Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted, Who He Was

24. Cf., e.g., Joachim Gnilka, Das Evangelium nach Markus, vol. 1, EKK (Zürich: Benziger; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1978), 226: “The demonic world-view is unacceptable to us.”

25. I cannot at this point enter into the question of the reality of evil as a personal power, since it is something that cannot be summarized in a few sentences. Let me instead refer to the work of Jürgen Bründl, Masken des Bösen. Eine Theologie des Teufels, BDS 34 (Würzburg: Echter, 2002).

26. See Hengel and Schwemer, Jesus und das Judentum, 479. [Translator’s note: “Mirakel” in German is dismissive, unlike English “miracle,” which is equivalent to German “Wunder.”]

27. Mark 11:12-14, 20-21 is, of course, not a miracle on his own behalf. The difficult narrative depicts a punishment miracle. Perhaps it rests on a saying of Jesus about an Israel that bore no fruit: cf. Mic 7:1-2.

28. See, e.g., the Infancy Gospel of Thomas 3, 4, 8; Acts of Andrew: Gregory of Tours, Liber de miraculis 4, 12; Acts of Paul: Heidelberg Coptic Papyrus, 32; Acts of Thomas 8–9.

29. Ant. 20, 8.6 (§§ 167–170). Translations of Josephus in this book are by William Whiston in The Works of Josephus, Complete and Unabridged, new updated ed. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1987). Cf. also Bell. 2, 13.4-6 (§§ 258–264).

30. Cf. Hengel and Schwemer, Jesus und das Judentum, 194, 257–58.

31. Philostratus, Vita Apollonii IV, 45. Translation by F. C. Conybeare.

32. Ibid., IV, 10.

33. For what follows cf. Christoph Kleine, “Wunder I,” TRE 36: 380–81.

34. Reference is made here to Ernst Bloch, The Principle of Hope, vol. 3 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1986), 1265.

35. For the referential context of Jesus’ mighty deeds cf. also Peter Stuhlmacher, Biblische Theologie des Neuen Testaments, vol. 1 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992), 81–83. See also Marius Reiser, “Die Wunder Jesu,” 434–37, on Jesus’ miracles as sign actions.

Chapter 10

1. The Jesus Seminar has engaged intensively with the question of the authenticity of the traditional sayings of Jesus and published the results in a book. All the words of Jesus declared to be genuine are printed in red, all those considered ungenuine are in black. One result is that all Jesus’ sayings about judgment are printed in black. The accompanying commentary grounds this by saying, “The vindictive tone of these sayings is uncharacteristic of Jesus.” No other reason is given. See Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels: What Did Jesus Really Say? The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus (New York: HarperCollins, 1996), 188.

2. “Up in the Gallery,” in Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, and Other Stories: With Two New Stories, trans. Joachim Neugroschel (New York: Scribner Paperback Fiction, 2000), 244–45.

3. Marius Reiser, Jesus and Judgment: The Eschatological Proclamation in Its Jewish Context, trans. Linda M. Maloney (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997). For the statistics, see pp. 303–4.

4. “Glutton and drunkard,” Luke 7:34; “friend of sinners,” Luke 7:34; “possessed,” Mark 3:22; possessed “Samaritan,” John 8:48; “impostor,” Matthew 27:63; “deceiver of the people,” John 7:12; “apostate to the faith,” cf. Mark 3:22. We can conclude from Matthew 19:12 that people accused Jesus of being a eunuch; in that passage Jesus reacts to the accusation in his own way.

5. Reiser, Jesus and Judgment, 289–90.

6. For discussion of the details, see Anton Vögtle, Gott und seine Gäste. Das Schicksal des Gleichnisses Jesu vom grossen Gastmahl. (Lukas 14, 16b-24; Matthäus 22,2-14), BThS 29 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1996). There is a general consensus that in his version Matthew reshaped the parable secondarily and made of it an allegory of salvation history.

7. The last sentence of the parable says literally, “For I tell you: none of those men who were invited will taste of my meal” (v. 24). In narrative terms, the “you” here is problematic because it is still the servants who are being addressed. Did Luke have in mind a shift in the audience, so that in this sentence Jesus himself is speaking to those listening to him? In that event Luke failed to mark the shift. But for us the problem is more or less irrelevant, because v. 24 touches precisely the essential meaning of the parable.

8. Cf. Reiser, Jesus and Judgment, 258–62.