Jesus: According to the Earliest Witness

258 Pages·2007·1.19 MB·English

by  James McConkey Robinson

JESUS
According to the Earliest Witness
JAMES M. ROBINSON

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. The Critical Edition of Q and the Study of Jesus
2. Jesus from Easter to Valentinus (or to the Apostles' Creed)
3. The Real Jesus of the Sayings Gospel Q
4. Very Goddess and Very Man: Jesus' Better Self
5. The Son of Man in the Sayings Gospel Q
6. Jesus' Theology in the Sayings Gospel Q
7. What Jesus Had to Say
8. The Jesus of Q as Liberation Theologian
9. The Image of Jesus in Q
10. The Q Trajectory: Between John and Matthew via Jesus
11. Theological Autobiography
Appendix: The Sayings Gospel Q in English
Index of Authors
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Chapters 1 2 and 4 11 are published with the permission and kind
cooperation of Peelers Press, and drawn from James M. Robinson, The
Savings Gospel Q, cd. ('hristoph Heil and Joseph Verheyden (Leuven: Peelers,
2005). Chapter 3 first appeared in The Princeton Seminu.v, Bulletin, n. s. 18/2
(1997): 135-51.
Chapter I first appeared in The Savings Source Q and the Historical Jesus,
pp. 27-52. Edited by A. Lindemann. E3ibliotheca Ephemeridum
Thcologicarum Lovaniensium 158. Leuven: Leuven University Press and
Peeters, 2001. Reprinted in The Savings Gospel Q: Collected Essays, 663-88.
Chapter 2 first appeared in Journal of Biblical Literature 101 (1982): 5-37.
Reprinted in The Savings Gospel Q: Collected Essai's, 13 1-67.
Chapter 3 first appeared in "The Real Jesus of the Sayings Gospel Q."
Princeton Seminary Bulletin, n.s. 18 2 (1997): 135-51. In The Savings Gospel
Q: Collected Essays, 519-34, the German translation is used: "Der wahre
Jesus. Der historische Jesus im Spruchevangelium Q" In Prolokolle :ur Bibel
(Salzburg) 6 (1997): 1-14. Reprint with footnotes, Zeitschrit /iii-Notes
Testament I (1998): 17-26.
Chapter 4 first appeared in Encountering Jesus: .4 Debate on ('hristolog>>,
pp. 111-22. Edited by Stephen T. Davis. Atlanta: John Knox, 1988. Revised
reprint in Images o/ the l"emininc in Gnosticism, pp. 113-27. Edited by Karen
King. Studies in Antiquity and Christianity. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988.
Reprinted in The Savings Gospel Q: Collected Essays, 259-73.
Chapter 5 first appeared in Tradition 1111(I Translation: 'Lynn Problem der
interkuluuellert Ubo-set:bar•keii relisgioser• Phdnomene l•esvschr•ifi Iir
('aster ('o1re :crrn 65. Gehurtstag, pp. 247-65. Edited by ('hristoph Elsas et al.
Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1994. Reprinted in The Savings
Gospel Q: Collected Essurs. 405-25.
Chapter 6 first appeared in Early Christian lbices: In Texts, Traditions and
Srmhols. L•'ssaI's in honor o/'f'ran4 ois Borah, pp. 25-43. Edited by David 11.
Warren, Ann Graham Brock, and David W. Pao. Biblical Interpretation Series
66. Leiden and Boston: L.J. Brill, 2003. Reprinted in The Sarin,i. s Gospel Q.
Collected Essays, 689-709.
Chapter 7 first appeared in Profiles ofJesus, pp. 15-17. Edited by Roy W.
Hoover. Santa Rosa, Calif.: Polebridge, 2002. Reprinted in The Sayings
Gospel Q: Collected Essays, 887-89.
Chapter 8 first appeared in The Gospel Behind the Gospel.,;: Current
Studies on Q, pp. 259-74. Edited by Ronald A. Piper. Supplements to Novum
Testamentuni 75. Leiden, New York, Cologne: E.J. Brill, 1995. Reprinted in
The Savings Gospel Q: Collected E.s.sui•s, 449-63.
Chapter 9 first appeared in Jesus Then and Now: Images of Jesus in History
and Christologt•, pp. 7-25. Edited by Marvin Meyer and Charles Hughes.
Harrisburg, Penn.: Trinity Press International, 2001. Reprinted in The Sayings
Gospel Q: Collected Essays, 645-62.
Chapter 10 first appeared in The Future of'Early Christianity: Essays in
Honor of Helmut Koester, pp. 173-94. Edited by Birger A. Pearson.
Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991. Reprinted in The Savings Gospel Q: Collected
Essays, 285-307.
Chapter I I first appeared in The Ciuft of Religious Studies, pp. 11750.
Edited by Jon R. Stone. London: Macmillan, and New York: St. Martin's,
1998. Paperback reprint: New York: Palgrave, 2000. Reprinted in The Savings
Gospel Q: Collected Essays, 3-34.
INTRODUCTION
The earliest witness to Jesus is not a person whose name we could name,
but rather a collection of his sayings that we can reconstruct: The Sayings
Gospel Q. This source contains the most important sayings that go hack to
Jesus himself, and hence is our primary source of information about what he
was trying to say, and to do. If you really want to know about Jesus, this is the
first place for you to turn.
The Sayings Gospel Q is a collection of Jesus' sayings brought together
within what we might call the JewishChristian branch of'Christianity betiore it
disappeared from the pages of history. Fortunately for us, by that point the
collection had already been incorporated into the Gentile-Christian church's
New Testament, an ecumenical gesture of decisive importance. Let me explain
how this happened.
Around 70 (.► ., Jewish Christians were using a collection of Jesus' sayings
as their "Gospel,' whereas Mark had already been published among Gentile
Christians as their "Gospel" Later in the first century, Matthew and Luke were
composed as efforts to integrate these two "Gospels" and, in et7cct, the
perspectives of these two Christianities, Matthew representing a more
JewishChristian outlook, Luke that of' a Gentile-Christian church at the turn
ofthe second century.
This is how scholars have come to understand why Matthew, Mark, and
Luke are, over against John, so very similar in what they present. Matthew and
Luke had the same two sources, the Gentile-Christian Gospel Mark and the
JewishChristian sayings source. Since the latter lacked a name, scholars at first
referred to it simply as the second "source": in German, Q ue//e. The first letter
of Queue. Q, became the nickname of this source, to which we refer today as
the Sayings Gospel Q in order to distinguish it from the Narrative Gospels
Matthew. Mark. Luke, and John. (For further details see "The Critical I :dition
of Q and the Study of'.Jesus," chapter I.)
A generation ago, I organized an international team of scholars to
reconstruct Q as best we could, word for word.' My English translation is
reprinted here as an appendix so that you can read it for yourself. It is the
oldest collection of Jesus' sayings that we have. Indeed, most of what we know
about Jesus is found in these sayings.
Since Luke usually (though not always) follows Q's order, we have adopted
the habit of using Lukan chapter and verse numbers to cite Q. Hence, for
example, "Q 6:22-23" refers to the Q verses used in Luke 6:22-23 (and in the
parallel verses in Matthew 5:11-12).
Jesus According to the Earliest Witness contains essays that I wrote during
the actual work of reconstructing Q. I sought, year after year, to move behind
the glorious picture of Christ with which we are most familiar from the
Narrative Gospels of the New Testament to get back to the undomesticated,
down-to-earth Jesus hidden behind that halo. The results are impressive and
surprising. If you are accustomed to the New Testament Gospels, you probably
don't even realize what you have been missing until you catch sight of Jesus as
he really was: what we might in modern terms call a pure idealist, a fully
committed radical, a very profound person. He spoke for God straight out, and
called on you to hearken as if your life depended on it. To readers steeped in
the traditions of the church and its New Testament, I ask: please don't retreat
behind doctrines about Jesus but do let him get to you!
Why is it that we are so ignorant about Jesus'? Actually, when you think
about it, the gap in our knowledge of him is made painfully clear by the
Apostles' Creed, which many of us have learned by heart. It begins with what
was done Jor Jesus, "conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary,"
and then skips to what was done against Jesus, "suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and buried." But what is skipped in the middle is what was
done hr Jesus as if that were not important enough to include in what we
believe about Jesus! Did Jesus do or say nothing worth believing between
Bethlehem and Golgotha? Yes, he most surely did! And that is what I want to
lay out in this book of essays.
To be sure, all Jesus was trying to say and do in Galilee was cut short by his
utterly horrible death in Jerusalem. The twelve disciples must with a shock
have realized that his call on them to trust in an ever-loving, caring God was a