Chapter 174 of 404

Jesus’ Community for the Kingdom

Could Jesus have envisioned a community carrying on in an interim between two phases of the kingdom? It is understandable that many scholars believe that he did not, and that the disciples “discovered” this perspective only gradually. One could infer this from Jesus’ apparent belief that the end was imminent. Yet while many of Jesus’ extant sayings do seem to proclaim an imminent end of the age (at the least in terms of potential imminence), other sayings of Jesus suggest a period between his initial mission and the end of the age (Mk 4:15-20, 26-32; 13:5-13 [vs. 13:14-27]).⁴⁰ We suggested above that Jesus’ own teaching may contain this tension. Perhaps Jesus envisioned a brief period of transition to the future kingdom, common enough in apocalyptic texts.⁴¹

Ancient teachers regularly established communities of followers to perpetuate their teachings;⁴² other Jewish groups planned communities;⁴³ and culturally relevant evidence (like Jesus’ choice of twelve disciples) supports the notion that Jesus did as well.⁴⁴ Some doubt that Jesus, who expected the kingdom in the near future, could have founded a community;⁴⁵ yet Qumran’s Teacher of Righteousness, who expected the end of the age in the near future, did just that.

Indeed, we may have a more explicit saying in this regard. Although many scholars find the saying implausible (it appears only in Matthean material), others think that Jesus may have even spoken of building a “community” of followers (Matt 16:18).⁴⁶ Some argue that “a Messiah without a Messianic Community” would have been “unthinkable” to contemporary Judaism,⁴⁷ and Davies and Allison offer a number of cumulatively noteworthy arguments for the passage’s authenticity.⁴⁸ Indeed, the example of Qumran shows that a Jewish renewal movement could have employed the very language Jesus does in this passage.⁴⁹ We treat this passage in greater detail in discussing Jesus and the twelve in ch. 17.

Modern interpreters’ resistance to Jesus’ announcement of a future kingdom is sometimes theological. Although most scholars concur that Jesus taught about the kingdom, many find it a concept difficult to translate for those interested in Jesus’ teaching today. Some contemporary scholars, who maintain that Jesus’ future kingdom is an unrealistic hope for modern people, label the kingdom a myth and translate it into existential language more appropriate for their own academic circles of thought.⁵⁰ But their position presupposes modern contempt for apocalyptic thought rather than a detailed historical argument.⁵¹ Further, even on theological terms, a future kingdom hardly appears irrelevant to the persecuted and oppressed, who nurture hope that God’s justice will ultimately triumph and vindicate them.⁵² Finally, on the historical level, whatever modern readers’ application of such passages, it would be naïve to presuppose that the early Jesus movement shared modernity’s non-eschatological perspective; had they wanted a noneschatological mode for expressing their convictions, Sadducees and much of Diaspora Judaism offered much more relevant models.⁵³

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