a social prophet, that does not exclude his having been an apocalyptic
prophet. Others have been both. The reason is obvious: as eschatological
expectation and instruction cannot cover all of life, no successful
apocalyptic prophet can afford to be a monomaniac. So using a criterion of
consistency to delete apocalyptic elements from Jesus' speech because they
contradict the sapiential elements is no more plausible than arguing that
people who pray for God to heal them cannot go to the doctor, or that those
who teach that Jesus will come again cannot insist that even now he lives in
their hearts.34
In fact, since the eschatological kingdom was expected soon and since
entrance into it demanded repentance, as John the Baptist and Jesus both
preached, then we would expectJesus to be a social reformer who both did and
preached social justice, just like the prophets of old (Micah 6:8). Doing so was
required of someone who desired to be part of the new, coming, eschatological
kingdom. Jesus is found to be saying this eschatological event could happen any
day and will definitely happen in his generation. Since Jesus is only found to be
saying that his generation would see this event rather than predicting the very
day it will happen (Matthew 2436), there is still a reason to do justice on earth
while waiting for it. Case in point is that televangelists like Pat Robertson and
his ilk are part of the "Christian Right" which seeks sociopolitical change, and
yet they also think Jesus will come soon, probably in our generation.
JESUS WAS A FAILED APOCALYPTIC PROPHET
So if Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet, then he was a failed one, just like every
other doomsday prophet in history-before and after him. The eminent New
Testament scholar, James D. C. Dunn, admits this in what is surely to be his
magnum opus: `Jesus had entertained hopes which were not fulfilled. There were
`final' elements in his expectation which were not realized. Putting it bluntly,
Jesus was proved wrong by the course of events."3' And yet the Jesus cult
survived even after these failed predictions. But that isn't too unusual. Many cult
groups survive after experiencing a failed prophecy of the end of times. Whether
or not they survive depends on how they reinterpret what took place. The
survival of the cult group depends on how they view the failed prophecy from
hindsight. To understand this when it comes to the Jesus cult we need some
historical background.
After the destruction of Jerusalem and deportation of Jewish leaders to
Babylon in 586 BCE, the prophet Jeremiah spoke of seventy years for the
restoration of Israel (25:11-12; 29:10) with a new covenant (chapter 31).
Prophetic numbers like these were not meant to be taken literally, since the
number seven symbolizes completeness while seventy is roughly the span of a
man's life. Nonetheless, it was a serious problem for later Jews as the years
passed and it wasn't fulfilled. The Davidic dynasty, after all, was supposed to be
an eternal one (2 Samuel 7:11-16, Psalm 89:36-37), but it was never
reestablished as predicted (Jeremiah 33:14-18; Isaiah. 11:1-9; Ezekiel 34:22-24,
37:24; Micah 5:2). So in trying to make prophesy fit, the prophets Haggai (2:20-
23) and Zechariah (4: 6:9-13) both claimed that in their day Zerubbabel was
going to be the Messiah. Since this didn't turn out as predicted, the prophetic
institution was thrown into a crisis. This crisis first started when the monarchy
ceased to exist, since the monarchy both legitimized the prophetic institution and
provoked it due to kingly transgressions. Jeremiah's failed prophecy was the
final straw that forced the later pseudonymous author of Zechariah 13:2-536 and
Malachi (4:4-5) to say prophecy would cease until such time as the final prophet
would come (cf. 1 Maccabees 4:46; 9:27). When prophecy ceased, there was a
corresponding rise of apocalyptic literature. Apocalyptic literature predicted the
coming apocalypse, unlike prophetic literature, which stressed immediate
judgments upon people who were unfaithful to God's covenant. Apocalyptic
literature expressed in cryptic language the next thing on God's timetable, the
full restoration of Israel and the Davidic dynasty in a Messiah who would reign
over all the nations.
Four centuries had gone by after Jeremiah's prophecy, and no fulfillment was
in sight. The first frilly apocalyptic book was Daniel, in which we see Jeremiah's
prophecy altered to mean something different. It was not meant to be "seventy
years," but rather "seventy weeks of years" (Daniel 9:2 5-2 7). This meant the
prophecy was to be fulfilled in the second century BCE, when the book of
Daniel was composed.37 Old Testament scholar Bernard Anderson explains
Daniel's prophecy:
The first seven weeks (49 years) apparently extend from king Zedikiah to
Joshua the High Priest (587-538 BCE), who was in office in the days of
Cyrus; the sixty-two weeks (435 years) extend from the return from the
Exile to the assassination of the High Priest Onias III (538-171 BCE); and
the last week covers the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes. During the first half
of this week (171-168 BCE), Antiochus showed some lenience toward the
Jews; but during the last half (168-164 BCE), in which the author of Daniel
was living, Antiochus attempted to abolish Jewish religion and desecrated
the Temple by installing an altar to Zeus of Olympus ... which came to be,
by a malicious pun, "the abomination of desolation."38
But the prophesied restoration of Israel and the apocalyptic eschaton did not
happen in that day either. Even an evangelical like Kenton L. Sparks admits this:
"It is to my mind that it is quite clear that the author of Daniel, like the authors of
countless other Jewish apocalypses, expected the kingdom of God to appear in
his lifetime ... these expectations clearly turned out to be incorrect.... in fact we
are still waiting for it.39
That this was still a problem in the first two centuries CE is evidenced by
the fact that apocalyptic hopes like these incited several Jewish
eschatological movements. There were the Zealots and the Sicarii in the
days of Jesus, who had a role to play in the Great.7ewish Revolt against
Roman rule, which led to the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE, and the massacre
at Masada in 74 CE. Then Esdras, writing in about 90 CE, was given a
divine interpretation of a vision he had: "The eagle, whom thou sawest
come up from the sea, is the kingdom which was seen in the vision of thy
brother Daniel. But it was not expounded unto him, therefore now I declare
it unto thee" (2 Esdras 12:10-12). And he does, but this won't detain us here
only to note his prophecy failed as well. These apocalyptic hopes also
inspired the Bar Kokhba Revolt (ca. 132-136 CE). Simon bar Kokhba, the
commander of the revolt, was proclaimed the long-awaited Messiah who
would restore the Jewish people to rule over the nations. Some of these
movements were violent ones in the hopes of providing the faithful spark
tha
t would ignite God's wrath. Others were quietist ones like the Jesus cult.
Stemming from John the Baptist, they called people to repent and be
baptized in order to prepare themselves for what God himself was about to
do for them. In these apocalyptic movements we find some divergences of
opinion, true, but as Fredriksen argues, they all shared "the belief that the
End was fast approaching and the final restoration of Israel was at hand....
The forces of good will utterly vanquish the hostile powers, demonic or
human, and the Kingdom of God will finally, truly be established."40
In the NT, about six centuries after Jeremiah's prophecy and two centuries
after the book of Daniel, it was claimed that Jesus was the predicted prophet
"like unto Moses" (Acts 3:20-22, see Deuteronomy 18:18). According to the
Gospel of Luke, Jesus came to announce that these things were starting to be
fulfilled in his own day in what is known as his "Nazareth Manifesto" sermon
(Luke 4:14-21). It was to be an eschatological ,jubilee (cf. Leviticus 25:13;
Isaiah 58:6, 61:1-11) where the captives would be set free and the land would be
given back to Israel, its rightful owners. Israel would finally be restored to her
glory in the coming new age.41
But if we grant that this original prediction stems back to Jesus, it "was
continually threatened by the simple passage of time," argues Fredriksen.
"Successive disappointments gave rise to new interpretations as the tradi tion
reworked what was too central to relinquish." "Reconceiving Jesus and the
Kingdom, Christian tradition in various ways continually adjusted itself... as its
central prophecy failed. And as part of its adjustment to this unexpected future,
the tradition grew away from its own past." 42
The apostle Paul was the first person to reinterpret the failed prophecy
gradually in his own lifetime. He had expected to see an immediate apocalyptic
eschaton, as already noted in his earlier letters. So how did Paul sustain such a
belief through twenty-five years of preaching? Fredriksen makes a plausible case
that he did so because he came to believe that through his ministry to the
Gentiles he was helping to bring in the eschaton. When he completes his
ministry the end will come when God will save "all Israel" by "an eschatological
miracle."43 Thus, "The interim before the Kingdom came would last as long as
Paul's mission itself"44 Only when the "frill number of the Gentiles" came into
God's kingdom through Paul's ministry would the End come (Romans 11:25).
Paul's view came about during the debates he had with the "circumcision
party" over the fact that there were "Too many Gentiles, too fewJews, and no
End in sight." 45 The circumcision party argued that only after the Kingdom
came "would Gentiles as such be redeemed." So they blamed Paul for the fact
that the Kingdom had not yet appeared because he was not reaching out to Israel.
Paul came to see this problem differently. The reason why the End had not come
and the reason why the Jews were not responsive to the Gospel was because this
was all part of God's plan. God hardened the hearts of the Jews so that through
Paul's ministry God would save the frill number of Gentiles, and then the End
would come (Romans 9-11). But Paul died and the End didn't come.
With Mark's "Little Apocalypse," as we saw earlier, Daniel's prophecy was
altered to foretell the destruction of Jerusalem soon after Jesus' own time (later
to be destroyed in 70 CE), which was a prelude for the eschaton to happen in a
few years.46 Yet this too did not happen. So by virtue of "the criterion of
embarrassment," we find evidence that later NT authors altered and tried to
explain away this failed prophecy of Jesus.47 They did so in the exact same
manner that the multitude of other failed millenarian prophetic groups have
done. This is an essential element for surviving as a group after such a failed
prophecy did not materialize, and this is what we see time and again with regard
to these types of failed prophecies in the Bible. The biblical writers
progressively changed their position regarding the eschaton and the restoration
of Israel, just as Paul before them did 48
After Mark's Gospel there are subtle changes made with each subsequent
canonical Gospel, as the prophesied eschaton did not happen. The Gospel of
Matthew, written decades after Mark, makes subtle changes to the text. In Mark's
Gospel the disciples asked a question specifically about the destruction of the
temple: "Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that
they are all about to be fulfilled?" (13:4) Nothing was asked about the coming of
the "Son of Man" or the end of the age because it was assumed that the
destruction of the temple and Jerusalem would be the only signs needed for
when the "Son of Man" would come. But in Matthew's Gospel the disciples ask
not only about the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, but now they
additionally ask Jesus about the sign of "your coming" along with the end of the
age (24:3). In Matthew's Gospel more than just the destruction of the temple was
needed as a sign for the end of the age and the coming of the "Son of Man." The
reason is because by the time Matthew's Gospel was written, the temple had
already been destroyed and the eschaton had not yet happened.
While Mark's Gospel merely told believers to be on guard while waiting for
this eschatological event (13:33), Matthew's Gospel elaborates on this warning
for almost an entire chapter in three parables (24:45-25:30). Matthew agrees
with Mark that this series of events will happen in that generation, of course
(24:34), it's just that the goal posts have been moved. In his day there is more of
a need to stress patience than before, since the faithful are becoming impatient.
And according to Matthew when the "Son of Man" comes, he will reward the
righteous with the kingdom and cast the unrighteous into eternal fire (25:31-46).
These are events which were to follow immediately upon his coming, since that's
the progression of the events depicted in Matthew.
In the even later two-part Luke-Acts we find the goal posts are moved a little
further. Luke drops a few words from what we first read in Mark 9:1, where
Mark's Jesus says, "I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste
death before they see the kingdom of God come with power" [emphasis added].
The last three words are missing in Luke's version (9:27). As far as Luke is
concerned, the disciples were not promised that they would see the kingdom
"come with power." Of this slight but "huge" difference, Ehrman tells us that
with the deletion of these three words Luke's Jesus, "does not predict the
imminent arrival of the Kingdom in power, but simply says that the disciples (in
some sense) will see the Kingdom."49 Luke also attempts to distance Jesus from
the erroneous expectation that the kingdom appearing in power will take place
immediately by blaming such a false expectation on others when introducing the
parable of the ten minas: "While they were listening to this, [Jesus] went on to
tell them a parable, because he was near Jerusal
em and the people thought that
the kingdom of God was going to appear at once" (19:11).
And the disciples do indeed see the kingdom according to Luke. They already
experienced it since they were personally with the Messiah-king, Jesus: "Once,
having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come,
Jesus replied, `The kingdom of God does not come with your careful
observation, nor will people say, "Here it is," or "There it is," because the
kingdom of God is within (i.e., `among') you"' (Luke 17:20-21). So Luke first
introduces a distinction between the "already here" and the "not yet." The
kingdom was "already here" Luke says, even though the kingdom coming with
"power" had not yet happened. This same distinction is something we see
reflected in the later non-Pauline letter of Ephesians (2:6) and in Hebrews
(12:22-24), although these authors believed in a future eschaton as well (cf.
Ephesians 1:10, Hebrews 10:37-38). Of this change of perspective Bart Ehrman
stresses:
Luke continues to think that the end of the age is going to come in his own
lifetime. But he does not seem to think that it was supposed to come in the
lifetime of Jesus' companions. Why not? Evidently because he was writing
after they had died, and he knew that in fact the end had not come. To deal
with the "delay of the end," he made the appropriate changes in Jesus'
predictions.50
Some scholars conclude from Luke 17:20-21 that Jesus was not an
apocalyptic prophet, but this is a slender reed to hang that conclusion on (just
two verses). Bart Ehrman tells us that this saying "is found only in Luke (i.e., it
is not multiply attested), a Gospel, as we've seen, that went some way to tone
down the apocalyptic dimensions of our earlier sources."51 For these reasons, E.
P. Sanders does not thinkJesus even spoke these words, but even if so, "they
cannot be used to prove that he said nothing about a future cosmic event." For as
Sanders argues, "one cannot take Luke 17:20-21 as canceling out the large
number of sayings about the future kingdom-including those that immediately
follow in Luke." (i.e., 22-37).52 In my opinion, the two similar verses in the
Gnostic Gospel of Thomas (3, 113) also alter what Jesus predicted, as did Luke,
since it was written early in the second century-53
We find the final word of Jesus on the topic from the author of Luke-Acts just
before he ascended into heaven. We see the disciples asking Jesus, "Lord, are
you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" (see Acts 1:6-8). Here
we see that the disciples didn't think Jeremiah or Daniel's prophecies had been
fulfilled yet, otherwise why would they be asking about the restoration of Israel?
The author of Acts simply has Jesus responding that the disciples should not be
concerned with the timing of the prophecy but instead focus on their mission
with the help of the coming Holy Spirit. Two chapters later, Peter is reported to
say that Jesus "must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore
everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets" (Acts 3:21). So
according to what the author of Acts tells us, by putting these specific words on
the lips of Peter, the eschaton was not supposed to happen in Peter's lifetime, but
rather sometime in the future. What started out as an urgent call to action based
upon an immediate eschaton has now been altered to cover up a failed prophecy.
Such talk of an imminent eschaton is completely removed in John's Gospel. In
Dale Allison's words, this Gospel: "focuses not on Jesus coming on the clouds of
heaven in the future but on the Spirit coming to believers in the present. It
emphasizes not that the dead will someday arise but rather that the living can
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