gious outlook seems to have excluded this form of reasoning; it could hardly be held by a man conscious of his own essential moral worth and destiny apart from that which was external to him. This phase of the parable is one of many which give it a Jewish cast in a sense not assignable to the Jewish coloring of the body of Jesus' teaching. By this cast is not meant solely its view of the future, but likewise the area within which it moves exclusively-that is, "Father Abraham" and "Moses and the prophets.' May it be that this is an old Jewish parable which has found a place in the document P tradition of the parables of Jesus? Nothing in its location in document P demands that it be considered as always having had a place there. Its historical occasion is not suggested, except as it is made to follow, after the intervention of P §§50-52, upon a parable and some sayings about money, P 8847-49. Little weight ought to be given, however, to document P relationships; any conclusion must be otherwise based. Certainty is not attainable; probability must suffice. If the parable is regarded as not from Jesus, that summary of his teaching on Life after Death which precedes this study of the parable contains the results attainable from his own words. If one thinks of the parable as from him there will be added the thoughts deduced from the parable. CHAPTER VII THE KINGDOM OF GOD §1. Opening Announcements about the Kingdom GOSPEL MT 4:12, 17 Now when he heard that John was delivered up, he withdrew into Galilee. From that time began Jesus to preach, and to say, Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. B. BY JESUS DOCUMENT MK §4 DOCUMENT G $85, 6 And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and a fame went out concerning him through all the region round about. And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all. And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and he entered, as his custom was, into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And he opened the book, and found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, Because he anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor: He hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives, And recovering of sight to the blind, To set at liberty them that are bruised, To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant, and sat down: and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, To-day hath this scripture been fulfilled in your ears. And all bare him witness, and wondered at the words of grace which proceeded out of his mouth. It was observed in a preceding study1 (1) that gospel MT is alone in crediting John the Baptist at the opening of the report with the phrase "the kingdom of heaven is at hand;" (2) that the use of the term "kingdom of heaven (or God)" is nowhere attributed to John I See pp. 85-87. in the documents MK and G which report his ministry; (3) that the gospel MT record of that ministry is constructed from documents MK and G; (4) that what Matthew credits above to John the Baptist is verbally the same as the opening message said to have been spoken by Jesus, Matt. 4:17; (5) that the latter is drawn by Matthew from document MK §4; (6) that, therefore, the former may be regarded as likewise traceable to MK §4; (7) that this editorial inference by Matthew is one expression of a tendency manifest in many places in his gospel. His document G made it clear to him that John had announced an impending crisis, G §1B, D, E; for the evangelist that crisis seems to have been adequately and precisely covered by the words of summary, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand." Evidently he was not conscious of modifying the thought of his documents by placing this assertion as a summary of John's message at the opening of his report of the work of John. But for him who would know the precise phraseology of John, the summary of the evangelist must be passed over in favor of the documentary records in MK §1 and G §1. In crediting Jesus with the phrase, Matthew is following, with slight verbal modifications, the record of his document MK §4. That which document MK reports here is not used by Luke; he prefers the account of the opening message and method of Jesus presented to him in his document G §§5, 6. The document G does not portray Jesus as beginning his ministry with the announcement, "The kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe in the gospel." It represents him rather as giving expression, through the use of Old Testament Scripture, to his sense of prophetic vocation"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me." By which, it seems, he does not mean explicitly to say either, "I am the Messiah," or "The kingdom of the Messiah (or heaven or God) is at hand." Since the document MK does not report the announcement, "The kingdom of God is at hand," as spoken on any definite occasion, but places it at the opening of its record of Jesus' public activity, before the statement of work at any specific place in Galilee, it ought probably to be regarded as the summary, for the framer of document MK, of the message delivered by Jesus in the course of his public ministry. 1 See p. 10. |