INTRODUCTION

While it was generally true that the ‘interpretation of Jesus during the nineteenth century had been almost completely deeschatologised’, an eschatological emphasis was present in pietistic and millenarian circles and had begun to impinge on scholarship. Moreover, the historical and contextual work of E. Schürer in particular gave a strong impetus to the trend, already identifiable in Harnack and others, towards setting the teaching of Jesus in its historical context and thus forming a clearer understanding of the factor of eschatology in his ministry. It was not altogether surprising, therefore, that eschatology should emerge with such prominence in the work of Johannes Weiss, and that Jesus' moral teaching should be viewed in the light of it. The result was a form of ‘interim ethics’ which Weiss described in penitential terms.

PENITENTIAL ETHICS: JOHANNES WEISS

If Johannes Weiss made the first influential statement of the necessary disjunction between the position of Jesus and that of the modern interpreter, he did so with profound respect for those who had fashioned the synthesis he was apparently undermining. Thorough investigation of the historical foundations would establish the centrality of Jesus' vision of the imminent kingdom.

Jesus and the ethics of the kingdom

Weiss approached the task through a critical evaluation of the sources.