Was Jesus an Apocalyptic Prophet?

Demystifying the modern paradigm of Jesus research

Nov 23, 2024

‘Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place’ (Mark 13:30)

In his 1952 essay The World’s Last Night, C.S. Lewis describes this as ‘certainly the most embarrassing verse in the Bible.’1 It expresses Jesus’ expectation that the Son of Man would come in glory within a generation; that he would arrive, as the Apostle’s Creed has it, to ‘judge the quick and the dead.’ Yet two millennia have passed and Jesus’ timeline did not transpire. Christendom has come, but Christ did not.

Readers are often startled that Lewis would admit error on Jesus’ part. But in doing so, he was well-attuned to the biblical scholarship of his day. At the turn of the twentieth century, two German intellectuals - Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer - had argued cogently that the Kingdom preached by Jesus was not simply the rule of God in one’s heart, or the Church, but the ‘end of the world’ as he knew it – an imminent eschatological event. By the 1950s, this view had become the official scholarly portrait of Jesus.

In more recent studies, aspects of the theory have been questioned. For example, the notion that apocalyptic expectations shaped every aspect of Jesus’ ministry – what Schweitzer called his ‘thorough-going’ eschatology – is often rejected. Not everything Jesus taught can be chalked up to a failed eschatology. Nevertheless, Schweitzer’s original impression of Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet still looms large in scholarship. It remains the dominant paradigm of Jesus research.

This may all come as a bit of a surprise, for one (like me) who grew up in the pews. While many churchgoers pay lip-service to Jesus’ humanity, it is something else to suppose that Jesus might have been wrong. Why then do historians often think that he was? In this post, I look at seven brush-strokes in this portrait of the historical Jesus.2

1. His Milieu was Apocalyptic

First of all, apocalyptic ideas about the end of the age and the coming of the Kingdom were common in Jesus’ setting. Not only were they found in sacred books, like Isaiah and Daniel, they are also present in a large number of extra-biblical texts.

In Jesus’ day, these included parts of 1 Enoch, the Sibylline Oracles and the Testament of Moses, and in the decades that followed, books like 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, and the Apocalypse of Abraham. We also know from Josephus, the first century historian, that Daniel - a text regularly cited in the Gospels - was particularly popular (Ant. 10.668).

In short, it is not at all surprising that Jesus could have held apocalyptic notions of the sort described in the Gospels. Such expectations were common in his time.

2. Jesus’ Mentor and Followers Expected the Kingdom

A further reason to view Jesus’ ministry as apocalyptic is that it was sandwiched by people who were similarly minded. Both John the Baptist and Jesus’ followers also seem to have held end-time beliefs, which suggests that Jesus did as well.

Take the teaching of John the Baptist, shared by Matthew and Luke. There he warns people to ‘flee from the wrath which is to come’; he asserts that ‘even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees’; and prophecies a baptism of ‘fire.’ All of this seems to anticipate a near judgement, and we know that Jesus spoke highly of John.3

On the other side of the cross, we know that Jesus’ followers continued to believe that the Kingdom would come soon. This is seen, for example, in the writings of St. Paul, who encouraged single people to remain single in light of the coming judgement (1 Cor. 7:8), believing that ‘the night is far spent and the day is at hand’ (Rom. 13:12). The same expectations are replete within much of the earliest Christian literature.4

3. The Teaching of Jesus

The third, and perhaps most important, reason for thinking that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet is that numerous sayings in the Gospels look forward to the imminent end. While an exhaustive study is not possible here, consider the following verses:

Mark 9:1 And he said to them, “Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.

Matthew 10:23. When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next; for truly I tell you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.

Mark 13:30 ‘Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.’

In addition to these sayings, Jesus’ parables frequently admonish people to watch for the Son of Man and the Kingdom, and his teaching includes numerous examples of eschatological reversal, anticipating their arrival. His teaching also includes multiple references to the tribulation which will be faced by his disciples. For example, his prayer, ‘lead us not into temptation’ is perhaps best understood against the backdrop of the tribulation – a common expectation of God’s people before the end.

Of course, it is possible that not all of the logia mentioned above were uttered by Jesus. (On that subject, see this.) My argument here is simply that the general impression of these verses is that he expected the end to come soon. And this is best explained on the hypothesis that he really did expect it to arrive imminently.

4. The Meaning of the ‘Kingdom’

Given how much the motif saturates the Synoptic tradition, we can be certain that Jesus really did proclaim the ‘Kingdom’. And in this theme, we also find a hint at Jesus’ end-times eschatology. For as Dale Allison notes, in “ancient Jewish literature, the ‘Kingdom (of God)’ is associated with imminence and eschatology proper.”5

By “imminence” and “eschatology proper,” Allison is referring to the way that the Kingdom-language is associated with the near-consummation of all things. For example, the Testament of Moses states: ‘Then his Kingdom will appear throughout his whole creation. Then the devil will have his end. Yea, sorrow will be led away with him’ (10.1). Similarly, the Sibylline Oracles claims that ‘when Rome will also rule over Egypt… then indeed the most great Kingdom…. will become manifest’ (3.46-48).

Comparable language is found in several other texts, including the ancient Kaddish prayer, which is echoed by the prayer Jesus offered to his disciples. It reads: ‘May he establish his kingdom in your lifetime and in your days, and in the life-time of the whole house of Israel, speedily and at a near time.’ Since the Kingdom was strongly associated with eschatological notions, Jesus’ ‘Kingdom’ likely encoded the same expectations.

5. The Defeat of Satan

A further signpost to Jesus’ apocalypticism is his belief in Satan’s demise. In Second-Temple Judaism, the end was often thought to involve a battle between the forces of good and evil, in which the forces of darkness would be overthrown. In that day, ‘there will be no Satan and no evil (one) who will destroy’ (Jub. 23:29; cf. 1 En. 1.10-4-6).

In light of this belief, it is surely significant that Jesus thought that the days of Satan’s demise were already here. Consider sayings such as ‘I watched Satan fall from heaven fall like a flash of lightening’ (Lk. 10:18) and ‘…. if it is by the finger of God that I cast out the demons, then the Kingdom of God has come to you’ (Luke 11:20; Q).

Elsewhere, Jesus refers to the devil as a ‘strong man’ being tied up and plundered (Mk 3:27). It is not the case, then, that his ministry was a skirmish with Satan. Rather, the the Gospels’ portrayal of Jesus’ view is that Satan is now being defeated and thus that the end is near. It is plausible that Jesus – who is widely considered to have been an exorcist – construed his ministry of exorcism in these terms.

6. The Restoration of Israel

In negative terms then, it was believed that the end would see the forces of darkness (including Rome) cleared out. But in positive terms, it was believed that Israel itself would be restored. That is, the ten tribes of the Israel (which had been dispersed in the Babylonian exile in 722 BCE) would be reconstituted again at the end.

This hope, so common in Second Temple Jewish literature, is the key to unlock parts of Jesus’ ministry.6 In particular, it explains why Jesus chose twelve (male) disciples as his coterie, representing the restored twelve tribes of Israel. And also why he saw these ‘twelve’ as ruling on thrones in the new Kingdom (Lk. 22:28-30). It seems then that Jesus thought that now Israel was being reconstituted around his very self.

This belief is seen in another saying in the ‘Q’ tradition: ‘Then people will come from east and west, from north and south, and take their places at the banquet in the kingdom of God’ (Lk 13:29). This accords with a traditional belief that Jews from the ‘east and west’ would come back to the land, with Israel at the centre of expectations.

7. Belief in the Resurrection

Finally, the apocalypticism of the early Jesus movement helps to explain a crucial facet in the history of Christianity, namely why his followers believed in his resurrection.

This may not seem an obvious point to us. We generally see ‘resurrection’ as a one-off (or very rare) occurrence associated with individuals like Jesus. But for ancient Jews, resurrection was a group event and a sign that the end had come. This is why Paul talks about Jesus’ resurrection as the ‘first fruits’ of the Christ-follower’s own resurrection (1 Cor. 15:51). To call it the ‘first fruits’ implies that the harvest is to follow very soon.

Why then did Jesus’ followers interpret their post-mortem experiences as ‘resurrection’, rather than the vindication of his Spirit in heaven, or something else? It is likely they did so, in part, because they were in a context in which the resurrection was not only expected, but expected to come soon. This is supported by the Gospels, which attest Jesus’ belief in the general resurrection (quite apart from his own).

Was Jesus Wrong about the End?

In this post, I have tried to demystify the image of Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet by paying attention to seven brushstrokes in this portrait. To be sure, each of the strokes I have looked at is thick, and on their own they may be insufficient to provide a high-resolution image of Jesus’ particular beliefs. There are other strands worthy of analysis, and a more detailed defence to be made of the historicity of certain motifs.

Put together in the context of Jewish literature of the time, however, these brushstrokes allow us to make out a coherent impression of Jesus’ apocalyptic expectations. When we see the parts in light of the whole, Jesus’ ministry begins to make a great deal of sense: Jesus proclaimed the arrival of the Kingdom and expected it come soon – and his followers continued to believe in an imminent end.

Clearly, however, the belief that Jesus mis-timed the end puts believers in a bit of a pickle. At best, it invites us to ponder our Christology. At worst, it is a threat to the credibility of our faith. Could it really be that Jesus was misguided – like an ancient Millerite – and the whole edifice of Christianity built upon a delusion?

Although such questions are perhaps better directed at a theologian than a biblical scholar, you may be painfully unsurprised that I don’t find the matter so cut-and-dry. While a full exposition of what I take Jesus to mean will take another paper – and perhaps a different setting altogether – it is worth noting here that the chord of an imminent-end is not the only one struck by early Christianity. What to make of the end is a conversation Christians have been having for an awfully long time.

For now, as a historian, I am content to sit with the strangeness of this Jesus. Because the strangeness may be a subtle sign that we are entering into the real past, rather than a world of our own making. For too long, scholars have looked down the well of history – as the adage goes – and found their own reflections staring back at them. Yet with this portrait of Jesus, we find a character who is not so much like us. And with the faint discomfort of entering this foreign territory, it begins to seem uncannily real.

Behind the Gospels

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