As I was writing this book there were four books on my desk that I repeatedly consulted: Peter Stuhlmacher, Biblische Theologie des Neuen Testaments, vol. 1 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992), and Martin Hengel and Anna Maria Schwemer, Jesus und das Judentum (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), as well as the two-volume book on Jesus by Pope Benedict XVI. Those four books were both an aid and a great joy to me.
My own book would not have come into being without the urging of my student and friend, Professor Dr. Marius Reiser. I thank him for many suggestions. Originally we intended a common project, but it may be as well that two different books came of it. They shed light on the same subject from different points of view. Marius Reiser’s book is titled Der unbequeme Jesus [The Inconvenient Jesus] and was published by the Neukirchener Verlag in 2011.
Heartfelt thanks for the English-language edition are due to my former doctoral student, the Rev. Dr. Linda Maloney. She contributed all her biblical scholarship skills and personal application to the translation. Without her and Mr. Hans Christoffersen, academic publisher of Liturgical Press, this English edition would never have seen the light of day.
I owe special thanks to my brother Norbert, professor emeritus of Old Testament at St. Georgen. He accompanied this book with his advice from the outset and constantly encouraged me. He continues to make Psalm 133 a reality.
Finally, my gratitude goes to Hans Pachner, faithful in fetching books for me, and to Hans Braun, my careful copyreader, as well as to my patient housemates Barbara Stadler and Manfred Lazar—and with these four also the great crowd of companions on the way in the Katholische Integrierte Gemeinde. I do not know how I could live without their friendship and their faith.
Gerhard Lohfink
Abbreviations
ACW
Ancient Christian Writers
ADPV
Abhandlungen des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins
AnBib
Analecta biblica
Ant.
Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews
ANTZ
Arbeiten zur neutestamentlichen Theologie und Zeitgeschichte
BDAG
Bauer, W., F. W. Danker, W. F. Arndt, and F. W. Gingrich. Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. 3rd ed. Chicago, 1999.
BDS
Bonner dogmatische Studien
Bell.
Flavius Josephus, The Jewish War
BET
Beiträge zur biblischen Exegese und Theologie
BibS(N)
Biblische Studien (Neukirchen, 1951–)
BThS
Biblisch-theologische Studien
BTZ
Berliner Theologische Zeitschrift
BZ
Biblische Zeitschrift
CTM.PT
Calwer theologische Monographien, Reihe C., Praktische Theologie und Missionswissenschaft
Eccl. Hist.
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History
EKK
Evangelisch-Katolischer Kommentar
EuA
Erbe und Auftrag
FB
Forschung zur Bibel
GTB
Gütersloher Taschenbücher Siebenstern
HNT
Handbuch zum Neuen Testament
HTKAT
Herders theologischer Kommentar zum Alten Testament
HTKNT
Herders theolorischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament
HTR
Harvard Theological Review
JSHRZ
Jüdische Schriften aus hellenistisch-römischer Zeit
KEK
Kritisch-exegetischer Kommentar über das Neue Testament
LD
Lectio divina
LThK
Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche
NBL
Neues Bibellexikon
NRSV
New Revised Standard Version
NSKAT
Neuer Stuttgarter Kommentar, Altes Testament
NTS
New Testament Studies
ÖTK
Ökumenisher Taschenbuch-Kommentar
POxy
Oxyrhynchus Papyri
QD
Quaestiones disputatae
RST
Regensburger Studien zur Theologie
SANT
Studien zum Alten und Neuen Testament
SBAB
Stuttgarter biblische Aufsatzbände
SBS
Stuttgarter Bibelstudien
SBT
Studies in Biblical Theology
TGl
Theologie und Glaube
ThWAT
Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Alten Testament. Edited by G. J. Botterweck and Helmut Ringgren. Stuttgart, 1970–
TQ
Theologische Quartalschrift
TRE
Theologische Realenzyklopädie. Edited by G. Krause and G. Müller. Berlin, 1977–
TTZ
Trierer theologische Zeitschrift
UTB
Uni-Taschenbuchkommentar
WMANT
Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament
WUNT
Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament
ZAW
Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft
ZNW
Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft
ZST
Zeitschrift für systematische Theologie
ZTK
Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche
Chapter 1
The So-Called Historical Jesus
Why is it that new books on the historical Jesus appear almost every year? Why aren’t the gospels enough for Christians? It must have something to do with the curiosity of Western people and their eagerness to know “the facts.” They want to know how it really happened. They want to illuminate the past to the last detail. They stand in line to see an exhibit that shows them the world of the pharaohs, the Celts, or the medieval court. When they finally get into the gallery they believe that they have reached the originaclass="underline" they see documented before their eyes the time and the people that are the subject of the exhibit.
They are looking for the same kind of access to Jesus in the gospels, and yet the gospels are closed to their thirst for knowledge. They are silent about many details of Jesus’ life that would be of particular interest to the fact-hungry Jesus-seekers. And so they reach for the newest Jesus book…
But there is something else as welclass="underline" since the time of the Enlightenment the gospels have been dissected as no other text of the world’s literature has been. The people of the Enlightenment regarded what they said as having been inflated by dogma. The true figure of Jesus was painted over with ever-more glowing colors and his contours exalted to the level of the divine. Therefore it was thought necessary to remove the overpaintings and finally reveal the real Jesus, who would then emerge in his true colors and outlines.
So here again—and especially here—we find the lust for facts. What can we really know about Jesus? Who was the “historical” Jesus? How much of his life can be reconstructed? Which of his sayings in the gospels are authentic? What are his “own words,” what are his “own original deeds”? Did Jesus and the apostles preach the same things, or did Jesus’ message about God become, after Easter, the apostles’ message about Jesus?
In and of itself it would be quite all right that the thirst for facts that has gripped the West since the Presocratics and the first Greek historians should extend to Jesus. We should, in fact, say that in the case of Jesus that curiosity is thoroughly justified. If it is true that in Jesus the eternal Word of God became flesh—entered radically into history—then Jesus must be open to all the techniques of historical research. Then he should certainly be the object of historical scholarship. Then it must be permissible to analyze all the texts about him, to probe them, to determine their genre, and to pursue the history of their traditions.