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Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted, Who He Was
Who was Jesus? A prophet? There have been many of those. A miracle-worker? A radical revolutionary? A wise teacher? There have been many of these, too. In his latest book, renowned Scripture scholar Gerhard Lohfink asks, What is unique about Jesus of Nazareth, and what did he really want?
Lohfink engages the perceptions of the first witnesses of his life and ministry and those who handed on their testimony. His approach is altogether historical and critical, but he agrees with Karl Barth’s statement that “historical criticism has to be more critical.”
Lohfink takes seriously the fact that Jesus was a Jew and lived entirely in and out of Israel’s faith experiences but at the same time brought those experiences to their goal and fulfillment. The result is a convincing and profound picture of Jesus.
Lohfink engages the perceptions of the first witnesses of his life and ministry and those who handed on their testimony. His approach is altogether historical and critical, but he agrees with Karl Barth’s statement that “historical criticism has to be more critical.”
Lohfink takes seriously the fact that Jesus was a Jew and lived entirely in and out of Israel’s faith experiences but at the same time brought those experiences to their goal and fulfillment. The result is a convincing and profound picture of Jesus.
408 pages, Hardcover
First published November 8, 2011
97 people are currently reading
313 people want to read
About the author
Gerhard Lohfink
76 books16 followersRev. Father Gerhard Lohfink was professor of New Testament exegesis at the University of Tübingen. Since 1986, he has lived and worked as a theologian for the Catholic Integrated Community. His many books include Does God Need the Church? (Liturgical Press, 1999).
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March 23, 2024
Review of Jesus of Nazareth:
What He Wanted, Who He Was
By Gerhard Lohfink
(Greg Cusack, Reviewer)
Ms. Linda Maloney has given us an excellent translation of this important work by the German Catholic theologian, Dr. Gerhard Lohfink. Accordingly, the text – while often beautiful but always theological in tone – is quite accessible for even conversant laypeople. I think persons seriously interested in knowing more about Jesus and his times would benefit from this very readable, and often incredibly lovely, book.
What follows is not a thorough review of Lohfink’s book; rather, I have attempted to highlight some of its major themes, followed by some question/challenges of my own which remain.
As I read this book, I was repeatedly reminded of Reza Asian’s Zealot, which I recently finished. Both men portray a convincing picture both of the gritty reality of Palestine in Jesus’ day, as well why we should take the literalness of Jesus’ reported words very seriously. But they differ on some key points:
1. While Asian emphasizes Jesus’ teachings as intended for political revolution, Lohfink stresses that Jesus’ message – and his view of himself – transcended any such merely “social radicalism.” Lohfink gives us a Jesus thoroughly rooted in the faith system of his people: he saw himself as the fulfillment of the promises in the Scriptures; that is, he definitely had come to announce that the “kingdom of God” was coming very soon.
2. Asian argues that Jesus was one of those who were opposed to what the Temple and its priesthood had become (i.e., a part of the collaboration with Rome and an integral part of the rule of the powerful elite). Lohfink, while certainly not underplaying the number of times Jesus clashed with the religious “righteous” of his time, nor the seriousness of the threat to their credibility and interpretation of the Law that he represented, emphasizes that Jesus continually acted and spoke in order to “fulfill,” and in no way alter, the Law.
3. On a couple of more important issues the gap between these authors’ interpretations is wider:
a. Asian interprets all exalted “God-talk” about Jesus as a serious misinterpretation of who he saw himself to be. Lohfink acknowledges that the fuller understanding of Jesus as not only “Son of Man” – which he called himself – but also as “Messiah” and “king of [a reconstituted] Israel” – was definitely a result of the early Christian communities reaching a fuller understanding of the crucifixion/resurrection experience. Unlike Asian, however, Lohfink also stresses how early the first Christian communities after Jesus’ death pronounced the core of this fuller understanding. Lohfink affirms that Jesus was both “messiah” and – although he does not explain this sufficiently (from my perspective) – “Son of God.”
b. Likewise, Asian interprets the writings of Paul (composed before the crucial year of 70 A.D. when Jerusalem and the great Temple were destroyed) and of the Gospels (after that event) as going beyond the truth of Jesus, and portrays Paul as being at odds with both Peter and James (Jesus’ brother and the acknowledged leader of the Jerusalem community of Jewish Jesus-followers). Asian says that a careful reading of Paul’s letters and of the Acts of the Apostles reveals these conflicts. Lohfink definitely has the opposite point of view: he says that Paul was affirming the legacy of interpretation handed down to him by the earliest Jesus-followers, and that the Gospels also were based upon a common source which far antedated Jerusalem’s fall.
The following refer exclusively to Lohfink’s book.
• He does a magnificent job of portraying Jesus as thoroughly a Jew of his time and place. (This is, of course, a common theme of more recent scriptural scholarship.)
• He also does the best job I have encountered of explaining Jesus’ reverence for, and knowledge of, the Torah. Lohfink argues repeatedly that Jesus did not teach anything new; rather (in an approximation of Lohfink’s beautiful language), Jesus had a unique ability to distill from all the words of the Torah the “golden thread” of the essence of God’s truth which he then conveyed in his teachings. This is the reason we find Jesus so often saying, “You have heard that… but I say to you that…”
• Jesus’ focus was centered on Israel, not the Gentiles, because Jesus deeply believed that “salvation would come from the Jews,” and that while other nations would share in that ultimate reality, it could not happen until a reformed Israel had first come into being. That was how Jesus saw his mission, and he deliberately manifested this (to those who had “eyes to see and ears with which to hear) by naming his Twelve Apostles, a symbolic representation of the original Twelve Tribes of Israel (ten of which had been lost to history centuries before Jesus’ day).
• While not the kind of “literalist” we often associate with fundamentalist readers of the Bible, Lohfink does insist that the words attributed to Jesus are, more often than not, authentic, and that we need to take them at face value. Doing so, he gives some wonderful, beautifully written interpretations of both Jesus’ parables as well as of the nativity narratives of Matthew and Luke. It is clear to Lohfink that when Jesus uttered, “If your eye is an occasion of sin, pluck it out,” he intended that very thing. And when he said, “Let the dead bury their dead,” he was not uttering just a Semitic saying designed to startle, but meant it literally. [Lohfink, on the other hand, does not discuss some of those Gospel statements that are most probably additions by the early Church community, such as “I send you forth to baptize all nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” I think some effort on his part to differentiate between these relatively few instances and the bulk of Jesus’ words would have strengthened his case.]
• Such harsh literalness, and the urgency behind it, is tied to another area on which Lohfink and Asian are in agreement: Jesus expected an end-time eruption soon. Therefore, literally, “listen up, folks, you are rapidly running out of time. You must decide – now – to follow me or not, to repent or not. You no longer have the time to dawdle, ponder, or speculate. Decide, act now!”
• As to the Easter events, Lohfink very much concurs that something happened, but tends to argue (much like Bishop Spong did in one of his books some time back) that what the disciples experienced individually and collectively was a type of vision informed by their understanding of Scripture and their expectation of what the beginning of the end-time would be like. Lohfink sees evidence to support this interpretation throughout the Gospel accounts of the resurrection experience. For example, in Matthew’s chapter 52 (verses 51-53) concerning events which occurred after Jesus’ death on the cross: “And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth shook and the rocks were split. The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many....” Lohfink says that this manifests the community’s belief that the end-time had begun, that Jesus’ resurrection meant that the resurrection promised to all upon the “end of days” was now unfolding.
• Nonetheless, his message about the resurrection events is not entirely clear or consistent, at least to my reading. For he also says that the story of the “empty tomb” is clearly an ancient memory. So, while the appearances of Jesus might be interpreted as visions, how can the empty tomb be explained through this prism? Did the empty tomb help “trigger” the visions? And, in any case, how do we explain the empty tomb itself?
However, I was left with a few unanswered questions which I think could (should?) have been addressed in the flow of Dr. Lohfink’s presentation.
1. Given that Jesus did mean that the task of choosing to follow him was an urgent matter of now, and that, in order to do so, one had to leave all of one’s former ways, even family, behind, how can this have any relevance for 99% of human beings today? If this is what Jesus expected, how can anyone “follow” him while still living in this very real world of family, work, and civic responsibilities?
2. Relatedly, since it is obvious that Jesus’ expectations of the unfolding of the end-time soon did not occur – and I think we must be very respectful both of Jesus’ stated expectations and time frame, as well as the importance of clear language in our responding here – is it not clear that Jesus was, in this instance, simply in fact wrong? And, if in this instance, in what possible others did he not “get it” right? Did he intend, for instance, that animal sacrifice be perpetually continued in the Temple? That the Levitic priesthood should endure? That the Gentiles would have any hope or role before the successful transformation of Israel?
3. Given that Jesus apparently clearly intended to lead his people into a reconstituted covenant with the LORD, how do we explain/justify/accept what we “Christians” have created over the past 2,000 years?
Lastly, in musing over this book – and over hundreds of others that I have read – I have these underlying questions that continue to be a burr under my saddle:
1. Why have we moved from his teachings about how we are to be and live and, instead, talk more about his “glory,” the “after-life,” and “heaven,” all matters of which he spoke little if at all?
2. Why is it so important to us to proclaim to each other that Jesus is “God,” stressing his divinity and power? (I recognize that this is faithful to John’s prologue but, really, did not John really stretch things just a little there?)
3. Why have we created a hierarchical structure so faithfully mirroring the arrogant, inflated power of countless empires, inextricably intertwined with power and control over others? What happened to Jesus’ stance that he “came to serve, and not to be served”?
4. Why do we treat human-developed “dogma” as of greater – or even as the same – importance than Jesus’ teachings? Are not our books of “solid theology” very much like the hundreds of add-ons contributed to the Torah by the Sadducees and Pharisees?
5. Lastly, how is it that we have made Jesus’ teachings both safe and tame? That people hear his words and understand them as affirmations of the choices they have already made, rather than as challenges to go even further, beginning today?
What He Wanted, Who He Was
By Gerhard Lohfink
(Greg Cusack, Reviewer)
Ms. Linda Maloney has given us an excellent translation of this important work by the German Catholic theologian, Dr. Gerhard Lohfink. Accordingly, the text – while often beautiful but always theological in tone – is quite accessible for even conversant laypeople. I think persons seriously interested in knowing more about Jesus and his times would benefit from this very readable, and often incredibly lovely, book.
What follows is not a thorough review of Lohfink’s book; rather, I have attempted to highlight some of its major themes, followed by some question/challenges of my own which remain.
As I read this book, I was repeatedly reminded of Reza Asian’s Zealot, which I recently finished. Both men portray a convincing picture both of the gritty reality of Palestine in Jesus’ day, as well why we should take the literalness of Jesus’ reported words very seriously. But they differ on some key points:
1. While Asian emphasizes Jesus’ teachings as intended for political revolution, Lohfink stresses that Jesus’ message – and his view of himself – transcended any such merely “social radicalism.” Lohfink gives us a Jesus thoroughly rooted in the faith system of his people: he saw himself as the fulfillment of the promises in the Scriptures; that is, he definitely had come to announce that the “kingdom of God” was coming very soon.
2. Asian argues that Jesus was one of those who were opposed to what the Temple and its priesthood had become (i.e., a part of the collaboration with Rome and an integral part of the rule of the powerful elite). Lohfink, while certainly not underplaying the number of times Jesus clashed with the religious “righteous” of his time, nor the seriousness of the threat to their credibility and interpretation of the Law that he represented, emphasizes that Jesus continually acted and spoke in order to “fulfill,” and in no way alter, the Law.
3. On a couple of more important issues the gap between these authors’ interpretations is wider:
a. Asian interprets all exalted “God-talk” about Jesus as a serious misinterpretation of who he saw himself to be. Lohfink acknowledges that the fuller understanding of Jesus as not only “Son of Man” – which he called himself – but also as “Messiah” and “king of [a reconstituted] Israel” – was definitely a result of the early Christian communities reaching a fuller understanding of the crucifixion/resurrection experience. Unlike Asian, however, Lohfink also stresses how early the first Christian communities after Jesus’ death pronounced the core of this fuller understanding. Lohfink affirms that Jesus was both “messiah” and – although he does not explain this sufficiently (from my perspective) – “Son of God.”
b. Likewise, Asian interprets the writings of Paul (composed before the crucial year of 70 A.D. when Jerusalem and the great Temple were destroyed) and of the Gospels (after that event) as going beyond the truth of Jesus, and portrays Paul as being at odds with both Peter and James (Jesus’ brother and the acknowledged leader of the Jerusalem community of Jewish Jesus-followers). Asian says that a careful reading of Paul’s letters and of the Acts of the Apostles reveals these conflicts. Lohfink definitely has the opposite point of view: he says that Paul was affirming the legacy of interpretation handed down to him by the earliest Jesus-followers, and that the Gospels also were based upon a common source which far antedated Jerusalem’s fall.
The following refer exclusively to Lohfink’s book.
• He does a magnificent job of portraying Jesus as thoroughly a Jew of his time and place. (This is, of course, a common theme of more recent scriptural scholarship.)
• He also does the best job I have encountered of explaining Jesus’ reverence for, and knowledge of, the Torah. Lohfink argues repeatedly that Jesus did not teach anything new; rather (in an approximation of Lohfink’s beautiful language), Jesus had a unique ability to distill from all the words of the Torah the “golden thread” of the essence of God’s truth which he then conveyed in his teachings. This is the reason we find Jesus so often saying, “You have heard that… but I say to you that…”
• Jesus’ focus was centered on Israel, not the Gentiles, because Jesus deeply believed that “salvation would come from the Jews,” and that while other nations would share in that ultimate reality, it could not happen until a reformed Israel had first come into being. That was how Jesus saw his mission, and he deliberately manifested this (to those who had “eyes to see and ears with which to hear) by naming his Twelve Apostles, a symbolic representation of the original Twelve Tribes of Israel (ten of which had been lost to history centuries before Jesus’ day).
• While not the kind of “literalist” we often associate with fundamentalist readers of the Bible, Lohfink does insist that the words attributed to Jesus are, more often than not, authentic, and that we need to take them at face value. Doing so, he gives some wonderful, beautifully written interpretations of both Jesus’ parables as well as of the nativity narratives of Matthew and Luke. It is clear to Lohfink that when Jesus uttered, “If your eye is an occasion of sin, pluck it out,” he intended that very thing. And when he said, “Let the dead bury their dead,” he was not uttering just a Semitic saying designed to startle, but meant it literally. [Lohfink, on the other hand, does not discuss some of those Gospel statements that are most probably additions by the early Church community, such as “I send you forth to baptize all nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” I think some effort on his part to differentiate between these relatively few instances and the bulk of Jesus’ words would have strengthened his case.]
• Such harsh literalness, and the urgency behind it, is tied to another area on which Lohfink and Asian are in agreement: Jesus expected an end-time eruption soon. Therefore, literally, “listen up, folks, you are rapidly running out of time. You must decide – now – to follow me or not, to repent or not. You no longer have the time to dawdle, ponder, or speculate. Decide, act now!”
• As to the Easter events, Lohfink very much concurs that something happened, but tends to argue (much like Bishop Spong did in one of his books some time back) that what the disciples experienced individually and collectively was a type of vision informed by their understanding of Scripture and their expectation of what the beginning of the end-time would be like. Lohfink sees evidence to support this interpretation throughout the Gospel accounts of the resurrection experience. For example, in Matthew’s chapter 52 (verses 51-53) concerning events which occurred after Jesus’ death on the cross: “And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth shook and the rocks were split. The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many....” Lohfink says that this manifests the community’s belief that the end-time had begun, that Jesus’ resurrection meant that the resurrection promised to all upon the “end of days” was now unfolding.
• Nonetheless, his message about the resurrection events is not entirely clear or consistent, at least to my reading. For he also says that the story of the “empty tomb” is clearly an ancient memory. So, while the appearances of Jesus might be interpreted as visions, how can the empty tomb be explained through this prism? Did the empty tomb help “trigger” the visions? And, in any case, how do we explain the empty tomb itself?
However, I was left with a few unanswered questions which I think could (should?) have been addressed in the flow of Dr. Lohfink’s presentation.
1. Given that Jesus did mean that the task of choosing to follow him was an urgent matter of now, and that, in order to do so, one had to leave all of one’s former ways, even family, behind, how can this have any relevance for 99% of human beings today? If this is what Jesus expected, how can anyone “follow” him while still living in this very real world of family, work, and civic responsibilities?
2. Relatedly, since it is obvious that Jesus’ expectations of the unfolding of the end-time soon did not occur – and I think we must be very respectful both of Jesus’ stated expectations and time frame, as well as the importance of clear language in our responding here – is it not clear that Jesus was, in this instance, simply in fact wrong? And, if in this instance, in what possible others did he not “get it” right? Did he intend, for instance, that animal sacrifice be perpetually continued in the Temple? That the Levitic priesthood should endure? That the Gentiles would have any hope or role before the successful transformation of Israel?
3. Given that Jesus apparently clearly intended to lead his people into a reconstituted covenant with the LORD, how do we explain/justify/accept what we “Christians” have created over the past 2,000 years?
Lastly, in musing over this book – and over hundreds of others that I have read – I have these underlying questions that continue to be a burr under my saddle:
1. Why have we moved from his teachings about how we are to be and live and, instead, talk more about his “glory,” the “after-life,” and “heaven,” all matters of which he spoke little if at all?
2. Why is it so important to us to proclaim to each other that Jesus is “God,” stressing his divinity and power? (I recognize that this is faithful to John’s prologue but, really, did not John really stretch things just a little there?)
3. Why have we created a hierarchical structure so faithfully mirroring the arrogant, inflated power of countless empires, inextricably intertwined with power and control over others? What happened to Jesus’ stance that he “came to serve, and not to be served”?
4. Why do we treat human-developed “dogma” as of greater – or even as the same – importance than Jesus’ teachings? Are not our books of “solid theology” very much like the hundreds of add-ons contributed to the Torah by the Sadducees and Pharisees?
5. Lastly, how is it that we have made Jesus’ teachings both safe and tame? That people hear his words and understand them as affirmations of the choices they have already made, rather than as challenges to go even further, beginning today?
April 12, 2018
This is a scriptural Christology and exegesis of the concept of the Kingdom of God by a highly regarded German theologian. I found it in turns, thought-provoking, challenging and confusing. I plan to return to page 1 and start a re-read immediately, not something I usually do.v
April 2, 2016
This is going to be my long, "serious," Lenten book. (And I predict I'll still be reading it during the Easter season too.)
Original reflections on it are below.
========
I found this because it was continually referenced in James Martin's Jesus: A Pilgrimage which I just reread for a book club discussion.
This book is freaking amazing.
By the time I'd gotten to the second chapter I knew I'd need my own copy so I could mark it up.
It is dense in the way that Pope Benedict or Romano Guardini can be. However, like them it is also very accessible. One must just be ready to slow down and absorb it.
Essentially Lohfink is looking at Christ in a way that not only takes into account the idea of the "historical Jesus" but also includes the fact that "historical" is not enough. It makes me think of the problem some people have with religion and science, thinking that they must be separate from each other. In reality, they go together like a pair of folded hands. In the same way, Lohfink refuses to separate the historical Jesus and the Christ of faith and of the Church.
In a documentary the filmmakers must pull together context, culture, and point of view to fully tell the story. Lohfink uses this example when speaking of the Gospels, but it also works for his own book. While faithful to the historical-critical method, he also continually places Jesus in the Jewish religion and culture, the nation of Israel as God's people, the interpretation of the community (the church), and as "the Christ."
Having only read the first three chapters, the result is that I have a new, deeper understanding of the "reign of God." And, it goes without saying, of Jesus.
Original reflections on it are below.
========
I found this because it was continually referenced in James Martin's Jesus: A Pilgrimage which I just reread for a book club discussion.
This book is freaking amazing.
By the time I'd gotten to the second chapter I knew I'd need my own copy so I could mark it up.
It is dense in the way that Pope Benedict or Romano Guardini can be. However, like them it is also very accessible. One must just be ready to slow down and absorb it.
Essentially Lohfink is looking at Christ in a way that not only takes into account the idea of the "historical Jesus" but also includes the fact that "historical" is not enough. It makes me think of the problem some people have with religion and science, thinking that they must be separate from each other. In reality, they go together like a pair of folded hands. In the same way, Lohfink refuses to separate the historical Jesus and the Christ of faith and of the Church.
In a documentary the filmmakers must pull together context, culture, and point of view to fully tell the story. Lohfink uses this example when speaking of the Gospels, but it also works for his own book. While faithful to the historical-critical method, he also continually places Jesus in the Jewish religion and culture, the nation of Israel as God's people, the interpretation of the community (the church), and as "the Christ."
Having only read the first three chapters, the result is that I have a new, deeper understanding of the "reign of God." And, it goes without saying, of Jesus.
October 16, 2018
A surprisingly interesting take on biblical scriptures with an unusual focus on reconciling faith and reason, along with a detailed analysis of Jewish and Christian eschatological beliefs.
March 28, 2014
The only negative thing I can say, not about the book, but about the author, is that Gerhard Lohfink was one of the 7 professors at Tübingen University who, in February 1980, voted to oust their fellow theologian, Hans Küng, from the faculty after a long & brilliant career. I consider that action shameful.
Nevertheless, Lohfink is a fine biblical & Christological theologian: and that's an assessment not from me, but from Hans Küng, even in face of Lohfink's betrayal. This is one of the best books I've ever read on Jesus of Nazareth, and though I naturally have some questions on various issues of interpretation, I found this to be well-translated, well documented, well-thought out reflection, and I gained some very useful insights which will help in preaching and further study of the Scriptures. Lohfink's theology is what I'd call "freshly traditional". He expresses the deeper meaning of many texts, & therefore, the deeper theology of many of the Church's beliefs about Jesus the Christ. His message about Jesus' pursuit of the reign of God through the formation of the New Israel is extremely relevant for our times. To my mind, he ably debunks some current theological notions that much in the Gospel accounts about Jesus, especially after his death, were later Hellenistic interpretations imposed on Jesus by the early Christian community. Reading that simple statement, I can envision a few theologians rising up out of their chairs! I can only ask that they first read Lohfink's book themselves before casting an objection.
I guess the proof of the pudding lies in the fact that this book has brought me closer in my relationship with the Jesus of the Scriptures.
Nevertheless, Lohfink is a fine biblical & Christological theologian: and that's an assessment not from me, but from Hans Küng, even in face of Lohfink's betrayal. This is one of the best books I've ever read on Jesus of Nazareth, and though I naturally have some questions on various issues of interpretation, I found this to be well-translated, well documented, well-thought out reflection, and I gained some very useful insights which will help in preaching and further study of the Scriptures. Lohfink's theology is what I'd call "freshly traditional". He expresses the deeper meaning of many texts, & therefore, the deeper theology of many of the Church's beliefs about Jesus the Christ. His message about Jesus' pursuit of the reign of God through the formation of the New Israel is extremely relevant for our times. To my mind, he ably debunks some current theological notions that much in the Gospel accounts about Jesus, especially after his death, were later Hellenistic interpretations imposed on Jesus by the early Christian community. Reading that simple statement, I can envision a few theologians rising up out of their chairs! I can only ask that they first read Lohfink's book themselves before casting an objection.
I guess the proof of the pudding lies in the fact that this book has brought me closer in my relationship with the Jesus of the Scriptures.
June 12, 2021
Gerhard Lohfink is one of the best theologians alive today. This is a dense Christology book that is very well researched. His central idea in the book is the basileia, or the reign of God.
For Lohfink, “Jesus’ radical proclamation of the reign of God contains an implicit Christology”. (Lohfink 2015, 324) The reign of God is not just Jesus’ message, “but it is his actions as well”. (Lohfink 2015, 324) Thus very early on (in Ch 2), Lohfink extensively discussed the reign of God, especially the “already” and “not yet” aspects of it. Throughout the book, he kept going back to the same concept. Jesus’ ministry was about the reign of God; his death and resurrection naturally were about the reign of God as well.
Ultimately, Lohfink rejected the individualistic vision of the basileia and opted for a societal one. However, he cautioned against more aggressive stances and pointed out that “with Jesus the tensions within reality are maintained: the fruitful tension between the state, which Jesus did not fundamentally question…” (Lohfink 2015, 356) He went back to the parable of the mustard seed - the basileia is a “silent revolution”. The basileia “is neither like the mustard seed alone nor like the full-grown bush but resembles the whole process from seed to shrub”. (Lohfink 2015, 354)
Lohfink has done a tremendous job bringing everything together. But I do wonder - by putting the basileia theology in such prominence, is he implicitly demoting other critical Christology issues? For example, the early Church had hundreds of years of back-and-forth on “fully human, fully divine”. Lohfink only spent one chapter discussing the issue. Also, this issue seems to be treated as subordinate to the basileia. That being said, this is not a criticism at all - each book needs to have its focus and Lohfink chose a central idea and elaborated it very well.
For Lohfink, “Jesus’ radical proclamation of the reign of God contains an implicit Christology”. (Lohfink 2015, 324) The reign of God is not just Jesus’ message, “but it is his actions as well”. (Lohfink 2015, 324) Thus very early on (in Ch 2), Lohfink extensively discussed the reign of God, especially the “already” and “not yet” aspects of it. Throughout the book, he kept going back to the same concept. Jesus’ ministry was about the reign of God; his death and resurrection naturally were about the reign of God as well.
Ultimately, Lohfink rejected the individualistic vision of the basileia and opted for a societal one. However, he cautioned against more aggressive stances and pointed out that “with Jesus the tensions within reality are maintained: the fruitful tension between the state, which Jesus did not fundamentally question…” (Lohfink 2015, 356) He went back to the parable of the mustard seed - the basileia is a “silent revolution”. The basileia “is neither like the mustard seed alone nor like the full-grown bush but resembles the whole process from seed to shrub”. (Lohfink 2015, 354)
Lohfink has done a tremendous job bringing everything together. But I do wonder - by putting the basileia theology in such prominence, is he implicitly demoting other critical Christology issues? For example, the early Church had hundreds of years of back-and-forth on “fully human, fully divine”. Lohfink only spent one chapter discussing the issue. Also, this issue seems to be treated as subordinate to the basileia. That being said, this is not a criticism at all - each book needs to have its focus and Lohfink chose a central idea and elaborated it very well.
September 9, 2014
This is an exceptional work, difficult too recommend to highly. Lohfink's major contribution is to overcome the false dichotomy between the Jesus of History and the Christ of faith by a careful use of historical-critical study that is rooted in the faith of the Church and not a personal agenda. Along the way, he consistently provides shining insights on a whole collection of New Testament issues such as the relationship between the Kingdom and the Church, the relationship between miracles and modern science (including a great bit on the relationship between demons and modern psychology), and Jesus' relationship to the Old Testament. Furthermore, his careful attention to the concrete details of the life of Jesus and his early followers sheds light on a wide range of texts, including the Lord's Prayer, and the parables of Jesus. Finally, Lohfink's theological intuition is unerring and he makes very helpful remarks on theological issues such as atonement and Jesus' divine identity. This is the first book I will recommend to anyone with questions about the historical Jesus. Lastly, this book strikes me as profoundly PREACHABLE. Buy a copy for yourself and another for your pastor.
April 27, 2014
A fascinating work on Jesus with a strong emphasis on the Reign of God. It combines Christology, eschatology, ecclesiology, and some fascinating interpretations of scripture. In some ways it might be considered "conservative" doctrinally because of its positions on Jesus' resurrection and on the Church. But it goes beyond those types of labels in its encounter with Jesus and the Church.
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August 6, 2025In the decade since its publication, major Scripture scholars have proclaimed this book a definitive work on Jesus. Utter layperson that I am, I tend to agree: I was fascinated by its elucidation of implicit themes in Jesus’ language and ministry, riveted by its account of his death and resurrection appearances, and inspired by its succinct yet insightful reckoning with the miracles, visions, and other Gospel phenomena with which post-Enlightenment readers inevitably struggle. The book enriched both my intellectual and my spiritual appreciation of “what Jesus wanted” and “who he was.”
I have but one real complaint, and I’ll mention it because it appears in the book’s first few chapters, which frustrated me so much that I nearly stopped reading.
Lohfink’s main thesis is that Jesus saw his mission as exclusively focused on Israel. There may be some truth to that, but Lohfink overdetermines it; his obsession with staving off any alternate reading at times seems to lead him more to indignation than to careful reasoning. It doesn’t help that he never really explains what he means by “Israel” – distinguishing it, for instance, from Israel as a nation-state (p. 176) – until more than halfway through the book.
So yes, it is true that Jesus himself clearly states that his mission is to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Mt 10:6) and, as Lohfink astutely remarks, avoids preaching in any of the Gentile towns along his itinerant journey. This is, Lohfink says, because Jesus trusted the prophesy of Isaiah 2:2 that the Gentile nations would make a pilgrimage to Israel and receive their salvation there; it wasn’t them that needed his attention.
Yet this Pilgrimage of Nations has not, in point of fact, come to pass in history, and if Lohfink is still waiting for it to happen, then it seems to me that he is bound to address the current status of, indeed, the nation-state of Israel, where the Pilgrimage would ostensibly take place. Furthermore, Jesus’ ministry took on a more and more expansive consideration of the spiritual significance of the Gentiles – from John the Baptizer’s initial proclamation that being a “child of Abraham” is of no use for salvation, to Jesus’ positive comparisons of Gentile faith to Jewish faith, to his actual encounters with Gentiles like the Syro-Phoenician woman, who challenged him to pay closer heed to the Gentile experience.
(These ministerial encounters Lohfink brushes off as “exceptions,” and rather than wrestling with any of the voluminous scholarship on the Syro-Phoenician encounter as an inflection point in Jesus’ self-understanding, Lohfink rams that round peg, too, into the square hole of Jesus’ evidently unquestionable prerogative to define his ministry as a ministry to Israel. Further, we must ask: even in telling the parable of the divine banquet in Luke 14, which Lohfink discusses on pp. 158-160 and in which Gentiles become the heirs of God’s favor after Israel rejects its own invitation, did Jesus truly not envision *any* mission to the Gentiles – such as became, indeed, the very cornerstone of the apostolic church that succeeded him?)
Lohfink (in Chapter 5) treats Jesus’ presumption to embody the authority of the Torah but backpedals the radicality of that gesture. In the most exasperating chapter in the book, he takes the many infamous cases in which Jesus contradicts Mosaic law as instances only of Jesus’ prioritizing the Greatest Commandment over other edicts in the Torah – saying that he doesn’t contradict the Torah at all. That seems like a technically true but very lawyerly remark. If *anything* can be justified by simply appealing to the divine commandment to love, then what’s the point of any of the rest of Mosaic law in the first place? And Lohfink never addresses the most obvious question: if the purity codes and so on remained such an important part of the Torah to Jesus, shouldn’t the contemporary Christian church return to them, too?
So eager is he, in fact, to make Jesus an exclusively Jewish Messiah that he twists himself into knots trying to disclaim the idea that Jesus preached “universal love.” Jesus’ teachings on ethical conduct, Lohfink says, involve physical contact (turn the other cheek, give up your coat), so Jesus can only have been talking narrowly about “what happens within the people of God,” as a matter of relationship with one’s immediate neighbors. This is a tenuous argument on the face of it, never mind that Lohfink admits that these teachings are hearkening back to the chapters in Leviticus that command us (excuse me, that command the Israelites) to treat one’s neighbor as oneself – which Jesus, in the parable of the Good Samaritan, *explicitly* glossed as a concern for others beyond one’s tribe.
At the very least, if Lohfink is right about Jesus’ position vis-à-vis Israel, his explanation could have been clearer and perhaps more linear. I don't so much want to disagree outright as to offer a response from a different point of view. And as he does evoke the shadow of Christian antisemitism that led to the Holocaust, I understand his good intent of attenuating any supercessionist themes in our contemporary interpretation of the Gospels. All of these polemics aside, I really did enjoy and really do recommend this work of incredible scholarship.
I have but one real complaint, and I’ll mention it because it appears in the book’s first few chapters, which frustrated me so much that I nearly stopped reading.
Lohfink’s main thesis is that Jesus saw his mission as exclusively focused on Israel. There may be some truth to that, but Lohfink overdetermines it; his obsession with staving off any alternate reading at times seems to lead him more to indignation than to careful reasoning. It doesn’t help that he never really explains what he means by “Israel” – distinguishing it, for instance, from Israel as a nation-state (p. 176) – until more than halfway through the book.
So yes, it is true that Jesus himself clearly states that his mission is to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Mt 10:6) and, as Lohfink astutely remarks, avoids preaching in any of the Gentile towns along his itinerant journey. This is, Lohfink says, because Jesus trusted the prophesy of Isaiah 2:2 that the Gentile nations would make a pilgrimage to Israel and receive their salvation there; it wasn’t them that needed his attention.
Yet this Pilgrimage of Nations has not, in point of fact, come to pass in history, and if Lohfink is still waiting for it to happen, then it seems to me that he is bound to address the current status of, indeed, the nation-state of Israel, where the Pilgrimage would ostensibly take place. Furthermore, Jesus’ ministry took on a more and more expansive consideration of the spiritual significance of the Gentiles – from John the Baptizer’s initial proclamation that being a “child of Abraham” is of no use for salvation, to Jesus’ positive comparisons of Gentile faith to Jewish faith, to his actual encounters with Gentiles like the Syro-Phoenician woman, who challenged him to pay closer heed to the Gentile experience.
(These ministerial encounters Lohfink brushes off as “exceptions,” and rather than wrestling with any of the voluminous scholarship on the Syro-Phoenician encounter as an inflection point in Jesus’ self-understanding, Lohfink rams that round peg, too, into the square hole of Jesus’ evidently unquestionable prerogative to define his ministry as a ministry to Israel. Further, we must ask: even in telling the parable of the divine banquet in Luke 14, which Lohfink discusses on pp. 158-160 and in which Gentiles become the heirs of God’s favor after Israel rejects its own invitation, did Jesus truly not envision *any* mission to the Gentiles – such as became, indeed, the very cornerstone of the apostolic church that succeeded him?)
Lohfink (in Chapter 5) treats Jesus’ presumption to embody the authority of the Torah but backpedals the radicality of that gesture. In the most exasperating chapter in the book, he takes the many infamous cases in which Jesus contradicts Mosaic law as instances only of Jesus’ prioritizing the Greatest Commandment over other edicts in the Torah – saying that he doesn’t contradict the Torah at all. That seems like a technically true but very lawyerly remark. If *anything* can be justified by simply appealing to the divine commandment to love, then what’s the point of any of the rest of Mosaic law in the first place? And Lohfink never addresses the most obvious question: if the purity codes and so on remained such an important part of the Torah to Jesus, shouldn’t the contemporary Christian church return to them, too?
So eager is he, in fact, to make Jesus an exclusively Jewish Messiah that he twists himself into knots trying to disclaim the idea that Jesus preached “universal love.” Jesus’ teachings on ethical conduct, Lohfink says, involve physical contact (turn the other cheek, give up your coat), so Jesus can only have been talking narrowly about “what happens within the people of God,” as a matter of relationship with one’s immediate neighbors. This is a tenuous argument on the face of it, never mind that Lohfink admits that these teachings are hearkening back to the chapters in Leviticus that command us (excuse me, that command the Israelites) to treat one’s neighbor as oneself – which Jesus, in the parable of the Good Samaritan, *explicitly* glossed as a concern for others beyond one’s tribe.
At the very least, if Lohfink is right about Jesus’ position vis-à-vis Israel, his explanation could have been clearer and perhaps more linear. I don't so much want to disagree outright as to offer a response from a different point of view. And as he does evoke the shadow of Christian antisemitism that led to the Holocaust, I understand his good intent of attenuating any supercessionist themes in our contemporary interpretation of the Gospels. All of these polemics aside, I really did enjoy and really do recommend this work of incredible scholarship.
April 12, 2013
I found this book from some reviews as one of the best biographies of Jesus. I am no theologian or scholar, but I felt like Lohfink really gave me access to a new appreciation of Jesus in the world of 2000 years ago, and how interpretations in more recent centuries have limited us.
February 5, 2018
What a book to start the new year with!
This isn't one you can breeze through. There were moments I had to sit back to take notes, and to consult the Bible to piece it all together. But it's brilliantly presented. In church, we learn of Jesus simply as Messiah—which he is first and foremost—but this study digs into his humanity. I was consistently caught off-guard about the concept of Jesus studying, and didn't quite believe it at first. Why would the Son of God have to study Torah? But he was also human, and lived the life of a devout Jew, so of course he studied Torah and went to the synagogue like everyone else.
I'll admit, there are parts in this book that I couldn't fully grasp. Not because it's unbelievable, but because I just don't know enough about the subject to fully comprehend it. I'm glad I bought a used copy, as the most important concepts have been underlined and highlighted. (Thank you, previous owners.) Of course, some chapters have entire paragraphs and pages highlighted. But that doesn't lessen the import of the material.
My favorite studies were at the end of the book, which discuss post-Easter times (did Jesus really visit the apostles after his death, or was it a vision, or both?), and also a linking of Jesus's preaching with the beginning and end of times. (Don't think too long about the beginning. It messes with your head.) And the final, all-encompassing chapter: Is the Kingdom of God a utopia? I could read an entire book just on that topic alone. I love me some good utopia discourse.
I'll recommend this to anyone who wants to understand Jesus's humanity, but I'll warn you that it is dense. There's a lot going on here, and it requires some keen paying attention.
This isn't one you can breeze through. There were moments I had to sit back to take notes, and to consult the Bible to piece it all together. But it's brilliantly presented. In church, we learn of Jesus simply as Messiah—which he is first and foremost—but this study digs into his humanity. I was consistently caught off-guard about the concept of Jesus studying, and didn't quite believe it at first. Why would the Son of God have to study Torah? But he was also human, and lived the life of a devout Jew, so of course he studied Torah and went to the synagogue like everyone else.
I'll admit, there are parts in this book that I couldn't fully grasp. Not because it's unbelievable, but because I just don't know enough about the subject to fully comprehend it. I'm glad I bought a used copy, as the most important concepts have been underlined and highlighted. (Thank you, previous owners.) Of course, some chapters have entire paragraphs and pages highlighted. But that doesn't lessen the import of the material.
My favorite studies were at the end of the book, which discuss post-Easter times (did Jesus really visit the apostles after his death, or was it a vision, or both?), and also a linking of Jesus's preaching with the beginning and end of times. (Don't think too long about the beginning. It messes with your head.) And the final, all-encompassing chapter: Is the Kingdom of God a utopia? I could read an entire book just on that topic alone. I love me some good utopia discourse.
I'll recommend this to anyone who wants to understand Jesus's humanity, but I'll warn you that it is dense. There's a lot going on here, and it requires some keen paying attention.
December 5, 2017
This is an excellent book, but the scholarship is not as recent as others, which is the reason for 3/5 stars. St. Jerome gives us the famous dictum "Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ." This is as true now as when St. Jerome translated the Bible from Greek (LXX for the Jewish Scriptures) into Latin. However, we live in the 21st century and we have a post-modern, post-Enlightenment outlook on reality. This is not a bad thing but radically alters how we approach the Scriptures and God. Lohfink work helps us to see and understand the work of Jesus of Nazareth from the world view that Jesus and his hearers would have lived in. He also does an excellent job showing how the pan-Hellenic world view shaped the gospels and their interpretation. Lohfink examines the Easter events, how it is Jesus is called divine, what it means to proclaim the Kingdom of God is in our midst and why it matters today. I do recommend this book to anyone who wants to have a better and deeper appreciation for the Word of God and the person of Jesus.
December 1, 2023
Gerhard Lohfink, en mi opinión es unos de los Teólogos Bíblicos más importantes, sobre todo en la exégesis que hace de los evangelios; tiene un gran dominio de las escrituras y hace un excelente uso del Antiguo Testamento, la historia del "pueblo elegido" y sus costumbres. Para mí ha sido un descubrimiento leer todo lo que explica e implica el mensaje central de Jesús en su predicación: El Reino de Dios. La relación Reino de Dios y Pueblo de Dios me ayudó a entender en la perpectiva de la historia: su mensaje, su vida, el rechazo que provocó, al final su pasión y resurrección. Excelente. Ahora estoy leyendo "Cuarenta Parábolas de Jesús", del mismo autor y mi humilde valoración de Lohfink continua al máximo.
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April 4, 2022This book makes some of the most convincing, reasonable and well-thought-out interpretations of the life of Jesus that I have ever encountered. I especially like the way he deals with the conception of the "historical Jesus", the way he talks about the followers of Jesus during the time Jesus was alive, and the way he discusses miracles. To me this man is both wise and spirit-filled.
April 24, 2024
From the late Professor Gerhard Lohfink, German theologian. An amazing set of insights that bring wonderful new cultural insights to the scriptures about Jesus. This portrayal of the historical Jesus is said by some to be the best book on Jesus ever. I think they are not that far off the mark. Certainly an inspiring and insightful work into the savior of the world.
September 2, 2024
re-reading. James Martin says his scripture professor, Daniel Harrington, an expert in the field of the historical Jesus, says this book is the best written on the topic. It’s certainly the best I’ve ever read.
December 11, 2017
Lots and lots of information. Some very interesting. A bit dry for my taste, but again, some very interesting things about Jesus, nonetheless!
December 12, 2017
A well researched and academic look into the life of Jesus, written in an engaging and accessible way.
September 1, 2024
I learned from Goodreads that I read this book 5 years ago; I'd completely forgotten. I remembered that I had read a book by Gerhard Lohfink, but I thought it was his book on parables. The parables book was by another author. My review from 5 years ago (which is not that far from my current thinking) is below, so I'll just update some thoughts from it.
First, the use of the word eschatological is not nearly so rampant as I suggested in my earlier review, although it gets used a lot in one part near the end.
Secondly, I no longer see this book as apologetic in nature but more exploratory. It does seem to me that the author is careful to avoid wandering too far from Roman Catholic teaching. But, I read this now as an effort by someone who has spent his life studying Jesus to report his synthesis of that exploration. It was a good book. I'll keep it on my shelves in case God wants me to read it a third time before I die. (2024)
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I'd estimate this book uses the word "eschatological" on average about 3 times per page. It's not clear what the word means to the author/translater (beyond end times), but he surely likes it!
I give this book a 4-star rating because of its first chapter which provides an excellent discussion of what it means to describe something as a "fact." I'd suggest that everyone I know read that chapter although the author's conclusion may be unsatisfying.
As for the rest of the book, I see it as an example of apologetics -- more elaborate than most, but apologetics all the same.
It's not clear to me that the "What He Wanted" is truly covered in this book; it was almost exclusively "Who He Was." "What He Wanted" was what I wanted from the book. I was disappointed. (2019)
First, the use of the word eschatological is not nearly so rampant as I suggested in my earlier review, although it gets used a lot in one part near the end.
Secondly, I no longer see this book as apologetic in nature but more exploratory. It does seem to me that the author is careful to avoid wandering too far from Roman Catholic teaching. But, I read this now as an effort by someone who has spent his life studying Jesus to report his synthesis of that exploration. It was a good book. I'll keep it on my shelves in case God wants me to read it a third time before I die. (2024)
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I'd estimate this book uses the word "eschatological" on average about 3 times per page. It's not clear what the word means to the author/translater (beyond end times), but he surely likes it!
I give this book a 4-star rating because of its first chapter which provides an excellent discussion of what it means to describe something as a "fact." I'd suggest that everyone I know read that chapter although the author's conclusion may be unsatisfying.
As for the rest of the book, I see it as an example of apologetics -- more elaborate than most, but apologetics all the same.
It's not clear to me that the "What He Wanted" is truly covered in this book; it was almost exclusively "Who He Was." "What He Wanted" was what I wanted from the book. I was disappointed. (2019)
March 4, 2013
I cannot claim to have read a ton of Jesus-books, but this is definetely a book that does what I would want a Jesus-book to do. Solid engagement with the results of historical research combined with theological, philosophical and political sophistication, that produces a picture of Jesus that is theologically relevant. Lohfinks emphases’ are not original: the jewishness of Jesus and the early church, the centrality of the reign of God to Jesus preaching, and the necassity of a commitment to the church to understand Jesus. But he presents it brilliantly and with just enough polemical bite to keep us interested. As yoderian I find my self nod in recognition and agreement several times.
As far as I can tell Lohfink does not shy away from the ”difficult” aspects of Jesus, like his judgements sayings, excorcisms and miracles in general. And I at least find his criticism of the standarn 20th century take on these – based on enlightenment world views – convincing.
The final chapter, where he compares Jesus understanding of Gods reign with the notion of utopia is an absolutely brilliant piece of political theology, that I suspect I will have reason to return to many times.
Lohfink is almost 80 now, so this book too fits in the section of scholars summing up their life’s work. One cannot overestimate the importance of books like this in our time of quick publishing. Highly recommended.
August 2, 2013
Author carries a theme of gathering people from the Hebrew Scriptures through the New Testament. He anchors his Christology in Jewish thought rather than in Hellenistic philosophy. As such, it is very liberating. Chapter 19 is particularly interesting as he examines the description of the kingdom coming as a thief in the night linguistically. He shows the tense of the saying as the past that did not happen. If only the owner had known the thief was coming (he didn't) he would have prevented the robbery (which already occurred). If society knew the reign was coming (they didn't) they would have thwarted it (it came and thy did not thwart it). Therefore in his explanation the gathering into Israel of all people's has occurred a person can be part of it if they wish.
He is systematic in the best sense of the world.. Not building an abstract system but developing his thoughts within a building sequence of historical and exegetical insight. Recommended. But requires careful reading.
He is systematic in the best sense of the world.. Not building an abstract system but developing his thoughts within a building sequence of historical and exegetical insight. Recommended. But requires careful reading.
February 8, 2013
I love good books on Jesus. This is one of those. Very good. Lohfink writes with a great deal of thoughtfulness and insight. There's a lot of gold here. Not that I agree with all that he has to say but that's okay. It's not a terribly long read (approx. 350 pages w/o footnotes) and it never bogs down. 'Jesus and Community' is another valuable book by the same author written 25 years earlier so he's been at it awhile.
December 3, 2024
A giant of a book. Excellent scholarship, challenging and thought provoking Christology makes this book outstanding in its portrayal of Jesus. Thoroughly researched this is not necessarily for the beginner but boy does it pack a punch. Essential reading for anyone seriously interested in Christian theology even though you might not agree with every word. Hence, I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
☘️
☘️
October 4, 2013
This is a masterful christology book. While it is a scholarly read, it is also quite accessible. Lofink looks at the usual aspects of Jesus' life, but with a new gloss in many cases. The author is faithful to the historical-critical method and affirms the significance of Jesus' Jewishness. Well done!
April 14, 2013
The most recent, complete, and insightful discussion of Jesus Christ yet written. Beautifully written, clear and understandable to lay people. The best Jesus book I have ever read!
September 19, 2013
Brilliant. Far and away one of the single best theological books I've encountered. Fr. Lohfink's Christology is exquisite.
February 11, 2014
His best work to date.
February 5, 2016
A powerful and stirring book on Jesus, one of the best I've ever read.
September 22, 2014
"Already" at "not yet".
Sa wakas!
Sa wakas!
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