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Jesus Of Nazareth
By Günther Bornkamm
239 pp. New York, Harper & Brothers, 1961. $4.00.

Professor Bornkamm's book is both definitive and disappointing. It is definitive as the example of the path the interpretation of Jesus is currently taking in what has been called the "new quest." It is disappointing, in my opinion, in its attempt to support that interpretation.

The aim of the book is to give an historical presentation of Jesus and his message (p. 14). The thesis of the book is that Jesus is to be found in his word and in his actions rather than in any direct Messianic claims or Messianic self-consciousness (p. 169).

Here is a suggestion of the contents by chapters. I. "Faith and History in the Gospels"-the sources do not permit a life of Jesus because of the mixture of faith and history, but they do speak of a real history enough to make the task of the book possible. II. "Period and Environment"-though reflecting certain of its elements, Jesus relates to his times mainly by contrast. III. "Jesus of Nazareth"-a summary of Jesus' traits adds up to a figure of unmistakable otherness in whom the reality and will of God are always immediately present. IV. "The Dawn of the Kingdom of God"-for Jesus, God's kingdom is future; but in his call for repentance, the present becomes the hour of salvation and the kingdom dawns. V. "The Will of God"-(here a summary is especially inadequate) without forsaking law, Jesus founds his exposition of the will of God on an immediate presence of the divine will, for example, Sermon on the Mount, Love, Creation, World, Faith, Prayer, etc. VI. "Discipleship"-Jesus chooses twelve to catch men for the kingdom. They share the kingdom's healing power and the authority to proclaim it, for which they

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are promised a place in the future. The later Church saw itself in them. VII. "Jesus' journey to Jerusalem. Suffering and Death"-Jesus goes to Jerusalem to offer it a final chance to decide for the imminent Kingdom of God. He is put to death there, not for blasphemy or Messianic pretensions, but because the Jewish authorities turned him over to the Romans as a political suspect. VIII. "The Messianic Question"-though Jesus awakened Messianic expectations "there is not one single certain proof of Jesus' claiming for himself one of the Messianic titles which tradition has ascribed to him" (p. 172). IX. "Jesus Christ--though ambiguous in record, the appearances of the risen Christ are responsible for Easter faith, and not vice versa. The Church began at the resurrection. In her confussion, Jesus' words and the gospel about Jesus Christ combine. Three appendices enlarge critical and historical points.

Professor Bornkamm moves through the maze of critical problems with refreshing and persuasive candor. Paul and the other authors of the New Testament knew extremely little of Gospel detail (p. 17). Jesus really believed the end of the world was near (p. 66, p. 89, note 40). Jesus was not the first to call God Father (p. 124). The predictions of the passion are formulated in retrospect (p. 154). Jesus did not think of himself as Messiah (p. 172). Jesus did not found the Church. It is post-resurrection (p. 186). Genealogies, infancy narratives, baptism, temptation, transfiguration, and Peter's confession are all primarily Church theology (p. 173). The Passion Narrative is no freer of interpretation than the rest of the Gospels (p. 155). Jesus died before the beginning of the Passover festival, and we do not know what took place at his last meal with the disciples (pp. 160 ff.).

One might suppose that the author intends to use this critical perspective against the Gospels' confessional interpretation of Jesus. Nothing could be farther wrong. By balancing each apparently negative consideration with a complimentary positive one, Professor Bornkamm still comes out where the Gospels do. I think this is amazing. I also think it is impossible. This is something like a Cullmannian superstructure built on a Bultmannian foundation. Now the new quest elsewhere argues that this is where Bultmann was really heading all along. I cannot agree. The man is still alive and he has said no. (Das Verhältnis der urchristlichen Christusbotschaft zum historischen Jesus, pp. 20, 21).

Here then is what I find disappointing about the book. The considerations that argue against the Gospels' confessional interpretation of Jesus seem convincing to me. The considerations that support that interpretation do not. The impression is one of hopeless contradiction.

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Four issues must suffice within the limits of this review to illustrate the point.

Professor Bornkamm. recognizes at the outset the importance of the question "what actually happened." But he will not grant it priority since such priority would reduce the tradition to the point where the remainder would bear "no resemblance to the story set forth in the Gospels" (p. 15). In other words, though claiming to aim at presenting the historical Jesus, he refuses to entertain the possibility of a different portrait than the Gospels'.

A similar contradiction governs Jesus' place in his times. During a masterful sketch of the period in which Jesus obviously relates to many aspects of Judaism, at each point he finally appears only by contrast. This is true even with the Baptist (p. 49). Two sentences express the tension. "Jesus belongs to this world. Yet in the midst of it he is of unmistakeable otherness" (p. 56). But I have the impression that in his treatment, Prof. Bornkamm makes the second sentence cancel out the first.

The contradiction continues in the treatment of the time of the kingdom. Often Jesus is presented as certain of an imminent end of the world. If Jesus shared this much with the apocalyptists, it would rob his mission of its mainspring to teach that the end is present. Where this happens in the Gospels, it is rightly called, "interference" (p. 89, note 40). Nevertheless the concluding word on the subject is: "In Jesus himself the dawn of the kingdom of God becomes a reality" (p. 170).

A final example is the claim to Messiahship. On the one hand, Jesus had no Messianic consciousness. The "Messianic secret" is an editorial invention (p. 171). He did not speak of himself as Son of man (p. 230). On the other hand, "Jesus actually awakened Messianic expectations by his coming and by his ministry . . ." (p. 172). To make this second point Prof. Bornkamm refuses to apply his usual acute critical awareness to Peter's confession, the triumphal entry, and the post-resurrection conversation of the disciples at Emmaus. The attitude of the Jewish authorities (p. 172) is sufficiently explained for me by their desire to be rid of Jesus under any pretense. Again the final impression seems to me to contradict the critical considerations. Even if Jesus had aroused Messianic expectations among his followers, it would not have been as Prof. Bornkamm suggests, because "the Messianic character of his being is contained in his words and deeds" (p. 178); but because his followers refused to recognize that in his words and deeds Jesus of Nazareth was doing everything possible to point away from himself to the urgent realities in his message about the coming kingdom.

Why? Why does Professor Bornkamm not follow out the logic of

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his critical position to a more consistent portrait of Jesus? I do not know. Perhaps because a more historically consistent Jesus might too gravely threaten the confessional posture of the Church? But does not the Church also confess the humanity of Jesus and the decisiveness of the resurrection?

Still Prof. Bornkamm's book is probably the best we have on Jesus of Nazareth because of the immediacy, directness, and simplicity with which it illumines so many of Jesus' words and works. I cannot imagine preacher or professor dealing with this subject without wanting to consult this book. What I have said by way of reservation is only half of the story. The other half is the story of one of our times' most diligent New Testament scholars lavishly spreading before the reader, all washed and ready to enjoy, the plump, ripe fruit of impossibly long hours of backbreaking, painstaking culture. For the delight and the nourishment, the author deserves lasting gratitude.

Neill Q. Hamilton
San Francisco Theological Seminary
San Anselmo, California