Jesus and His Death: Historiography, the Historical Jesus, and Atonement Theory [Hardcover]

Scot McKnight (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 30, 2005

Recent scholarship on the historical Jesus has rightly focused upon how Jesus understood his own mission. But no scholarly effort to understand the mission of Jesus can rest content without exploring the historical possibility that Jesus envisioned his own death. In this careful and far-reaching study, Scot McKnight contends that Jesus did in fact anticipate his own death, that Jesus understood his death as an atoning sacrifice, and that his death as an atoning sacrifice stood at the heart of Jesus' own mission to protect his own followers from the judgment of God.

Editorial Reviews

Review

This is a brave book. With due awareness of the historical traps and with a mastery of the recent relevant literature, McKnight here asks the crucial question, How did Jesus interpret his own death? His answer, which hearkens back to Albert Schweitzer, does full justice to Jesus' eschatological outlook and makes good sense within a first-century Jewish context. Even those who see things differently--I do not--will enjoy how the detailed and rigorous argument develops and will find themselves learning a great deal. --Dale C. Allison, Jr., Errett M. Grabe Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary

Recent books on the historical Jesus illustrate how compelling scholars and general readers alike find the topic of Jesus' death. But these books also illustrate a major problem--some studies depend upon some grand interpretive theory, while others rivet their attention on exegetical details and disregard developmental questions. Widely read, Scot McKnight does both. He moves back and forth with careful transitions between contemporary hermeneutics and the ancient texts. As he does so, he also provides a rich and often entertaining account of the secondary literature. The volume can be read both as an address of its central questions and as a well-informed introduction to New Testament theology. --Bruce Chilton, Bard College

Scot McKnight is fully aware that making claims about the historical Jesus is like entering a minefield. But he combines wide-ranging knowledge of and a willingness to interact with the extensive literature to build a careful, brick-by-brick argument. The sheer breadth of issues covered separates this work from what might otherwise have been its competitors. In ways reminiscent of Stephen Neil, McKnight also has written a book that is never dry or dull. --Joel B. Green, Dean and Professor of New Testament, Asbury Theological Seminary

About the Author

Scot McKnight (Ph.D. University of Nottingham) is the Karl A. Olsson Professor in Religious Studies, North Park University and author or editor of twelve books, including The Historical Jesus (2005), Turning to Jesus (2002), and Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (1992)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 451 pages
• Publisher: Baylor University Press (September 30, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932792295
• ISBN-13: 978-1932792294
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,450,292 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Born in Southern Illinois, came of age in Freeport, Illinois, attended college in Grand Rapids, MI, seminary at Trinity in Deerfield, IL.

Now a professor at North Park University.

Two children.

Kris, my wife, is a psychologist and the greatest woman on earth.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Historical Lamb, November 11, 2005

By 

Loren Rosson III (New Hampshire, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jesus and His Death: Historiography, the Historical Jesus, and Atonement Theory (Hardcover)

Against a strong North American trend which views the question of Jesus' understanding of his death as misguided, Scot McKnight assumes as likely that Jesus thought he would die prematurely, in the providence of God, and would probably die at the hands of elites who saw his movement as a potential source of rebellion. "It only makes sense," he states, "that one who thought he would die, who on other grounds considered himself a prophet, also tried to make sense of that death". Jewish leaders like this regularly looked to prototypes from the Hebrew Bible in order to make sense of death and destiny.

The book is suspenseful as it works from a more general discussion of how Jesus made sense of his prophetic mission, to the idea that he thought he would die prematurely, to exactly how he made sense of that death. The Old Testament scripts used by Jesus -- the Psalmist's Son of Man, Elijah, Joshua, and Micah, Isaiah's suffering servant, and Daniel's apocalyptic Son of Man -- helped him make sense of his prophetic mission in light of the tribulation period, the opposition he faced, and the expected vindication/resurrection of him and his followers. But none offer a reliable window onto how he saw his death, and the ransom saying of Mk 10:45/Mt 20:28 is doubtfully historical.

Where the author finally locates Jesus' understanding of his death is in the eucharist account. His analysis of the last supper is the best available and alone worth the price of the book. Not since Jeremias has the eucharist been so carefully weighed and considered against the background of Judaic passover. McKnight basically argues that the flesh and blood of the passover lamb was replaced by Jesus' own "body and blood" (in the bread and wine), intended to protect his followers from God's fiery judgment against Jerusalem and its leaders. When Paul says that "Jesus is our paschal lamb" (I Cor 5:7), and when the fourth gospel writer refers to Jesus as "the lamb of God" (Jn 1:29), we are in touch, however obliquely, with the historical Jesus.

McKnight is (initially) very careful about distinguishing passover from both atonement and covenant-ceremony (p 285). Passover sacrifice did not atone/forgive; it protected. Yahweh "passed over" those so protected when he came in judgment. Passover was also not a covenant ceremony; while covenant sacrifice dealt with relationship and commitment, passover was all about deliverance from tyranny and bondage. Exod 12 and 24 are, as the author puts it, "countries and ideas apart". The covenant themes preserved in the eucharist accounts come from later Christian reflection. In the end, however, McKnight undercuts these distinctions by claiming that passover sacrifice is a form of atonement after all (p 339), confusing vicariousness with atonement. But vicarious simply means "for the benefit of others". So accurately speaking, Jesus saw his death as vicarious -- it would protect his followers when God rained judgment down on everyone -- but not atoning.

Aside from my dispute over the concluding terminology, I agree with most of what is presented in this book and highly recommend it. McKnight has seriously redressed a dimension to the historical Jesus which is too often ignored in the academy. Jesus lived on a landscape of eschatology and martyrdom. However foreign that landscape is to us (it certainly is to me), we need to get comfortable with ideas that pertain to it.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A thorough investigation into the real 'Historical Jesus', May 31, 2010

By 

Jeri Nevermind "loves to read" (Idaho) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Jesus and His Death: Historiography, the Historical Jesus, and Atonement Theory (Hardcover)

McKnight is a fine writer, and this book, although clearly aimed at scholars, would be an enjoyable read for anyone with an interest in biblical scholarship.

Here is a sample of his writing style: "soon thereafter a big group of scholars (the Jesus Seminar) ignored his sign, came upon the pond, tossed in some lines, and found...authentic" (p 122) saying of Jesus.

As Jenkins and Schweitzer have argued, much of the so-called 'historical' Jesus research of the last two hundred years has added up to..."nothing; we are 'imposing' pleasing narratives about our own ideologies in order to assert our own power" (p 12). And as Schweitzer pointed out so long ago, none of the scholarship has found the truth behind the claims of the church. All it has shown so far is whatever the current fad of the moment is, such as Bultmann discovering the existentialism of Jesus the moment existentialism was a scholarly fad.

So McKnight sets out to discover if Christians for the last 2,000 years have misinterpreted Jesus. Fundamental to that question is how Jesus understood his life and death.

During his lifetime, Jesus was accused of being a drunkard, a glutton, of being in league with Satan, and of breaking Jewish law. And it also seems clear he announced himself king of the Jews, the inheritor of the Davidic lineage,

McKnight concludes that Jesus "thought his premature death was part...of God's providential plan in history" (p 336). Certainly even "prior to Paul" (p 341) the crucifixion of Jess "was perceived in temple imagery and sacrificial terms" (p 341).

The earliest Christians thought of the crucifixion as a victory for God, however it might appear to the world. Jesus became a second Adam, a sacrificial lamb and a new type of Moses.

A book that will interest anyone who enjoys biblical scholarship.

4 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The scholarly documentation of how well Christ actually understood his own mission, March 15, 2006

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jesus and His Death: Historiography, the Historical Jesus, and Atonement Theory (Hardcover)

Jesus And His Death: Historiography, The Historical Jesus, And Atonement Theory by Scot McKnight (University of Nottingham) is the scholarly documentation of how well Christ actually understood his own mission. Jesus And His Death risks documenting the potential understanding that Christ had predicted of foreseen his own death, and containing the full commitment that it seems obvious he retained for his faith in God, his own fate and personal mission. An informed and informative read, Jesus And His Own Death is highly recommended to all readers generally, but most especially to students of the New Testament and members of the Christian faith.