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Jesus: The King and His Kingdom

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George Wesley Buchanan believes that Bible scholars haven't had the courage to face the historical Jesus, or at least to communicate the truth about Jesus to ordinary Christians.

He uses form criticism to discover what can be known about Jesus. I learned everything I know about "chreias" from this book. Chreias are memory devices Greek rhetoricians used. Buchanan believes that Bible writers remembered events in Jesus's life in chreia form. He believes he can identify them where they occur, and that chreia portions of the Gospels can be trusted as reliable. This provides an answer to the synoptic problem.

Using both Christian and non-Christian literature, he traces chreias in literature through hundreds of years, showing how the meaning remained the same, but the wording varied .

Buchanan believes that parables are less reliably preserved than chreias. He notices hints of military terminology in the parables. This leads him to suspect that Reimarus was too quickly dismissed, and that at least at one time Jesus probably was organizing an insurrection against the Romans.

He has a chapter on cycles of time that helps explain eschatological thinking during Bible times.

The book is much better than this review. Buchanan presents lots of data, but tries not to be dogmatic. In spite of the depressing conclusions that Buchanan seems to reach about Jesus, you should read the book. You won't stay up nights any more wondering why Matthew, Mark, and Luke report the same events in different words after reading about chreias.

None of Buchanan's books are boring, and none are a rehash of what others have said before him. They are always full of original thought and interesting data.

As to the title of this review, all works I have considered so far on the topic of the historical Jesus are speculative, most are scholarly to a greater or lesser extent, and many are dishonest to varying degrees in a variety of ways. If the purpose of these works is to reveal to the reader an objective picture of the life and ministry of Jesus, quite a number are useless while a majority are marginally to moderately useful. Albert Schweitzer famously disposed of most of the first quest for the historical Jesus by German scholars of the nineteenth century in one terse sentence. The second quest following Bultmann and Dibelius found that a true picture was unobtainable considering the source information available. And, the third quest that commenced in or shortly before the nineteen seventies has produced a wide variety of different and mutually incompatible results. It is a tribute to the pluralism of our contemporary society that in this third quest we can find a portrait of Jesus to suit any one's needs and prejudices. I have read or reread over sixty works in this cycle of study on the topic of the historical Jesus with well over forty of these works being from the third quest. And at this point, I am inclined to agree with Willian E. Arnal's assessment that the third quest is just about as abject a failure as were the first two.

This book is the work of a mature scholar at the height of his powers. Conclusory assumptions appear to be totally missing from this work. This book is a methodical presentation of fact, theory, and speculative deduction that is honest in separating fact from opinion. The reader is invited to form his own interpretations by interacting with the author's methodological practices, operating theories, and factual presentations. However, for the reader to accomplish this, they need to be nearly as well informed on the material covered as is the author. Buchanan's writing is crisp, clear, and easily understandable. But, this is a dense scholarly book that deserves and demands careful consideration to be fully appreciated and engaged. The first chapter is a inquiry into the meaning of the terms "Kingdom of God" and the "Kingdom of Heaven" in the Old Testament, Targumim, New Testament, and Rabbinic literature. The author finds these phrases connote the promised land under Jewish control and that all the titles of Jesus in the N.T pertain to kingship. Next is a technical section on "Rhetoricians, Philosophers, and Literary Forms." Buchanan presents an advanced form criticism based on literary conventions and usages in antiquity. He finds the chreia to be a basically trustworthy device that was relied upon by ancient historians for reliable information. Material so encapsulated retained its accuracy over periods of time spanning many centuries. The New Testament is loaded with chreias that in all likelihood represent the true teachings of Jesus.

Mindful of the above conclusion regarding the "Kingdom," the author provides an analysis of Jesus' ministry in the next five chapters. Each chapter tries to isolate one aspect of that ministry and investigate it by considering the chreias, parables, and other materials that pertain. Buchanan finds in Jesus a political messiah planning for the military removal of the occupying power from the promised land so as to bring the "Kingdom of God" to earth. However, the author readily admits that in the ministry of Jesus no overt acts of a revolutionary character took place with the possible exception of the cleansing of the Temple. Furthermore, the immediate transition upon Jesus' death of His movement into pacifistic non-violence is acknowledged. While I am dubious about the proposition of Jesus as a military Messiah, the handling and analysis of the N. T. and other source materials is much of the time extremely fresh, exciting, and persuasive. In the chapter, "Law and Liberty," a remarkably insightful exposition of Jesus' conflicts with the Levitical law is provided. The chapter, "The Royal Treasury," breaks new ground on the topic of repentance and forgiveness. Following these chapters Buchanan provides a technical explanation on "Cycles of Time and Their Signs" which provides the basis for the closing section on "The Church Writes History." It is clearly explained that the ancients, both Greek and Semitic, viewed history as a cyclical process. Once this fact is established, a clear presentation is provided of how traditions, chreias, parables, and other materials were integrated by standard literary conventions and devices to produce the gospels.

Elsewhere, I have supported the concept of a major political component in Jesus' ministry. Therefore, Buchanan's analysis of Jesus' aims is not alien to my thinking. However, I find R. David Kaylor's profile of a pacifistic, political messiah more persuasive. But, this ultimately begs the question. If Buchanan's critical analysis of the applicable ancient literature is correct, a good deal of other third quest scholarship is of questionable value. And, in my opinion, much of the literary critical analysis presented in "Jesus: The King and His Kingdom" is not only correct but often times brilliant and occasionally magisterial. Failure to deal with Buchanan's work and its implicit dismantlement of much later scholarship on the topic may lead to blind spots in any interested party's assessment of the historical Jesus. This book demonstrates that the critical analysis of the Jesus Seminar is anachronistic and, therefore, largely counterproductive. Equally, the other great contemporary school of thought which presents us with a Jesus thoroughly at home in first century CE Pharisaic Judaism is shown to be factually incorrect in significant ways. As with all purely historical considerations of the career of Jesus, this book does not answer questions about the universal Christ of faith. However, it should be noted that a political take on the the earthly ministry of Jesus does not in any way deny the possibility of the deified Jesus Christ. This book should be considered mandatory reading for students and scholars concerned with the historical Jesus. This is a book that I shall read again from time to time.