APPENDIX 4 - Jesus’ Sayings about the End
APPENDIX 4
Jesus’ Sayings about the End
Although we cannot be certain that Jesus’ words in the “eschatological discourse” (roughly, Mk 13; Matt 24; Lk 21) were all spoken on that occasion,1 many of them appear to have been assembled before Mark used them. In any case, it is this collection of sayings, with the largest number of Jesus’ future-oriented sayings, where our inquiry will begin.
The list of eschatological sufferings and signs here fits the eschatological conventions of many of Jesus’ Jewish contemporaries. The overlap of these sayings with any specific non-Christian document, however, is quite limited. More striking is the oft-noted specific overlap with material in 1 Thessalonians 4-5. Just how striking the overlap is becomes obvious when its correspondences are compared with other Jewish lists of eschatological sufferings and signs. These parallels appear not only from Mark and Q, but even in a few specifically Matthean features as well.