Zealot - The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

See
Jesus and the Spiral of Violence: Popular Jewish Resistance in Roman Palestine
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 168–69. Nevertheless, for those interested in
     the “present or future” debate, John Meier, who himself believes the Kingdom of God
     was meant as an eschatological event, lays out the argument on both sides in
Marginal Jew
, vol. 2, 289–351. Among those who disagree with Meier are John Dominic Crossan,
Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography
, 54–74; Marcus J. Borg,
Jesus: A New Vision
(New York: HarperCollins, 1991), 1–21; and, of course, me. In the words of Werner
     Kelber, “the Kingdom spells the ending of an older order of things.” See
The Kingdom in Mark
(Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974), 23.
    For more on the “Jewishness” of Jesus of Nazareth, see Amy-Jill Levine,
The Misunderstood Jew
(New York: HarperOne, 2006). Jesus’s statements against gentiles can be pretty firmly
     accepted as historical, considering that the early Christians were actively courting
     gentiles for conversion and would not have been well served in their efforts by such
     verses in the gospels. It is true that Jesus believed that gentiles would ultimately
     be allowed into the Kingdom of God once it was established. But as John Meier notes,
     Jesus seemed to have considered this to be the case only at the end of Israel’s history,
     when the gentiles would be allowed entry into the kingdom as subservient to the Jews.
Marginal Jew
, vol. 3, 251.
    I agree with Richard Horsley that the commandments to “love your enemies” and “turn
     the other cheek” in the gospel of Luke are likely closer to the original
Q
material than the parallel statements in Matthew, which juxtapose Jesus’s commandments
     with the Hebrew Bible’s command for “an eye for an eye” (
lex talionis
). See
Jesus and the Spiral of Violence
, 255–65.
    Regarding Matthew 11:12, I have included here the variant version of the verse—“the
     Kingdom of Heaven has been coming violently”—both because Iam convinced it is the original form of the verse and because it fits better with
     the context of the passage. The standard version of the passage reads: “From the days
     of John the Baptist until now the Kingdom of Heaven operates by force, and forceful
     men snatch it away.” That is the translation by Rudolf Otto in
The Kingdom of God and the Son of Man
, 78. Note that this version of the verse is more often imprecisely translated as
     “From the days of John the Baptist until now the Kingdom of Heaven
suffers violence
, and
violent men
snatch it away,” though even those translations will include a variant reading to
     indicate the active voice that I use in my translation. The problem lies in the verb
biazomai
, which means “to use violence or force.” In the present perfect tense,
biazomai
can mean “to have violence done to one,” but it is not the perfect tense that is
     operative in this passage. Similarly, in the passive voice
biazomai
can mean “to suffer violence,” but again, it is not the passive voice that is used
     in Matthew 11:12. According to the UBS Lexicon, the word
biazomai
in this passage is actually in the Greek middle voice and thus means “to exercise
     violence.” A clue to how to translate the passage in Matthew 11:12 can be found in
     the parallel passage in Luke 16:16. Luke, perhaps wanting to avoid the controversy,
     omits altogether the first half of the verse—“the Kingdom of God operates through
     force/violence.” However, in the latter half of the verse he uses the exact same word,
biazetai
, actively in the phrase “everyone uses violence in entering it.” Ultimately the usual
     translation, “the kingdom of heaven suffers violence,” agrees neither with the time
     when Jesus spoke the words nor with the context in which he lived. And context is
     everything. See
Analytic Greek New Testament
(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1981). Also see note on Matthew 11:12 in
Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996) and
Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament
, ed. Johannes P. Louw and Eugene A. Nida (Grand Rapids, Mich.: United Bible Societies,
     1988). Louw and Nida correctly note that “in many languages it may be difficult, if
     not impossible, to speak of the kingdom of heaven ‘suffering violent attacks,’ ” though
     they do concede that “some active form may be employed, for example, ‘and