Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted, Who He Was

6. The natural aspect of genuine visions is treated extensively in Karl Rahner, Visions and Prophecies, trans. Charles H. Henkey and Richard Strachan (London: Burns & Oates, 1964).

7. Cf., e.g., Pss 16:10-11; 17:15; 27:13; 41:13; 49:16; 73:24; 143:7. All these passages oscillate between hope for newly given life in this time and hope for life beyond the bounds of death. The speaking subject is always an individual.

8. John 12:32; Acts 2:33; 5:31; Rom 1:4; Eph 1:20-22; Phil 2:9; Heb 1:3; 2:9; 5:5-6; 8:1; 10:12-13.

9. Luke 24:51; Acts 1:9; 3:21; 1 Tim 3:16.

10. Luke 24:34; Acts 10:40; Rom 4:24, 25; 8:11; 10:9; 1 Cor 6:14; 15:4; Gal 1:1; 1 Thess 1:10; 1 Pet 1:21, and frequently elsewhere.

11. Thus Rudolf Pesch, Das Markusevangelium, Part 2, HTKNT II/2 (Freiburg: Herder, 1977), 529.

12. The Hosea passage is cited nowhere in the New Testament, and even possible allusions are uncertain.

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 glssais, “speaking in tongues.” The pre-Lukan narrative layer made this into a lalein heterais glssais (Acts 2:4), “speaking in other tongues,” that is, foreign languages.

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.