393 - New Testament Theology the Proclamation of Jesus

New Testament: Theology the Proclamation of Jesus
By Joachim Jeremias
Translated from the German
NEUTESTAMENTLICHE THEOLOGIE I TEIL: DIE VERKUNDIGUNG JESU
By John Bowden
330 pp New York, Charles Scribnei's Sons, 1971 $10 00

In this work, Jeremias provides a unified presentation that attempts, in a systematic way, to describe Jesus' teachings and Jesus' own understanding of his ministry. The book is thus important in that it climaxes Jeremias' life work by stating, as it were, the conclusion of the journey that has been his life's work and in that it provides many important suggestions-challenges-to be considered in the continuing study of Jesus' teachings. The American publishers of the English translation have done Jeremias a disservice by making it appear, both in the title and in the blurb on the inside of the jacket, that Jeremias wished to equate "New Testament Theology" with "Jesus' Proclamation," whereas the original title made it clear that "Jesus' Proclamation" is Part 1. A special word of praise is due the translator, who has done an excellent job. He might, however, have provided the translation with English equivalents for the many occurrences of Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew-a practice followed by Kendrick Grobel, the translator of Bultmann's Theology of the New Testament-thus making Jeremias' work available to a far wider readership.

In the space allowed for this review, it is not possible to debate with Jeremias even the major points that I should wish, so I shall confine myself to critical remarks regarding only one point: method.

Chapter I, on the reliability of the tradition of the sayings of Jesus, maintains that "in the synoptic tradition it is the inauthenticity, and not the authenticity, of the sayings of Jesus that must be demonstrated" (p. 37). This appears to be a conscious reversal of an earlier statement by Norman Perrin (although Perrin's name is not mentioned at this point) that it is authenticity that must be demonstrated. In my opinion, Perrin will be correct on this point because of the results of the form-critical study of the Gospels (I think that Käsemann has also made this point), and it is therefore instructive to note that Jeremias avoids form-criticism almost totally. Only in the section on the miracles (pp. 86-92) does he employ form-criticism in any significant way and there only to show that sayings (including the "word of command" to demons) are the backbone of miracle narratives.

The criteria for confirming authenticity which Jeremias enumerates in this methodological chapter are style (which is not taken to distinguish Jesus from his contemporaries so that one wonders why this section even appears in the book) and "characteristics of the ipsissima vox," i.e., "ways of speaking preferred by Jesus" (p. 37). The characteristics of the ipsissima vox are parables, riddles (misnamed; what Jeremias means is

394 - New Testament Theology the Proclamation of Jesus

sayings that confuse the hearer/reader), the theme of the reign of God, use of Amen authoritatively, and 'Abbā (§3). I must confess that I have never been able to understand the significance which Jeremias attributes to this last characteristic. It has always seemed to me that he assumes a great deal from Jesus' unusual use of the word, and I do not think that his contention, that 'Abbā on the lips of Jesus meant my father, is borne out by the New Testament evidence since the bilingual acclamation, 'Abbā ho patēr, attested in the New Testament, clearly gives what is probably the earliest Christian understanding of the word.

In reality, the criterion which Jeremias most uses for confirming authenticity is the one he takes over from Perrin, his former pupil, the "criterion of dissimilarity" (p. 2). He rightly notes that this criterion will not catch all sayings of Jesus since Jesus may have taken up "already available material," but he then proceeds, throughout the book, to use it. As often as not, however, he is content to show dissimilarity on one side only, i.e., a saying could not have been provided by the contemporary scene or it could not have come from the later church. An example is the argument that the antitheses of the Sermon on the Mount "belong to the bedrock of the tradition" (p. 85) because this kind of "conflict with the Torah" was "unheard of in the atmosphere of the period." Jeremias, incidentally, everywhere lays too much emphasis on Matt. 5-7, completely overlooking the degree to which that discourse represents the peculiar formulation of Matthaean Christianity.

The conclusions reached in the book provide many intriguing possibilities for further discussion and analysis, but the reader will have to keep in mind the above and other shortcomings and inconsistencies in method and will have to check Jeremias out at every point.

Jack T. Sanders
University of Oregon
Eugene, Oregon