Finally, scholars are especially keen to consider whether traditions about Jesus can actually fit in a first-century Palestinian Jewish context. Some of the later Gospels from outside the New Testament portray Jesus teaching views that are starkly different from what we can plausibly situate in Jesus’s own historical and cultural milieu. Such teachings cannot obviously be accepted as ones that a first-century Palestinian Jew would have spoken. This is called the criterion of contextual credibility.
This final criterion insists that we understand Jesus’s historical context if we want to understand what he said and did during his life. Any time you take something out of context, you misunderstand it. For situating any historical personage, context is everything. And so, before proceeding further, I need to say a few things about Jesus’s context and then about what we can know about his message and proclamation from within that context, applying the methods I have just recounted, in order to see whether he talked about himself as God.
Jesus’s Historical and Cultural Context
IN BROADEST TERMS, JESUS needs to be understood as a first-century Jew. In Chapter 2, I discussed the basic religious views of Judaism at the time. Like most Jews, Jesus would have believed that there was one true God, the creator of heaven and earth, who had chosen Israel to be his special people and given them his law. Keeping the law of Moses would have been of paramount importance to Jesus, as it was to all religious Jews of his time. Later controversies are reported in the Gospels when Jesus is said to have violated the law—for example, the law of Sabbath—but in fact it is very difficult to find any instance in which he actually did what the law forbade. What he violated was the understanding and interpretation of the law by other Jewish leaders of his day, especially the Pharisees, who had developed complex rules to be adopted in order to be sure the law was kept. Most Jews didn’t follow these additional rules, and Jesus didn’t either. To that extent he was probably like most Jews. (The Pharisees were not hypocritical in developing these rules: they simply believed that one should do everything possible to do what God had required and so formulated policies to help make that happen.)5
One of the most important aspects of Judaism for understanding the historical Jesus is a widespread worldview shared by many Jews of his time that scholars have called apocalypticism. This term comes from the word apocalypse, which means a “revealing” or an “unveiling.” Jewish apocalypticists believed that God had revealed to them the heavenly secrets that could make sense of earthly realities. In particular, they were convinced that God was very soon to intervene in this world of pain and suffering to overthrow the forces of evil that were in control of this age, and to bring in a good kingdom where there would be no more misery or injustice. This apocalyptic worldview is well attested from Jewish sources around the time of Jesus: it is a view that is prominent among the Dead Sea Scrolls—a collection of writings discovered in 1947, produced by Jews from about the time of Jesus and not far from where he lived—and among other Jewish texts not in the Bible; it was the view of John the Baptist; it was the view of the Pharisees; it was the view widely held throughout Jesus’s world. Here I summarize four of the major tenets of this view, before showing that Jesus almost certainly held this view himself.
Dualism
Jewish apocalypticists were dualists—by which I mean that they believed there were two fundamental components of reality: the forces of good and the forces of evil. God, of course, was in charge of all that was good; but for these Jews, God had a personal opponent, the devil, who was in charge of all that was evil. God had angels on his side; the devil had his own evil spirits on his. God had the power to give life and to bestow righteousness; the devil had the power to dispense death and to promote sin. The powers of good and evil, for Jewish apocalypticists, were engaged in a cosmic battle, and everything, and everyone, had to take a side. There was no neutral territory. Everyone was on the side of either good and God or evil and the devil.
This cosmic dualism worked itself out in a historical scenario. The history of this world was divided into two phases: the present age, which was controlled by the forces of evil, and the age to come, in which God would rule supreme. It is not hard to see that the present is an evil age. Just consider all the wars, famines, droughts, hurricanes, earthquakes, birth defects, hatred, oppression, and injustice. The powers of evil are in charge, and they are gaining in strength. But God will intervene to overthrow the forces of evil in a cataclysmic act of judgment, to bring in his good kingdom.
Pessimism
Jewish apocalypticists were pessimistic about the possibilities of improving things in this current evil age. The powers of evil were far more powerful than we mortals, and even though people could resist them, they could not overcome them. No one could make this world, ultimately, a better place—no matter how many good deeds were performed, no matter how many wise political decisions were made, no matter how many helpful technologies were developed. Things were bad in this age, and they were only going to get worse until its end, when literally all hell was going to break loose.
Judgment
But apocalypticists believed that when things got just as bad as they possibly could get, God would intervene in a mighty act of judgment. In the previous chapter we saw that 1 Enoch described the powerful Son of Man who would be a future cosmic judge of the earth. First Enoch embraces this apocalyptic worldview and maintains that indeed a time will come when God will judge all the powers of evil on earth and in heaven through his representative the Son of Man. Other apocalypticists too thought that judgment was coming, that God would destroy the evil powers aligned against him and his people, and that he would vindicate those who had chosen to side with him and had suffered as a result. He would send a savior from heaven, and a new kingdom would arrive to replace the wicked kingdoms of this age. In this kingdom of God there would be no more pain, misery, or suffering, and those who entered the kingdom would live an eternal utopian existence.
This coming judgment would not affect only the people who happened to be living at the time. It would affect both the living and the dead. Apocalypticists came up with the idea that at this climactic act of history, with the arrival of the end of the age, the dead would be resurrected. All people would be brought back into their bodies to face judgment, either punishment or reward. This was a comforting idea for those who had sided with God and were being oppressed by the forces of evil and their earthly representatives as a result. A reward was coming. Moreover, people should not think that they could side with the forces of evil, prosper as a result (since these are the forces in charge of this age), oppress others, become mighty and powerful, and then die and get away with it. No one could get away with it. God was going to raise all people from the dead in order to judge them, whether they were willing or not.
But when would this promised end of the age come? In fact, it was coming very soon.
Imminence
Jewish apocalypticists believed that the world had gotten just about as bad as it could get. The powers of evil were out in full force making life a cesspool of misery for the righteous who sided with God. But they were very near the end. People needed to hold on for just a little while longer and keep the faith. God would soon intervene and set up his good kingdom. But when? How long did they need to wait? “Truly I tell you, some of you standing here will not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come in power.” Those are the words of Jesus, Mark 9:1. He thought the apocalyptic end would arrive very soon, before his disciples had all died. Or as he says elsewhere, “Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away before all these things take place” (Mark 13:30).