The quest of the historical Jesus : $b a critical study of its progress from Reimarus to WredeSchweitzer, Albert
Religion
The quest of the historical Jesus : $b a critical study of its progress from Reimarus to Wrede
Schweitzer, Albert
Jesus Christ -- Biography -- History and criticism; Jesus Christ -- Historicity
This spiritual conception of the Kingdom cannot possibly be combined with
the thought of a glorious Second Coming, for if Jesus had held this latter
view He must necessarily have thought of the present life as only a kind
of prologue to that second existence. Neither the Jewish, nor the Jewish‐
Christian eschatology as represented in the eschatological discourses in
the Gospels, can, therefore, in Colani’s opinion, belong to the preaching
of Jesus. That He should sometimes have made use of the imagery associated
with the Jewish expectations of the future is, of course, only natural.
But the eschatology occupies far too important a place in the tradition of
the preaching of Jesus to be explained as a mere symbolical mode of
expression. It forms a substantial element of that preaching. A
spiritualisation of it will not meet the case. Therefore, if the
conviction has been arrived at on other grounds that Jesus’ preaching did
not follow the lines of Jewish eschatology, there is only one possible way
of dealing with it, and that is by excising it from the text on critical
grounds.
The only element in the preaching of Jesus which can, in Colani’s opinion,
be called in any sense “eschatological” was the conviction that there
would be a wide extension of the Gospel even within the existing
generation, that Gentiles should be admitted to the Kingdom, and that in
consequence of the general want of receptivity towards the message of
salvation, judgment should come upon the nations.
These views of Colani furnish him with a basis upon which to decide on the
genuineness or otherwise of the eschatological discourses. Among the
sayings put into the mouth of Jesus which must be rejected as impossible
are: the promise, in the discourse at the sending forth of the Twelve, of
the imminent coming of the Son of Man, Matt. x. 23; the promise to the
disciples that they should sit upon twelve thrones judging the tribes of
Israel, Matt. xix. 28; the saying about His return in Matt. xxiii. 39; the
final eschatological saying at the Last Supper, Matt. xxvi. 29, “the
Papias‐like Chiliasm of which is unworthy of Jesus”; and the prediction of
His coming on the clouds of heaven with which He closes His Messianic
confession before the Council. The apocalyptic discourses in Mark xiii.,
Matt. xxiv., and Luke xxi. are interpolated. A Jewish‐Christian apocalypse
of the first century, probably composed before the destruction of
Jerusalem, has been interwoven with a short exhortation which Jesus gave
on the occasion when He predicted the destruction of the temple.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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