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Prophetic ‘I’-Sayings and the Jesus tradition: The importance of testing prophetic utterances within early Christianity*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2009
Extract
The Church drew no distinction between such utterances by Christian prophets (ascribed to the ascended Christ) and the sayings of Jesus in the tradition, for the reason that even the dominical sayings in the tradition were not the pronouncements of a past authority, but sayings of the risen Lord, who is always a contemporary for the Church.
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References
page 175 note 1 Bultmann, R., The History of the Synoptic Tradition (ET Oxford, 1963), pp. 127 f.Google Scholar
page 175 note 2 See particularly Käsemann, E., ‘Sentences of Holy Law in the New Testament’ and ‘The Beginnings of Christian Theology’, New Testament Questions of Today (ET London, 1969)Google Scholar, chaps. III and IV; Perrin, N., Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus (London, 1967), p. 15Google Scholar; Schulz, S., Q Die Spruch-quelle der Evangelisten (Zürich, 1972), pp. 57–66.Google Scholar
page 175 note 3 I use the phrases ‘Jesus-tradition’ and ‘“I”-sayings’ as a convenient shorthand for ‘sayings attributed to the earthly, pre-Easter Jesus’ and ‘prophetic utterances spoken in the person of the risen Jesus’ respectively.
page 176 note 1 Käsemann, E., ‘Is the Gospel Objective?’, Essays on New Testament Themes (ET London, 1964), p. 60Google Scholar (my emphasis).
page 176 note 2 Teeple, H. M., ‘The oral tradition that never existed’, J.B.L. 89 (1970), 67.Google Scholar
page 176 note 3 A beginning has been made in two recent monographs – Müller, U. B., Prophetie und Predigt im Neuen Testament (Gütersloh, 1975)Google Scholar, and Dautzenberg, G., Urchristliche Prophetie (Stuttgart, 1975)Google Scholar – but both only touch on the particular issues raised here.
page 176 note 4 Matt, . vii. 15–23Google Scholar, x. 41, xxiii. 34 f./Luke, xiGoogle Scholar. 49 ff.; Acts ii. 17 f., xi. 27, xiii. 1, xv. 32, xix. 6, xxi. 9 f.; Rom. xii. 6; I Cor. xii. 10, 28; xiv; Eph. ii. 20; I Thess. v. 20.
page 176 note 5 See Käsemann, , ‘Beginnings’; J.D.G. Dunn, Jesus and the Spirit (London, 1975)Google Scholar, chap. VII.
page 177 note 1 On I Thess. iv. 15 see particularly Davies, J. G., ‘The genesis of belief in an imminent parousia’, J.T.S., n.s. 14 (1963), 104–7Google Scholar; Henneken, B., Verkündigung und Prophetie im I. Thessalonicherbrief (Stuttgarter Bibel-Studien 29, 1969), pp. 85–91Google Scholar; Best, E., The First and Second Epistles to the Thessalonians (London, 1972), pp. 189–93.Google Scholar
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page 178 note 1 Cf. Perrin, , Teaching, p. 245.Google Scholar
page 178 note 2 Hawthorne, G. F., ‘Christian prophecy and the sayings of Jesus: evidence of and criteria for’, S.B.L. 1975 Seminar Papers, 2, 113.Google Scholar
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page 179 note 1 Hawthorne, pp. 113 f.: ‘Do this in remembrance of me’ could have originated as a prophetic utterance (cf. I Cor. xi. 23 f.; Didache 10. 7), or simply as a liturgical development of the earlier, briefer ‘words of institution’. D. Aune has begun to catalogue the Jesus logia attributed to Christian prophets by different scholars – ‘Christian prophecy and the sayings of Jesus: an index to Synoptic pericopae ostensibly influenced by early Christian prophets’, S.B.L. 1975 Seminar Papers, 2, 131–42.Google Scholar
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page 179 note 1 Teeple's suggestion that I Cor. vii. 10–11, ix. 14, xi. 23–6 was received by Paul ‘from the Lord directly, apparently by spiritual revelation’ (p. 65 n.24) has little or no support among commentators and is rightly to be rejected.
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page 180 note 5 Cf. Downing, F. G., The Church and Jesus (London, 1968), p. 121.Google Scholar
page 181 note 1 See also Hill, , p. 264Google Scholar. The only really Synoptic-like saying of Jesus preserved outside the Synoptics in the earliest Christian literature is Acts xx. 35 (see above, p. 178). But its origin as a prophetic oracle is even less likely than its place in the original Jesus-tradition. Hawthorne compares Rev. ii. 10 with Matt, . x. 28, 22Google Scholar, Rev. iii. 20 with John, xiv. 23Google Scholar, Rev. xvi. 15 with Matt, . xxiv. 43 fGoogle Scholar., Luke, xii. 39Google Scholar, and Rev. iii. 5 with Luke, xvii. 8–9 (p. 112)Google Scholar. For other possible examples in later literature see Jeremias, J., Unknoum Sayings of Jesus (ET London, 2 1964).Google Scholar
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page 181 note 5 See Koch, K., The Rediscovery of Apocalyptic (ET London, 1972)Google Scholar, chap. VI.
page 181 note 5 ‘Sentences of Holy Law in the New Testament’ (see p. 175, n. 2 above).
page 182 note 1 But see Koch's perceptive criticism (pp. 75–8).
page 182 note 2 Berger, K., ‘Zu den sogenannten Sätzen heiligen Rechts’, N.T.S. 17 (1970–1971), 10–40Google Scholar. See also Hill, , pp. 271–4.Google Scholar
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page 182 note 4 Rengstorf, K., T.D.N.T. 2, 157.Google Scholar
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page 182 note 6 Gerhardsson, B., Memory and Manuscript (Lund, 1961)Google Scholar; see also Tradition and Transmission in Early Christianity (Lund, 1964)Google Scholar; and earlier, Riesenfeld, H., The Gospel Tradition and its Beginnings (London, 1957).Google Scholar
page 183 note 1 So Hawthorne: ‘…what he [the prophet] said was accepted by the community as the command of the Lord to be obeyed without question…’ (p. 109).
page 183 note 2 See further on this whole area Crenshaw, J. L., Prophetic Conflict (BZAW, 1971).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 184 note 1 See Dunn, , Jesus and the SpiritGoogle Scholar, chap. x, n. 79.
page 184 note 2 On διάκρισις πνευμάτων as meaning ‘interpretation of revelations given by the Spirit’ see Dautzenberg, , pp. 122–8.Google Scholar
page 185 note 1 For individual points of exegesis see Dunn, , Jesus and the Spirit, §41.3.Google Scholar
page 185 note 2 See also Heb. v. 14 – the teacher is trained πρς διάκρισιν καλο τε καί κα I Clem. 48.5 – τω τις πιστός,τω δυνατς γνσιν έξεıπεīν, τω σοφς έν διακρίσεı λόγων…Cf. Josephus, , Bell. 2. 258–63Google Scholar; vi. 285–315; Rev. ii. 20.
page 186 note 1 See further Dunn, , Jesus and the Spirit, §§41. 2Google Scholar, 3, 7, 8.
page 187 note 1 For rabbinic references see Schäfer, P., Die Vorstellung vom heiligen Geist in der rabbinischen Literatur (München, 1972), pp. 89–115, 143–6Google Scholar. But see also pp. 116–34, 147 ff. Fuller details in Dunn, , Jesus and the SpiritGoogle Scholar, chap. iv, n. 81.
page 187 note 2 See further Dunn, , Jesus and the Spirit, § 31. 3Google Scholar; Acts v. 3 f. could however be described as a ‘discerning of spirits’.
page 187 note 3 Crenshaw, , pp. 49–61.Google Scholar
page 188 note 1 Translations from NEB. See also I Sam, . iii. 19Google Scholar, I Kings viii. 56, xxii. 28, Isa. xxx. 8, Ezek. xxxiii. 33, (II) Isa. xli. 21 ff., xlii. 9, xliv. 26, xlv. 21, xlvi. 10, xlviii. 15 f., lv. 10 f.
page 189 note 1 Less satisfactory is the attempt to classify what forms of inspiration are acceptable – ecstatic or non-ecstatic, by dream or otherwise, by word or spirit (cf. particularly Jer. xxiii. 25–8) – since the classical prophets themselves were no strangers to ecstatic and visionary experiences. See particularly Lindblom, J., Prophecy in Ancient Israel (Oxford, 1962), chap. III.Google Scholar
page 189 note 2 Cf. Barth, G. in G. Bornkamm, G. Barth and H. J. Held, Tradition and Interpretation in Matthew (ET London, 1963), pp. 73 ff.Google Scholar
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page 190 note 2 Cf. Rev. xix. 10 – γρ μαρτυρία Ίησο έστιν τ πνεμα τς προφητείας.
page 191 note 1 See further Reiling, J., Hermas and Christian Prophecy (Nov. Test. Supp. 37, 1973).Google Scholar
page 191 note 2 Reding argues that a ‘doctrinal criterion’ is not applied in the Eleventh Mandate ‘because neither the prophet nor the false prophet are pictured as teachers, and only indirectly in Sim. 8. 6Google Scholar. 5…’ (pp. 67 f.).
page 192 note 1 Dunn, , Jesus and the Spirit, §40.4.Google Scholar
page 195 note 1 Cf. e.g. Baer, H. von, Der heilige Geist in den Lukasschriften (Stuttgart, 1926), pp. 75 f., 137 fGoogle Scholar.; Branscomb, B. H, The Gospel of Mark (Moffatt, 1937), pp. 74 fGoogle Scholar.; Barrett, C. K, The Holy Spirit and the Gospel Tradition (London, 1947), pp. 106 fGoogle Scholar.; Teeple, , p. 67.Google Scholar
page 195 note 2 Boring, M. E., ‘How may we identify oracles of Christian Prophets in the Synoptic Tradition? Mark 3. 28–29 as a test case’, J.B.L. 91 (1972), 501–21.Google Scholar
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page 196 note 1 See further Dunn, , Jesus and the Spirit, §8.4Google Scholar, where the original form of the saying is discussed.
page 196 note 2 This particular discussion has already begun with Michaels, J. R., ‘The Johannine words of Jesus and Christian prophecy’, S.B.L. 1975 Seminar Papers, 2, 233–64.Google Scholar
page 196 note 3 See Dunn, J. D. G., Unity and Diversity in the New TestamentGoogle Scholar, forthcoming, §63.
page 197 note 1 See above, p. 176 n. 1.
page 197 note 2 Perrin, , Teaching, p. 39.Google Scholar
page 197 note 3 Ibid. p. 43.
page 198x note 1 Cf. the way in which Bultmann, in fact wrote his Jesus and the Word (ET New York, 1934).Google Scholar
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