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On the Evidence for the Creative Role of Christian Prophets

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

David Hill
David Hill
Affiliation:
(Sheffield, England)
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Extract

It has become almost a commonplace in New Testament scholarship to attribute to Christian prophets in the early Church a creative role in respect of sayings which the Gospel tradition presents as dominical utterances. The authority, among modern scholars, for this view is to be found in the formcritical analyses and conclusions of Rudolf Bultmann. Christian tradition, he affirms, took over certian Jewish materials and put them on the lips of Jesus (e.g. the Marcan Apocalypse): the Christian community also revised or reworked elements from older traditions (e.g. the interpretation of the Sign of Jonah in connection with the person of Jesus, Matt. xii. 40) and even formed logia which reflect its own interests and concerns. Such logia are ‘inauthentic’ (in the sense that they are not genuine dominical sayings) and, according to Bultmann, they may originally have gained currency as utterances of the Spirit in the Church, without their ascription to Jesus being initially intended. Sayings like Rev. xvi. 5 (in which the risen Christ speaks) and Rev. iii. 20 show clearly the process of the creation (or, reformulation) of such logia (den Prozeβ der Neubildung solcher Herrenworte). These sayings would only gradually (erst allmählich) have been regarded as prophetic words of the historical Jesus. ‘The Church drew no distinction between such utterances by Christian prophets and the sayings of Jesus in the tradition, for the reason that even the dominical sayings in the tradition were not the pronouncements of a past authority, but sayings of the risen Lord who is always a contemporary for the Church.’

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Articles
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 20 , Issue 3 , April 1974 , pp. 262 - 274
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1974

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References

page 262 note 1 The History of the Synoptic Tradition (E.T. Oxford, 2 1968), pp. 127 f,Google Scholar

page 263 note 1 Bultmann does not indicate indebtedness to other predecessors who also suggested that Christian prophets contributed to the growth of the Synoptic tradition of Jesus' sayings, e.g. Holtzmann, H. J., Die Synoptiker – Die Apostelgeschichte (Tübingen, 2 1892), p. 20Google Scholar and Loisy, A., Les évangiles synoptiques 1 (Paris, 1907), 195.Google Scholar

page 263 note 2 Vielhauer, P., RGG3, v, col. 633 f.Google Scholar and in New Testament Apocrypha, II (E.T. ed. Wilson, R. McL., London, 1965), 605 f.Google Scholar

page 263 note 3 An Outline of the Theology of the New Testament (E.T. London, 1969), p. 38.Google Scholar

page 263 note 4 Especially in his essay, ‘Sentences of Holy Law in the New Testament’, New Testament Questions of Today (E.T. London, 1969), pp. 66–81Google Scholar ( = N.T.S. 1 (1954–1955), 248–60Google Scholar).

page 263 note 5 Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus (London, 1967), pp. 22, 27, 186:Google Scholar on p. 15 Perrin affirms the general view on the role of prophets in the creation of logia Iesou.

page 263 note 6 New Testament Theology I: The Proclamation of Jesus (E.T. London, 1971), p. 2:Google Scholar ‘The seven letters of Christ to the seven churches in Asia Minor ( Rev. 2–3) and other sayings of the exalted Lord handed down in the first person (e.g. Rev. 1. 17–20; 16. 15; 22. 12 ff.) allow the conclusion that early Christian prophets addressed congregations in words of encouragement, admonition, censure and promise, using the name of Christ in the first person. Prophetic sayings of this kind found their way into the tradition about Jesus and became fused with the words that he had spoken during his lifetime.’

page 263 note 7 Dibelius, M., From Tradition to Gospel (E.T. Cambridge and London, 1971), pp. 241 f.Google Scholar But Dibelius admits that ‘this stringing together of genuine sayings of Jesus with other Christian words of exhortation could become a source of error’ (p. 241).

page 264 note 1 Neugebauer, F., ‘Geistsprüche und Jesuslogien’, Z.N.W. LIII (1962), 218–28.Google Scholar

page 264 note 2 Neugebauer, op. cit. p. 219.

page 264 note 3 Gerhardsson, B., Memory and Manuscript (Lund–Copenhagen, 2 1964)Google Scholar and Tradition and Transmission in Early Christianity (Lund–Copenhagen, 1964).Google Scholar

page 264 note 4 Schürmann, H., Traditionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zu den synoptischen Evangelien (Düsseldorf, 1968), pp. 39–65Google Scholar ( = ‘Die vorösterlichen Anfänge der Logien-tradition’ in Der historische Jesus und der kerygmatische Christus, ed. H. Ristow and K. Matthiae (Berlin, 1960), pp. 342–70.Google Scholar

page 265 note 1 The most recent contribution to the subject, from Boring, M. E., ‘How may we identify Oracles of Christian Prophets in the Synoptic Tradition? Mark 3: 28–29 as a Test Case’, J.B.L. XCI (1972), 501–21,Google Scholar is well aware of the provisional character of the arguments for the presence and the identification of prophetic material in the Synoptic Gospels: ‘If it be granted that earliest Christianity was a πνε⋯μα-charged community in which prophets arose to proclaim the word of the risen Lord, and that it initially drew no sharp distinction between Jesus of Nazareth represented by his traditional words and the exalted Lord represented by new revelations through Christian prophets, then the inclusion of both kinds of sayings (as well as others) in the synoptic tradition is a natural consequence. It is this a priori logic, rather than specific evidence, which has led to most of the identification of prophetic material in the synoptic tradition … General statements that Christian prophets contributed to the tradition continue to be made, but works which attempt to document this hypothesis in particular cases with specific evidence have been extremely rare’ (pp. 501, 502). It is this deficiency that Boring sets out to rectify in a helpful study of Mark iii. 28–9, but the first part of his article perpetuates the use of certain arguments for the activities of Christian prophets that we shall criticize later in this paper.

page 265 note 2 New Testament Apocrypha II, 606.Google Scholar

page 265 note 3 Cf. Bauer, W., New Testament Apocrypha II, 809 f.Google Scholar and the literature cited there, to which may be added Schulz, S., ‘Salomo-Oden’, RGG3, v, col. 1339–42;Google ScholarJonas, H., Gnosis und spätantiker Geist 1 (Göttingen, 1954), 327 f.Google Scholar, and Rudolph, K., Rev.Q. XVI (1964), 524–7.Google Scholar A dissentient voice is that of Charlesworth, J. H., ‘The Odes of Solomon – Not Gnostic’, C.B.Q. XXXI (1969), 357–69,Google Scholar who suggests that the Odes belong to the first century A.D. and to the stream of tradition that flows from Jewish apocalyptical mysticism to the full-blown Gnosticism of the second century.

page 265 note 4 Bernard, J. H., The Odes of Solomon (Cambridge, 1912),Google Scholarad loc.

page 265 note 5 Bauer, W., Neutestamentliche Apokryphen II (Tübingen, 1964), pp. 623 f.Google Scholar Bauer's translation of and comments on the Odes are not included in the English version of the book.

page 266 note 1 Cf. Barrett, C. K., The Holy Spirit and the Gospel Tradition (London, 1947), pp. 130 ff.Google Scholar, and Kümmel, W. G., Promise and Fulfilment (E.T. London, 1957), p. 99 n. 40.Google Scholar

page 266 note 2 von Soden, H., Das Interesse des apostolischen Zeitalters an der evangelischen Geschichte (Theologische Abhandlungen Freiburg, 1892), pp. 153 f.Google Scholar

page 267 note 1 We may note that M. E. Boring (op. cit. p. 503) argues that by the time the Revelation was written Christian prophecy and that stream of tradition which found its literary deposit in the Synoptics were moving in different channels. But he still wishes to use the materials from Revelation to delineate features of the prophetic movement in Palestine before A.D. 70 on the basis of the assumption that the Christian prophetism resident in Asia Minor in the last decade of the first century was probably earlier at home in Palestine (p. 504). Evidence once disposed of should not be reintroduced in this way.

page 267 note 2 Cf. Neugebauer, op. cit. p. 224. I Thess. iv. 15 (έν λόγῳ κυρίου) does not necessarily refer to a saying of Jesus (so Kittel, G., T.D.N.T. IV, 106 n. 145,Google Scholar and Foerster, W., T.D.N.T. III, 1092)Google Scholar or more probably to the apocalyptic message of Jesus as a whole (so Rigaux, B., Les Épîtres aux Thessaloniciens,Paris, 1956, pp. 538 f.)Google Scholar. There is no likelihood that the ‘mystery’ in Rom. xi. 25 ff. and I Cor. xv. 51 f., even if it be a revelation, is thought of as having derived from the earthly Jesus.

page 267 note 3 Göttingen, 1913.

page 268 note 1 Gunkel, op. cit. p. 173.

page 268 note 2 Cf. Od. 8. 10 ff., 10, 22, 28. 8 ff., 31. 7 ff., 33. 6 ff. It is also not infrequently found in Gnostic and Hermetic texts which cannot easily be classed as prophetic.

page 268 note 3 Op. cit. p. 163.

page 268 note 4 Gunkel directs attention to Reitzenstein, R., Die hellenistischen Mysterienreligionen (Leipzig, 1910), pp. 18 f.Google Scholar, where the author speaks of an initiate conveying directly divine truth when in a state of ecstatic union with the god.

page 268 note 5 New Testament Apocrypha II, 605 f.Google Scholar

page 268 note 6 New Testament Theology 1, 2.Google Scholar

page 269 note 1 ‘Prophecy and Prophets in the Revelation of St John’, N.T.S. XVIII (1971–1972), 410 and 415.Google Scholar Cf. also Friedrich, G., T.D.N.T. VI, 849 f.Google Scholar

page 269 note 2 Lohmeyer, Cf. E., Die Offenbarung des Johannes (Tübingen, 2 1953), p. 201,Google Scholar and Nikolainen, A. T. ‘Über die theologische Eigenart der Offenbarung des Johannes’, T.L.Z. XCIII (1968), 163.Google Scholar

page 269 note 3 Neukirchen–Vluyn, 1966: the relevant pages are 60–2, 71, 76, 96–7 and 218.

page 270 note 1 This contrary evidence is dismissed by some as being the result of Luke's theological Tendenz, wherein the Spirit, not the word of Jesus, is the guide of the Church: see M. E. Boring, op. cit. p. 508, who remarks, ‘Thus our reconstruction should consider the probability that Luke has filtered the picture of Agabus through his own theology at this point and that originally Agabus claimed to speak the word of the risen Lord, in accordance with the picture presented by our other sources’, and among these sources he lists the Synoptics, Paul, the Johannine literature and the Revelation.

page 270 note 2 The threefold task of the prophet, according to I Cor. xiv. 3, has been accurately described by E. Cothenet: ‘assurer le développement de l'Eglise en conformité avec le plan initial (la tâche de l' oikodomè), manifester les richesses de l'Ecriture en réponse aux requêtes du temps présent (paraklèsis), secouer l'apathie des uns et réconforter les autres aux heures de doute et de péril (paramuthia)’, ‘Prophétisme et Ministère d'après le Nouveau Testament’, La Maison-Dieu CVIII (1971), 50.Google Scholar See also Cothenet's contribution to Supplément au Dictionnaire de la Bible VIII, col. 1222–1337, especially 1297–1301.Google Scholar

page 270 note 3 The use of the well-known epigraph λέγει κύριος at Rom. xii. 19, I Cor. xiv. 21 and II Cor. vi. 16 ff. where Old Testament testimonia are cited and applied ought not to be produced as contrary evidence: it is only an assumption that these citations were introduced with (Christian) prophetic consciousness; in any case, κύριος probably denotes the Lord God (cf. II Cor. vi. 16b).

page 270 note 4 ‘The Beginnings of Christian Theology’, New Testament Questions of Today (London, 1969), pp. 82–107Google Scholar ( = Z.T.K LVII (1960), 162–85Google Scholar); ‘On the Subject of Primitive Christian Apocalyptic’, Ibid. pp. 108–37 ( = Z.T.K. LIX (1962), 257–84Google Scholar).

page 271 note 1 ‘Beginnings’, p. 91.

page 271 note 2 ‘Sentences of Holy Law in the New Testament’, New Testament Questions of Today, pp. 66–81Google Scholar ( = N.T.S 1 (1954–1955), 248–60).Google Scholar

page 271 note 3 According to information provided by Schweizer, E., N.T.S. XVI (1969–1970), 226 n. 3.Google Scholar

page 271 note 4 Berger, K., ‘Zu den sogenannten Sätzen heiligen Rechts’, N.T.S. XVII (1970–1971), 10–40.Google Scholar

page 271 note 5 von Campenhausen, H. F., ‘Die Begründung kirchlicher Entscheidungen beim Apostel Paulus’, Aus der Frühzeit des Christentums (Tübingen, 1963), p. 69 n. 82.Google Scholar

page 272 note 1 Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus, p. 22.Google Scholar

page 272 note 2 ‘An Apologia for Primitive Christian Eschatology’, Essays on New Testament Themes (London, 1964), pp. 169–95Google Scholar ( = Z.T.K. XLIX (1952), 272–96)Google Scholar: the quotation is from pp. 187 f. The opposition suggested between a charismatic or prophetic ministry and an ordained one presumably harks back to the distinction made by Harneck, , in Die Lehre der zwölf Apostel (Leipzig, 1884).Google Scholar Is Käsemann's discussion coloured by Harnack's views of ministry in the early Christian community?

page 272 note 3 Essays on New Testament Themes, pp. 48–62Google Scholar ( = Ev. Th. XII (1952–1953), 455–66)Google Scholar: the quotation is from p. 60.

page 273 note 1 New Testament Questions of Today, p. 68.Google Scholar

page 273 note 2 Italics mine.

page 274 note 1 The careful work of Cothenet, E. in S.D.B. VIII (see p. 270Google Scholar n. 2 above) is the best available on prophecy in the New Testament.

page 274 note 2 Boring's, M. E. recent essay (J.B.L. XCI, 501–21)Google Scholar attempts to substantiate the case with reference to Mark iii. 28–9, but the results are partially vitiated by being based on inadequately examined presuppositions concerning the evidence for Christian prophecy in the New Testament.