Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted, Who He Was

6. The time at which the concept of a “Zealot” became current (as early as Judas Galilaeus, who appeared in the year 6 CE, or only with the resistance movement in Jerusalem in the years 66–70) is disputed among scholars. Josephus, to whom we owe nearly all our information on this subject, restricts the term to a particular resistance group in the years 66–70. In what follows I am using the concept without entering into this special terminological question, joining some scholars in employing it in a general sense as an umbrella term for the theologically and socially motivated resistance movement against Roman rule that began with Judas Galilaeus.

7. Josephus, Bell. 2, 8.1 (§118).

8. Here I am indebted to Martin Hengel, The Zealots: Investigations into the Jewish Freedom Movement in the Period from Herod I until 70 A.D. (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1989), 88. Cf. idem, The Charismatic Leader and His Followers (New York: Crossroad, 1981), 59–60.

9. See chap. 11 below, “Jesus and the Old Testament.”

10. Cf. Hengel, Charismatic Leader, 17.

11. Proclamation of the reign of God: Matt 10:7; Luke 9:2; 10:9; healing: Matt 10:8; Luke 10:9; expelling demons: Matt 10:8; Mark 6:7; Luke 9:1.

12. Cf., e.g., Joel 4:13; Matt 13:30, 39; Rev 14:15.

13. As in Prov 6:26; Jer 16:16; Ezek 13:18; Amos 4:2; Hab 1:14-15.

Chapter 6

1. Disciple = Christian: Acts 6:7; 9:1, 10, 26b; 16:1; 21:16b. Disciple = community member: Acts 6:1; 11:29; 19:30; 20:30; 21:16a. The disciples = community: Acts 6:2; 9:19, 26a, 38; 13:52; 14:22, 28; 18:23, 27; 20:1; 21:4.

2. In previous publications I have generally identified church and disciples. Cf., e.g., Gerhard Lohfink, Wem gilt die Bergpredigt? Beiträge zu einer christlichen Ethik (Freiburg: Herder, 1988), 32–35, 73. The present chapter corrects my previous approach.

3. Cf. Mark 1:17; 2:14; 10:21; Luke 9:59; John 1:43.

4. In this passage we could also associate the verb akolouthein with: “and the scribes of the Pharisees followed him.” But that is less likely. Mark reserves akolouthein for discipleship of Jesus, with a single exception in 14:13, and even there those “following behind” are the disciples and not opponents.

5. The manuscript tradition varies between seventy-two and seventy. The number seventy-two is more difficult and therefore the more probable reading. In the ancient world the number in a defined group was often given as seventy, hence the correction in many manuscripts. Possibly in choosing the number seventy-two Luke was simply thinking of a multiple of twelve (6 × 12). Cf. the number 120 (10 × 12) in Acts 1:15.

6. Luke read in Mark of the mission of the “Twelve” (Mark 6:7), while the Sayings Source speaks of the sending out of “disciples” (cf. Matt 9:37). Both refer to the same event, but Luke has created two missions out of them.

7. In Luke 19:8 Zacchaeus is not describing his good behavior in the past but making a promise for the future.

8. Josephus, Bell. 2, 12.3-7 (§§ 232–46); Ant. 20, 6.1-3 (§§ 118–36). The Antiquities, in contrast to the presentation in the Bellum Judaicum, speaks of many being murdered. The event took place in the fall of the year 51 CE.

9. The mission discourse occurs in the New Testament in a variety of forms and stages of tradition. Cf. Matt 10:5-42; Mark 6:8-11; Luke 9:3-5; 10:2-16.

10. Cf. Josef Blinzler, The Trial of Jesus: The Jewish and Roman Proceedings against Jesus Christ Described and Assessed from the Oldest Accounts (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1959), 256–57 and n. 39. See also Rudolf Pesch, Das Markusevangelium II, HTKNT II/2 (Freiburg: Herder, 1977), 513: “The characterization of Joseph, which seems slightly distant (as if the community that handed on the tradition knew this high-ranking man only from afar; cf. also Acts 13:29) makes it improbable that after Easter he was a member of the community of Jesus Messiah in Jerusalem.”

11. Cf. Matt 10:2; Mark 6:30; Luke 6:13; 9:10; 17:5; 22:14; 24:10. Of course, the oldest concept of “apostle” is a great deal broader.

12. Cf. Gottfried Wenzelmann, Nachfolge und Gemeinschaft. Eine theologische Grundlegung des kommunitären Lebens, CTM.PT 21 (Stuttgart: Calwer, 1994), 45.

13. The following section rests in part on Gerhard Lohfink, Does God Need the Church? (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1999), 170–73.

14. For a fuller discussion of the biblical concept of “perfection,” see Lohfink, Wem gilt die Bergpredigt?, 69–75.

Chapter 7