Digital Logos Edition
The most important development in recent historical Jesus studies is the attempt to understand the ministry of Jesus in “political” terms. In calling the nation of Israel to repentance, Jesus served as a national prophet concerned with the salvation of Israel. This book by Scot McKnight furthers this line of inquiry by showing how Jesus' teachings are to be understood in relation to his role as a political figure. McKnight looks closely at Jesus' teachings on God, the kingdom, and ethics, demonstrating in each case how Jesus' mission to restore Israel brings his teachings into a bold new light.
For those interested in the quest for the historical Jesus, reading this book is like sitting at the Master's feet in a dusty synagogue in Capernaum or Nazareth. Writing with a creful eye to scholars and students alike, McNight judicously exposes how much of Jesus' teachingts was directed to the nation of Israel in it's role as God's holy peeopl in the first-century Mediterranean world. Providing as an added bonus a lucif and comprehensive guide to recent scholarship on the subject, McKnight gives us on of the freshest and most compelling contributions to the continuing question, 'Who really was this Jesus?' Bravo!
—L.D. Hurst, University of California
Scot McKnight is the Karl A. Olsson Professor in Religious Studies at North Park University in Chicago, Illinois. He is the author of thirty books, including The Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving Others, which won the Christianity Today book of the year for Christian Living.
“Both John and Jesus had a single vision: the restoration of Israel.” (Page 5)
“He did not see beyond the destruction of Jerusalem but connected both the final judgment and the final deliverance with that event.” (Page 130)
“Not to be disconnected from the temple incident is the last meal Jesus had with his chosen few; what Jesus had protested in the temple incident (corrupt leadership; the need for a restored nation, a restored worship, and a restored covenant; a restoration on Mount Zion for the king) he actualized in a renewal of the covenant in the meal. When his followers took of the bread and the cup, they did so as new participants in the restored Israel (Mark 14:12–26 and parallels). This original context has unfortunately been long forgotten in most Christian celebrations of the Lord’s Supper.” (Page 8)
“Jesus cannot be understood if he is described exclusively, or even primarily, in the category of a spiritual master, or as one who was primarily concerned with the inner religious life and its disciplines for the individual. First and foremost, Jesus was a Jew whose vision of the proper religious life centered on the restoration of the Jewish nation and on the fulfillment of the covenants that God had made with the nation.” (Page 10)
“God of the Covenant, the Holy One of Israel, is calling his people for the final time to radical covenantal obedience. The commands to follow Jesus before all else are nothing but the reaffirmation and reapplication of the first commandment: ‘You shall have no other gods before me’ (Exod. 20:3).” (Page 33)