Pure Kingdom: Jesus' Vision of God
Overview
This provocative study offers the first new model for understanding the meaning of the “kingdom of God” since the appearance of Albert Schweitzer's seminal work. In Pure Kingdom, Bruce Chilton advances the discussion beyond Schweitzer by offering a new theory of Jesus' preaching based on the Judaic context of his ministry and the subsequent generation of Christian theology. After first covering the scholarly state of the question, Chilton explores the meaning of the “kingdom of God” within the Judaism of Jesus' day, particularly as it developed on the basis of the most significant ancient source—the book of Psalms. Chilton then analyzes Jesus' individual sayings about the kingdom, giving careful attention to Jesus' own meaning and the extent to which that meaning was changed by those who passed on his teaching. Special focus is also devoted to what Jesus did in the name of the kingdom. Finally, the ways in which Jesus' followers interpreted the ultimate significance of the kingdom is explored, because their conceptions shaped the Gospels as they stand today.
Key Features
- Clarification of semantics within historical con
- Perfect for students, laity, pastors, and professors
Top Highlights
“What most of all struck scholars at the end of the last century was that in early Judaism ‘the kingdom of God’ was used neither of an individual’s life after death in heaven nor of a movement of social improvement on earth.” (Page 2)
“They demonstrated that the kingdom of God in early Judaism and in Jesus’ preaching involved God’s final judgment of the world; the concept of the kingdom was part and parcel of anticipation of the last things.” (Page 2)
“Schweitzer’s Jesus sent out the twelve to announce the kingdom’s coming, by which he meant the dissolution of the world as he knew it. So fixed was Jesus’ apocalyptic calendar that he expected that event before the mission of the twelve was done (see, above all, Matt. 10:23).7 When the end did not come, he attempted to force his father’s hand by offering himself for execution in Jerusalem. Jesus’ thought was that God would not let the messiah die. Jesus on the cross was therefore an abject failure.” (Page 3)
“ The point of speaking of God’s kingdom is that God makes his realm ours.” (Page 10)
“Scholars routinely debate whether the kingdom should be defined as ‘eschatological,’ a word that is easily defined, but without much meaning in the world in which most people live. Meanwhile, the idea that the kingdom of God refers to social improvement among people of goodwill is a commonplace in religious and political discussion, although scholars are virtually unanimous in finding that is not what the term refers to. So one side speaks only in technicalities, while the other speaks without reference to history.” (Page x)
Praise for the Print Edition
The study overall is to be warmly commended as a fitting inauguration of a series that promises to be fully critical and scholarly and yet avoids the excesses of the skepticism that claims we can know little about the historical Jesus, a skepticism based more on philosophical and methodological idiosyncracies than on bona fide historical research.
—Craig L. Blomberg, The Review of Biblical Literature
Product Details
- Title: Pure Kingdom: Jesus' Vision of God
- Author: Bruce Chilton
- Publisher: W. B. Eerdmans
- Publication Date: 1996
- Pages: 188