13. Cf. Matt 28:9-10; Mark 16:9; John 20:11-18.
14. For the opponents’ assertion of theft of the body, see Matt 28:11-15; for transfer by a gardener, see John 20:15. The sudden and unexplained appearance of the “gardener” in the text is an allusion to the polemic of the Jewish opposition.
15. “A sign” because the fact of the empty tomb is not the resurrection itself. The earliest Christian tradition held that opinion also. In all four gospels the meaning and significance of the empty tomb must first be explained by angels.
16. The Jewish texts, especially those of Philo, are handily summarized in Rudolf Pesch, Die Apostelgeschichte, Vol. 1, EKK V/1 (Einsiedeln: Benziger; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1986), 101–2.
17. Paul speaks of this in 1 Corinthians 14 in the same terminology: lalein gl
18. It is true that Luke, or the tradition that preceded him, has inserted “in the last days,” but the context in Joel speaks unmistakably of the end time.
19. Cf. Gerhard Lohfink, “Der Ursprung der christlichen Taufe,” TQ 156 (1976): 35–54.
20. Behind this is, of course, the complex of ideas surrounding the pilgrimage of the nations: at the end of time the nations will come as pilgrims to Zion to hear the word of God. Cf. esp. Isa 2:1-5; 60:1-6, and frequently elsewhere. The success of the Gentile mission (= the self–fulfillment of the promise of the pilgrimage of the nations) was also part of the end–time horizon of the early church.
21. I am here adopting a reflection by Karl Rahner. Cf. his “Warum gerade ER? Anfrage an den Christusglauben,” TG 22 (1979): 65–74, at 66–67. English: “Why Him?,” 85–104, in Karl Rahner and Karl–Heinz Weger, Our Christian Faith: Answers for the Future (London: Burns & Oates, 1980).
Chapter 19
1. The Greek kai is a kai explicativum, i.e., an explanatory “and.”
2. Cf. also Matt 21:11, 46; Luke 24:19; John 4:19; 6:14; 9:17.
3. Deuteronomy 18:18 only means to say that Israel will always have a prophet, but later, in light of Deut 34:10, the text was read to indicate the coming of a single end-time prophetic figure.
4. Mark 6:4 and Luke 13:33 seem to contradict this statement, but both these passages are about “rule sayings” (Odil Hannes Steck) that do not permit us to draw any conclusions about Jesus’ sovereign claim. Mark 6:4 in particular is similar to other proverbial expressions in Hellenistic culture.
5. Cf. Horst Dietrich Preuss, Old Testament Theology, vol. 2, trans. Leo G. Perdue (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1996), 73.
6. Or “truly I tell you.” See the details in Joachim Jeremias, Abba. Studien zur neutestamentlichen Theologie und Zeitgeschichte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966), 148–51. For an English translation, see idem, Jesus and the Message of the New Testament, ed. K. C. Hanson (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002), 10.
7. Cf. Matt 9:27; 12:23; 15:22; 21:9, 15.
8. The oldest and clearest evidence is PsSol 17:21.
9. For “messianic” texts in the Old Testament, see esp. Ps 72; Isa 9:1-6; 11:1-10; Jer 30:8-9; 33:14-16; Ezek 34:23-24; 37:24-25; Mic 5:1-4; Zech 9:9-10. Others, such as Gen 49:10-12; Num 24:17-19; or Amos 9:11-12 were interpreted as messianic, at least later. “Messianic” here does not mean that the title “messiah” was used. That title for a future figure who will bring salvation appears for the first time in the first century BCE in the Psalms of Solomon.
10. “Son of Man” appears in the NT in only four passages outside the gospels; of these, Heb 2:6 and Rev 1:13; 14:14 are quotations from the Old Testament, leaving only Acts 7:56.
11. The exception is John 12:34.
12. Joachim Jeremias collected the precise findings; cf. his New Testament Theology, Part 1: The Proclamation of Jesus, trans. John Bowden (London: SCM, 1974), 257–76, at 260. In his search, however, Jeremias looked for instances that are certainly authentic and his method was much too mechanical. He separated out a number of logia in which the parallel tradition has “I” instead of “Son of Man.” These should instead be discussed case by case. Cf. the lists in Martin Hengel and Anna Maria Schwemer, Jesus und das Judentum (Tübingen: Mohr, 2007), 534–41.
13. This does not exclude the possibility that within the transmission of the Jesus tradition the Son of Man title could be replaced by an “I” or the reverse, that “Son of Man” could be introduced in place of an “I.” Cf., e.g., Matt 16:13, differently Mark 8:27.
14. Cf. 1 En. 45:3-6; 46:1-6; 48:2-7; 49:2-4; 61:5-62:16; 71:13-17; 4 Ezra 13.
15. Cf. Rudolf Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2007), 9; also, e.g., Günther Bornkamm, Jesus of Nazareth (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), 176; Ferdinand Hahn, The Titles of Jesus in Christology: Their History in Earliest Christianity (Cambridge: James Clarke, 2002), 23.
16. Cf. Matt 5:25-26; Mark 9:43-48; Luke 12:54-57; 13:1-5, 25-27; 16:1-8; 17:26-30.
17. For this whole literary genre, see Martin Hengel, Was Jesus a Revolutionist? (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971), 4–9.
18. A literal translation of Matt 10:34 would be: “I have not come to cast peace, but the sword.”
19. At least the first and second antitheses (Matt 5:21-22, 27-28) are regarded by many scholars as authentic. There is no genuine parallel among the rabbis for Jesus’ “but I say to you.”
20. Mark 2:1-12; Luke 7:36-50. This corresponds to Jesus’ table fellowship with toll collectors and sinners. In Mark 2:5, the most important text, Jesus does say to the lame man “your sins are forgiven,” that is, “they are forgiven you by God,” but it is Jesus himself who asserts it and thus acts authoritatively.
21. Cf. Matt 24:43-44; Luke 12:40; 1 Thess 5:2, 4; 2 Pet 3:10; Rev 3:3; 16:15.
22. For the following interpretation, see Tim Schramm and Kathrin Löwenstein, Unmoralische Helden. Anstössige Gleichnisse Jesu (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986), 50–53. Previously C. H. Dodd, The Parables of the Kingdom (New York: Scribner, 1961), 126, had exegeted the text in the same sense.
23. Interpreters disagree about who it is that is entering the strong man’s house. Is it God, or Jesus? Cf. Michael Theobald, “’Ich sah den Satan aus dem Himmel stürzen…’” BZ 49 (2005): 174–90, at 189–90. But the two are really inseparable. Obviously Jesus himself conquers and binds Satan, but he does it “in the power of God” (cf. Luke 11:20).
Chapter 20
1. The problem at Chalcedon was the relationship of the two “natures” in Christ, that is, the relationship of divinity and humanity. That Jesus Christ is true human and true God is already stated in the New Testament, especially in the Christology of the Gospel of John.
2. English: The Religion of the Earliest Churches: Creating a Symbolic World, trans. John Bowden (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 41–60.
3. For the signs required to confirm the ascension, cf. Gerhard Lohfink, Die Himmelfahrt Jesu. Untersuchungen zu den Himmelfahrts– und Erhöhungstexten bei Lukas, SANT 26 (Munich: Kösel, 1971), 45–50.
4. Cf. Carsten Colpe, “Jesus und die Besiegelung der Prophetie,” BTZ 4 (1987): 2–18; idem, Das Siegel der Propheten: historische Beziehungen zwischen Judentum, Judenchristentum, Heidentum und frühen Islam, ANTZ 3, 2nd ed. (Berlin: Institut Kirche und Judentum, 2007), 12–16; 200–203.