taken in numerous of ways. Each one of these groups expected that God was going to come and radically change history so that Israel would be a blessing to all nations once again. However, each group thought that the Kingdom was going to come in different ways. But when Jesus came on the scene and started preaching that the Kingdom of God was near, he was speaking of something completely different than all three of the groups. The Kingdom of God was being fulfilled through Jesus’ ministry and this is a much different way than they were thinking.
I do agree that we need to read the historical background of the context. This goes for all Scripture. Whenever we approach God’s Word we must first understand who the passage was written to and how they would understand it. Then we can bridge the gap from their understanding to the way that it would be taken today. As we look at Jesus’ Kingdom of God we must understand how the first century Jew would perceive it. Wright does a good job at going to the roots for this. However, I seem to differ with him when he tries to bridge the gap.
I never thought over the possibilities that the Jews went about looking for the Kingdom of God. It just blows me away to think of how Jesus did not endorse any of these options that the Jews had of the kingdom. Obviously there was a right expectation but, nobody had it. Why did the Jews as a nation not understand the words of Jesus. Why did they see it as “the crisis brought about by Jesus’ own presence and work” (p.38)? This means the Pharisees and Sadducees had a large amount of sway in the Jewish nation. Out of the Separatists, Herodians, and Zealots the Pharisees “were most inclined to the Zealot end of the spectrum” (p.39). Why were the Jews so misled in their thoughts of the future? How could they think that Jesus did not fulfill enough scripture from the old testament prophets such as in Isaiah.
In general Wright uses these three groups to inform us about the different Israeli perspectives at the time of Christ. The expectations for Jesus from these different groups brought on a lot of tension throughout the Gospels. I could imagine that those Wright calls compromisers felt very uncomfortable around Christ. He was bringing to life morals that they had been taught but had not been applied. Jesus’ teachings for the most part did not sway from the history of the Jews. The community Qumran was probably least affected by Jesus’ teachings. They may have had the most resentment because of their commitment to the law. Jesus’ claims did stir things up a bit in theses communities. If the Jews were indeed God’s chosen people, then why did Jesus come in such a radical way for them to not even notice Him? Did the Jews themselves have a false idea of what the Messiah would look like? When looking at the Bible in whole, Jesus seems to fit and complete a lot of previous prophecies. Where did the Jews go wrong on their perspective of the Messiah?
I definitly agree that having the historical context is critical for correct interpretation of scripture. We must know what was going on in the society and what mindset the people that are being spoken to are in. When Jesus said that the kindgom of God was at hand, when looking at the different groups at that time and their differing expectations, we see that this probably meant different things to different people. Some of them assumed that he was going to be leading a revolt of sorts and would help them overthrow their foreign rulers. So when they heard these words they most likely were confused when Jesus made no attempt to go against Rome. As P Long said it seems that both the Qumran group and the Zealots would definitly see this as a possible end to their exile. Knowledge of the views of these differing groups helps us to better understand the questions and responses of the Jewish people to all that Jesus was preaching doing, and not doing.
First of all I am glad we finally figured out webulite’s name, I was starting to get creeped out. Second of all I like many others just assumed that when the Kingdom of God is mentioned in the bible that it was talking about heaven. The Jews thought that the Kingdom was what you could call their “saving grace.” They thought this was what was going to bring them out of exile right away. We obviously know that was not the case. Threfore when it states this in the Gospels we know that there is a different meaning. What this meaning is, we may never know. I think Wright does a good job of trying to figure out what this all means; however, I think he is looking into it way too much and is over thinking what the intent is.
If you take (in my opinion) the three main driving forces behind the three different expectations, you get Jesus’ present kingdom. If you take the righteous lifestyle of the Essenes, the immersion into the world (but not OF the world) and the zealous passion for the truth, you get Jesus. Christ called for the repentance of sin and the belief in his way. Wright puts it very well when he says that “He [Jesus] was telling his hearers to give up their agendas and to trust him for his way of being Israel, his way of bringing the kingdom, His kingdom-agenda” (Wright 44). Each idea had a piece of what the true kingdom was about but they all fell short and were hung up on their specifications that they were expecting so that when Christ finally came and announced the coming of the Kingdom, they rejected him based off of their expectations. Jesus had fulfilled the present kingdom, just not in the way the Jews were looking for or expecting.
I am completely with Andrew on this one. Before reading through the assigned reading for Monday morning I had a completely different perspective on the Kingdom of God. I always thought it was refereed to as heaven. Many Jews refereed to the kingdom of God as they being taken out of Roman rule. The truth of the matter is Jesus came to die on the cross as a holy sacrifice and prepare the people on the earth for a whole new way of living, a way that has eternal life in Heaven to look forward to.