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The Debate on the Resurrection of the Dead: an Incident From the Ministry of the Historical Jesus?
John P. Meier Journal for the Study of the New Testament 2000 22: 3 DOI: 10.1177/0142064X0002207701 The online version of this article can be found at: http://jnt.sagepub.com/content/22/77/3

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THE DEBATE ON THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD: AN INCIDENT FROM THE MINISTRY OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS? John P. Meier

Department of Theology, University of Notre Dame, 327 OShaughnessy Hall, Notre Dame, IN 46556

At first glance, Jesus debate with the Sadducees over the question of the resurrection of the dead (Mk 12.18-27 parr.) seems to have little chance of being judged as an event that goes back to the historical Jesus. The incident has no parallel, however distant, in the Gospel traditions. Hence the criterion of multiple attestation cannot be brought into play. Moreover, both Jewish and Christian groups in the first century CE spoke of the general resurrection of the dead. In contrast, apart from the present

Gospel traditions going back to the historical Jesus that focuses on the general resurrection of the dead. Hence the criterion of discontinuity does not seem to work here. Then, too, the pericope depicts Jesus citing Scripture to prove his position in a learned debate-a trait that some critics consider a clear sign that it is a creation of the early church. Nevertheless, despite this unpromising initial overview, I think there are good reasons for thinking that the debate over the resurrection does go back to the historical Jesus. Since, however, notable scholars reject this position and prefer to attribute the pericope to Christian invention, I think it best to proceed step by step by posing two fundamental quespericope,
tions.

there is little if any material in the

(1) The first question starts from the redactional end of Marks Gos-

pel :

Was this dispute story on the resurrection first composed by Mark himself? (2) If our answer to this question is no, then we may move back a bit in time and ask a second question, which poses the basic eitheror : Does the story preserve some incident from the ministry of the

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4
historical Jesus, or is its content from start to finish church early on in the first Christian generation?
a

creation of the

Interestingly, few commentators hold that Mark created the dispute story on the resun-ection out of whole cloth. Even skeptical exegetes like Bultmann and Hultgren discern behind the present pericope a pre-Markan unit that underwent subsequent redaction. The reasons for not assigning the entire unit to Marks creative talent are clear. On the macro-level, the string of Jerusalem dispute stories lacks the neat concentric structure and thematic links that the Galilean cycle of dispute stories evinces in Mk 2.1-3.6.- Yet, even in the Galilean cycle, on which Mark has imposed a fair amount of unity, most exegetes discern earlier pre-Markan material. Indeed, as I tried to show in volume 2 of A Marginal Jew, the problem of why the disciples of Jesus do not fast probably goes back to the actual teaching of the historical Jesus., If, then, even the fairly well-ordered and unified Galilean cycle of dispute stories reflects Markan reworking of older material, a fortiori it would seem that the more disjointed Jerusalem cycle is not the creation of Mark from start to finish. One gets the impression instead of various individual dispute stories-probably not even a cycle or collection4-that Mark
1. Rudolf Bultmann, Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition (8th edn; FRLANT, 29; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970), p. 25; Arland J. Hultgren, Jesus and his Adversaries: The Form and Function of the Conflict Stories in the Synoptic Tradition (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1979), pp. 123-31. Bultmann seems to hold that the entire pericope is pre-Markan; while his position on the traditionprocess is more complicated than Bultmanns, Hultgren apparently thinks that most, if not all, of the pericope is pre-Markan. 2. Compare the evaluation of the Galilean cycle of dispute stories in Joanna Markan Public Debate [SBLDS, 48; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1980], Dewey ( pp. 131-97) with the evaluation of the Jerusalem cycle in Jean-Gaspard Mudiso Mbâ Mundla, Jesus und die Führer Israels: Studien zu den sog. Jerusalemer Streitgesprächen (NTAbh NS, 17; Münster: Aschendorff, 1984), pp. 299-302; Otto Die Sadduzäerfrage (Mk 12, 18-27 parr) (BBB, 66; Frankfurt: Athenäum, Schwankl, 1987), pp. 434-38. 3. See John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (Anchor Bible Reference Library; 2 vols.; New York: Doubleday, 1991, 1994), II, pp. 43950. 4. See Mudiso Mbâ Mundla, Jesus und die Führer Israels , pp. 299-302.

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has brought together as best he could to dramatize the heightening tensions between Jesus and his opponents just before the passion. On the level of the individual dispute in Mk 12.18-27, Mark shows no interest in the Sadducees beyond this one story. He does not even attempt to link the incident in some concrete way with the Passion Narrative that is about to follow. This is all the more striking when one remembers that, to a great extent, the Sadducees arguing with Jesus about the resurrection represent the party whose leaders were probably the main Jerusalem authorities involved in Jesus arrest and trial. Yet Mark makes no connection whatever between the Sadducees in the dispute story of Mark 12 and the high priest, the chief priests and elders who plan and carry out Jesus arrest and trial in Mark 14. In fact, if we knew nothing except Marks Gospel, we would never think-indeed, does Mark?-that there is some connection between the Sadducees on the one hand and the high priest, the chief priests and the elders on the other. One gets the impression that Mark is taking over and using for his own purposes a story involving a group about which he otherwise evinces neither knowledge nor concern. The focus of Mk 12.18-27 is likewise atypical of Marks theological concerns. While Mark is naturally intent on proclaiming the death and resurrection of Jesus-chs. 14-16 are obviously dedicated to that task -Mark shows no interest outside of 12.18-27 in the question of the precise nature of the risen state of believers and the proper way that the general resurrection might be proven from Scripture. For Mark, as for the rest of the New Testament, eternal life and/or the resurrection of believers flows from and is grounded in the work, death and resurrection of Jesus, not the revelation of God to Moses in the burning bush. A small tell-tale sign that Mk 12.18-27 does not represent a free creation of the evangelist is that only here in the whole of Marks Gospel is the resurrection designated by the use of the noun va1:aau; (resurrection in vv. 18, 23 ).5 In speaking of the resurrection elsewhere, Mark uses the verbs avi6irly and ~~y~ipc~, but never the noun va1:aau;. This is true not only when the resurrection of Jesus is directly the topic (e.g. V1atTHll in 8.31; 9.31; 10.34; yElpm in 14.28; 16.6), but even when the bewildered disciples discuss among themselves what rising from the dead means (ii an v 1:0 ~K veKpcov avaa~ciwaL, 9.10) or when Herod Antipas imagines that John the Baptist has risen (YTlyp1:at)

5.

emphasize that I consider this only a confirmatory argument.

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6
from the dead (6.14, 16). Hence the double occurrence of va1:aau; in 12.18, 23 may be a fingerprint of the pre-Markan author left on the dis-

pute story.
While Mark did not create the narrative in 12.18-27, it is possible that the present form of the pericope contains some phrases added by the 6 evangelist. Two in particular are often singled out by commentators. Both candidates occur in the last verse (v. 23) of part 1 (vv. 18-23) of the pericope. Verse 23 begins, At the resurrection, when they rise [v Tf1 vaa1:am, 6Tav vaa1:wat v]... The redundancy is striking. Since Marks literary style is noted for its duality (Marks tendency to say the same thing twice), it could be that the second phrase, when they rise, is his addition.~ Yet the whole of v. 23, as it poses the trap-question to Jesus, reflects one overriding rhetorical intention: to highlight the dilemma faced by anyone who wishes both to maintain belief in the resurrection and, at the same time, to offer a satisfactory answer to the Sadducees riddle. Hence the repetitive when they rise may be intended both to emphasize the difficulty that the womans complicated marital situation poses to belief in the resurrection and to intimate the mocking skepticism of the Sadducees. The surface meaning of when they rise may include the sotto voce meaning of if, indeed, they rise. The second possible addition by Mark comes at the end of v. 23. Right after the trap-question is posed ( Of which of them shall she be the wife?), the text adds the apparently unnecessary and anticlimactic
6. On these two candidates, see Mudiso Mbâ Mundla, Jesus und die Führer , p. 72; Schwankl, Die Sadduzäerfrage , pp. 420-21. 7. Some critics advocate the view that when they rise is a Markan addition by pointing out that the phrase is missing in some important Greek manuscripts, including Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, Ephraemi Rescriptus, Bezae and Washingtonensis. But this is to confuse two different questions: (1) whether the phrase belongs to the original text of Marks Gospel and (2) whether it existed in the pre-Markan tradition that the evangelist edited. The first question can be answered, at least in part, by an inspection of the Greek mansucripts and versions; the second cannot. The textual confusion at the beginning of v. 23 is so great that it is difficult to be absolutely sure about the original Markan wording. However, it is probable that the phrase when they rise belongs to the original Markan text. There is no reason why later Christian scribes would have gone out of their way to insert it, while it is perfectly understandable that some of them felt the redundancy to be stylistically jarring. 8. See Frans Neirynck, Duality in Mark: Contributions to the Study of the Markan Redaction (BETL, 31; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1972).

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7
clause for the seven had her as wife. Possibly, in a moment of pedantry, Mark added this clause; yet other explanations for the clauses presence can be offered. This seemingly unnecessary clause, like the unnecessary when they rise, may purposely overload the verse with repetitions in order to underline the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of solving the dilemma the Sadducees pose. The reminder of the .seven brothers also reinforces the mocking tone of skepticism. Moreover, from start to finish, this well-structured pericope uses iiiclitsio to bind the various parts of the story together. We may have here another example. The clause for the seven had her as wife, which stands at the end of the fictitious case the Sadducees have proposed, harks back to the opening words of the case in v. 20 (there were seven brothers), thus forming an inclusio. At the same time, the clause sums up the whole case, explained at length in vv. 20-22. In brief, in my opinion, both of the two supposed Markan insertions in v. 23 could well have stood in the preMarkan text. Rudolf Pesch may thus be correct in maintaining that Mark took over this pericope unchanged. Still, one must admit that the suggestion that Mark added the two disputed clauses in v. 23 cannot be completely excluded. In the end, it has no great impact on the larger

argument.
II

In any case, it is most likely that the dispute story in Mk 12.18-27, minus perhaps a few short phrases, circulated in the pre-Markan tradition of the first Christian generation. To be sure, as a full narrative about Jesus, as distinct from sayings of Jesus, the text of the story as we have it is a Christian composition. But does this story preserve the recollection of some actual incident in the ministry of Jesus? While various critics have suggested that not only the present text of the narrative but also the incident narrated is purely a Christian creation, other scholars have argued that behind Mk 12.18-27 lies an actual debate between Jesus and the Sadducees over the question of the general resurrection. In my opin-

9. Rudolf Pesch, Das Markusevangelium (HTKNT, II/1-2; 2 vols.; Freiburg: Herder, 1976, 1977), II, p. 229; also Mudiso Mbâ Mundla, Jesus und die Führer , pp. 72, 108; more hesitant is Schwankl, Die Sadduzäerfrage , pp. 420-42. 10. Against an origin in the ministry Hultgren; in favor, Pesch and Schwankl.
of the historical Jesus
are

Bultmann and

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ion, two criteria of historicity argue for the authenticity of the basic story, though not the exact wording of the pericope.

Discontinuity Despite the initial impressions noted above, discontinuity does apply to this pericope
a.

I think that the criterion of in a number of different

ways.&dquo;

1. First, there is discontinuity with respect to the whole tendency of the synoptic tradition to create dispute stories. Most critics admit that the early church composed at least some of the synoptic dispute stories, at times building them around authentic sayings of Jesus, at times creating them out of whole cloth. The lengthy dispute over hand washing, korban and purity rules (Mk 7.1-23 par.) and the dispute over the plucking of grain on the sabbath (Mk 2.23-28) may be examples of this tendency. What is to be noted about these possible creations of the early church is that the stock adversaries appearing in these and other disputes with Jesus-as well as in the denunciations of his opponents by Jesus-are almost invariably the scribes (alternately lawyers) and/or the Pharisees (see, e.g., Mk 2.6, 16, 18, 24; 3.6, 22; 7.1; 8.11; 10.2; 11.27; 12.13, 35, 38; Mt. 22.34; 23.2-36; Lk. 11.37-53). In the Jerusalem disputes, high priests and elders appear at times as well (e.g., Mk 11.27). As we look through the growth of the dispute-story tradition in the synoptic Gospels, what is striking is the total lack of any tendency to create or multiply stories involving the Sadducees. Mark 12.18-27 pa1T. stands alone in the New Testament as the only dispute story in which Jesus directly debates with the Sadducees. 12 Apart from Mt. 16.1 -12 (cf.

11. Schwankl (Die Sadduzäerfrage , pp. 466-587) argues for historicity by using the criteria of both discontinuity and coherence, as I do here. However, he places relatively little emphasis on discontinuity, while basing most of his argument on coherence. 12. Not even the redactional creations of Matthew are exceptions to this sweeping statement. In 3.7, Matthew simply creates a group of many of the Pharisees and Sadducees to supply an audience for John the Baptists denunciation of trust in the external guarantees of religion. The Pharisees and Sadducees do not engage in a dispute with John, let alone with Jesus (who has not yet appeared on the scene as an adult). In 16.1, Matthew substitutes his theological odd couple, the Pharisees and Sadducees, for the Pharisees of Mk 8.11 as the persons who ask Jesus for a sign from heaven. Yet Mt. 16.1-4 is not properly a dispute story in which Jesus debates some legal or doctrinal question with the Pharisees and Sadducees; still less is Jesus

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9
Mt.

create a

3.7), in which Matthew adds Sadducees to the Pharisees in order to symbol of the united front of Judaism, the Gospel tradition
no

shows

interest in

increasing

references to Sadducees,

even as

sup-

porting characters, in stories about Jesus.

2. Likewise discontinuous with other Gospel dispute stories are the obscure topics of the law of levirate and sexual activity after the general resurrection. When Christian Jews in Palestine created dispute stories in the pre-70 period, they dwelt on topics that reflected their actual debates with their fellow Jews. Here we touch on the basic point of Sitz iln Leben: the early church tended to preserve or create traditions that served a particular purpose or met a practical need in its internal life or external struggles. Not surprisingly, the Christian Jews of pre-70 Palestine, like Jesus before them, clashed with their fellow Jews on practical questions like observance of sabbath and purity. Such debates naturally tended to create dispute stories on these and similar topics. These dispute stories helped crystallize the positions and guide the practices of Christian Jews in everyday life. Such stories are thus expressions of Christian-Jewish halakah. The atypical dispute with the Sadducees over the general resurrection does not fit this pattern of Christian Jews debating other Jews over proper halakic observance. Simply because of their socio-economic standing, most Christian Jews had no occasion to engage in debate with priestly or lay aristocrats of the Sadducean party resident in Jerusalem. As we can see in Acts, when such clashes did occur, they quite naturally took place between the Sadducees and the leaders of the ChristianJewish community in Jerusalem. Their conflict focused on the question of Jesus death and resurrection, not on the general resurrection of the dead and certainly not on the law of levirate.&dquo; There is absolutely no indication that Christian Jews of Palestine-or any other first-generation Christians, for that matter-were exercised over the problem of whether or with whom a wife involved in a levirate marriage would have sex after the general resurrection. In brief, the dispute makes sense as a historical clash between the Sadducees and Jesus during the latters

warning to his disciples to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees (Mt 16.5-12) a dispute story narrating a debate between Jesus and his opponents. 13. The one exception is Acts 23.6-10, but here we have the singular case of a wily Paul speaking not specifically of Jesus resurrection but in general terms of the resurrection of the dead as a political ploy. On this, see Gerhard Schneider, Die Apostelgeschichte (HTKNT, 5; 2 vols.; Freiburg: Herder, 1980, 1982), II, p. 332.

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10
Jerusalem ministry. The dispute hardly makes any sense as a creation of the early church. Not surprisingly, those critics who claim that the dispute was created by the church must be highly creative themselves in imagining what Sit i11l Leben called it forth 3. This point brings us to a much more important discontinuity between Mk 12.18-27 and the early church: the way in which the question of the general resurrection is treated and grounded. As we can see in the prime example of Pauls debate with those Corinthian converts who questioned the idea of the bodily resurrection of the dead on the last day ( Cor. 15), first-generation Christians based their hope of a general resurrection on the resurrection of Christ (see, e.g., 1 Cor. 15.12-13; cf. Rom. 1.3-4). To put the matter in later philosophical terms, Jesus own resurrection, already accomplished, was seen as the efficient and/or exemplary cause-the energizing archetype-nf the resurrection of believers, still to come. This nexus between the resurrection of Christ and the resurrection of believers is hardly unique to 1 Corinthians 15. It can be found in both the authentic and pseudonymous letters of Paul, the four Gospels, Acts, 1 Peter and the Revelation of John. In contrast, it never occurs to any Christian author in the New Testament to base the Christian hope of a general resurrection of the dead on a single verse from the Jewish Scriptures-especially not Exod. 3.6. The whole approach to speaking about and arguing for the general resurrection in Mk 12.18-27 is remarkably lacking in a specifically Christian viewpoint. 16

14. This is especially apparent in the reconstruction of Hultgren, Jesus and his Adversaries, pp. 123-31, which posits two different Sitze im Leben for two different parts of the pericope: (1) Mk 12.25 arises out of a question about the freedom of Christian widows to remarry, as in 1 Cor. 7.39; (2) Mk 12.26-27, dealing with the more general question of resurrection, represents ideas current in Hellenistic as opposed to Palestinian Judaism (!). Later on, as the two traditions developed, 12.18,

24 and 27b were used to join the two units. 15. See, e.g., the argument from the risen Christ as the first fruits of the resurrection in 1 Cor. 15.20-22; see also 1 Thess. 4.13-18; 5.9-10; 1 Cor. 6.13-14; 15.44-49; 2 Cor. 3.18; 4.10-15; Rom. 8.17, 29; 14.7-10; Phil. 3.20-21; Col. 1.13-20; 2.9-15; 2 Tim. 2.8-13. On all this, see David Michael Stanley, Christs Resurrection in Pauline Soteriology (AnBib, 13; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute Press, 1961); Scott Brodeur, The Holy Spirits Agency in the Resurrection of the Dead: An Exegetico-Theological Study of 1 Corinthians 15, 44b-49 and Romans 8, 9-13 (Tesi Gregoriana, Serie Teologia, 14; Rome: Gregorian University Press, 1996). 16. This is denied by Alfred Suhl (Die Funktion der alttestamentlichen Zitate und Anspielungen im Markusevangelium [Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1965], p. 68),

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11 4. This point brings us in turn to a further discontinuity that separates Jesus argument for the general resurrection not only from Christians after him but also from Jews before and after him in the Greco-Roman period. If Jesus use of Exod. 3.6 as the scriptural proof for the general resurrection strikes us as strange, it apparently struck his Jewish contemporaries as well as later Christians in the same way. As far as we can tell from the sources available to us, there was no Jewish exegetical tradition before or after Jesus in ancient times that used Exod. 3.6 to argue for the general resurrection. When belief in the resurrection of the dead-or, alternately, belief in immortality-appeared late in the Old Testament period (e.g., Dan. 12; 2 Macc. 7.10-1 l; Wis. 2.21-5.23), no appeal was made to Exod. 3.6. The exegetical treatment of Exod. 3.6 in the writings of intertestamental Judaism likewise shows no parallel to Jesus use of it to ground belief in the general resurrection. Most striking of all is that later rabbinic arguments for the resurrection, notably in b. Sanh. 90b-92a, use all sorts of Old Testament texts, many of which bear as little ostensible relationship to the resurrection as does Exod.

3.6.&dquo;
who attempts to understand Mk12.18-25 in terms of a Christian defense of the resurrection of Jesus against the Law, which presupposes that there is no resurrection. Verses 26-27, declared a later Christian addition, supposedly address the problem of the first cases of death in the Christian community. Suhls arbitrary exegesis reflects the larger theological concerns of Bultmann and Marxsen, lacks an adequate treatment of the Jewish background of the material (especially the Sadducees), never adverts to the unique and isolated situation of Exod. 3.6 within Jewish and Christian exegetical traditions, and overlooks the many elements in the text that bind it together as a literary whole. On the lack of Christian traits in this pericope, see D.H. van Daalen, Some Observations on Mark 12,24-27, in F.L. Cross (ed.), Studia (TU, 102; Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1968), p. 243; Joachim Jeremias, , IV Evangelica New Testament Theology: Part One. The Proclamation of Jesus (London: SCM Press, 1971), p. 184 n. 3. That it was possible for the evangelists, as well as for the writers of epistles, to present Jesus death and/or resurrection as a cause of the resurrection of the dead is seen from Matthews redaction of Mark in Mt. 27.51-53; 28.2-6. 17. Some critics (e.g., D.E. Nineham, The Gospel of St Mark [Pelican NT Commentaries; Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963], p. 321) have pointed to a sup4 Macc . posed similarity between Jesus argument in Mk 12.26-27 and statements in 7.19 and 16.25 that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob did not die, but live unto God [&a cgr;λλ&a cgr; ζ&OHacgr;σ&igr;ν τ&OHacgr; &thetas;ϵ&OHacgr;]. Such critics suggest that this similarity shows that Jesus argument was actually a stock argument of the Pharisees. This suggestion suffers from a number of difficulties: (1) The exegetical basis of Jesus argument, Exod. 3.6, is totally

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12 of these talmudic arguments employs Exod. 3.6. ~ Here, say, the authors of the New Testament are at one with the strange later rabbis of the Babylonian Talmud. Jesus appeal to Exod. 3.6 was apparently so idiosyncratic that it found no resonance in either Jewish or Christian arguments for the resurrection in the ancient period-apart,
Yet
none

to

absent from these supposed parallels. (2) The phrase stating that the patriarchs live unto God finds its proper parallel not in Mk 12.18-27 but rather in Lukes redactional addition to the Markan pericope in Lk. 20.38b: For all [humans] live unto him [i.e., God] (π&a cgr;ντϵ&sfgr; &gam a;&a cgr;ρ α&uacgr;τ&OHacgr; ζ&OHacgr;σ&igr;ν). (3) There is nothing to indicate that 4 Maccabees, written in Greek in the Diaspora by a Jew well acquainted with middle Platonic, neo-Pythagorean, Stoic, and Philonic philosophical ideas, is a product of Pharisaic theology in particular. Apart from the problematic cases of the writings of Paul and Josephus, we cannot identify a single document from the first century CE that was certainly written by a Pharisee. Antonio Ammassari (Gesù ha veramente insegnato la risurrezione!, BibOr 15 [1973], pp. 70-71 ) points out that in the much later Midrash Ha-Gadol , we find in a variant reading on Exod. 3.6 a hint of the idea of immortality. However, (1) this midrashic collection belongs to the medieval period, and (2) the idea of immortality is connected with Moses father via the phrase the God of your father in Exod. 3.6—the very phrase that Jesus omits from his citation of Exod. 3.6 in Mk 12.26. 18. See the chart drawn up by Schwankl, Die Sadduzäerfrage , p. 278. Schwankl counts 17 discussions on proving the resurrection in b. Sanh . 90b-92a, with 22 Old Testament passages cited. (One could extend this list with other discussions in b. Sanh . 90b-92a that touch tangentially on the topic of resurrection, but that do not provide a new scriptural argument as proof of the resurrection. The results would not be altered by such an extension.) The texts examined by Schwankl include citations from the Torah (Exodus, Numbers and Deuteronomy), the Prophets (Joshua, Isaiah, Jeremiah) and the Writings (the Song of Songs, the Psalms, Proverbs and Daniel). Of these 22 passages, only Dan. 12.2 and Dan. 12.13 (each cited once) would qualify as resurrection texts by modem historical-critical standards. Isa. 25.8 and 26.19 (each cited once) might also qualify, though it is unclear whether the original reference of these two texts was to the resurrection of the individual on the last day or to the restoration of the people Israel after some historical disaster such as exile. But both of them are at least open to being interpreted in relation to the resurrection without resorting to contorted exegesis. Contorted exegesis (from a modem viewpoint) is what is needed to extort a reference to the resurrection from the other 18 texts employed. From the book of Exodus, 6.4 and 15.1 are cited, but not 3.6. Schwankl (p. 406 n. 232) conjectures that perhaps the lack of any verb in the key statement I [am] the God of Abraham... discouraged the rabbis from using Exod. 3.6, since they could not play off the reading I am the God of Abraham (in the present, suggesting Abrahams continued existence) against a hypothetical reading I was ...

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13

of course, from Christian authors of later centuries who cited or borrowed from Mk 12.18-27.19 Even the formula Jesus uses from Exod. 3.6 (I [am] the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob) occurs only once again in the New Testament, in a slightly different form, in Acts 7.32 (I [am] the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob), within Stephens speech before his martyrdom. In this speech for the defense, Stephen constructs an overview of salvation history stretching from the call of Abraham to Solomons construction of the Jerusalem temple. A large part of the speechs narrative is given over to the story of Moses, who is seen as a type of Christ (cf. 7.35). The citation of Exod. 3.6 in Acts 7.32 occurs, quite properly, during the narration of the call of Moses by God speaking from the burning bush. Indeed, Acts 7.30-34 is a digest of Exod. 3.1-10. The important point for us is that Acts 7.32, the only example in the New Testament of a citation of the full formula of Exod. 3.6 apart from Mk 12.26, simply reproduces the natural sense of the Exodus text. Absolutely no reference to or proof of the general resurrection is read into the text by Stephen the orator or Luke the writer. The only other New Testament passage where Exod. 3.6 is cited (or better, alluded to) is Acts 3.13, though here the citation is not as full as in Acts 7.32. Acts 3.13 stands at the beginning of Peters kerygmatic speech in Solomons Portico after the healing of the lame man at the Beautiful Gate of the temple. Peter solemnly announces the resurrection of Jesus with a tissue of Old Testament allusions: The God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and denied in the pres20 ence of Pilate, although he had determined to release him... The opening string of titles could be from Exod. 3.6, though Exod. 3.15 or 3.16
19. Hultgren ( Jesus and his Adversaries , pp. 124-25) claims that the fragments of the dispute story on the resurrection that we find in Justins Dialogue with Trypho 81.4, On the Resurrection 3 (attributed to Justin), and the pseudonymous Epistle of Titus are independent of the three Synoptics; to the contrary, Mudiso Mbâ Mundla, Jesus und die Führer , p. 71. I think that a careful inspection of the texts shows that we have in these passages typical examples of the meshing and/or paraphrasing of Gospel texts by patristic authors. 20. While Ulrich Wilckens (Die Missionsreden der Apostelgeschichte [WMANT, 5; Neukirchen—Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 3rd edn, 1974], p. 38) sees a reference here to Exod. 3.6, 15, he cautions that we cannot be certain that Luke intended such a reference, since the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had become a well-known designation of God in early Judaism. Luke expresses the thought of Acts 3.13 more

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could equally be the source, since the formula of self-revelation from 3.6 (I [am]...) is missing in Acts 3.13. The assertion that God glorified his servant probably echoes the reference to the suffering servant in Isa. 52.13. For Luke, this glorification is made up of Christs resurrection, ascension and being seated at the right hand of God. The designation God of Abraham... has special value for Luke in this kerygmatic sermon because it stresses that the one God has been planning and directing the whole course of salvation history from beginning to end, from Abrahams call to Christs glorification.21 Thus, while the titles of God from Exod. 3.6 are brought into relation with (though not made a proof of) Jesus resurrection, no link is forged in Acts 3.13 between Exod. 3.6 and the general resurrection of the dead. In other words, while Luke uses Exod. 3.6 twice in Acts-indeed, he is the only New Testament author to use the text outside of Mk 12.26 parr.-it never enters his mind to connect it with the general resurrection. This is all the more remarkable when one remembers that Luke does know this application of the text because he takes over the dispute story of Mk 12.18-27 in Lk. 20.27-38. Hence, although he knows the tradition that Jesus interpreted Exod. 3.6 in relation to the general resurrection, Luke, no more than any other New Testament author, has the slightest inclination to imitate his Masters unique hermeneutic. Jesus use of Exod. 3.6 to prove the fact of the general resurrection finds no precise parallel either in early Judaism before or after him or in the first-century Christian movement that flowed from his own teaching. To sum up, then: In the debate in Mk 12.18-27, Jesus handles both the how (manner) and the that (fact) of the resurrection quite differently from the early Christians. Jesus answers the how by a comparison to the angels and the that by an appeal to Exod. 3.6. The early Christians, instead, handle both the how (see Phil. 3.21) and the that (see 1 Cor. 15.12-20) simply by pointing to the risen Jesus. At the same time, Jesus arguments, especially his grounding of the resurrection in Exod. 3.6, are not those of Judaism before or after him. The various concepts and motifs that flow into Jesus double answer are indeed drawn from the Old Testament and early Judaism, but Jesus forges them into a new, creative whole. The criterion of discontinuity fits Mk 12.18-27 to a remarkable

degree.
tersely
in the

apostles speech

in 5.30: The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom

you killed, hanging [him] on a tree. 21. So Wilckens, Missionsreden , pp. 160, 164.

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b. Coherence Some critics have doubted the historicity of the dispute with the Sadducees over the resurrection because they maintain that the historical Jesus never spoke about a general resurrection of the dead. Such scholars reason that Jesus expected the imminent coming of the kingdom, and so his gaze was resolutely fixed on the empirical Israel in front of him. He was totally taken up with his contemporaries, who were the object of his passionate call to repentance and renewal in view of the kingdoms coming. He had no time for or interest in speculation about a general resurrection of the dead. That a Palestinian Jew could be intensely interested in future eschatology and/or apocalyptic expectations and yet not be concerned about the resurrection of the dead seems verified by the documents authored by the Qumran community. There we find eschatological and/or apocalyptic expectations, but little-if anything-about a general resurrection of the dead. 21 Nevertheless, to claim that Jesus never spoke of the general resurrection is to go too far and at the same time to miss a subtle but important point. To be sure, at the heart of Jesus proclamation was the kingdom of God, soon to come yet somehow already present in his ministry. With the sense of urgency that such a belief engendered, Jesus thought and action aimed squarely at convincing and converting those who were, in his eyes, at risk of final condemnation: his contemporaries-or, as the sometimes blunt Jesus preferred to call them, this evil generation .2 This main goal of his mission, and not speculation about the fate of the long-since departed, naturally occupied most of his attention and preaching. He was interested above all in making sure that the liv-

22. For a detailed consideration of the argument from coherence, see Schwankl, Die Sadduzäerfrage , pp. 511-78. 23. See John J. Collins, Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls (London: Routledge, 1997), pp. 110-29, including his treatment of rare references to resurrection (but in what sense?) in such texts as 4Q521 (pp. 88-89, 128-29). 24. That the historical Jesus did use the word generation ( r a dôr in Hebrew, d in Aramaic, &gam a;ϵνϵ&a cgr; in Greek) in a pejorative sense to refer to his sinful and unrepentant contemporaries seems likely in view of the distribution of the term &gam a;ϵνϵ&a cgr; in the New Testament. The pejorative sense employed by Jesus is scattered throughout every Gospel source except John (multiple attestation in Mark, Q, M and L), and yet it is almost entirely lacking in the sparse use of &gam a;ϵνϵ&a cgr; elsewhere in the New Testament.

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the threshold of the final kingdom, would enter into or enter into life.2 In contrast, the idea of a general resurrection, by definition, involved the dead, not the living. Such a resurrection beyond this world of time and space would be the final step into the kingdom for those who had already died, not for those still living when the kingdom of God came in full reality. Accordingly, the resurrection would be a matter for God, not Jesus, to take care of. Jesus had his hands full with this generation. We need not be surprised, then, that the general resurrection either was mentioned only in passing by Jesus or remained implicit within his proclamation of the kingdom. But mentioned or alluded to it was. 1. As I have tried to show in volume 2 of A Marginal Jew, an important Q saying of Jesus in Mt. 8.11-12 // Lk. 13.28-29 implies the general resurrection. 21 Speaking of the eschatological pilgrimage of the Gentiles into the kingdom of God, Jesus prophesies (Mt. 8.11 par.), Many from east and west shall come and shall recline [at table] with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of God. Thus, in his role as the eschatological prophet, Jesus foretells that, on the last day, the Gentiles will recline with the long-dead patriarchs (notice, the same three as in Mk 12.26) at the heavenly banquet, the metaphor for final salvation. Obviously, then, the final stage of the kingdom is not just a continuation of this present world in some improved or even miraculous form. The presence of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, feasting together with the Gentiles in the kingdom, indicates that, in some sense, the final kingdom is discontinuous with and transcends this present world. More to the point, the very picture of the long-dead patriarchs now joining Gentiles (including, presumably, those still living when the end time comes) at a banquet intimates some sort of resurrection. It is typical of Jesus, however, that we never get beyond symbols, metaphors and intimations. Jesus is not interested in giving detailed scenarios of the last day. He is a prophet and a poet, not a systematic theologian. Still, if Jesus is at all serious about this prophecy, the last day seems to involve

ing, standing the kingdom

on

25. While various entrance into the kingdom sayings may be the product of the early Christian tradition or the evangelists, multiple attestation of sources (Mark, Q, M and John) argues that this was one of Jesus regular ways of speaking of
salvation. See, e.g., Mk 9.43, 45, 47; 10.15, 23-25; Mt. 5.20; 7.13, 21; 19.17; Jn 3.5. 26. See A Marginal Jew , II, p. 317, where I argue that the group referred to as those who will come from east and west are most likely Gentiles rather than Diaspora Jews.

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some kind of resurrection. But it lies on the periphery, not at the center, of his vision. 2. In a few cases, though, it does seem that Jesus spoke in passingand yet directly-of the resurrection. Within a Lukan symposium, made up of various sayings collected by Luke around the theme of a banquet, we find an L saying in which Jesus urges his host to be generous in extending hospitality to those who cannot pay him back in this life. Using a form of beatitude similar to the pattern found at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount/Plain, Jesus provides motivation for his exhortation by promising a future reward beyond this present world (Lk. 14.14): And you will be happy, for...you will be rewarded at the resurrection of the just. As in the beatitudes of the Sermon, Jesus proclaims the reversal of all values and the radical demand of gratuitous love in the light of the last day, understood in 14.14 in terms of the

resurrection .27
3. In volume 2 of A Marginal Jew, I looked briefly at the woes that Jesus the eschatological prophet spoke against the cities of Galilee that rejected him (a Q saying in Mt. 11.21-24 // Lk. 10.13-15). 2X As I argued, the mention of Chorazin alongside Bethsaida and Capernaum as cities where Jesus worked argues for historicity. This saying is not something spun out of other Gospel material-in fact, Chorazin is never mentioned elsewhere in the New Testament-and there is absolutely no evidence of any early Christian missionary activity at Chorazin. Similarly, despite the fact that Mt. 11.21 par. presupposes a large number of miracles worked in Bethsaida, we have only a single narrative recounting a lone miracle worked by Jesus in Bethsaida (Mk 8.22-26). Hence this Q saying is probably a fossil reflecting activities of Jesus that were otherwise lost to the Gospel tradition. The saying also coheres perfectly with the picture of Jesus as the eschatological prophet calling Israel to repentance in view of the imminent judgment. We hear echoes of the

27. In favor of the beatitude of 14.14 coming from the historical Jesus are I. Howard Marshall, The Gospel of Luke (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), p. 583; Josef Ernst, Das Evangelium nach Lukas (RNT; Regensburg: Pustet, 1977), p. 440. Indeed, one wonders whether the haste with which some Christian exegetes deny that this saying is authentic is prompted in part by dismay at seeing Jesus urge generosity on the basis of a sure reward on the last day—an idea firmly ensconced in the teaching of the Jew named Jesus. A Marginal Jew 28. , II, pp. 620, 692.

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fiery mentor, John the Baptist, continuing disciple. In this Q saying, Jesus warns:

to

speak through

his former

Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if in Tyre and Sidon [Old Testament archetypes of evil Gentile cities opposed to God and his people Israel] had been worked the miracles that have been worked in you, long ago they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes. But it will go easier with Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than with you.

city specially favored by Jesus extended ministry, is threatened even more graphically: You will descend to Hades [the abode of the dead or hell]. That the Gentile citizens of Tyre and Sidon will be arraigned alongside the Jewish citizens of Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum-perhaps thought to be still living when the day of judgment comes-and will suffer a less grievous fate presupposes some sort of afterlife or coming to life. Granted the stock apocalyptic scenario of the gathering together of scattered groups, including the dead, to a final judgment, the most likely implication is that the day of judgment will involve some sort of resurrection of the dead. 4. A similar prophecy of Jesus about the final judgment can be found in the Q tradition about the sign of Jonah. In Mt. 12.41-42 // Lk. 11.31-32, Jesus excoriates his unresponsive contemporaries by comparing them once again with more responsive Gentiles. In a two-part saying, with each part perfectly parallel to the other, Jesus foretells,
Then

Capernaum,

the

The queen of the south [i.e., the queen of Sheba] shall rise up at the judgment with the men of this generation and shall condemn them. For she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon. And

behold, something greater than Solomon is here. The

rise up at the

men

of Nineveh will

judgment with this generation and shall condemn it. For they repented at the preaching of Jonah. And behold, something greater
than Jonah is here.

Typical of the indirect, enigmatic style of Jesus is his reference to s something (not someone) greater being present before his audiences As is his he not to himself but to the custom, eyes. points directly kingdom of God, already present in his words and works (here). This is not the way the post-Easter church proclaimed its Christology in its
various forms. As with the previous saying, we are presented with a scenario of udgment day, with Gentiles from the past faring better than Jesus Jewish contemporaries. Here, unlike the examples of Tyre and Sidon, the Gen-

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tiles have in fact been responsive to Israels great wisdom teacher (Solomon) and to one of its great prophets of repentance (Jonah). One might discern here a self-portrait of the historical Jesus (wisdom teacher and eschatological prophet of repentance); but, as usual, it is at best an indirect, allusive reference. The main point of the saying is that the queen of Sheba and the Ninevites, all Gentiles, shall not simply fare better at the final judgment than Jesus Jewish contemporaries but will even take an active part in witnessing against and condemning them. The scene is clearly that of the general judgment. Since both the queen of Sheba and the Ninevites obviously died many centuries ago and yet will appear alongside Jesus contemporaries (some of whom are probably presumed to be still living when the final judgment arrives), the natural inference is that this final judgment involves some sort of resurrection 5. In Mk 9.43-47 // Mt. 18.8-9 // Mt. 5.29-30, we find various forms of a string of sayings concerning the seriousness of scandal (in the weighty theological sense of something that will lead one into serious sin or apostasy). In Mk 9.43-47, Jesus warns his disciples,
If your hand scandalizes you, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed than with two hands to depart into Gehenna, into the inextinguishable fire.3o And if your foot scandalizes you, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life lame than with two feet to be cast into Gehenna. And if your eye scandalizes you, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be cast into

Gehenna.

5.29-30, within the Sermon on the Mount, only two of these sayings, the eye and the hand, are reproduced, probably with a specific application to impure glances and touches, since the larger context
In Mt.
on

is the second antithesis (on adultery). A compressed form of Marks three sayings is found in Mt. 18.8-9. Verse 8 combines the sayings about hand and foot (the first two sayings of Mark) into one saying: If your hand or foot scandalize you... Verse 9 continues with the sepa29. Nevertheless, the phrase shall rise up with (&eacgr;&gam a;ϵρ&thetas;&e acgr;σϵτα&igr;/&a cgr;ναστ&e acgr;σ&ogr;ντα&igr; μϵτ&a cgr;, with an Aramaic phrase like qûm im in the background) should not be pressed as though it primarily referred to the general resurrection. The primary meaning of this Semitic phrase is to appear in court with someone. 30. For Gehenna used as a metaphor of eschatological punishment of the wicked by fire, see Duane F. Watson, Gehenna, ABD, II, pp. 926-28. Of the 12 occurrences of the word in the New Testament, all but one (Jas 3.6) are found in the mouth of Jesus in various Synoptic sources (Mark, Q and M).

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saying on the eye. Whether or not some of the Matthean forms of the saying represent Q or M tradition as opposed to a mere reworking of the Markan sources is debated among scholars. 31 In any event, we have in Marks source (Mk 9.42-50 is clearly a hodgepodge collection of stray sayings), and possibly in the Q document, a few sayings of Jesus that speak in most graphic and concrete terms about the entrance of a person with his or her bodily limbs into the kingdom or into eternal punishment. A resurrection of the body and/or a bodily entrance into the kingdom on the part of those still living is obviously presuprate Markan

posed.
The shocking imageiy used in these sayings plus the uncompromising demand for a radical decision in view of imminent judgment cohere well with the style and content of the authentic message of the historical Jesus. Interestingly, while one can find some parallels to these ai-resting images in later rabbinic literature, the rest of the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers offer no exact parallels. 6. In volume 2 of A Marginal Jew, I argued at length for the authenticity of Jesus prophecy at the Last Supper about his own final fate (Mk 14.25): Amen I say to you that I shall no longer drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.-2 In the face of approaching death and the seeming failure of his mission to all Israel, Jesus consoles himself (much more than his disciples) with the hope that God will vindicate him beyond death and will bring him to participate in the final banquet in the kingdom. The picture painted by this logion remains remarkably indistinct: there are no christological titles, no references to Jesus death as sacrificial or saving, no references to resurrection or parousia, no indication that Jesus will be the host at the banquet or that he will be rejoined there by his disciples. Specifically Christian ideas about the consummation are totally lacking. Rather, in this saying, the historical Jesus expresses his hope that God will bring

31. W.D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, Jr ( The Gospel According to Saint Matthew [ICC; 3 vols.; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1988, 1991, 1997], I, p. 523 and II, p. 765) favor the view that Matthew is reworking his Markan source in two different ways; so also Robert H. Gundry, Matthew (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), pp. 88-89, 363. Yet doublets in Matthew sometimes signal a Mark-Q overlap; cf. Pesch , II, p. 116. For later rabbinic parallels to these sayings, though Markusevangelium in markedly different contexts, see, e.g., m. Nid . 2.1 with the Gemara in b. Nid. 13b; cf. Targ. Neof 38.25. . 32. A Marginal Jew , II, pp. 302-309.

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him out of death when the kingdom fully comes and will seat him at the final banquet, presumably alongside the great patriarchs and even the Gentiles (cf. Mt. 8.11-12 par.). Once again, the imagery of sharing in the heavenly banquet beyond death intimates but does not openly proclaim the idea of a general resurrection on the last day-but not the idea of a unique resurrection of Jesus within ongoing human history. As the reader will have noticed, I have not spent a great deal of time arguing about the exact wording of the six texts I have just reviewed. I have not even considered at length the question of whether these sayings go back to the historical Jesus. In some cases, I have done that already in volume 2 of A Marginal Jew; in other cases, I think the brief indications of why the sayings might be considered authentic will suffice for the moment. My major point in treating these six sayings is not so much the details of each logion but rather their cumulative effect. They provide us with an argument from multiple attestation of sources and forms for the basic assertion that Jesus spoke at various times, in various ways, and under various images, of a final judgment on the last day and that, sometimes overtly but more commonly indirectly, he refeited to the general resurrection of the dead as part of this eschatological event. In one way or another, this idea is expressed or implied in sayings found in Mark, Q, L and possibly M. While the tradition that stands behind the Gospel of John also contains the idea of a general resurrection (e.g. Jn 5.28-29), the complicated nature of Johannine eschatology and the various stages of tradition and redaction in the Fourth Gospel make it extremely difficult to trace an individual saying on future eschatology back to the historical Jesus. Suffice it to say that the pre-Johannine tradition, for all its differences from the synoptic Gospels, agrees with the other Gospel sources in attributing references to the general resurrection to Jesus. 33 In any event, the multiple attestation of sources and forms makes it highly probable that the historical Jesus did at times speak in passing or allude to the general resurrection of the dead on the last day, though it was not usual for him to make this subject the direct object of his preaching.

33. For instance, I think that Jn 5.28-29, far from being an invention of the final redactor of the Fourth Gospel, represents an earlier stage of eschatological teaching in the Johannine tradition. Verse 5.25 should be seen as the evangelists reworking of the older tradition found in 5.28-29; see R.E. Brown, The Gospel According to John (i-xii) (AB, 29; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966), I, pp. 218-21.

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At first
to

glance, this last point might

a

seem to create a

major objection

historical incident behind the debate with the Sadducees in Mk 12.18-27. Actually, the exact opposite is true. If Jesus generally spoke only in passing or allusively of a general resurrection, what would be the one kind of event that would cause him to address the question directly? Precisely the type of event that Mk 12.18-27 depicts: the only Jewish movement that explicitly denied any future resurrection or final judgment beyond this present world was moved by Jesus passing references to confront him on the subject, forcing him to spell out and defend his implied position. It is therefore not by accident but rather in keeping with everything we have seen that the only time Jesus focuses the theological spotlight directly on the subject of the general resurrection is when he is directly challenged on the matter by the only Jewish group that would be likely to dispute his position with vehemence, namely, the Sadducees. In shou, while the argument from coherence has to be built up gradually, saying by saying, its cumulative impact in the case of the debate with the Sadducees is fairly impressive. Hence I maintain that, when the arguments from discontinuity are joined to the arguments from coherence, the most probable conclusion is that the debate with the Sadducees over the resurrection in Mk 12.18-27 does reflect an actual incident in the ministry of the historical Jesus that took place, naturally enough, in Jerusalem .31 Whether Jesus engaged in any other debates with the Sadducees we cannot say.-5 Such clashes, perhaps spread out over a number of visits to Jerusalem (as the Fourth Gospel indicates), might help

seeing

Those who hold that Lukes version of the story, esp. Lk. 20.34-36, repreprimitive tradition, might argue for authenticity from the criterion of multiple attestation of sources (Mark + L). However, along with many Lukan commentators, I think that 20.34-36 is best explained as Lukes creative redaction of his Markan tradition, perhaps with a glance at the LXX Maccabean literature; on this, see Schwankl, Die Sadduzäerfrage , pp. 442-61; for the , p. 79. To argue against opposite view, Mudiso Mbâ Mundla, Jesus und die Führer historicity on the grounds that Paul does not cite Mk 12.25 in1 Cor. 15 presumes on the part of Paul a much wider knowledge of Jesus sayings than can be proven from his epistles. 35. In favor of such a view is Günther Baumbach, Das Sadduzäerverständnis bei Josephus Flavius und im Neuen Testament, Kairos 13 (1971), pp. 31-35; Karlheinz Müller, Jesus und die Sadduzäer, in Helmut Merklein and Joachim Lange (eds.), Biblische Randbemerkungen (Rudolf Schnackenburg Festschrift; Wiirzburg: Echter Verlag, 2nd edn, 1974), pp. 8-11.
sents an alternate form of the

34.

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explain the growing opposition of the chief priests and elders, which ultimately led to Jesus arrest. But we must admit that we lack the hard evidence to make these suggestions anything more than speculation. In any event, Mk 12.18-27 is a unique and precious relic that allows us to appreciate more fully Jesus own views on what the future coming of the kingdom would mean. The historical Jesus believed that, at some point in the eschatological drama, past generations would rise from the
dead and that faithful Israelites would share in a new type of life similar to that of the angels, one that left behind old relationships established by marriage and sexual activity. The final state of the kingdom would thus entail a transcendence of this present world, not simply an improvement of it. In bringing about this new world, the God of creation and covenant, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob would fulfill his deepest commitment to the people of Israel to be their savior and protector, even beyond death. In the end, Jesus proclaims this particular view both of the manner of the resurrection and of the scriptural proof of the resurrection not on the basis of some hallowed tradition but simply on the basis of his own authority.&dquo; Without any precedent in Jewish tradition, Jesus flatly asserts that Exod. 3.6 proves the truth of the general resurrection of the dead. He knows that this is so, he teaches it is so, and that is the end of the matter. We have here the peremptory, authoritative, it-is-so-because-I-say-it-is-so style that is typical of the charismatic leader. There is no Amen I say to you in Jesus pronouncement on the resurrection; but that introductory phrase, so characteristic of Jesus teaching style, sums up well the air of direct, authoritative, intuitive knowledge that marks this eschatological prophet from Nazareth. One can understand why the Sadducees in particular and the Jerusalem establishment in general would find this Galilean upstart difficult to take or tolerate.

ABSTRACT
initial appearances, Jesus debate with the Sadducees over the resurrection of the dead does have good reason for being considered authentic. The pericope is clearly not a pure creation by Mark. Indeed, the criteria of discontinuity and coherence argue for a basic historicity. The pericope is discontinuous (1) with the ten-

Despite

36. See Martin Dibelius, Die Formgeschichte des Evangeliums (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 6th edn, 1971), pp. 141-42; Schwankl, Die Sadduzäerfrage , pp. 508-509, 563-66.

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