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On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 1:36 PM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu>wrote:
> Central to the way kingship is bound up with the person of Yeshua ben Yosef
> ('Jesus' is the englishing of the Latin translation of the Greek translation
> of an Aramaic version of the name we usually render in English as 'Joshua')
> is that at the center of his preaching was the imminence of the Kingdom of
> God.
>
> The notion of the KOG -- as opposed to the announcement of its presence --
> was not a novelty in 1st century Israel, but rather a central part of the
> politico-religious tradition. The concept was certainly fluid, but from at
> least the time of Daniel (mid-2nd cent. BCE), the conviction existed that
> when the Kingdom came, even the dead would participate.
>
> The Roman occupation took Jesus' preaching of the kingdom seriously enough
> to hang him as an insurrectionist (as the INRI on crucifixes recalls).
> After his death the Christian movement -- Jews convinced of the
> resurrection -- saw him as the visitation of YHWH promised by the prophets,
> and awaited the fulfillment of the Kingdom begun with the resurrected
> Christ, the 'first-born from among the dead.'
>
> Christianity as a movement has always been a vast argument or set of
> arguments, as the rather odd assemblage of documents from its first
> generation (the New Testament) shows. From people who thought that they
> were on to literally the most important thing in the universe, it's hardly
> surprising that we get a collection that contains varying theologies, as
> Jeffrey Fisher points out.
>
> The argument among the Abrahamic religions to today is an argument about
> the exegesis of the Hebrew bible. As America's leading scholar of Judaism,
> Jacob Neusner, puts it, the religion of ancient Israel has thee
> daughter-religions, and Christianity is the eldest. --CGE
>
>
>
> Jeffrey Fisher wrote:
>
>> On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 4:41 PM, Shane Mage <shmage at pipeline.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Aug 8, 2009, at 5:01 PM, Jeffrey Fisher wrote:
>>>
>>> and the [Israelite] king was the son of god. is my point.
>>>>
>>>> So what is then the difference between Jesus and David, Rehoboam,
>>> Athaliah,
>>> Josiah et. al. (other than that they were real royalty and he was a
>>> failed
>>> pretender to the Davidic throne)? What makes him "bigger" than a
>>> Solomon?
>>>
>>>
>>> i think we're miscommunicating, and this is probably because i'm not
>> being
>> clear.
>>
>> my point, i thought, is a small one: that the gospels in general, but
>> certainly mark and to a large extent john (the two lacking a genealogy,
>> btw), have it that jesus is actually *not* the son of god/king/messiah in
>> this traditional sense, but that everyone misunderstands him as claiming
>> to
>> be king in this traditional sense. this misunderstanding is arguably *the*
>> central theme of mark. i admit i find this theme probably more fascinating
>> than most.
>>
>> paul doesn't use the misunderstanding trope anywhere that i can think of
>> off
>> the top of my head, but he also certainly does understand jesus as being
>> son
>> of god not merely "according to the flesh from david" but also "according
>> to
>> the spirit."
>>
>> i'm not claiming that jesus was divine in any sense at all. or that he was
>> a
>> king. i am only saying that people early in the tradition, and quite
>> possibly jesus himself, understood jesus to be more or other than a
>> davidic
>> king. certainly the way mark plays the theme lends itself to the idea that
>> "mark" made this part up after the fact. but i have to say that in my own
>> work on the gospels i've often wondered if jesus didn't think something
>> more
>> of himself, too.
>>
>> in the end, i think that's all i was really saying here: that maybe jesus
>> *was* that crazy. maybe he really *did* believe it. the opportunistic
>> followers trope has a certain appeal (and is played brilliantly in "the
>> life
>> of brian," for example), but i'm not sure it's that much more compelling a
>> historical analysis of what jesus himself actually thought.
>>
>> not that anyone else is interested at this point . . .
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> Shane Mage
>>>
>>> This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it
>>>
>>>> always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire,
>>>> kindling in measures and going out in measures."
>>>>
>>>> Herakleitos of Ephesos
>>>>
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>>>
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