1992 - david b. batstone - jesus, apocalyptic, and world transformation

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DOI: 10.1177/004057369204900310

1992 49: 383Theology TodayDavid B. Batstone

Jesus, Apocalyptic, and World Transformation

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JESUS, APOCALYPTIC, ANDWORLD TRANSFORMATIONBY DAVID . BATSTONE

It is often overlooked how ideologically explosive thenotion of the kingdom of God was within Jesus ownsocial milieu. In first-century Palestine, it did not havethe same metaphorical and strictly religious connota-tion that makes the term so safe within our owntheological world. In fact, it evoked the memory andvisionary impulse of Yahweh who acts to deliverYahwehs chosenones from occupation and oppres-sion at the hands of alien nations. Intrinsic to thatJymbolic universe is the conviction that the chosensuffer and the unjust prosper in the present day onlybecause history stands at the brink of a great reversal.

EWTestament research for most of the twentieth century hasassumed that the kingdom of God [hebasileia tou theou]wasan apocalyptic image located within the social world of the

Jesus of history.2 Given the fact that kingdom statements are foundmore than one hundred times in the Synoptic Go~pels,~t has beenpresumed that the framework of Jesus historical mission was inti-mately linked to his understanding of the kingdom of God.

Paradoxically, the vast majority of modern biblical scholars have alsodeemed it necessary either to eliminate or to reinterpret those

David B. Batstone is Assistant Professor of Theology and Culture at New College,Berkeley. His work has appeared in the Christian Century, Sojourners, and the Journal ofEcumenical Studies, and he is the author of From Conquest to Struggle: Jesus of Nazarethin Latin America (1991) and Race, Class and Gender: New Wsions for the Americas(forthcoming).

I will render he basileia tou theou as the kingdom of God due to its dominant usewithin the long history of the academic discussion. It is of note that some scholars havesuggested alternative translations for modern usage on a popular level based ontheological and gender-inclusive concerns, e.g., reign[ing] of God or realm of God.Also of note, I will assume that the kingdom of (the) heaven(s) (he basileia tououranon) is used interchangeably with kingdom of God in the synoptics, heavenhaving replaced the divine name out of reverence for the sacred (cf. Matthew 13:11,Mark 4:11, Luke 8:10, Matthew 19:23-24).1975, Norman Perrin summarized three-quarters of a century of biblical research:[Iln 1927 a conference of English and German theologians agreed that Kingdom ofGod was an apocalyptic concept in the message of Jesus, and from that moment forwardthis was accepted as a basic tenet . . . , Jesus and the Language of the Kingdom(Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975), p. 35.3Joel B. Green, Kingdom of God, in The N ew Dictionary of Christian Ethics andPastoral Theology, edited by David Atkinson and David Field (Leicester: IntervarsityPress, 1992). Green also notes that kingdom appears only twice in the Fourth Gospel(3:3,5; cf. 18:36) and rarely in the remainder of the New Testament.

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384 Theology Todayapocalyptic notions of the kingdom to make Jesus message morerelevant to the m ode rn mind. R eferential ideals of one type or a notherhave bee n posed to explain what Jesus really mea nt when h e m ad eapocalyptic statements. Whether intended or not, the unfortunateconsequence of this reinterpre tation has been to minimize th e value ofJesus life and m essage for pre sen t ethical conside rations and for th ecreation of mod ern theologies of culture.Perhaps Rudolf Bultmann delivered the most convincing argumentfor a kerygma free d from its historical conditions. W hile accepting tha tJesus assumed an apocalyptic framework, Bultmann maintained that,because this fram ewo rk was based upon a prescientific cosmology, anyliteral interpretation of Jesus proclamation of the kingdom wouldmask the true natu re of his actual message of au then tic existence.H en ce , essential for Bultm ann was Jesus own self-understanding andnot th e determ inative social world, specific activities, o r contem porarychallenges that placed that self-understanding within a particularhistorical context:

T he real significance of the Kingdom of God for the m essage of Jesusdoes not in any sense depend upon the dramat ic events a t tending i t scoming, nor on any circumstances which th e imagination can conceive. Itinterests him not a t all as a describable sta te of existence, but ra ther as th etranscendent event.4Bultmanns proposal has been essentially confirmed by other bibli-cal theologians. They may not sha re his radical historical skepticism o rhis philosophical existentialism, but they hold nonetheless that Jesus,as the savior of the world, transcended any particular meanings anapocalyptic kingdom of God would have elicited within the religiousand sociopolitical struggles of th e Jewish nation an d cult.

IIn recent years, however, an increasing number of scholars have

come to question whethe r Jesus actually proclaimed the im minen t endof the present age.5 Th ese prop one nts of a non-eschatologicalJesus ho pe t o recover his dynamic significance for hu man culture, anele m en t all too often marginalized in images of a Jesus who expects thecataclysmic end of the world. Like those advocating the dominantparadigm, propon ents of this approach a re persuaded that it isimpossible to overcome t he radical disjunction separating apocalypticconceptuality from hu man history.A key element in the current debate surely lies in how apocalyptic

itself is to be understood . Many scholars tre at apocalyptic virtuallyas a synonym for eschatology, thus leading scholarship toward a4Rudolf Bultmann, Jesus and the Word (New York: Cha rles S cribners Sons, 1934), p.41.% ee Marcus Borg, ATem perate Case for a Non-Eschatological Jesus,Foundationsand Facets Forum 2 / 3 (1986), pp. 81-102; also his excellent survey of recent Jesusscholarship, Portraits of Jesus in Contemporary North American Scholarship,Harvard Theological Review 84 /1 (Jan., 1991), pp. 1-22.



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Jesus, Apocalyptic, and World Transformationdiscussion of expectations of the e nd of hum an history an d th e comingof the Son of Man. Since these concepts are assumed to bepost-Easter in origin, notions of an apocalyptic Jesus are thusdismissed out-of-hand. Others use apocalyptic primarily as anadjective describing a specific body of literature. However, I under-stand apocalyptic quite simply as a cosmic vision of reality thatannounces a divine plan for creations deliverance from bondage.Apocalyptic is a disclosure or revelation, first witnessed by anannoun cing prop he t, which is unfolding in the realm of spirit andwhich is, at the present moment, bringing human history to thethreshold of a great reversal. It thereby delegitimizes the presentsuperior position of those groups in opposition to th e envisioned divinepurpose.h

The rejection of the apocalyptic Jesus by the vast majority of NewTestament scholars and biblical theologians, however, is not simply acase of semantics. T he present study uncovers th e de ep er herm eneuti-cal presuppositions that provide the basis for tha t decision, organizingthe material into four oppositional themes: the particular real versusthe universal ideal, time versus culture, the individual versus thesociocom mu nal, and a spirituality of world versus an aworldly spiritua l-ity. Though these four categories may rarely appear together asdeterminative elements within any given work and admittedly aresomewhat artificial, they do serve to highlight the subconscious gridshaping the post-Enlightenment quest for the historical Jesus. Incarrying out a critical evaluation of Jesus resea rch, past a nd prese nt, Iwill suggest some signposts for a new paradigm, one that enables areconsideration of the apocalyptic teachings an d actions of Jesus.(1) The Particular versus the Universal-The liberal scho ol of th enineteenth century attempted to explicate the personality of Jesus,charting his progressive development from a Jewish teacher to theChristian messiah . For liberals, Jesus was essentially a religious geniuswho, through the realization of his own true being, achieved thedivine-human consciousness held t o b e t he u ltimate possibility for allhuman beings. Relying primarily on the structure of the Gospel ofMark, these liberals highlighted the apparent alterations in thestrategic activity of Jesus mission, which they took to be clues to hisown growing self-understanding. During the first stage of his publiclife, Jesus was thought t o have fully accepted t he popular Jewish ide assurrounding t he com ing age of Gods earthly reign. How ever, d u e tothe failures apparent in the practical outworking of that vision ofreality, Jesus was led to see the transitory, limited nature of thosebeliefs and activities. H e was compelled, then , to formulate his unique

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hThis working d efinition is an amalgamation of what Paul Hanson presents as twoseparate definitions for prophetic eschatology and apocalyptic eschatology, adistinction w hich I do not accept. See Paul D. Hanson, The Dawn ofApoculyptic, secondedition (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979), pp . 11-12,433.by guest on January 28, 2013ttj.sagepub.comDownloaded from


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386 Theology Todayproclamation of an inward kingdom of rep en tan ce within hum anconsciousness.The nineteenth-century quest for the historical Jesus, then, largelyassumed that the m eaning of Jesus for the m ode rn age may only beuncovered once the concrete ideologies and specific options thatconditionally shape d his life ar e fully shed . T o th at extent, it set u p afalse hermeneutical alternative: ultimate, transcendent truth or lim-ited, historical experience.If this rather Platonic notion of truth were merely a relic of thedistant past, perhaps the above discussion might only be a pedanticrecasting of a well-worn topic, but the fact is that the gulf betweenparticular truth and its universal expression continues deeply toinfluence much of the discussion regarding Jesu s of Nazare th.

Fo r example, in a mo re contem porary work claiming to uncover thea uth en tic voice of Jesus, Jam es Breech, who clearly oper ate s morein the tradition of Bultmann than in the spirit of the nineteenthcentury, contends that, although Jesus experienced kingdom, heheld no concep tual cont en t of the kingdom of G od th at would link it tohis own culture. Th e issue for Breech pertain s not only to the natu re ofhistorical trut h but also to t he question of its accessibility:[Tlhere is absolutely no basis for assuming that Jesus shared thecosmological, mythological, or religious ideas of his contemporaries. Thecore sayings and parables are absolutely silent about such concepts as . . .the end of the world, the last judgment, angels and the like. Thus wecannot approach Jesus as a historical personage. . . .It would be terribly misleading, however, to suggest that Breechrepresents the consensus of current New Testament scholarship. Itwould be more accurate to say the re is no consensus. Especially in th elast decade, though, th er e has been a significant movem ent to recoverwhat can b e known of Jesus as a first-century M edite rrane an Jew whocarried out his mission predominantly within a rural peasant society.

The collective efforts of these scholars have been called the thirdquest, and t he ir results have given confidence th at they ca n sketch afairly full and historically defensible portrait of J e ~ u s . ~hough themovem ent ha s no singular methodology or unified orientation, it hasgenerally posed Jesus as a wisdom teacher and prophet, vitallyconcerned for th e renewal of Jewish faith and t he future destiny, orrestoration, of the Jewish people.Even within this third quest, however, the relationship betweenJames Breech, The Silence of Jesus: The Authentic Voice of the Historical Man(Philad elphia: Fortres s Pre ss, 1983 ), p. 218; see also pp. 11-12,29.sMarcus Borg, Jesus:A New Vision (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987), p. 15. Seealso A. E. Harvey, Jesus and the Constraints of Histoly (Philadelphia: Westminister,1982); E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philad elphia: Fortress Press, 1985); JohnRiches, Jesus and the Transformation of Judaism (New York: Seabury, 1982); RichardHorsley, Jesus and the Spiral of Violence (San Francisco: Ha rper & Row, 1987); and Jo hnDominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (SanFrancisco: Ha rper Collins, 1992).



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Jesus, Apocalyptic, and World Transformationultimate truth and contingent history often lies hidden and inunresolved tension. To cite one example, Bruce Chilton argues forciblythat Jesus believed the kingdom of God had come in power through hisown teaching and activity and that he urged anyone who would fullyaccept it to enter its reality. Yet, Chilton maintains that Jesus rejectedthe myths associated with the language of the kingdom in first-century Palestine, whether nationalistic, localized, cultic, legalistic orapo~alyptic.~o think otherwise, Chilton fears, would fix Jesusunderstanding of the kingdom of God spatially and temporally within alimited world of meaning that compromises its character as divinetranscendence.1It would seem more consistent with a method that stakes its groundin history, however, to take the particular as ones starting point. Thereason Jesus life has universal import for the redemption of humanityand the total scope of reality is that he embodied his message andcause in history. It is only through historical mediation that revelationreaches us at all. In other words, truth has meaning for us only as itbecomes incarnate.Of course, such assertions are met with protests by those who seetheir own absolute truths threatened by the uncertainties of historicalrelativism. Nevertheless, we may wish to proclaim the necessity ofabsolute truths, but we are still faced with how we, a people of limitedperception and experience, may come to understand them. We cannotescape history any more than we can escape the air we breathe.Even though it is not possible to determine with certainty thereligious, cultural, and sociopolitical significance of the kingdom ofGod in the world of Jesus, it surely would have evoked specific imagesin the minds of his hearers. Rather than transform him into a suigeneris figure by recasting that message into preconceived ideals thatmight rest comfortably with our age, it would seem more appropriateto pursue the social realities of Jewish peasantry in Jesus own day andto investigate the history of other first-century prophets and religiouslyinspired movements that pursued the transformation of their culture.Biblical scholars have too often assumed that transcendent religiousideals are the primary or, at times, the sole motivating force of history.They ignore the social obligations, local movements, political struggles,and religious conflicts that would lead to a fuller understanding of thehistorical context. Typically, they have interpreted cultural symbolsand meaning systems within a realm of free-floating ideas existingapart from societys traditions, institutions, relational networks, and

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9Bruce P. Chilton and J.1.H. McDonald, Jesus and the Ethics of the Kingdom (GrandRapids, Eerdmans, 1987), p. 69. See also Bruce Chilton, God in Strength in TheKingdom of God in the TeachingofJesus, edited by Bruce Chilton (Philadelphia: FortressPress, 1984).Thil ton, The Kingdom of God in th e TeachingofJesus, p. 23.Richard Horsley has carried out some exciting work in this direction. Seeparticularly two of his works: Bandits, Prophets and Messiahs: Popular Movements at theTime of Jesus (San Francisco: Harp er & Row, 1985)an d Jesus and the Spiral of Violence.by guest on January 28, 2013ttj.sagepub.comDownloaded from


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388 Theology Todaypractical structures. F or th at reason, biblical scholarship often reflectsa schizophrenic split, between the real and the ideal, between theparticular an d th e universal, betwee n text and context.(2) Time versus Culture-The fa ilure of the kingdom of God toarrive is a primary herm eneutical key in mo de rn Jesus studies.* Sincethe consensus of that research maintains that Jesus expected animminent kingdom of God, scholars have been compelled either totranspose a transcenden t, non-ma terial referent o nt o Jesus proclam a-tion of the kingdom or, somehow, to adjust to the fact that he hadwrongly foreseen the im mediate en d of the w 0r1d.l~Faced with theseoptions, the majority of scholars, in a n atte m pt to salvage the etern alsignificance of Jesus for Christian theology, have highlighted theredem ptive meaning of his own personal destiny an d th e obedience h erendered t o his God.T he presum ption of imminence is itself undergirded by the assump-tion that Jesus was primarily preoccupied with the end of time; thekingdom of God would soon arrive to bring about the end of thephysical world and its linea r flow of na tu ra l history. On tha t basis, NewTestament scholarship has operated predominantly in the tensionbetween the already an d the not yet, despite th e seeming incongru-ence of this view with t he life and teachings of Jesus.Inde ed, in recent years th e legitimacy of tha t herm eneutic has comeund er serious challenge. Bruce M alina, for instance, d oub ts wh ethe ranyone in th e first-century world would have defined p res en t reality insuch future-oriented categories. In traditional pe asa nt societies, whichare pre-Einsteinian, pre-Industrial Revolution, pre-Enlightenment,pre-Newtonian, and pre-monastic, time is predominantly present-orien ted , funct ional , and n on -d i re~ t io na l . ~ime is rarely, if ever,viewed in traditional cultural settings as an abstract co ncept removedfrom th e patt erns a nd rituals th at relate it to t he ordering of social life.In that sense, the past and the future do not exist apart from somedirect, organic link to a presently-experienced person, event, orprocess; the forthcoming is itself already on the horizon of thepresent.l5Fo r those of us who regulate o ur daily lives by th e calenda r a nd t heclock, such a way of thinking is distinctively alien. W e would d o well,

I2In fact, Schweitzer, whose work was im portant for twentieth-century Jesus research,based his reconstruction of Jesus life on a triple miscalculation. See Albe rt Schw eitzer,The Quest of the Historical Jesus (New York: Th e M acmillan Co., 1956; first Ge rm anedition 1906).I3Even C. H . Dodds realized eschatology, with its em phasis on the kingdom of Godas both present and future, does little to resolve this problem. It is still ultimatelydependent on the future, imminent kingdom becoming proleptically realized in thepresent. If Jesus indeed based the content of his mission on the end of natural history,then the failure of that event to transpire in the last 2000 years is still a historicalproblem for those who follow Dodds model. See C. H. Dodd, The Parables of theKingdom, evised edition (New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1961).14BruceMalina, Christ and Time: Swiss or Mediterranean?, The Catholic BiblicalQuarterly 51 (January, 1989):pp . 19,30.I5Ibid.,pp. 13,17 .



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Jesus, Apocalyptic, and World Transformationhowever, to imagine how strange our own temporal orientation wouldbe to other cultures, past and present. The gap between culturalparadigms is depicted exceptionally well in the movie Black Robe, afilm that narrates the awkward and often tragic relationships estab-lished between North American Indians and the French Jesuitmissionaries who came to bring them salvation. The Huron tribe isconvinced that the clock is the god of the foreigners because it seems todetermine their activities throughout the course of the day and issymbolic of their anxiety regarding immortality, where time has noend. The Jesuits, for their part, are frustrated by their inability tocommunicate to the Indians the urgency of making a decisionregarding their future eternal destiny independent of present socialrelations and transactions. The result is confusion and gross misunder-standing.Looking beyond our own cultural myopia, it is likely that first-century Jewish language about the end referred neither to linearhistorical time nor to the demand of bringing people face to face witheternity. Apocalyptic language was directed to the qualitative dimen-sion of life and, in that respect, to the resolution of the presenthistorical crisis; it indicated a depth experience rather than anobjective future expectation.16 In that respect, it presented the endas the fulfillment of a promise, Gods fidelity in the midst of suffering,frustration, and hopelessness.The summary of Jesus proclamation of the kingdom provided by theGospel of Mark informs the reader that the time is fulfilled. Thekingdom of God has drawn near! (Mark 1:15). Even though manyscholars begin their apologetic for a thoroughly imminent eschatologyhere, this verse actually appears to signal a propitious moment, orkairos, for the vision and hope of a new and present reality. Whentradition and meaning are transmitted through ritual activity-naturalprocesses (for example, childbirth, puberty, and seasons), archetypicalstories, and myths-things are done when the kuiros is right. Given thecrisis of the moment it is time to repent and believe the good news.It is extremely doubtful that Jesus viewed time as a linear progres-sion running from past to present toward a future consummation. Inthe first century, time was thought to move in terms of generations,epochs, and ages; the end of one was understood as the beginning ofanother. The danger of using last, final, or end in our ownpost-Enlightenment universe to describe apocalyptic expectations ofthe first century is that their vitality becomes bifurcated and compart-mentalized. In our modern conceptual world, the language of apocalyp-tic communicates an otherworldly, ahistorical hope, while, in the firstcentury, it was a dynamic critique of the inherited symbols, rites,institutions, and relational networks that ordered the present age.More specifically, Jesus saw himself standing at a threshold of

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16John J. Collins, A pocalyptic Eschatology as the Transcendence of Death inChilton, The Kingdom of God in the Teachingof Jesus, p. 76.by guest on January 28, 2013ttj.sagepub.comDownloaded from


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390 Theology Todayhistory: Truly I say to you the re are some standing he re who will nottaste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power(Mark 9:l and parallels). T he corrupt age was passing away, an d thenew age of Gods reigning was draw ing near. Jesu s teachings definedthe c haracter of that kingdom within his particular culture: T he socialscripts of a poor beggar are reversed with those of a callous rich ma n(Luke 16:19-31); t he re pe nta nt, though despised, publican is acceptedbefore the righteous Pharisee (Luke 18:10-13); the laborers in thevineyard regain the land controlled by a greedy, absentee landlord(Matthew 20:1-16; Mark 12:l-12); a de spera te and persistent widowreceives mercy from, of all people, a judge (Luke 18:2-6); a peasantfarm er is miraculously ab le to find the land an d seed he nee ds in orderto cultivate a sustainable harvest (M ark 4:l-9). Even without refer-ence to his acts of healing an d caring, Jesus d oes not sound like on ewho is anxiously awaiting the end of all material creation and itscorresponding history.Ones understanding of the kingdom of G od in th e ministry of Jesus,therefore, is at least partially a product of the conceptual universewithin ones hermeneutical framework. O ne app roac h utilizes staticcategories of time and world: There is a singular, monistic worldmoving through time to a pred eterm ined end . Since the new heavenand new e arth have failed t o arrive in ord er to put t he old world to a nend-neither in th e life of Jesu s (as he so eagerly anticipated) no r inth e subsequen t two thousand years of hum an history-the primarytheological problem revolves around time. Once linear time (or itsen d) is held u p as the primary factor for understanding the kingdom ofGod, one is forced to eliminate that metaphor as meaningful forhistorical faith in a m od ern world.T h e meaning of th e kingdom of Go d shifts radically once reversal-of-culture replaces end-of-time as th e hermeneutical key. Time and w orldar e sustained in a fluid relationship, not fixed by d ete rm ine d points inchronological time but by the social relationships that maintain thatworld. Put in contem porary term s, in th e old age th e vast majority livein dire poverty, while war and consum ption thre ate n t he very survivalof th e planet. T h e limit of th at world is marke d by a selfish mentality.But within time ( an d not at its linear e nd ), tha t seemingly invincibleage will crumble a nd give way to a new age bord ere d by a comm unalspirit. T he ce ntral theological problem is the creation of this new age,prep aring its coming.(3) The Individual versus the Sociocommunal-For th e last twocenturies biblical scholars have more often than not limited thesignificance of Jesus life to the demands of the individual, largely

See David Batstone, From Conquest to Stmggle: Jesus of Nazareth in Latin America(Albany: SUNY Press, 1991), pp. 188-89. There I give a practical example of thishermeneutical conflict between time and culture by reference to a dialogical Bible studyfrom the The Gospel in Solentiname by Ernesto Cardenal (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books,1976).by guest on January 28, 2013ttj.sagepub.comDownloaded from


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Jesus, Apocalyptic, and World Transformationignoring his challenge to the broader society. His message, full ofmetaphors relating to every aspect of human and cosmological reality,has regularly be en stripped of its rich historical import a nd red uced toa concern for personal morality and m eaning.

By and large, recent scholarship is considerably more aware of th ecentrality of community in the New T est am en t an d has moved beyonda narrow preoccupation with the redemption of the individual.Especially within the third q uest, considerable efforts are being m adeto un dersta nd Jesus message to th e Jewish people as a nation and ,concurrently, his call to the disciples to fashion a new community.Frequently highlighted is the fact that Jesus proclamation of thekingdom of G od inco rporated a historical dem an d for justice in wordand de ed . Jesus offer of grace t o all people is consistently taken bythese scholars as a challenge to bre ak down those ba rriers that preventcomm union with o the rs who differ from oneself in terms of race , class,gender, o r circumstance.Even so, the individual often still functions in contemporaryscholarship as th e primary da tum for religious reflection. Even w hensociocommunal transformation is taken into account, there ten ds to b ea strong bias toward t he belief th at ch ange s tart s with the individualan d indirectly works itself ou t t o th e wider society. This perspective isrooted in the widely held conviction that Jesus never addressed thelarger social and political issues of his day, but oriented his missiononly toward th e conv ersion and w ell-being of individuals.It is quite unlikely, however, that any first-century person wouldhave perceived himself or herself to be autonomous from a socialnetwork. As anthropologist C lifford Ge ertz points o ut, the concern forindividual self-realization an d develo pm ent is distinctively a concept ofa postindu strial society:

The Wes tern not ion of the person as a bounded, unique, more or lessintegrated motivational and cognitive universe, a dynamic center ofawareness , emotion, judgment, and action organized into a dis t inctivewhole and set contrastively both against othe r such wholes a nd against itssocial and na tural backgro und, is, however incorrigible it may see m to us,a rathe r peculiar idea within the context of th e worlds cultures.*

In tha t light, it is practically m eaningless t o spea k of th e transform a-tion of th e prem ode rn, Med iterran ean individual without addressingin the sam e brea th th at persons relationship to, or exclusion from, thekinship network and th e larger sociopolitical structures.In a postindustrialized world, it is hard to imagine life in a culturewhere social status is primarily preserved or changed through anetwork of relationships rather than by means of material acquisitionor personal achievement. In the social world of Jesus, however,relationships were arranged in a closed universe of limited good.T h e benefits o r losses experienced by on e person o r household directly

*Clifford Ge ertz, From the Natives Point of View: On the N ature of Anthropologi-cal Unde rstanding, in Local Knowledge (New York: Basic Books, 1983),p. 59.

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392 Theology Todayaffected the statu s of o thers within the group. H um an behavior wasprofoundly determined by reciprocal obligations, set in vertical orhorizontal relationships, and within ones status in the householdi t ~ e 1 f . l ~

It is quite unfortunate that, in identifying the aims of Jesus,mainstream biblical scholarship chooses to set religious renewal overagainst political transformation. It is also extremely doubtful thatanyone in first-century Palestine would have made that distinction.The Romans permitted surrogate Jewish leaders to run the dailyaffairs of their own people as long as they ma intained th e social ord erand expedited the collection of taxes. That explains why those whocontrolled the media of salvation in the Jewish cult were also in aposition to define the socio-political structures; the social construc-tions of clean/unclean, religious purity/defilement, and sacred/profane served a vital ideological function. By generating a series ofrules for maintaining an appropriate relationship to the power, thereligious establishm ent was able quite overtly to control and arr an ge anetwork of socia l obl igat ions and i n d e b t e d n e s ~ . ~ ~It is not difficult, therefore, to comprehend why Jesus message ofth e dawning new age was such a thr ea t to th e religious a nd politicalauthorities of his day. His judgment of the pre sent age would havelikely stunned the Sadducees, who controlled the Te m ple and likelyused its power to sacralize th e collection of taxes from t he rural poor,and would have incensed the Pharisees, who functioned as thetheological guardians of tha t social ord er. Jesus bitt er den unciation ofthose who had perverted the true c hara cter of the Law for their ownen ds may also b e understood in this context. The c entral issue for Jesuswas not the ultimacy of th e Law, bu t th e dom inance of the world th athad t he Law as on e of its pillars. Law places a religio-ethical sanctionon a given construction of reality; world is usually accepted notmerely as what is but more insidiously as what must be, or whatought to be, o r what has been orda ined to be.21It is ofte n overlooked how ideologically explosive th e notion of t hekingdom of God was within Jesus own social milieu. In first-centuryPalestine, it did not have the sa m e me taphorical and strictly religiousconnotation th at makes that term so safe within ou r theological world.In fact, it evoked the mem ory and visionary impulse of Yahweh whoacts to deliver Yahwehs chosen o nes from occupation an d oppres-sion at the hands of alien nations. Intrinsic to tha t symbolic universe is

Bruce Malina, The New Testament World (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1981), pp.89-90.20Sheldon senberg, Power through Temple and Tora h in Greco-Rom an Palestine,Christianity, Judaism and O ther Greco-R oman Cults, edited by Jacob Neusner (Leiden:E.J. Brill, 1975),p. 27.ZIWilliam R . Herzog, Th e Q uest for th e H istorical Jesus and the DiscoveIy of th eApocalyptic Jesus, Pacific Theological Review, 19/2 (Spring, 1985), p. 35. I am greatlyindebted to Herzog for introducing me to the vision of apocalyptic as a metaphor forworld transformation. See also Herzog, Apocalypse Then and Now: Apocalyptic andthe H istorical Jesus R econsidered, Pacific Theological Review, 1811(Fall, 1984).



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Jesus, Apocalyptic, and World Transformationthe conviction that the chosen suffer and the unjust prosper in thepresent day only because history stands a t the brink of a great reversal.Though Jesus surely must have been aware of the politicallycontentious baggage t ha t accom panied th e use of apocalyptic imagery,it does not ap pe ar th at h e balked from utilizing it to challenge a n agepresenting itself as immutable and immortal. It is inconceivable thatthe people of his day would have interpreted the language of thekingdom or the restored Israel or the new temple a s innocuousreferences to the ruling and redeeming activity of God solely withinthe lives of individuals. It was a culturally relevant discourse castingdynamic judgment on the existing social structures and suggestingalternative foundations. The message is clear: This corrupt world iscoming to an e nd; prepare for the dawning of a new age.

When the gospel is limited to a modern conception of personalexistence, those realities grounded in a wider social existence areestranged from the realm of religious experience. On ce tha t meaning-world is accepted, one can only assume, as did C. H. Dodd, thathistory in th e individual life is the sa m e stuff as history a t large; th at is,it is significant in so fa r as it serves to bring me n [sic] face to face withGod.22A system of social ethics based on historical rea lities ha s slightplace in a world successfully dem ythologized of th e world of Jesus,for the n everything revolves ar ou nd th e ultimacy of th e individual.(4) A Spirituality of World versus an Aworldly Spirituality-Mostcontem porary theologians find it an ard uo us task to identify a world ofspirit in a cu lture th a t nearly exclusively employs rationa l ca tego ries ofexperience. Spirituality is inherently problematic in our day becauseou r language and conceptuality are so thoroughly tied t o a materialis-tic an d technological cosmology. T o sp eak of the existence of anotherworld of reality, one is required to turn to fictional categories-story, analogy, picture-to transc end , or a t least to distan ce oneselffrom, the real world. T hat pe r tains not only to our m ore patterned

ways of conceiving of spirit-celestial pe rsonal ities such as gods ,angels, or demons-but also to the m ore intangible qualities ofexperience, such a s love, hope, joy, patience, gentleness, and goodness.T he notion of a noth er layer of reality lying beyond, behind, or in th emidst of sensory perception is the heritage of nearly every pre-industrial culture. Thou gh th e particular forms of this spirituality ar eas diverse as the cultures themselves, this primordial tradition,M arcus Borg suggests, consistently m ainta ined two essential claims: (i)spiritual reality is the ground for all being and meaning, and (ii) theworld of spirit is known not merely through rational reflection orprimal n eed , but through a n actual enco unte r with it.23Therefore , thepeople of a prim oridal tradition could mo re easily allow an overlap-ping perception of spirit and na tur e in defining their exp erience of th eworld.

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22Dodd,The Parables of he Kingdom, p. 152.23Borg, esus:A New Vision, pp. 2 6 2 7 .by guest on January 28, 2013ttj.sagepub.comDownloaded from


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394 Theology TodayUnfortunately, these nuances of cultural orientation have been loston much of Western biblical scholarship. Apocalyptic has commonlybeen deprecated either because of its metaphysical and cosmologicaldualism or because it is conceived as an otherworldly concept which

merely offers the suffering and alienated an escape from real life. PaulHanson, for example, who has influenced a generation of scholarsregarding the meaning of apocalyptic, claims that prophetic eschatol-ogy is transformed into apocalyptic at the point where the task oftranslating the cosmic vision into the categories of mundane reality isa b d i ~ a t e d . ~ ~iven a modern cosmology, which establishes spatialdistinctions between the mundane and the supramundane, Hansonsdefinition instinctively rings true. However, depictions of heavenlybodies that operate with intentionality, miraculous events that bendwhat we expect from nature, and battles that occur between spiritualforces are integral to mundane experience within a primordial world-inother words, to the world of the biblical testimony.

In the Gospels, the intersection of the material and spiritual realitiesis most clearly demonstrated in the kingdom parables, but it is alsoevident in the more cosmologically-based apocalyptic discourses, suchas Mark 13. This sermon is introduced by a prologue: Jesusdenounces the Temple-based system, which serves the interests of asmall, wealthy oligarchy while burdening, or at least ignoring, themajority of the poor population (12:38-44). Though the disciples are inawe of the apparent permanency and sacredness of the Temple, Jesusinforms them that it will one day be judged and destroyed (13:l-2).The disciples subsequent query about the end of the age is met by amixture of warnings and cosmological signs, which many biblicalinterpreters have taken to be Jesus abdication of historical reality infavor of vindication in a future heavenly realm. There will be anoutbreak of calamity, wars between nations, civil strife and violence,persecution of believers, earthquakes, plagues, and famines (13:7-13).Then the sun will be darkened, the moon will turn to blood, stars andplanets will fall from the heavens, all of which will convulse the entirecosmos (13:24-25). Does that not spell the end of the natural worldand its history?Perhaps not if the cultural universe within which it was spoken heldan expanded vision of the dynamism of spirit linking the cosmos to thehistorical process and to the formation of the social order itself.Certainly the words of Philo of Alexandria suggest just that:

Th e complete whole arou nd us is held together by invisible powers . . .which the crea t ion has made to reach f rom the ends of the ear th toheavens farthest bounds, taking forethought that what was well bound24PaulHanson, Old Testament Apocalyptic Re-examined, Inferprefution25 (1971),p. 476.



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Jesus, Apocalyptic, and World Transformation 395should not be loosened: for the powers of the Universe . . .are chains thatcannot be broken.25

The correspondence between the heavens and the earth indicated inthis passage suggests that what the powers bind on earth are integrallyrelated to that which is bound in the heavens.A related cosmic vision may be discovered in the Roman religiousworld, a syncretistic collage of astrology, temple cults, and naturereligions, which aimed to consolidate to Roman rule the consent of thegods, the sun (nearly always associated with the divine emperor), thestars and planets, and every other spiritual power. In this context,Jesus apocalyptic sayings indicate a direct challenge to the sacredlegitimacy of the present order. The utter chaos in the heavens and theinsufferable turmoil on earth proclaim that the divine Spirit of truthhas n o longer consented to the peace of Rome which had beenfortified by appeals to the fruitfulness of the earth and the security ofits people.26 n that respect, Jesus prophetic message of denunciationand announcement hearkens back to a similar apocalyptic visionproclaimed by Isaiah: On that day Yahweh will punish the host ofheaven in heaven, and on earth the kings of the earth. . . . Then themoon will be abashed, and the sun ashamed; for the Lord of hosts willreign. . . (Isaiah 24:21-23).27In sum, apocalyptic was a dynamic medium of spiritual power andlife in the social world of Jesus. When it addressed the spiritualagencies, or principalities and powers, considered the purveyors ofdarkness and light within the mundane world of daily life, it was at thesame time also treating a profoundly cultural reality. It offered a way oflooking at the world that rejected the dominant powers as the ultimatepoint of reference for the world and posited another horizon wherejustice may reign.

I1Apocalyptic imagery will always be rejected as long as it is assumedthat its primary referent is to a modern, scientific image of the naturalworld, the life of which will come to a close with the arrival of Godskingdom. However, it takes on profound meaning once world isconceived as a symbolic universe, which simultaneously reflects anddetermines the reality of a human culture.Though a cultures dominant group nearly always seeks to legitimizethe existing social arrangement by weaving a complex quilt of myths,ideals, values, practical knowledge, and anticipations that establish

25Philo of Alexandria, De. rnig., p. 181; see Walter Wink, The Powers: Naming thePowers, Volume 1 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), p. 160.26Herzog, Th e Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Discovery of the ApocalypticJesus, p. 33.*Cf. th e victory song of Judges 5, n which Yahweh and the heavenly hosts are alliedwith the stars in their courses as they battle against Israels Can aan ite enemies an d theapocalyptic vision of Daniel 7, where Michael and the other heavenly agents fightsupramundane demonic forces allied with the imperial cou rt of Antiochus Epiphanes.by guest on January 28, 2013ttj.sagepub.comDownloaded from


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396 Theology Todaytha t reality could not b e otherwise, in tru th, any given social world is awillful arrangement. The rules, laws, attitudes, identities, representa-tions, roles, and intentions practiced by the people w ho comprise anyhuman society are neither ordained by the heavens nor ruled byanonymous historical forces. Cultural systems are humanly con-structed worlds relying on a foundation of values for their productionand a universe of meaning for their sustenance. For that reason,religion is often a crucial source for ideologies th at sanction a cultura lsystem because with its legitimating force , any social constru ction ofreality, including its prejudices, distribution of wealth, class or rankstratification, policies, and exploitation, becom es th e Divine construc-tion of reality.28In representing the world of Jesus an d his culture in ways tha t op enup new meanings, care must be taken not simply to substitutesupposed universal sociological principles for the ir theological coun ter-p a r t ~ . ~ ~or instance, in some streams of scholarship, it has beenfashionable to in terp ret apocalyptic movem ents of the first century bycomparing them to sects, cargo cults, and other millenarian move-ments from a variety of cultures, eras, and geographical locations.30But by seeking to glean sociological principles that might provide aframew ork for every historical situatio n, past or present, that app roac hfails t o recognize th e distinctiveness of cultural trad itions. As RichardHorsley rightly argues, it would seem m ore app ropria te to lea rn . . .from t he social scientists how to analyze ever m ore precisely th e actualsocial form s cu rre nt (a t various levels) in Palestin ian Jewish society atthe time of Jesus an d to examine how, within th at historical context,the myths and traditions of the ir own religious a nd racial heritage w ereappropriated by specific individuals, institutions, communities, andsocial movement^.^^Philosophical idealism to the contrary, meaning is to be found notmerely in texts, symbols, or theological or sociological ideas, but isdefined and refined in conc rete, historical experience. So Jesus invitedand inspired his heare rs to m ake specific, historical choices tha t brokewith th e powers of evil to crea te th e conditions by which new worldsmight be generated. His works of compassion and his parabolicteachings of reversal provided glimpses of another world where thepower relations and social givens of this world are suspended andexamined , perhaps even subverted and ~ h a t t e r e d . ~ ~esus historical

28William Herzog, The Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Discovery of theZ9Horsley, Prophets of Old, p. 436.E.g., see John Gager, Kingdom and Com munity: The Social World of Early Christianity(Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1975); Howard Clark Kee, Community ofth e New Age:Studies in Marks Gospel (Philadelphia: Westminister, 1977); Alan F. Segal, Rebecca SChildren: Judaism and Christianity in the Rom an World (Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1986).

Apocalyptic Jesus,p. 33. For further discussion, see Batstone, pp. 104-119.

31Horsley, Prophets of Old, p. 436.32Herzog,The Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Discovery of the ApocalypticJesus, p. 35.by guest on January 28, 2013ttj.sagepub.comDownloaded from


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Jesus, Apocalyptic, and World Transformationmission was not only directed toward the millenarianistic envision-ing of another world, but it also sought the actual transformation ofhuman history itself.A reconsideration of the apocalyptic teachings and actions of Jesuswill locate him squarely within his social and historical world. Hisproclamation of the arrival of Gods reign may properly be seen asreversing the value judgments of a world that held up its ownconstruction of reality as ultimate. It is because Jesus fleshed out in themidst of his own exigencies the values and spirit of a living, compassion-ate God that his life and message are so significant for moderntheology and ethics, which also must speak truthfully and meaningfullyto the inescapable challenges of the present historical moment.Indeed, the kairos is now, and our global community cries out for thegood news of an approaching dawn when love and justice will reign.

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1992 - david b. batstone - jesus, apocalyptic, and world transformation

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