Preview of the end

Sometime during AD 28-29 Jesus’ mentor, John the Baptist, was arrested then executed by the tetrarch of Galilee, Herod Antipas. The event is described by both the Gospels and the Jewish historian Josephus. Before his death, John apparently learned of his protégé’s increasing fame and sent  some of his remaining disciples to ask Jesus a crucial question: 'Are you the one?' The expectation of the kingdom—if not the precise language—is clear in both the question and the answer. The passage is from the shared source behind Matthew and Luke called Q:

	When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent his disciples to ask him, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me” (Matthew 11:2-6 / Luke 7:18-23).

A bit of biblical and historical background will illuminate this intriguing exchange. As we will soon see, most scholars detect in Jesus’ words an announcement of the end of one era in human history and the beginning of another. Let me explain.

Many Jews in this period understood themselves to be living under the divine curses foretold centuries earlier in the fifth book of their Scriptures called Deuteronomy. In Deuteronomy 28 we find a long list of punishments which would be meted out to Israel if the nation turned away from worshipping the one true God. These would include fever, skin disease, blindness, insanity and a number of other unpleasant physical conditions, like death.  

Later, the historical books of the Jewish Bible—such as 1 and 2 Kings—describe with brutal honesty how ancient Israel did in fact dishonour their end of the bargain. They practised injustice and worshipped foreign deities. As a result, we are told, the Lord poured out the judgments he had threatened in Deuteronomy. This included not only the physical ailments but also banishment from the land of Israel. In 586 BC the Babylonians conquered Israel and exiled many its people. By the time of Jesus six centuries later, the Jews had returned to the promised land, but things had never fully recovered. They were ruled by the Persians during the 6th-4th centuries BC, the Greeks from the 4th-2nd BC and, although they enjoyed a brief period of self-determination in the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, when the Romans came to power in Palestine in 63 BC that spelled the end of the Jewish state until 1948. In addition to these political hardships, Jews saw the evidence of the divine curses all around them, the blind, the lame, the lepers, the insane and the diseased. Signs of God’s displeasure still lingered amongst his people.

most scholars detect in Jesus’ words an announcement of the end of one era in human history and the beginning of another

But what has this précis of 1500 years of biblical history got to do with John the Baptist’s question about the ‘expected one’ and Jesus’ enigmatic reply outlining his baffling deeds? The answer is found in another set of promises in the Jewish Bible: this time, not warnings about coming judgment but pledges of glorious renewal. After the period of displeasure, says the prophet Isaiah, God will lift his curses and restore his people. He will bring the good news—the ‘gospel’—they have been waiting for:

	In that day the deaf will hear the words of the scroll, and out of gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind will see (Isaiah 29:18). Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy (Isaiah 35:5-6). The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives (Isaiah 61:1).

This is the context in which Jesus’ reply to the Baptist can be seen to be brimming with Jewish significance.  He answers his mentor’s question, ‘Are you the one?,’ with a précis of his recent activity deliberately couched in the language of Isaiah: ‘Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.’ Jesus’ ‘powers’ were not a party-trick designed to enhance his reputation; still less were they a model for the claims of contemporary faith-healers. They were a specific ministry to Israel, assuring the nation of God’s favour and signalling the dawn of God’s long-awaited kingdom.

Jesus' 'powers'  were not a party trick designed to enhance his reputation

A text from the famous Dead Sea Scrolls, written just before the time of Jesus, provides an extraordinary parallel to Jesus’ words. It confirms that Jews in the period were looking forward to just the sorts of things the man from Nazareth claimed to be doing. The so-called Messianic Apocalypse was discovered in Cave 4 at Qumran (scrolls were scattered across eleven caves at the site). Though fragmentary, the passage powerfully expresses the Jewish hope for a Messiah, an eternal kingdom and the healings and good news promised centuries earlier by the prophet Isaiah:

	… the earth will listen to his anointed one (mashiach / messiah) [and all] that is in them will not turn away from the precepts of the holy ones … For he [the Lord] will honour the pious upon the throne of an eternal kingdom, freeing prisoners, giving sight to the blind, straightening out the twis[ted.]  … And the Lord will perform marvellous acts such as have not existed, just as he sa[id,] [for] he will heal the badly wounded and will make the dead live, he will proclaim good news to the poor.

This astonishing passage, which was not made readily available until the early 1990s, lays to rest any sceptical suggestion that Jesus’ description of his work as recorded in Q could only have been crafted after a period of sustained reflection on his life by later followers. No; this stuff was already in the air. As James Dunn rightly notes: ‘an expectation was current at the time of Jesus to the effect that the coming of God’s Messiah would be accompanied by such marvellous events, in fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecies.’ 

But what was merely hoped for by the Essenes living down South in the desert region of the Dead Sea was, in Jesus’ estimation, being realized up in Galilee as he healed and proclaimed good news to the poor. Evil was being expelled and lives were being restored; the future kingdom of God was being previewed before people’s eyes. Professors Gerd Theissen and Annette Merz of the University of Heidelberg regard this as a unique moment in religious history:

	He combines two conceptual worlds which had never been combined in this way before, the apocalyptic expectation of universal salvation in the future and the episodic realization of salvation in the present through miracles. Nowhere else do we find a charismatic miracle worker whose miraculous deeds are meant to be the end of an old world and the beginning of a new one. This puts a tremendous emphasis on the miracles (and it is unhistorical to relativise their significance for the historical Jesus). The present thus becomes a time of salvation in microcosm.

In short, Jesus’ healing ministry constituted a profound theological statement to Israel—similar to his selection of the Twelve and his eating with sinners. God’s promise one day to establish his kingdom and renew his people was visible and available in preview to any who witnessed the baffling deeds of the teacher from Nazareth.

Dr John Dickson
Director of the Centre for Public Christianity
Honorary Associate of the Department of Ancient History, Macquarie University (Australia)

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1 David Hume, “Of Miracles” (115-136) in On Human Nature and the Understanding. Macmillan, 1962, 119.
2 See further, C. Stephen Evans, The Historical Christ and the Jesus of Faith: the Incarnational Narrative as History. Clarendon Press, 1996, 143-145.
3 Dunameis (‘powers’) appears in Mark 5:30; 6:2; 6:5; 6:14; 9:39; in Q (Matthew 11:21 / Luke 10:13; Matthew 11:23 / Luke 10:19); and in Matthew 7:22; 11:20; and Luke 5:17; 6:19; 9:1; 10:19; 19:37. Sēmeia (‘signs’) appears in Mark 8:11; 13:22; Luke 23:8; John 2:11, 23; 3:2; 4:48; 4:54; 6:2, 4, 26; 7:31; 9:16; 11:47; 12:18, 37; 20:30. Sēmeia is a favourite term in John’s Gospel and his source, known as the Signs Source. Other, less frequently used, terms for Jesus’ baffling deeds are terata or ‘wonders’ (Mark 13:22; John 4:48) and erga or ‘works’ (John 5:20, 36; 7:3; 10:25; 14:11; 15:24).
4 N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God. Fortress Press, 1996, 188.
5 John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (vol.2). Doubleday, 1994, 405.
6 Matthew 4:24; Acts 26:24-25; 2 Corinthians 11:23.
7 John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (vol.2). Doubleday, 1994, 406.
8 Mark 3:22-23; John 8:48-53.
9 Talmud b. Sanhedrin 43a.
10 Other exorcists were known in the period. Josephus offers a good example which highlights both how typical Jesus’ ministry of exorcism was and how unique. In discussing the wisdom of ancient King Solomon Josephus stops to tell a story, of which he was an eyewitness, about how the same divine wisdom could be found amongst some Jews of his own day. He mentions a certain exorcist named Eleazar who followed the incantations taught by Solomon and was able cast out demons. What is especially striking, when compared to Jesus, is Eleazar’s use of what can only be called Jewish ‘magic’:
I have seen a certain Eleazar, a countryman of mine, in the presence of Vespasian, his sons, tribunes and a number of other soldiers, free men possessed by demons, and this was the manner of the cure: he put to the nose of the possessed man a ring which had under its seal one of the roots prescribed by Solomon, and then, as the man smelled it, drew out the demon through the nostrils, and, when the man at once fell down, adjured the demons never to come back into him, speaking Solomon’s name and reciting the incantations which he had composed. Then, wishing to convince the bystanders and prove to them that he had this power, Eleazar placed a cup or foot-basin full of water a little way off and commanded the demon, as it went out of the man, to overturn it and make known to the spectators that he had left the man. And when this was done, the understanding and wisdom of Solomon were clearly revealed, on account of which we have been induced to speak of these things (Josephus Antiquities of the Jews 8.46-49).
It is difficult to disagree with John Meier’s observation: “On the sliding scale from miracle to magic, we are definitely slipping with Eleazar toward magic, if we have not already arrived.” John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (vol.2). Doubleday, 1994, 593. The contrast with Jesus’ ministry described in the Gospels is real:
Just then a man in their synagogue who was possessed by an evil spirit cried out, “What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!” “Be quiet!” said Jesus sternly. “Come out of him!” The evil spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek. The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, “What is this? A new teaching—and with authority! He even gives orders to evil spirits and they obey him” (Mark 1:23-27).
11 See, for example, Ben F. Meyer, The Aims of Jesus. SCM, 1979, 145-157; John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (vol.2). Doubleday, 1994, 405-423; James Dunn, Jesus Remembered. Eerdmans, 2003, 455-461.
12 John Shelby Spong, Jesus for the Non-Religious. HarperCollins, 2007, 84.
13 James Dunn, Jesus Remembered. Eerdmans, 2003, 461.
14 Deuteronomy 28:15-28.
15 See, for example, Ben F. Meyer, The Aims of Jesus. SCM, 1979, 157; John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (vol.2). Doubleday, 1994, 399-404; James Dunn, Jesus Remembered. Eerdmans, 2003, 445-455; Graham Stanton, The Gospels and Jesus (Second Edition). Oxford University Press, 2003, 238.
16 The words “the kingdom of God” do not appear in this Q passage (Matthew 11:2-6 / Luke 7:18-23) but it is quite clear that the kingdom hope, which is present in Isaiah (40:10; 52:7), lies behind Jesus’ reply to the Baptist: so too, John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (vol.2). Doubleday, 1994, 401; Graham Stanton, The Gospels and Jesus (Second Edition). Oxford University Press, 2003, 238.
17 4Q521. The translation is that of Florentino Garcia Martinez and Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar (The Dead Sea Scrolls: Study Edition. Volume Two 4Q274-11Q31. Brill, 1998).
18 James Dunn, Jesus Remembered. Eerdmans, 2003, 449.
19 Gerd Theissen and Annette Merz, The Historical Jesus: a comprehensive guide. Fortress Press, 1998, 309.

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