6 - Jesus and His Kingdom

Summary

So far we have been attempting to show something of the variety of ways in which Jews in the first century responded to pressures on their traditional way of life. Faced with economic, social, and political forces that were eroding their communal life and against a background of a common inherited pattern of beliefs and practices, they produced a considerable range of forms of life, of “parties” and groups within Judaism.

Where does Jesus fit into all this? How far can his teaching, like that of his contemporaries, be seen as yet another variation on the theme of basic Jewish beliefs? How far does he develop new insights and beliefs? Does he, too, devise new ways of defining group membership and of maintaining group standards? Above all, in what sense is his teaching a response to contemporary pressures on the Jewish people?

In all probability, Jesus shared many of the basic beliefs of Jews of this time. It seems to me unlikely in the extreme that Jesus could have effectively rejected standard contemporary Jewish practices and beliefs without signaling this very clearly. If he had, for example, rejected belief in Israel's gracious election by God, people would simply not have picked this up unless he had said so loud and clear.