Jesus and Eschatology
Jesus and Eschatology
What of Sanders’ contention that Jesus was an eschatological prophet? Many, probably most, scholars find this conclusion difficult to evade (despite differences among themselves on what they mean by “eschatology”). Jesus is eschatologically oriented in Mark, Q (in our current and least speculative form), and in our earliest Pauline sources that probably reflect Jesus’ teaching on the subject (a point we will address more fully in ch. 17 and appendix 4). Only the Fourth Gospel emphasizes realized eschatology while playing down the future, and even that gospel includes some future eschatology.133
Further, Jesus historically followed an eschatological prophet (John) and generated an enthusiastically eschatological movement. The closest parallels to his earliest movement are found among Palestinian Jews who expected an imminent divine intervention of some sort. (I include in this comparison those who expected divinely enabled political deliverance from Rome through protest or revolt, and the “sign” prophets depending on divine intervention.)134
Why then are some scholars today skeptical of an eschatological Jesus? It is noteworthy that some of the scholars who do so appeal to non-Jewish analogies to support their understanding of Jesus, even though no one can seriously deny that Jesus was Jewish. There is also more intellectual cultural appeal today in a non-eschatological Jesus, as was the case before (as well as for most of the years since) Weiss and Schweitzer. Most scholars who emphasize Jesus’ Jewish framework recognize that Jesus spoke prophetically about the future, whether as a matter of an imminent crisis in the political order (which did materialize), a more cosmic cataclysm, or both.