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Jesus' Proclamation of the Kingdom of God
English, German (translation)
148 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1971
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 9, 2020
ABSOLUTE SATANIC ANTI-CHRISTIAN TRASH!
Author Weiss is a German Liberal whose ideas and false teachings undermining Christianity were followed and developed by Albert Schweitzer and Freidrich Schleiermacher. Weiss invented the "Eschatological School" claiming Jesus didn't think he was God or the Messiah and falsely/wrongly predicted the end of the world to occur around 70AD. Jesus was wrong and so Paul and the Hellenistic gentile Christians FIXED/Corrected Jesus and made Christianity to be future looking. This piece of trash book sets "Jewish Christianity" against "Greek Hellenized Pauline Christianity" to "discover" the "TRUE" Primitive Jewish Church/Christianity. Weiss rejects authorship of many books of Bible and so throws out books of the Bible as "unreliable sources." He tells you Jesus was wrong and the author of Acts was wrong. That Paul contradicts the author of Acts (who he says was not Luke). He COMPLETELY BOTCHES any valid interpretation of the book of Acts. Weiss clearly couldn't read a book. He invents fanciful misinterpretations of the Bible that he cooked up in his head and then claims these interpretations are true and so proof the authors who wrote the Bible (God and man) WERE WRONG!!!! What an arrogant man. This book is fiction and deserves an F grade.
Author Weiss is a German Liberal whose ideas and false teachings undermining Christianity were followed and developed by Albert Schweitzer and Freidrich Schleiermacher. Weiss invented the "Eschatological School" claiming Jesus didn't think he was God or the Messiah and falsely/wrongly predicted the end of the world to occur around 70AD. Jesus was wrong and so Paul and the Hellenistic gentile Christians FIXED/Corrected Jesus and made Christianity to be future looking. This piece of trash book sets "Jewish Christianity" against "Greek Hellenized Pauline Christianity" to "discover" the "TRUE" Primitive Jewish Church/Christianity. Weiss rejects authorship of many books of Bible and so throws out books of the Bible as "unreliable sources." He tells you Jesus was wrong and the author of Acts was wrong. That Paul contradicts the author of Acts (who he says was not Luke). He COMPLETELY BOTCHES any valid interpretation of the book of Acts. Weiss clearly couldn't read a book. He invents fanciful misinterpretations of the Bible that he cooked up in his head and then claims these interpretations are true and so proof the authors who wrote the Bible (God and man) WERE WRONG!!!! What an arrogant man. This book is fiction and deserves an F grade.
April 21, 2016
When reviewing books in biblical studies, a few considerations are in order, such as - How significant is the contribution? How engaging is the work? How clear and well argued is the thesis? These and other such questions can be asked, not all of them of equal importance. To my mind, the bulk of my interest in Weiss is based on his contribution to the history of research, and for the scale of his importance, he deserves a decent review; however, it must be said that, although provocative for his time, and incredibly important to the evolution of biblical studies, I do not find many of his arguments convincing, and most of them were given too little support by way of exegesis of specific texts. I think this was Weiss' aim; he was, after all, proposing something that would shake the world of Jesus research, and it seemed he was content to simply throw out these ideas in a simple and brief form, to test the waters of receptivity. It worked.
Weiss' principle argument, is that the kingdom of God in Jesus' teaching is quite different than the way in which it is conceived in the modern church. He was convinced that the kingdom is entirely eschatological, and therefore contains little relevance to the modern church. Weiss' argument was revolutionary for a late 19th century understanding, which wanted to sanitize the kingdom and use it as a launching off point for ethics, social justice, and gospel proclamation (referring to justification by faith alone). Weiss helped to completely redefine what it meant to read the gospel accounts, casting them in a much more forward looking and historical light than had been done previously. It should be noted that, at the time, it was Schweitzer, following Weiss, who really made the biggest splash in the scholarly world with these specific arguments, but looking back on it from the current perspective Weiss' contribution is recognized as influential.
Even today, 100 years after he published, I agree with Weiss that modern church communities, and modern preaching, have grossly misunderstood the kingdom. However, it is in how this is done that we diverge. I needed to see more exegesis. I agree with Weiss as to the eschatological nature of the kingdom, but disagree that it is entirely so, and I certainly disagree with its irrelevance to modern faith communities. Overall, the book deserves to be read, and it is insightful, but since Weiss the pendulum regarding the realized aspects of the kingdom in Jesus' preaching has swung into a more moderate position, and it is all the better for having done so.
Weiss' principle argument, is that the kingdom of God in Jesus' teaching is quite different than the way in which it is conceived in the modern church. He was convinced that the kingdom is entirely eschatological, and therefore contains little relevance to the modern church. Weiss' argument was revolutionary for a late 19th century understanding, which wanted to sanitize the kingdom and use it as a launching off point for ethics, social justice, and gospel proclamation (referring to justification by faith alone). Weiss helped to completely redefine what it meant to read the gospel accounts, casting them in a much more forward looking and historical light than had been done previously. It should be noted that, at the time, it was Schweitzer, following Weiss, who really made the biggest splash in the scholarly world with these specific arguments, but looking back on it from the current perspective Weiss' contribution is recognized as influential.
Even today, 100 years after he published, I agree with Weiss that modern church communities, and modern preaching, have grossly misunderstood the kingdom. However, it is in how this is done that we diverge. I needed to see more exegesis. I agree with Weiss as to the eschatological nature of the kingdom, but disagree that it is entirely so, and I certainly disagree with its irrelevance to modern faith communities. Overall, the book deserves to be read, and it is insightful, but since Weiss the pendulum regarding the realized aspects of the kingdom in Jesus' preaching has swung into a more moderate position, and it is all the better for having done so.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews