Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted, Who He Was

1. “Deeds of power” (dynameis): Matt 7:22; 11:20, 21, 23; 13:54, 58; Mark 6:2, 5; 9:39; Luke 10:13; 19:37. “Signs” (smeia): John 2:11, 23; 3:2; 4:48, 54; 6:2, 14, 26, 30; 7:31; 9:16; 10:41; 11:47; 12:18, 37; 20:30.

2. There is a detailed and substantive discussion of the problems in the Testimonium Flavianum in Gerd Theissen and Annette Merz, The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide, trans. John Bowden (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), 65–74.

3. Cf. Michael Wolter, Das Lukasevangelium, HNT 5 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 495–96.

4. In the Hebrew text, however, it is ridiculed by being misspelled as “Beelzebub,” that is, “lord of the flies.”

5. For the whole cf. Martin Ebner, Jesus von Nazaret. Was wir von ihm wissen können (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2007), 107–12.

6. For what follows cf. Marius Reiser, “Die Wunder Jesu—eine Peinlichkeit?” EuA 73 (1997): 425–37.

7. I am adopting this list, with small alterations, from Martin Hengel and Anna Maria Schwemer, Jesus und das Judentum (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 462–63.

8. Cf. Otto Böcher, “Dämonen I,” TRE 8: 271.

9. This is described in detail by Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, trans. John Bowden (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), 37–55.

10. Tacitus, Histories IV, 81; Suetonius, Vespasian, 7.

11. Josephus, Ant. 8, 2.5 (§§46-49).

12. The only text in which Jesus prays in connection with a miracle is the raising of Lazarus (cf. John 11:41-42). But this text is composed altogether on the level of Johannine reflection.

13. Rudolf Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition, trans. John Marsh (New York: Harper & Row, 1963), 221–26.

14. Cf. Theissen and Merz, The Historical Jesus, 283–84.

15. Marius Reiser has pointed this out to me.

16. For what follows see, more fully, Gerhard Lohfink and Ludwig Weimer, Maria—nicht ohne Israel. Eine neue Sicht der Lehre von der Unbefleckten Empfängnis (Freiburg: Herder, 2008), 358–63.

17. For the history of this formula and the ideal-typical forms in which it appears in the history of theology cf. Ludwig Weimer, Die Lust an Gott und seiner Sache. Oder: Lassen sich Gnade und Freiheit, Glaube und Vernunft, Erlösung und Befreiung vereinbaren? (Freiburg: Herder, 1981), 146–74, 223–303.

18. Romano Guardini had already thought and written along these lines in his book, Wunder und Zeichen (Würzburg: Werkbund-Verlag, 1959). Cf. Bernhard Bron, Das Wunder. Das theologische Wunderverständnis im Horizont des neuzeitlichen Natur- und Geschichtsbegriffs (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1975), 188–89. Bron summarizes Guardini as follows: “Therefore the miracle does not destroy the unity of the world or set aside the natural order; instead it brings them to fulfillment and allows the eschatological aspect to be made manifest as the true meaning of the miraculous event” (p. 189).

19. Certainly nature contains “not only linear cause-and-effect relationships, but also networked or functional retroactive causality, which is why complementary explanations (including ‘top-down’ ones) are necessary,” Siegfried Wiedenhofer, “Wunder III,” LThK (Freiburg: Herder, 3d ed. 2006), 10: 1318.

20. Cf. Matt 8:10, 13; 9:2, 22, 28, 29; 15:28; 17:20; 21:21; Mark 2:5; 5:34, 36; 9:23, 24; 10:52; 11:22, 23; Luke 5:20; 7:9, 50; 8:48, 50; 17:6, 19; 18:42; John 4:50.

21. C. S. Lewis describes what I mean by “malleability” here in Miracles. A Preliminary Study (New York: Macmillan, 1947; repr. in The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics [San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2002], 242): “If I knock out my pipe I alter the position of a great many atoms: in the long run, and to an infinitesimal degree, of all the atoms there are. Nature digests or assimilates this event with perfect ease and harmonises it in a twinkling with all other events.… I have simply thrown one event into the general cataract of events and it finds itself at home there and conforms to all other events.” Natural scientists will describe what Lewis is getting at in more professional terms, but unless they are monists and determinists they will say the same thing.

22. Theissen and Merz, Historical Jesus, 312.

23. Cécile Ernst, Teufelsaustreibungen: die Praxis der katholischen Kirche im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert (Bern: Huber, 1972).