1995 - Stephen J. Patterson - The End of Apocalypse. Rethinking the Eschatological Jesus

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1995 52: 29Theology TodayStephen J. Patterson

The End of Apocalypse: Rethinking the Eschatological Jesus

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THE END OF APOCALYPSERethinking the Eschatological JesusSTEPHEN. PATTERSON

or almost a century, New Testame nt scholarship has be en unitedaround at least one proposition: The beginnings of New Testa-F ent theology a re rooted in thinking that is thoroughly eschato-logical. Eschatology becam e a buzz word in New T estam ent theology ataro un d the turn of the century when it was realized that Jesus preaching,as it is prese nted in thre e of th e four canonical Gospels (Matthew, Mark,an d Lu ke), is very much concerned w ith last things-that is, th e en d ofth e world. In fact, in Mark (13:30) Jesus predicts tha t G od will interveneto bring history to a violent and cataclysmic en d before those listening tohim would pass away. Christianity, it would seem, was grounded in anapocalyptic form of eschatology. The problem, of course, is that thesethings did not happen . G enerations came and went, but history carriedon, leaving Christian theology with a very difficult dilemma: What shallwe d o with eschatology?Over the years, New Testament historians and theologians havestruggled through de ba te after h eate d d ebate about Jesus eschatologicalpreaching. What does it mean? Should one take Jesus apocalypticismliterally? If so, should we assume th at he was simply off on the t iming an dprepare ourselves for imminent tribulation? If such a course of actionseems too rash and ou t of step with a twentieth-century world view, mightJesus apocalyptic preaching be seen as none theless valuable and , there-fore, worth translating using, let us say, existentialist categories? Mightwe embrace the idea of being eschatological without b eing apo calyptic?O r is apocalypticism only peripheral an d incidental t o Jesus preaching,perhaps not even pa rt of his preaching a t all? G enerally speaking , this lastoption has been out of th e question. F or the apocalypticism of Jesus is

Stephen J. Patterson teaches New Testament at Eden Theological Seminary. He isco-author of The Q-T homa s Reader (1990) nd author of The Gospel of Thomas and Jesus(1992).29

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30 Theology Todaysuch a potentially embarrassing thing, so scandalous to the post-Enlightenment intellect of the twentieth century that its acceptance haslong been considered a test of scholarly objectivity; anyone who wouldreject this hypothesis is viewed by his or her peers as a hopeless romantic,unable or unwilling to accept the scandalous reality that Jesus did notthink like us.

But in spite of all this, New Testament scholarship is once againinvolved in a lively discussion of this issue: Did Jesus in fact believe thathistory was coming to a rapid, apocalyptic end? Amid protestations fromtheologians and exegetes alike, a growing number of New Testamentscholars is beginning to read the evidence in such a way as to call this onceassured result of critical scholarship into question. To understand thenature of this debate and its significance for theology, it is necessary tobegin with the origins of the apocalyptic hypothesis itself.

ORIGINS OF THE APOCALYPTIC HYPOTHESIS1992 marked the centennial anniversary of the publication of Johannes

Weisss revolutionary book, Jesus Proclamation of the Kingdom of Go d .In this brief but important monograph, Weiss argued that the reign ofwhich the historical Jesus actually spoke was an apocalyptic reign, that is,one that God would usher in through the agency of an emissary, the Sonof Man, whose return, flying in on clouds of glory, would be marked bygreat violence, tribulation, struggle, and, ultimately, judgment for all.This is, after all, how Mark 13 (and Matthew 24 and Luke 21 followingMark) presents the matter. Paul, too, thinks of the arrival of the reign ofGod in apocalyptic terms: The day of the Lord will come like a thief inthe night. When people say There is peace and security, then suddendestruction will come upon them as travail comes upon a woman withchild, and there will be no escape (1 Thess. 5:2-3).

As self-evident as such a reading of the sources has seemed in recentyears, it was not so self-evident in 1892. Historical inquiry into thecultural milieu into which Jesus was born and within which he preachedwas still a relatively young field in the late nineteenth century. It wasphilosophical analysis, not history, that served as the interpretive key tounderstanding the Scriptures. Theologians such as Albrecht Ritschl, forexample, were at work transforming the ethical idealism of ImmanuelKant into the full flowering of liberal theology. Not that the results of thismuch-maligned liberal theology of the nineteenth century were all thatbad. Ritschl describes the reign of God as

those who believe in Christ, inasmuch as they treat one another with lovewithout regard to differences of sex, rank or race, thereby bringing about a

Johannes W eiss, JesurProclamation of the Kingdom of God (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971[German original, 18921).by guest on January 28, 2013ttj.sagepub.comDownloaded from


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End ofApocalypse 31fellowship of moral attitude and moral properties extending through thewhole range of human life in every possible variation.2

Naturally, when Johannes Weiss, the young, still wet-behind-the-earsstudent of Ritschl, appeared on the scene arguing that Jesus actuallypreached an apocalyptic reign of Go d that would bring the world to aviolent and cataclysmic end, he did not receive much of a hearing. TheGe rm an idealism of th e ninetee nth century was, above all else, optimisticabo ut th e future; the Jesu s of Weiss would have been utterly irrelevant toits credo.Weiss would not find popular acceptance until after th e year 1906whenanother young scholar by the name of Albert Schweitzer published thebook that established him as one of his generations great biblicalscholars: The Quest of the Historical Jesus. This book, perhaps the m ostoften c ited work in New Testam ent scholarship, is also probably th e mostthoroughly misunderstood. It is often said that Schweitzer showed-byreviewing and then debunking all previous attempts at an historicalreconstruction of Jesus life-how futile and self-serving any at te m pt t oarrive at an historical reconstruction of Jesus life and preaching ulti-mately was. This is not what S chweitzer intend ed to show at all. Rat he r,his criticism was aimed against scholars of th e nin eteenth century whoseanalysis was grounded in the theology and ideology of liberalism ra the rthan in genuine historical analysis. In Schw eitzers view, Ritschls Jesuswas a figure designed by rationalism, endowed with life by liberalism,an d clothed by mo dern theology in a n historical g arb.3 Schw eitzer wasnot critical of historical research per se. To the contrary, he had verydefinite ideas abo ut what historical research could tell us abo ut Jesus: H ewas as W eiss had described him-an apocalyptic preac her convinced th atthe en d of history was near.

The Quest for the Historical Jesus, perhaps the most oftencited work in New Testament scholarship, is also probably themost thoroughly misunderstood.

W hile th e ac ceptan ce of Schweitzers work was not universal, it did finda receptive audience (especially in Europe) and ultimately won the dayfor Weisss view of Jesus. From our own vantage point, we may nowlook back upon the eighty plus years since the publication ofSchweitzers work an d say tha t Weisss an d Schweitzers apocalyptic viewof Jesus has been the dominant paradigm for understanding Jesus for

Aibrecht Ritschl, The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation (Edinburgh:3Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus (London: Adam & Charles. Black,T. & T. Clark, 1902 [Germ an original, 1883]),p. 285.1911 [Germ an original, 1906]), p. 396.



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32 Theology Todaymost of the twentieth century. But why was Schweitzer able to succeed in1906 where Weiss had failed in 1892?

The answer is simple. Times changed. The optimism of the nineteenthcentury had, by 1906, almost completely evaporated with the increasingpolitical instability that characterized Europe in the years leading up toWorld War I. In its place, there arose a profound sense of dread anduncertainty as an increasingly dark future loomed ever larger on thehorizon. The mood is captured most poignantly in the autobiography ofSir Edward Grey, who, on the eve of World War I, recalls having utteredto a close friend words that would be used repeatedly to capture the spiritof times: The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see themlit again in our lifetime.4 In the midst of the cultural optimism of 1892,Weisss apocalyptic Jesus was a scandal; in the atmosphere of culturalpessimism that was just beginning to come to expression in 1906, thisapocalyptic Jesus was just what the doctor ordered.This state of affairs in Western culture has not altered much over thecourse of this century. This has been true especially in Europe, devas-tated by two World Wars and the economic instability and collapse thatfueled the fires of discontent, and disturbed by the specter of theHolocaust that hangs over the European psyche as a constant reminder ofhumanitys potential to social pathology and unfathomable evil. Further,Central Europe has been held hostage between two super powers, a kindof buffer zone in which the horrors of a limited nuclear war wouldconvince the antagonists to pull back before destroying the entire planet.All of these factors have given twentieth-century European culture aprofound sense of pessimism about culture and the future. If anyonecould recall during the very latest developments in European historyhaving caught at least a glimmer of hope for the future, it has since beenquashed once again with the emergence of such ominous phenomena asethnic cleansing.

In North America, this cultural trend was delayed for the first half ofthis century. With the exception of the 1930s, North American cultureduring this period was oriented toward progress and hope in the future.While the tragedy of two World Wars was felt here as well, it was notexperienced with the intensity and sense of loss that characterizedEurope. No cities were destroyed, no cultural treasures were lost, nocrowds of refugees roamed streets of rubble in search of relatives lost tothe ravages of war. Instead, our streets were filled with ticker-tape.Newsreels and Hollywood combined to create a romance of war, and thevictories served to bolster the self-confidence of North American cultureat levels never before experienced. As might be expected, the apocalypticJesus of Weiss and Schweitzer did not make much of an impact here atthat time. Instead, Walter Rauschenbuschs Social Gospel-the NorthAmerican version of liberal theology-exercised the greatest influence on

4Viscount Grey of Fallodon, Twenty-Five Years (New York: Frederick A. Stokes C o. ,1925), Vol. 2, p. 20.by guest on January 28, 2013ttj.sagepub.comDownloaded from


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End ofApocalypse 33the quest for the historical Jesus among North American scholars, led bythe Chicago School of Shirley Jackson Case and Shailer Mathews. HereRauschenbuschs call for Christianizing the Social Ordels still made sensein an atmosphere of undiminished hope for what might be achieved inhuman culture.But by the 1950s, the cultural pessimism that began with the politicalcollapse of Europe and the catastrophe of two World Wars eventuallybegan to wash up onto the victorious, self-confident, can-do shores ofNorth America as well, as we faced the psychologically debilitatingrealities of the Cold War, the threat of nuclear or environmental disaster,and the social upheaval of the 1960s. We too began to experience thecultural malaise that had held its grip on Europe for the first half of thecentury. This change in attitude is expressed perhaps most eloquently byReinhold Niebuhr in his 1952 essay, The Irony ofAmericanHistory:

Could there be a clearer tragic dilemma than that which faces our civiliza-tion? Though confident of its virtue, it must hold atomic bombs ready for useso as to prevent a possible world conflagration. . . . Our dreams of a purevirtue are dissolved in a situation in which it is possible to exercise the virtueof responsibility toward a community of nations only by courting the prospec-tive guilt of the atomic bomb. . . . Our dreams of moving the whole of humanhistory under the control of the human will are ironically refuted by the factthat no group of idealists can easily move the pattern of history toward thedesired goal of peace and justice. The recalcitrant forces in the historicaldrama have a power and persistence beyond our reckoning6What Niebuhr, as a member of the generation that created the nuclearage, saw as a tragic and bitter irony has become for the present generation

The latest phase of research into the history of the Gospeltradition has produced too many results that do not fit theapocalyptic paradigm.

an existential presupposition. The result has been a pessimism aboutculture and its future, pervasive throughout Western society, that has notgone unnoticed in the annals of philosophical history. The great historianof Western thought W. T. Jones has written about our age:Students of contemporary culture have characterized this century in variousways-for instance, as the age of anxiety, the aspirin age, the nuclear age, theage of one-dimensional man, the post-industrial age; but nobody, unless acandidate for political office at some political convention, has called this ahappy age.. . . The rise of dictatorships, two world wars, genocide, thedeterioration of the environment, and the Vietnam war have all had a share

5Walter Rauschenbusch, Christianizing the Social Order (New York Macmillan, 1912).6Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony ofAmencanHistory (New York: Charles Scribners Sons,1952),pp. 1-3.by guest on January 28, 2013ttj.sagepub.comDownloaded from


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34 Theology Todayin undermining the old beliefs in progress, in rationality, and in peoplescapacity to control their ow n destiny and improve their lot.7

Jones may thus speak of a collapse of confidence in Western thought. Isit any wonder that, as in European theology during the first half of thiscentury, so also in North America since the 1950sthe optimistic strains ofthe social gospel and its liberal Jesus have gradually given way to theassumption that Jesus preached an apocalyptic eschatology. For themoment, the theological future belonged to those who would attempt tointerpret this apocalypticism theologically: Barth, Bultmann, Niebuhr,and Moltmann. The apocalyptic Jesus of Johannes Weiss found his homeamong us. No longer a stranger, his pessimism about the future gaveexpression to the profound pessimism that characterized our own culturalpsychology.

THECOLLAPSE OF THE APOCALYPTIC HYPOTHESISBut nothing lasts forever, even the hard-won results of methodologi-

cally conscientious historical research. New data that do not fit the oldparadigm, data generated from new discoveries or new methods andinsights into the old subject matter, gradually accumulate to reach acritical mass beyond which the old paradigm is exposed as no longeradequate. I believe that the latest phase of research into the history of thegospel tradition has produced too many results that do not fit theapocalyptic paradigm of Johannes Weiss. This is reflected in much recentscholarship on Jesus. In 1986,Marcus Borg ventured A Temperate Casefor a Non-eschatological Jesus,s a case he built more elaborately in abook issued the following year.9 In 1991, John Dominic Crossan pub-lished his magisterial study of Jesus, The Historical Jesus, lo followed by apopular rendition in 1994,Jesus: A Revolutionaly Biography.11Far fromWeisss apocalyptic prophet of the end times, Crossans Jesus is aradically counter-cultural social critic, who proclaimed immediate accessto an unbrokered reign of God for persons marginalized from theconventional means to humane living. Most recently, Robert Funk andRoy Hoover have just released the final report on the sometimes contro-versial Jesus Seminar in the form of a color-coded commentary on thewords of Jesus.12Throughout the four canonical and one non-canonicalGospels covered in their report, one will find no apocalyptic sayings

W. T. Jones, The Twentieth Century to Wittgenstein and Sartre (San Diego: Harcourt,XMarcusBorg, A Temperate Case for a Non-eschatological Jesus, Forum, 2 (1986),Brace , Jovanov ich, 1975), p. 2.- - , ,pp. 81-102.9Marcus Borg, Jesus: A New Vision: Spirit, Culture, and the Life of Discipleship (San

Francisco: Harp er, 1987).loJohn D om ikc Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a M editerranean Jewish Peasan tJohn Dominic Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (San Francisco: Harper SanI2Robert Funk and Ray Hoover, The Five Gosp els: The Searchfor he Authentic Wo rds of

(San Francisco: Har per San Francisco, 1991).Francisco, 1994).Jesus (New York: M acmillan, 1993).



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End ofApocalypse 35printed in red (indicating the relative certainty that Jesus in fact spokesuch words).

But these recent results do not come as a surprise to most specialists.For several years, the old consensus has been falling apart as the centuryof the apocalyptic Jesus came to a quiet, almost unnoticed close. In the1980s, two polls of New Testament scholars specializing in the study ofthe historical Jesus indicated that already holes were developing in theranks of the once lock-step scholarly consensus that Weisss apocalypticJesus was the best historical construct. When posed the question, Do youthink Jesus expected the end of the world in his generation, that is, in thelifetime of at least some of his contemporaries? two-thirds of thoseresponding from the Historical Jesus Section of the Society of BiblicalLiterature replied A similar poll of participants in the Jesus Seminarrevealed that they too rejected Weisss view by a three-to-one majority.14What has called for such a complete about-face from the old consensus?The old consensus, while holding a certain cultural appeal, was in factbased upon a consensus among the sources themselves. The earliest ofthe canonical Gospels, Mark, presents Jesus as thoroughly steeped in andmotivated by Jewish apocalyptic. But Mark is not alone in presentingJesus in this way. The second source used by Matthew and Luke, a sayingsgospel now lost, but referred to conventionally n New Testament scholar-ship as Q, also understands Jesus as a prophet of apocalyptic udgment.This was especially important, for Q is the earliest identifiable documentin the gospel tradition. Finally, Paul, who authored our earliest NewTestament writings, also understood Christian faith as grounded in anapocalyptic view of history, his utopian communities of the Spirit antici-pating proleptically the imminent arrival of the reign of God. But thisconsensus began to falter in the face of historical-critical research. Newdevelopments on a number of fronts combined to undermine the olderview.( 1 ) Q and Early Christian Wisdom

First, thirty years of research on Q has begun to produce a newconsensus about this document. Beginning with the work of the Germanscholar Dieter Liihrmann, and more recently in the research of NorthAmericans Arland Jacobson and John Kl~ppenborg,~t has becomeincreasingly clear that Q was not originally an apocalyptic document atall, but-to take the widely accepted view of Kloppenborg-a collection

I3Borg,A Tem perate Case, pp. 98-99.I4James R. Butts, Probing the Polling: Jesus Sem inar Results on the K ingdom Sayings,Forum 3 (1987) p. 110. This survey repeats that of Marcus Borg, who polled the JesusSeminar on this issue in 1985 (Te mp erate C ase, pp. 98-99). Th en , just over half of thosewho responded to Borgs survey rejected W eisss hypothesis. Thus, the 1986 poll shows asignificant and rapid movement away from the old consensus.lSDieter Liihrmann , Die Redaktion der Logienquelle (Neukirchen-Vluyn: NeukirchenerVerlag, 1 969); Arland Jacobson, The First Gospel: An Introduction to Q (Sonoma:Polebridge, 1992); John S. Kloppenborg, The Formation of Q: Trajectories in Ancien t WisdomCollections (Studies in Antiquity and Christianity; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987).



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36 Theology Todayof wisdom speeches, such as one finds in Lukes Sermon on the Plain(Luke 6:20-49; Matt. 5:3-12, 38-48; 7:l-5; 12:33-35; 7:15-20, 21-27) orthe speech On Cares (Luke 12:22-32; Mat t . 6:25-34). T h e Q apocalypse(Luke 17:22-37; Matt 24:23-28,37-42), as well as th e sayingsof judgmentaimed against this generation scattered throughout the document,aflked like barnacles to this earlier stratum of wisdom speeches, belongto a later edition of Q. They represent a moment of frustration in thehistory of the Q community itself, when it realized that the wisdom ofJesus was not having as great an impact a s it had originally hop ed.The relatively obscure and tediously technical work of Kloppenborgand oth ers working today on the problem of Q is very im portan t for tworeasons. First, the fact that the Q tradition is not ultimately rooted inapocalypticism means that the once apparent unanimity of the earlysources around this point is no more. M oreover, it is Q, he earliest sourcewe have for the preaching of Jesus, tha t has broken ranks. Th at leavesPaul and Mark as the remaining early witnesses to an apocalypticunderstanding of Jesus. But Paul seldom makes use of sayings or othertraditions from the teaching of Jesus an d is therefore of limited help inreconstructing Jesus preaching. As fo r Ma rk, while he generally did no tmake use of Q, the re is ample evidence to suggest that he at least knewthe Q docum ent, which likely pre-dates Ma rk by a t least a d ecade, a ndperhaps more. Thus, he may well have been influenced by the lateredition of Q an d its latt er day apocalyptic interp retation of Jesus.(2 ) The Gospel of Thomas

While scholars of the synoptic tradition w ere working on th e problemof Q, another development appeared on the scene that would serve toconfirm the general tendencies of the Synoptic tradition identified byKloppenborg and others: the Gospel of Thomas. This non-canonicalgospel was widely known in antiquity, but due largely to its content(considered heretical by many ancient church authorities) it fell intodisuse and gradually dropped from sight in the early Middle Ages. Itreappeared as par t of a spectacular discovery of ancient m anuscripts in1945-not the Dead Sea Scrolls but a lesser-known discovery of evengreater significance for the study of Christian origins than the Scrollsthemselves: th e Nag H am madi Library.16 Th is small library of thirte enleather-bound codices was discovered by villagers in Upper Egypt nearthe town of Nag Ham mad i. Among th e mo re th an fifty tractates tha t fillthese ancient books ther e is a complete text of th e Gospel of Thom as.Thomas is not a Gospel like those with which we are familiar in thecanonical tradition. Unlike those Gospels, it does not purport to sayanything abou t th e life of Jesus; rath er, it is simply a collection of Jesussayings. It is in this respect quite co m parab le to Q, which itself contains

16For an English translation of these texts and an account of their discovery se e The NagHammadi Library in English, edited by James M. Robinson (3rd Revised Edition; SanFrancisco: Harper San Francisco, 1988).by guest on January 28, 2013ttj.sagepub.comDownloaded from


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End of Apocalypse 37very little narrative. Its chief importance for the present discussion,however, lies in its content. Of the 114 sayings ascribed to Jesus in theGospel of Thomas, more than half have parallels in the Synoptic tradi-tion, including parallels to both Q and Mark. Furthermore, these sayingsin Thomas do not derive from the Synoptic Gospels themselves, but fromthe same oral traditions available to the Synoptic evangelists and theirsources.17This means that we now have in Thomas a critical tool withwhich better to understand the development of the Synoptic traditionitself. Those attributes that Thomas and the Synoptic tradition share aremore likely to have come from an early point in the development of theJesus tradition, perhaps even Jesus himself. Conversely, those things thatare not shared but isolated to one or another of these trajectories are lesslikely to have early roots.The Thomas and Synoptic trajectories do share much in common. Bothcontain parables-especially parables of the reign of God, in whichworldly values and expectations are turned topsy turvy. Both speak of thereign of God as present and spread out among YOU (Thom. 3 and 113).Almost all of Lukes Sermon on the Plain is found at some point inThomas, including the beatitudes: Blessed are the poor (Thom. 54)the hungry (Thom. 69:2) and the persecuted (Thom. 68). Portions ofthe speech On Cares are found in Thomas (Thom. 36), and there are ahost of wisdom sayings found in both trajectories. Whatever this commontradition will eventually tell us about the preaching of Jesus, there is oneelement profoundly absent from it: apocalypticism. Most of Thomassparallels to Q are to Kloppenborgs early, wisdom stratum in Q (Q).There are a few parallels to sayings from the later apocalyptic stratum(a2)),ut where there are parallels to Q2, in each case tradition-historicalanalysis shows that the Q saying has been secondarily apocalypticized.This is also true of Thomas-Mark parallels. When Marks version of asaying or parable is framed to reflect apocalyptic concerns, such framingcan without exception be shown to be secondary.ls Thus, what the studyof Q had already suggested about the relatively late tendency of theSynoptic tradition to develop in the direction of apocalyptic is confirmedby comparative analysis with the Gospel of Thomas. The earliest identifi-able stratum of the Jesus tradition is not apocalyptic; it is, therefore,becoming less and less likely that Jesus himself preached an apocalypticmessage. 9

Stephen J . Patterson, The Gospel of Thomas and Jesus (Sonoma: Polebridge, 1992),pp. 9-110. This view of Thomas is followed by most North American scholars. Europeanscholarship tends not to regard Thom as as an independ ent tradition.18Patterson,The Gospel of Thomas and Jesus, pp. 217-241; see also Stephen J . Patterson,Wisdom in Q and Thomas, In Search of Wisdom: Essays in Memory of John G. Gammie,edited by Leo G. Purdue, Bernard Brandon Scott, and William Johnston Wiseman,(Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993),pp. 187-221.I9In his recen t work, The Historical Jesus, John D omin ic Crossan takes as his starting pointthis earliest identifiable stratum. His is the first study to take seriously the implications ofrecent research on the Gospel of Thom as, research in which Crossan himself has played arole.by guest on January 28, 2013ttj.sagepub.comDownloaded from


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38 Theology TodayBut the study of Q and Thomas has not been the sole factor in turning

the tide against the hypothesis of Weiss and Schweitzer. Other develop-ments in New Testament scholarship have been preparing the way forsuch a shift for quite some time.(3) The Post-Bultmannian Movement

One of these may be identified as emerging from within the ranks ofneoorthodox theology itself, whose main spokespersons, Rudolf Bult-mann and Karl Barth, essentially embraced the hypothesis of Weiss andSchweitzer and undertook to transform apocalypticism into a theologi-cally relevant modern paradigm. But the next generation of scholars,especially those who had studied with Bultmann, began to question thedata that necessitated this procedure. In an essay published in 1957,Bultmanns former student Philipp Vielhauer noticed that, in the Gospels,the apocalypticSon of Man figure is not found in the same context as talkabout the reign of God. This, Vielhauer argued, was because these twoconcepts did not belong together in contemporary Jewish thought. TheSon of Man figure belongs to speculation concerning a future ideal ageushered in by Gods emissary; the expression reign of God expressesthe living hope that God reigns (now!). Since Vielhauer presumed thatthe reign of God was at the center of Jesus preaching, the Son of Mansayings naturally fell under suspicion. This suspicion is confirmed inVielhauers systematic tradition-historical treatment of all the Son ofMan sayings in the Gospels, with the result that all except one (Matt.24:37-39-here the question remains open) are judged to be products oflater Christian interpretation, not sayings of Jesus himself.20

Soon thereafter, another of Bultmanns students endorsed Vielhauersposition.Also in 1957, Hans Conzelmann published an article in which heargued that, insofar as Jesus associates the reign of God with his ownperson and preaching, he excludes any futuristichemporal aspect fromthe concept. Rather, Jesus proclamation of the reign of God functionedexistentially as a call to decision to accept or reject its reality. Conse-quently, there is no room for a future intermediary figure such as theapocalypticSon of Manz1This position was also adopted by perhaps thebest known of Bultmanns students, Ernst Kasemann. Kasemann castVielhauers basic position in terms of Jesus relationship to John theBaptist:

The fact of the matte r is surely that while Jesus did take his start from theapocalyptically determined message of John the Baptist, yet his own preach-ing was no t constitutively stamped by apocalyptic but proclaimed the imme-diate nearness of God. I am convinced that the man who took this stepcannot have awaited the coming Son of man, t he restoration of the twelve

20Philipp Vielhauer, Gottesreich und Menschensohn in der Verkiindigung Jesu, inFestschrifi fur Giinther Dehn, edited by W . Schneemelcher (Neukirchen: NeukirchenerVerlag Buchhandlung des Erziehungsvereins, 1957), pp. 51-79, esp. 77 and 56-71.21HansConzelmann, Gegenwart und Zukunft in der synoptischen Tradition, Zeitschriftfur Theologie und Kirche 54 (1957), esp. pp. 281-288.by guest on January 28, 2013ttj.sagepub.comDownloaded from


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End of Apocalypse 39tribes in th e messianic kingdom, and therew ith the dawn of the parousia, a sthe means of experiencing the nearne ss of

Thus, among the students of Rudolf Bultmann, the Weiss/Schweitzerhypothesis that Jesus spoke of a future apocalyptic reign of God that is yetto come was given up in favor of the idea that, in his preaching, Jesusproclaimed a reign of God that was already in some sense present.(4 ) The American Discussion of Parables

Another older development that prepared the way for the currentparadigm shift came about in the area of parables research. It, however,was associated primarily with American scholarship rather than withEuropean efforts. The American discussion of parables began with thework of Amos Wilder. Since he was the brother of famed playwrightThornton Wilder, it is perhaps natural that he should bring a familysensitivity to literary critical matters to bear on the study of the NewTestament. Wilder explored the parables of Jesus as metaphors. A truemetaphor, Wilder argued, is more than a sign, a point of comparison.Rather, as a narrative, an extended metaphor creates for the listener aworld whose reality unfolds in his or her imagination. In spinningextended metaphors for the reign of God, Jesus draws the listener intothe reality that is created in the telling of it so that he or she actuallybecomes a participant in it. Thus, through Jesus parables the listenerdoes not simply hear about the reign of God; rather, it becomes a realityto be experienced, to shock, to transform.23

The earliest identijiable stratum of the Jesus tradition is notapocalyptic.This understanding of parable as a metaphoric creation of the reign ofGod is important for the work of two other American parables scholars:

Robert W. Funk and John Dominic Crossan-figures who have emergedof late as crucial in the current reorientation of thinking about Jesus. Inan article now considered to be a watershed in the modern study ofparables, Funk contrasts the parable, as metaphor, to a simple simile inwhich A is said to be like B. While a simile is illustrative of an object thatis already known, a metaphor has the ability to create something new,using language to call into being an imaginative reality heretofore notexperienced and unknown. In this sense, parables have the capacity tooccasion the revelation of something new-the reign of God. In Jesusparables, this is accomplished by using something common, something

22Ernst Kasemann, The Beginnings of Christian Theology, in Apocalypticism (JournalUAmos Wilder, Ear& Christian Rhetoric: The Language of the Gospel (rev. ed; Cambridge:for Theology and the Church 6; New York: Herder and Herder, 1969),pp . 3940.Harvard University Press, 1971),p. 84.



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40 Theology Todayfrom the everyday world of Jesus and his listeners as the basic subjectmatter of the parable. But as the narrative unfolds, something surprisingand unconventional always happens, thwarting the listeners expectationsand creating an alternative reality to that of his or her common experi-ence. The parable thus becomes a language event,

in which the hearer has to choose between two worlds. If he elects theparabolic world, he is invited to dispose himself to concrete reality as it isordered in the parable, and venture, without benefit of landmark but on theparables authority, into the future.24The idea that a parable is a language event in which the reign of God is

encountered by the listener is central also to the work of Crossan.Crossan emphasizes the extent to which language gives shape to apersons perception of the world. This aspect of language can be seen inthe way various kinds of stories are related functionally to the world.Drawing upon the work of the anthropologist Claude Levi Strauss,Crossan, for example, describes the way myth functions to reconcileintolerable incongruities in our world. A popular American myth mightbe the Horatio Alger story, in which the opposite realities of poverty andwealth are reconciled via a narrative in which the former is transformedinto the latter through hard work and creativity. This script, of course,does not actually reconcile these opposite realities; it just gives us a way to

Parables have the capacity to occasion the revelation ofsomething n e w - th e reign of God.live with them more comfortably. In this way, myth establishes andlegitimates social world. Parable, on the other hand, does the opposite.Rather than smoothing over the contradictions in our world, parabletends to undermine the world-creating script provided by myth and toaccentuate, or even to create, contradictions and tensions. If the languageof myth creates world, parable destroys world, and in that action createsthe possibility for encounter with the reign of God. Parables, writesCrossan,

are stories which shatter the deep structure of our accepted world andthereby render clear and evident to us the relativity of story itself. Theyremove our defenses and make us vulnerable to God. It is only in suchexperiences that God can touch us, and only in such moments does theKingdom of God arrive.25For Crossan, as for Wilder and Funk, parables are key to understandinghow it is that Jesus can authentically speak of the reign of God as present:

Robert Funk, Lanmane, Hermeneutic, and he Wordof God (New York Harper & Row,-1966),p. 162.Polebridge, 1988 [originally published in 1975]), p . 100.25John Dominic Crossan, The Dark Interval: Towards a Theology of Story (Sonoma:



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End ofApocalypse 41It becomes a reality in the very preaching of Jesus itself. It encounters thelistener insofar as he or she allows the parabolic event to deconstruct theworld as he or she has constructed it. As the conventional world ofmeaning (-lessness) is shattered by the parable, the reign of God comesbreaking in. In parable, the reign of God is at hand.

So the newest phase of research on Q and the Gospel of Thomas,calling into question the apocalyptic hypothesis, did not emerge in avacuum. For many years now, New Testament scholarship has beenchipping away at the apocalyptic paradigm. Through the post-Bultman-nian discussion of the reign of God as present, not future, and the newerAmerican discussion of parables as language events in which the reign ofGod becomes a present reality, New Testament scholars have becomeaccustomed to entertaining a view of the reign of God that is notapocalyptic. The realization that the earliest phase of the Jesus traditionwas not apocalyptically oriented simply served to confirm this view of thereign of God in the preaching of Jesus. The convergence of these variouslines of research is what convinces me that we are now arriving at a newconsensus position about the reign of God: Jesus did not conceive of it asa future, apocalyptic event, but as a present reality to be experienced asbreaking in upon the present world of human existence.

THEOLOGYITHOUTPOCALYPTICWhat will the collapse of the apocalyptic hypothesis mean for theol-

ogy? Can Christian theology get along without apocalyptic eschatology?Of course, the historians research showing that Jesus did not himselfthink of the reign of God in terms of imminent apocalyptic scenarios doesnot mean that theology, especially biblical theology, can be done withsuch matters. After all, much of the New Testament is still oriented to anapocalypticism that emerges already in the letters of Paul and in theearliest canonical Gospel, Mark. New Testament theology must still facethe uncomfortable fact that apocalyptic thinking shaped the way manyearly Christians came to see Jesus as somehow significant for their ownfuture. More work, such as that which has been done on Revelation byAdela Yarbro-Collins26and Elizabeth Schussler Fi~renza,~hich ex-plores how apocalypticism functions as cathartic and ennobling forpersons pushed to the margins of an oppressive society, needs to be donewith respect to Paul and the Synoptic Gospels as well. It may be that incertain culturally specific circumstances apocalypticism indeed providesan apt language for giving expression to Christian hope. At the same time,Christian theology must take seriously the ultimate failure of all suchscenarios. For they are all scenarios of imminent catastrophe. It will notdo to salvage them by simply delaying their arrival into an indefinite

26AdelaYarbro-Collins, Crisis and Catharsis: The Power of the Apocalypse (Philadelphia:27Elizabeth Schiissler Fiorenza, Redem ption as Liberation: Rev. 1:5-6 and 5:9-10,Fortress, 1984).CBQ 36 (1974), pp. 220-232.



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42 Theology Todayfuture. Ultimately, we must realize that God will not, perhaps cannot,rectify injustice through the violence and power of apocalypse.

But quite apart from our assessment of how apocalypticism functions inearly Christianity, we must also turn our attention to how apocalypticismhas functioned in our own culture. Even though the historians work maynot dislodge apocalyptic eschatology from Christian theology altogether,it may open enough space to question the apocalyptic focus of so much ofmodern Christian theology and to consider anew the basic theologicalissues that confront the church and, more broadly, the cultural dilemmasto which theology must ultimately direct itself.

In raising such questions, we must recognize at the outset that theapocalyptic paradigm itself was not without positive cultural significanceat a crucial juncture in Western history. For example, when Niebuhrwrote that the ethical demands made by Jesus will be possible only whenGod transmutes the present chaos of this world into its final unity, thatthe reign of God is in fact always coming but never here, he intended tocall American culture into a stance of self-criticism.28America in 1956didnot embody the hoped-for reign of God; with the god-like power ofnuclear destruction at our fingertips, we needed to be reminded of this.This is no less true today.

But the apocalyptic paradigm can also have its own debilitating andself-serving tendencies. The repeated assertion that Gods decisive activ-ity in the world belongs to the future and that until God decides to act wemust be content to live in an imperfect world can lead to complacencyabout the problems we face as a culture. In the face of such a temporal-theological dualism, in which the present is given over to an imperfecthumanity while the future is placed in Gods exclusive hands, one canonly conclude that any present, human attempt at reform is ultimatelyfutile. Moreover, it is unnecessary, for the security of Gods interventionin the future means that ultimately humanity will not have to deal with itscurrent problems anyway. The idea of a father God who arrives just intime to save his unruly children from their own inevitable foolishness is anunhealthy starting point, both theologically and culturally. Finally, thefact that most biblical apocalyptic scenarios feature violence has had aparticularly ominous effect on how we imagine solutions to problems wethink we are able to handle. The massive use of force and violence withalmost god-like efficiency during the recent Gulf War was nothing lessthan apocalyptic for those on the receiving end of that onslaught. Onemust also wonder at the long-term effect such an overwhelming use ofpower will have on the American psyche. Whatever its virtues might havebeen in calling Western culture into a stance of greater self-criticism inthe first part of this century, in our own time the apocalyptic paradigm hastaken its toll.

28Reinhold Niebuhr, Interpretation of Christian Ethics (New York Meridian, 1956), pp.5 9 4 0 .by guest on January 28, 2013ttj.sagepub.comDownloaded from


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End ofApocalypse 43To remove the apocalyptic paradigm from the center of theology might

mean that the temporal-theological dualism that claims the present forthe imperfect, inevitably flawed realm of human activity, while relegatingthe future to the transcendent realm of Gods absolute sovereignty, wouldhave to be abandoned. In fact, perhaps what is called for initially is atherapeutic theological reversal in which the present is relinquished tothe divine purpose of justice and peace, while humanity claims as its ownthe future, whose inhabitability will be determined by the extent to whichwe are willing to assume responsibility for giving it an inhabitable shape.No more can the apocalyptic hope for a better world created at Gods soleinitiative, a hope that continually recedes into the future, allow us tobreathe a complacent sigh about the massive cultural problems that faceus as a society and to pray for Christs swift return. Liberation theologianshave long tried to convince European and North American theologiansfrom traditionally empowered groups how self-serving this theologicalparadigm has been: Waiting is easy if you already have everything andlack nothing for which you must wait. Now, historical criticism has formeda new alliance with liberation theology and offered new grounds forcalling this dominant paradigm into question.

But what will replace it? And how will any new paradigm avoid thepitfalls, on the one hand, of an uncritical acceptance of Western bour-geois culture as the culmination of Gods hope for human existence and,on the other hand, of a purely apocalyptic theology, with its unendingdeference to the future as the transcendent realm of Gods activity? Isthere a Christian theology that allows one to be optimistic about realizingin human history a level of justice and peace that would make the reign ofGod more than a mere cipher for Christian idealism while at the sametime retaining the capacity for self-critical evaluation of culture?

THEEMPIRE F GODAt the end of the nineteenth century, there seemed to be but two

choices for Western theology: the moral theology of liberalism or theradically world-negating theology of apocalyptic. Over time, the lattercarried the day because the latest critical thinking about Jesus, togetherwith the powerful forces of cultural change, lay in its favor. Yet anothershift in the critical consensus will again call for a theological adjustment.But the choices today will not be the same as those of a hundred yearsago. A new consensus that Jesus was not an apocalyptic prophet will notnecessarily mean a return to nineteenth century liberalism. To thecontrary, in my view there are crucial elements in the latest phase of Jesusscholarship that point in quite another direction. Each has to do with aconcept most scholars still agree in placing at the center of Jesuspreaching: the reign of God.When Jesus spoke of the arrival of a new reign, he was not usinglanguage unfamiliar to those around him. The term in question isbasileia.It is often rendered kingdom-a term that lingers from the KingsEnglish into which the first authorized English translations were made.



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44 Theology TodayToday, this term is not used very much, except, that is, when discussingChristian theology. Its relegation to the theological sphere makes it soundboth uniquely religious and uniquely Christian. But basileia is neither.When Jesus used this term, he would have been very conscious of the factthat it had another primary referent. This was the term that Rome used todescribe itself. When we encounter it in ancient secular texts or ininscriptions from the period, we always translate it empire. There wasonly one empire in the Mediterranean basin in the first century, theRoman Empire.

The Roman Empire saturated every aspect of life. From the seven hillsof its opulent capitol to the dusty roads of its servile provinces, Romespread its peace to all the world: the Pax Romana. Jesus would haveknown this peace early in life. Not long after Jesus birth, Rome sent oneof its generals, Varus, into Galilee to quell protests over the prospects ofyet another Rome-appointed client ruler from the notorious house ofHerod. Just over the hill from Nazareth, he razed the city of Sepphorisand sold its inhabitants into slavery. In Judea, he burned Emmaus to the

Thefact that most biblical apocalyptic scenarios featureviolence has had a particularly ominous efec t on how weimagine solutions to problems we think we are able to handle.

ground and crucified two thousand for their part in the protests.29All in adays work. Tacitus imagines how such silenced voices might have de-scribed such a Pax: TO plunder, butcher, steal, these things they mis-name empire; they make a desolation and they call it peace.30 Jesusencountered this peace again at the end of his life, when he, too, becameits victim, one of thousands, who died on a Roman cross.

Helmut Koester has recently warned that any credible treatment of thehistorical Jesus must begin with and take seriously the fact that Jesus diedas a victimof the Roman Pax.31His death was not an accident. To be sure,it was not likely observed as the world-transforming event Christianswould later proclaim it to be. But neither was it a mere accident on thestage of history, an unfortunate incident in a world filled with randomviolence. Jesus was arrested and tried in a Roman court, convicted ofsedition against the Roman state, and executed in a manner typical of the

29Josephus,War 2.66-75; Ant. 17.288-295.3oAgncola30. Th e words are those of Calgacus, the Briton general whose forces arecrushed by Agr icola. Such words from the pen of a R oman playwright are quite astoun ding.For an account of Roman rule in the provinces that provides an important corrective toearlier, more romantic treatments, see Richard A . H orsley,Jesus and the Spiral of Violence(San Francisco: Harper & Row , 1 987), pp. 1-58.31HelmutKoester, Jesus the Victim, Journal of Biblical Literature 111 (1992), pp . 3-15.by guest on January 28, 2013ttj.sagepub.comDownloaded from


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End of Apocalypse 45way Rome dealt with its enemies.32Why? We do not have to imagine anunspoken political or military agenda, or secret ties to Zealots to accountfor Jesus fate. It was enough that Jesus dared to speak of a new Empire,an Empire of God. To speak thus is to say that there may be somethingamiss in the Empire we now have. Indeed, to speak of an Empire thatbelongs to beggars, the hungry, the depressed, the per~ecuted,~~nEmpire in which the first are last and the last first,34would have been tochallenge imperial priorities and offer Empire precisely to those expend-a b l e ~ ~ ~eft out of Romes concept of Pax. n daring to speak of Empire,Jesus joined a line of philosophers, Cynics, and prophets who questionedthe authenticity of the Roman Pax, nd he paid for it with his life.36

Jesus saw clearly the pain and brutality of the world in which he livedand dared to construct in word and deed a new world coming into being.In this sense, Jesus preaching may be said to have an eschatologicaldimension, even though it was not apocalyptic. This is not mere specialpleading or a vain attempt to rescue the visionary aspects of eschatologywithout the offense of apocalyptic. Apocalyptic was but one form ofeschatology in the ancient world. In the violent and catastrophic days ofthe Jewish war, it was this form of eschatology that Mark deemed mostappropriate to giving expression to Christian hope. But before Mark,

32Cen turies of Christian anti-Semitism have made these m atters am ong the m ost difficultfor Christians to dea l with. It is not unreasonable to suppose so me amo unt of collaborationamong well-placed Jews in Jerusalem, whose interests were closely allied with those ofRom e. But tha t the trial of Jesus took place before the R oman prefect, Pilate, that th e titleKing of the Jews, a s well as Jesus crucifixion with two bandits (lestes, a term reservedlor rebels, not thieves) indicates tha t he was accused and convicted of sedition against Romeand that the method of his execution, crucifixion, was cha racteristic of Roman, not Jewish,practice, all seem to me to be beyond reasonable doubt. On these and o ther points, see theexcellent treatm ent by Paul Winter, On the Trial of Jesus (second edition, revised by T. A.Burkill and Ge za Vermes; Berlin and N ew York: de Gruyter, 1974).33Thereference is to the four beatitudes in Lukes Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6:20b-23).They are usually regarded as more primitive than their Matthean counterparts in theSermon on the Mount (M att 5:3,6, , 11-12).Th ree are also attested indepen dently in theGospel of Thom as (Thom. 54 [poor]; 69:2 [hungry]; 68:l persecuted]) The Jesus Seminarrecently rende red th e opinion tha t the first thr ee were utter ed by Jesus himself; the fourthwas not, but lies close to something Jesus might have said (see Th e Jesus S eminar: VotingRecords, Forum 6,l [1990], . 15). For an argument for the historicity of all four se eCrossan, The Historical Jesus, pp. 270-274.34Thereference is to the saying familiar from Mark 10:31. t is found also in Matt. 19:30;2016; uk e 13:30; and Thom. 4:2. f these various versions, the Jesus Seminar attributedMatt. 20:16 and the version of Thom. 4:2 ound in POxy 654 o the historical Jesus (see Th eJesus Seminar: Voting Records, pp . 43,47).35This term derives from G erha rd Lenski, Power and Privilege: A Theory of SocialStratification (New York: M cGraw-Hill, 1966) p. 281-282. Expendables a re that surplusof persons for whom the dominant classes have no particular use and thus could perishwithout much notice. Crossan draws attention to Lenskis stratification, especially thisbottom layer, as that to which many of Jesus earliest followers belonged (The HistoricalJesus, esp. pp. 266-282).36Street philosophers were regularly expelled from Ro me for their critique of Romanleadership and Roman culture in general. See D. R. Dudley, A History of Cynicism fromDiogenes to the 6th Century A . D . (London: Methuen, 1937), pp. 125-142. For counter-cultural movements and their fate in Palestine under Rom an rule, see Richard A. Horsleyand John S . Hanson, Bandits, Prophets and Messiahs: Popular Movements at the Time of Jesus(San Francisco: Harp er an d Row, 1985), sp. pp. 160-167.



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46 Theology Todaybefore Q, and even before Paul, there was Jesus and his eschatologicalvision of the Empire of God. The deeply political overtones of thisterminology suggest another primary frame of reference: the politicaleschatology proffered by Rome throughout the lands of its conquest.Penned by such great court poets as Horace and Virgil and inscribed onits monuments throughout the ancient world, Rome, too, spread thegood news of a new, universal Empire, of which there would be no end.They too could speak of a savior, a Son of God born to save the worldand bring about this new Empire and to rule as its Lord.37This saviorwas Augustus.

It is no accident that earliest Christians took over this vocabulary andmade it their own in the years following Jesus death. This was a hostiletakeover. The polemical intent of the parallelism cannot be missed.38They understood that Jesus had been the victim of Roman eschatologyand that this was no accident. Jesus eschatological vision had offered aradically different alternative to Roman eschatology. The differencemight be described effectively in any number of ways. C r o ~ s a n ~ ~asdescribed it thus: Rome offered a brokered Empire, in which themeans to life were tightly controlled as they passed down the chain ofbrokered relationships; patrons and their clients engaged in an uneven,but functional, quid pro quo, until at long last the final few droplets ofsustenance might drip through to the bottom of the heap. Jesus, bycontrast, began at the bottom, with the expendables-the beggars, theprostitutes, the blind and disabled-offering them an unbrokered Em-pire, in which the means to life are offered freely, without condition,around a table open to the unclean, the dispossessed, the shut out. Thiswas another sort of empire, the Empire of God. Its radical reversal ofpriorities and values means that it cannot easily be merged with a politicaland social order that still presupposes that the means to life must bebrokered. Jesus did not advocate a kind of moral fine tuning that wouldeventually perfect human society. He offered a radically different notionof how to order human life.

There is one more difference between these alternative views ofEmpire. One empire was already here, the other was not. Or was it? TheRoman Empire was surely present. Its reality was not in question. Romaneschatology was realized eschat~logy.~~or a Jewish peasant in the firstcentury, this would have been abundantly clear. But what about Jesusunbrokered Empire of God? Jesus proclaimed its presence, but not in thesame, self-confident way that Rome could assert its Empire. Jesus couldproclaim the presence of his unbrokered Empire only in a qualified sense.

37Th e langua ge of the imperial cult is documented in Adolf Deissmanns classic work,Light from the Ancient East (New York: George H . Doran, 1927 ) pp. 338-378. Koesterprovid es a succinct summary of Roma n eschatology in Jesus the Victim, pp. 1C 13 .38D eissma nn suggests that th is Christian mimicking of official imperial language consti-tutes a polem ical paralellism (Light from the hc ien t East, pp. 342-343).39Crossan,The H istorical Jesus.40Koester,Jesus the Victim, pp. 1&13.by guest on January 28, 2013ttj.sagepub.comDownloaded from


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End ofApocalypse 47This qualified prese nce finds expression in the saying of Jesus atteste d inLu ke 17:20b-2k41

The Empire of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will theysay, Lo, here it is! or There! or behold, the Em pire of God is in the midstof you.Its twin in the G ospel of T ho m as (Thorn. 113) re ad s similarly:

His disciplessaid to him, When will the Empire come? It will not come bywatching for it. It will not be said, Behold, here or Behold, there. Rather,the Empire of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and people do not seeit.H er e the Em pire of G od is not offered as a futu re, apocalyptic realityupo n which on e must continually wait. But n eith er is it a fully present,realized eschatology. Its essence may be described only aspotential. Thisnotion of the Em pire of Go d is the same th at comes to expression in th eparables of Jesus. In the parables, the E mp ire of G od becomes a realityfor the heare r only insofar as he or s he enters in to the narrative of t heparable , giving him- or herself over t o its reality and experiencing the newverities of hu ma n ex istence disclosed there in. In th e parables, on e finds aworld that looks ever so much like the cultural world of common

(Jesusdid not advocate a kind of mora lfine tuning that wouldeventually perfect human society. He oflered a radically diferen tnotion of how to order hum an life.

orientation, and yet as the parabolic narrative unfolds one finds thatworld systematically subverted and de constru cted. As this familiar worldcrashes in on itself, new space is crea ted for the E m pire of Go d. But all ofthis has per m ane nt existence only as potential. Only a s persons choosethe p arabolic experience as tha t reality out of which they shall live do esthe Em pire of Go d become real and realized. I n the preaching of Jesus,the Empire of G od is neit her futu re no r assuredly presen t; it exists as apotential to be actualized in the decision to live out of its audaciouslypresumed reality.Jesus preaching abo ut the E mp ire of Go d offers an alternative view ofthe f uture that is quite different from th e options left to us a t the end ofthe last century. Jesus view of th e fu tu re was not an apocalyptic one , inwhich God would intervene with violence to overthrow our enemies.Regardless of how evil our enemies have appeared to be, God has not,and probably will not, destroy them in the manner of our d reams andfantasies. On th e ot her hand, Jesus daring to speak of E m pire, callinginto question Romes Em pire and eventually becoming its victim, should

41For he authenticity of this saying, see N. Perrin, Rediscovering the Teaching ofJesus(New York: Harper & Row, 1967), pp . 68-74.by guest on January 28, 2013ttj.sagepub.comDownloaded from


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48 Theology Todaycaution us against any form of realized eschatology that presumes ourgolden age has arrived. For Jesus preached an Empire of God whosepresence was not guaranteed and perhaps could not ever be. It dependson ones decision to live out of its reality in an act of faithfulness. But inprecisely this sense, Christian theology must still be thought of as funda-mentally eschatological. It is indeed about bringing something to an endand beginning something new. In the preaching of Jesus, the person offaith receives an invitation to embody the eschaton in his or her veryexistence, to assert its present reality and to live it from potential intoactuality. The eschaton as end means the end of life lived out of therealities of sin, injustice, violence, shame, and pain. But it also has anend, that is, a goal. It is not a distant goal or one so remote that onemust despair of ever reaching it. The end of eschatology is the Empire ofGod. It is reached day in and day out, in the very everyday decisions onemakes to live faithfully to God.

Documents

1995 - Stephen J. Patterson - The End of Apocalypse. Rethinking the Eschatological Jesus