Jesus, the Kingdom and the Promised Land
Engaging N.T. Wright on the Question of Kingdom and Land
In: Journal for the Study of the Historical JesusSearch for other papers by Joel Willitts in
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N.T. Wright’s understanding of the nature of the kingdom of God in Jesus’ proclamation has been persuasive and significant. The present article engages Wright’s presentation with respect to the particular question of the relationship to between the kingdom of God and Israel’s Land promise. For all the focus on the Jewish context of Jesus, the so-called Third Quest for the Historical Jesus, of which Wright is an exemplar, has been reluctant to consider the possibility of an ongoing interest in territorial restoration in Jesus’ conceptions of the eschatological hope. Where Wright does address the Land of Israel he argues that Jesus reinterprets it away from a localized territorial conception to a more universal symbol of God’s sovereign reign. The argument of the article, while appreciating much in Wright’s interpretation of Jesus, seeks to destabilize his ‘reinterpretation view’ of the Land, on the one hand. And, on the other, the present work presents substantial evidence in support of the hypothesis that the historical Jesus both affirmed Israel’s Land promise and promulgated Israel’s territorial restoration in his teaching, preaching, and even in his physical movements in Greater Galilee.
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2
W.D. Davies, The Gospel and the Land: Early Christianity and Jewish Territorial Doctrine (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974).
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3
Davies, The Gospel and the Land, p. 365, emphasis added; see also Walter Brueggemann, The Land: Place as Gift, Promise, and Challenge in Biblical Faith (Overtures to Biblical Theology; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002); Gary M. Burge, Jesus and the Land: The New Testament Challenge to ‘Holy Land’ Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010); R.T. France, ‘Old Testament Prophecy and the Future of Israel: A Study in the Teaching of Jesus’, TynBul 26 (1975), pp. 53–78; Katherine Elena Wolff, ‘Geh in das Land, das ich Dir zeigen werde’: das Land Israel in der frühen rabbinischen Tradition und im Neuen Testament (Europäische Hochschulschriften; Frankfurt am Main and New York: P. Lang, 1989). Laaksonen well summarizes the scholarly assessment of Jesus and Land: ‘Jesus hat nichts über die künftigen politischen Verhältnisse im Land gesagt’ (Jari Laaksonen, Jesus und das Land: das Gelobte Land in der Verkündigung Jesu [Åbo: Åbo Akademis Förlag, 2002], p. 22).
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10
Ibid., p. 208.
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11
Ibid., pp. 202–203.
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12
Ibid., pp. 204–205.
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13
Ibid., pp. 473–74.
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14
Ibid., p. 196.
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15
Ibid., p. 479.
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16
Ibid., p. 199.
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17
Ibid., p. 471.
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18
Ibid., p. 218.
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19
Ibid., p. 220.
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20
Ibid., p. 220.
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21
Ibid., p. 224, emphasis added.
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25
Ibid., p. 462.
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30
Ibid., p. 429.
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31
Ibid., p. 405, emphasis added.
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32
N.T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God (Christian Origins and the Question of God; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), p. 307.
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35
See W.D. Davies, The Territorial Dimension of Judaism: With a Symposium and Further Reflections (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991), pp. 44–46: ‘The occupation of The Land presupposed loyalty to the Torah, which was a form of loyalty to The Land. Torah and Land are, if not inextricable, closely related. The threat to the Torah was in a tangible, though indirect, sense a threat to The Land. And when Israel actually dwelt in The Land, as in the Maccabean and Roman periods, the explicit concentration was naturally on the former, the Torah … How, then, shall we assess the role of the loyalty to The Land in the Maccabean and Zealot revolts? Despite the silence of the sources, it cannot be doubted that the loyalty was a primary axiom for the rebels … But it was unexpressed, too, because in both revolts it took a religious form, so that in the sources it is loyalty to the Torah and the Temple that is stressed.’
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41
Yohanan Aharoni, The Carta Bible Atlas (Jeruslaem: Carta, 2000), pp. 79–80.
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44
Ibid., p. 57.
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48
Bockmuehl, Jewish Law in Gentile Churches, pp. 63–64; see similarly Freyne, Jesus, a Jewish Galilean, pp. 300-301a.
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49
Bockmuehl, Jewish Law in Gentile Churches, pp. 63–64; Hengel, ‘Ιουδαι/α’.
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52
Freyne, Jesus, a Jewish Galilean, p. 79; see similarly Bockmuehl, Jewish Law in Gentile Churches, p. 64; Hengel, ‘Ιουδαι/α’, pp. 173–74.
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56
Ibid., pp. 181–83, 187, 203–207, 249.
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66
Rainer Riesner, Bethanien jenseits des Jordan: Topograhie und Theologie im Johannes-Evangelium (Giessen: Brunnen Verlag, 2002), pp. 92–93. For discussion of ‘Greater Galilee’ see similarly Eric M. Meyers, ‘The Cultural Setting of Galilee: The Case of Regionalism and Early Judasim’, in Wolfgang Haase (ed.), Principat: Religion (Judentum: Allgemeines; Palästinisches Judentum) (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1979), p. 695; Riesner, Rainer. “Galiläa,” Pages 406–07 in Das Groß Bibellexikon. Wuppertal; Gießen: Brunnen; Brockhaus, 1987.
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77
Lawrence H. Schiffman, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: The History of Judaism, the Background of Christianity, the Lost Library of Qumran (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1994), pp. 317–18.
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78
Ibid., pp. 317–18. While Jubilees is not known for its Messianism, it, nonetheless, contains a perspective very similar to this. Scott (On Earth as in Heaven, p. 208) expresses the book’s viewpoint: ‘Here we see once again the twin foci of the book [Jub.]—particularism (the focus on Israel) and universalism (the focus on the world)—coming to expression in a harmonious way. The positive effects of Israel’s restoration are expected to spill over the borders of the Land to the rest of the world.’
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82
See Erich Scheurer, Altes Testament und Mission: Zur Begründung des Missionsauftrages (Giessen and Basel: Brunnen, 1996), pp. 381–84, esp. p. 384. In addition, see Aharoni’s graphic description of the administrative structure of the Davidic kingdom above, which no doubt also provided a model for the Messianic age (Aharoni, The Carta Bible Atlas, pp. 79–80).
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84
Buchanan, The Consequences of the Covenant, p. 69; similarly idem, Revelation and Redemption: Jewish Documents of Deliverance from the Fall of Jerusalem to the Death of Nahmanides (Dillsboro, nc: Western North Carolina Press, 1978) has convincingly shown that this stream of tradition, which emanated from the Davidic covenant, maintained an abiding presence among Jews not only through ancient Judaism, but even into the mediaeval period.
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88
Ibid., p. 77.
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93
Ibid., p. 136.
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95
Pitre, Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of the Exile, p. 433 n. 154.
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100
William Horbury, Messianism among Jews and Christians: Twelve Biblical and Historical Studies (London: T & T Clark, 2003), pp. 157–88.
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101
Pitre, Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of the Exile, pp. 433–34.
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102
Gerd Theissen and Dagmar Winter, The Quest for the Plausible Jesus: The Question of Criteria (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), p. 161.
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Jesus, the Kingdom and the Promised Land
Engaging N.T. Wright on the Question of Kingdom and Land
In: Journal for the Study of the Historical JesusSearch for other papers by Joel Willitts in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
N.T. Wright’s understanding of the nature of the kingdom of God in Jesus’ proclamation has been persuasive and significant. The present article engages Wright’s presentation with respect to the particular question of the relationship to between the kingdom of God and Israel’s Land promise. For all the focus on the Jewish context of Jesus, the so-called Third Quest for the Historical Jesus, of which Wright is an exemplar, has been reluctant to consider the possibility of an ongoing interest in territorial restoration in Jesus’ conceptions of the eschatological hope. Where Wright does address the Land of Israel he argues that Jesus reinterprets it away from a localized territorial conception to a more universal symbol of God’s sovereign reign. The argument of the article, while appreciating much in Wright’s interpretation of Jesus, seeks to destabilize his ‘reinterpretation view’ of the Land, on the one hand. And, on the other, the present work presents substantial evidence in support of the hypothesis that the historical Jesus both affirmed Israel’s Land promise and promulgated Israel’s territorial restoration in his teaching, preaching, and even in his physical movements in Greater Galilee.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 824 | 141 | 9 |
| Full Text Views | 279 | 4 | 1 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 124 | 8 | 1 |
