The Gospel Writers within Apocalyptic Context

OK, I lifted that quote off one of my favorite songs.

What if this is the point?

If the world is ending… We toast to it.

The Jesus Movement

What is an end-times cult doing fervently drawing from apocalyptic literature and clinging to the Law for deliverance from violent occupation? Surely this is one way to understand the gospel writers’ frequent appeal to lines like, “to fulfill what has been spoken in the Scriptures.” To gather what I take to be the key features of the first century Jesus Movement, consider this rough outline:

• Speaking against amassing wealth

• Encouraging those with means to sell what they own and follow The Way

• Lifting up nonviolent resistance to empire

• Demanding t’shuvah, a return—returning and turning—stop straying from the Law and turn toward Torah, toward the Law and the Prophets

• Embracing the covenant of Moses, signaled by Elijah (John the Baptizer)

• Offering ritual immersion as a post-Temple alternative to the altar offering that affirms and evolves the sacrificial system

• Commissioning the disciples to reach the lost sheep of the House of Israel (Matthew), symbolizing the twelve tribes and restoration of Israel, an end-times prophecy

• Feeding the multitudes like Elisha

• Feasting on the bread of heaven, manna, reminding the first century audience of Moses and the Exodus, that had been connected to the messianic age

• Reimagining meals, with Jesus who they called the Christos to establish a community meal that would mark the early Jesus Movement

• Repurposing the Scriptures of Israel to proclaim Jesus as the anointed one

• Recasting the messianic hope for the future as a realized eschatology that is at-hand

• Flipping the script from the mashiach who be known by conquering enemies to the mashiac revealed through the messiah’s torture, death, and resurrection

• Drawing from the Daniellic imagery of a double godhead, The Ancient of Days and Son of Man, to imbue Jesus with the authority to act in the name of the God of Israel

• Espousing a restoration theology to speak against the power and principalities of the first century

In broad outline, these are the rhetorical aims theological commitments of the developing gospel imagery over the first two hundred years of the common era. This is Christianity, when it was still a Jewish sect.

Walk on Water, Part Two

While researching the Sunday Post a couple weeks ago that included Jesus walking on water, I discovered several great discussions, implicitly and explicitly, drawing parallels between the gospel accounts, especially Mark, and the apocalyptic text, 2 Esdras. Most obviously for our focus here is this verse from 2 Esdras 13:32:

When these things take place and the signs occur that I showed you before, then my Son will be revealed, whom you saw as a man coming up from the sea.

This verse identifies “my Son,” the man coming up from the sea, as an end-times, messianic figure who is also God’s son. This identification is yet more salient later in the same text. 2 Esdras 7.28-29:

For my son the Messiah shall be revealed with those who are with him, and those who remain shall rejoice four hundred years. After those years my son the Messiah shall die, and all who draw human breath.

The messiah as God’s son, predestined to die, and “all who draw human breath”; an end-times prophecy. This reflects a new, burgeoning theological tradition in first and second century Jewish apocalyptic literature. How might we hear “This is my son the beloved with whom I’m well pleased,” in light of the author of 2 Esdras making similar proclamations about the man from the sea?

Messiah, Now as God’s Son

Modern readers must recognize that the messiah was not always viewed as God’s son. For example, 4Q246, a Qumran scroll, reports one of the earliest extant affiliations of messiah with “son of God”:

1. He will be called the son of God, they will call him the son of the Most High. But like the meteors

2. that you saw in your vision, so will be their kingdom. They will reign only a few years over

3. the land, while people tramples people and nation tramples nation.

4. Until the people of God arise; then all will have rest from warfare.

5. Their kingdom will be an eternal kingdom, and all their paths will be righteous. They will judge

6. the land justly, and all nations will make peace. Warfare will cease from the land,

7. and all the nations shall do obeisance to them. The great God will be their help,

8. He Himself will fight for them, putting peoples into their power,

9. overthrowing them all before them. God’s rule will be an eternal rule and all the depths of

10. [the earth are His]

I suggest we consider this alongside the double godhead of Daniel’s Ancient of Days and Son of Man, a label given to Jesus in the gospel accounts. We may now consider these ideas with respect to 2 Esdras, especially as it draws from Daniel:1

The Apocalypse of Ezra declares openly in favor of the “futurist” interpretation of the visions of Daniel … This interpretation is found in the Apocalypse of Baruch…and in the so-called Synoptic Apocalypse (Mark, 13.14-27), both of which reflect Jewish thought during the years following the fall of Jerusalem, A. D. 70.

I don’t want to lose the plot with so many quotes and references. In short, over the past few weeks, we’ve attempted to connect 2 Esdras, Daniel, and 2 Baruch to the gospel portrayal of Jesus, the Danielic Son of Man, and now, to the label, Son of God.

The eschaton is at-hand, Rome’s destruction of Jerusalem is a real focal point here. John and Jesus have been executed by Rome, and the Jesus Movement is in diaspora, with some remaining in Jerusalem. The prophecy is at a fever pitch, where is God’s eternal reign of peace?

We’ve noticed a man from the sea who is God’s son in 2 Esdras, and we’ve noticed themes of the flood and chaos monsters from Genesis in these same scenes about Jesus walking on water. Matthew, especially, positions Jesus as a new Moses, a law giver, warning of the eschaton and encouraging the House of Israel to return to the Law.

Michael Knibb (1982) writes:2

Thus there emerges in this chapter a picture of Ezra as a law-giver, a Second Moses, and this might suggest that apocalyptic has some links with law. This would correspond to the fact that the law…is frequently seen in 4 Ezra [2 Esdras] as the divinely given and only means of salvation (63).

Conclusion

The Law was Israel’s hope. Moses received it at Sinai, but he wouldn’t enter the land. He equipped his disciple, Joshua, and the covenant would be respected by the God of Israel, so long as Israel followed the Law.

Then the Northern Kingdom fell to Assyria.

Then the Southern Kingdom fell to Babylon.

Now the rebuilt Second Temple has fallen to Rome.

Where is God’s reign? The Law is our salvation. In effect, what we see in the first century is a transition from a fully human, military Davidic messiah who is to conquer foes and establish God’s reign toward a Divine messiah authorized by God, like the Son of Man, like the Son of God, who doesn’t conquer now, but instead, calls for a return to the Law, suffers, promises a return, and in the meantime, sends out his followers to all nations. Along the way, the new gentiles to the movement carry the covenant to the ends of the earth, and the people of Israel carry the law from the fallen Temple into the synagogues and homes.

Two thousand years after the Temple’s destruction, the nations have their figurehead in Christ and the Jews continue their commitment to the Law, repurposed for home ritual. Neither would exist were it not for the Jewish leaders of the first century: The Jesus Movement, with a gentile mission, and the Pharisees, with a commitment to the Law. Maybe now we better understand the oppositional posture of the gospel accounts.