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Jesus' Proclamation of the Kingdom of God (Scholars Press Reprints and Translation Series)

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Johannes Weiss (1863-1914) was a German theologian and Biblical scholar. He is perhaps most famous for this book, which expressed the thesis that Jesus in fact believed that the "end of the world" was imminent in his own time. Contrary to what a lot of scholars had taught, Jesus did NOT believe that the Kingdom of God had already "arrived" (sometimes called "realized eschatology"); rather, even in the so-called Lord's Prayer, Jesus prays, "Thy kingdom COME"---therefore, he is expecting a coming Kingdom to be established on the Earth.

This apocalyptic focus makes Jesus' teachings difficult for us to grasp, since most of us (at least, those of us who don't believe Hal Lindsey or the "Left Behind" series of books/movies) don't have such a perspective. Thus, Jesus' teachings on subjects such as celibacy don't make sense to us, since we are expecting that we need to continue to reproduce and produce a "next generation."

Weiss suggests that once Jesus died, and it eventually became clear to Jesus' followers that the world was NOT going to end immediately, there were modifications made in the record of his teachings (since they certainly wouldn't want people to think that Jesus had made a MISTAKE!).

Weiss' viewpoint has been influential, on Jesus scholars such as Albert Schweitzer (The Mystery of the Kingdom of God: The Secret of Jesus' Messiahship and Passion,Bert Erhman Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New MillenniumThe Apocalyptic Jesus: A Debate, and Dale Allison The Apocalyptic Jesus: A Debate.