Realized Eschatology Study Archive

According to Dodd, the early church believed that the kingdom was here and now.  Proto-influences in the ascension of Realized Eschatology are dated back to Erasmus.

Vespasian gets the data.

Realized Eschatology

Clearinghouse for Seminar Studies related to the historical Jesus, to the life and travels of Paul, and to the autobasileus view of Jesus Christ found in Realized Eschatology, Inaugurated Eschatology, and other “Already/Not Yet” theologies.

INTRODUCTION

C.H. Dodd is considered the father of modern realized eschatology.  He uses the term kerygma as the proclaimed message of the early church. While he does not go as far as Bultmann in distinguishing between the kerygma and the actual message of Christ when He was on earth, he attempts to show that his concept of realized eschatology was the view of the early church.

According to Dodd, the early church believed that the kingdom was here and now.  Proto-influences in the ascension of Realized Eschatology are included in this archive, dating back to Erasmus.  Representatives of autobasileus theology prior to 1500 (such as Origen of Alexandria) are catgeorized in a different class.

LATEST ADDITIONS (12/20/18):

  • 2013: Ben Chenoweth, Apocalyptic Eschatology and the Olivet Discourse – It would certainly be unwise to question the imminence of apocalyptic eschatology. In view of the social setting that gives rise to apocalypticism, imminence is a necessary characteristic: those suffering persecution and even death for their faith in the present evil age can only be encouraged to endure if they are reassured by the fact that the end of that age, and thus the end of their sufferings, is coming very soon. Imminence, then, is intrinsic to apocalyptic eschatology.
  • 1926: Rudolph Bultmann, The Coming of the Kingdom of God – The coming of the Kingdom of God is not an event in the course of time, which is due to occur sometime and toward which man can either take a definite attitude or hold himself neutral. Before he takes any attitude he is already constrained to make his choice, and therefore he must understand that just this necessity of decision constitutes the essential part of his human nature. Jesus sees man thus in a crisis of decision before God.
  • 1970: Charles Horne, Eschatology – The Controlling Thematic in Theology (pdf)

REFERENCE

RELEVANT WORKS:

MAIN ARTICLE COLLECTION
Typically Organized by Author’s First Name

A.L. Moore: Parousia in the New Testament (1966)

The church seems to have slackened its grasp upon the Parousia hope under pressure from materialistic thought; and western capitalism, naturally biased towards conservatism, has hardly encouraged the church to re-affirm its hope in the impending judgement and renewal of the present world order.

Anthony Coleman: Still Waiting for Jesus (2016)

Once the idea of Jesus as an Apocalyptic Prophet was presented to me the whole thing just made sense. The early Christians clearly expected Jesus to return immediately. The synoptic Gospels, on my reading, present Jesus as expecting a final judgment in the near future. It makes sense of his teaching, the warnings of judgment. ‘The Kingdom of God is at hand.

 

Bo Reicke Study Archive

he had solved the riddle of the Pastorals and the “deutero-Paulines” by fitting them seamlessly into Paul’s work as known from Acts and from the acknowledged Pauline letters

Firmin Abauzit (Proto)

Dale C. Allison Jr.

David E. Aune

SEE ALSO:

G.K. Beale

G.R. Beasley-Murray

F.F. Bruce

Rudolph Bultmann

  • 1926: Rudolph Bultmann, The Coming of the Kingdom of God – The coming of the Kingdom of God is not an event in the course of time, which is due to occur sometime and toward which man can either take a definite attitude or hold himself neutral. Before he takes any attitude he is already constrained to make his choice, and therefore he must understand that just this necessity of decision constitutes the essential part of his human nature. Jesus sees man thus in a crisis of decision before God.
  • 1953: Rudolph Bultmann, Kerygma and Myth by Rudolf Bultmann and Five Critics

D.A. Carson

Oscar Cullman

  • 1956: Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead? – Professor Cullmann compares the Greek conception of the immortality of the soul with the early Christian conception of the resurrection, and shows that they are so different in orgin and in translation into experience as to be mutually exclusive. To the Greek, death was a friend. To the Christian death was the last enemy, but the enemy conquered by Christ in His resurrection, and conquered by all who are His.

P.S. Desprez (Proto)

C.H. Dodd (Central Figure: Coined term Realized Eschatology; Re-amplified Kingdom of God studies)

SEE ALSO:

What was the attitude of the apostles at the beginning? We must remember that the early Church handed down as a saying of the Lord, “The Kingdom of God has come upon you” (Matt. xii. 28, Luke xi. 20). This means that the great divine event, the eschaton, has already entered history. In agreement with this, the preaching both o~ Paul and of the Jerusalem Church affirms that the decisive thing has already happened. The prophecies are fulfilled; God has shown His “mighty works”; the Messiah has come; He has been exalted to the right hand of God; He has given the Spirit which according to the prophets should come “in the last days.” Thus all that remains is the completion of that which is already in being. It is not to introduce a new order of things that the Lord will come; it is only to finish His work. The Church believed that the Lord had said, “You will see the Son of Man seated on the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven” (Mark xiv. 6z). One part of the vision was fulfilled: by the eye of faith they already saw Him on the right hand of God. Why should the conclusion of the vision delay? (The Apostolic Teaching, ch. 1)

Erasmus of Rotterdam (PROTO #1)

  • 1992: Todd Dennis, Calvin vs. Sadoleto (Searching; INFO)

George E. Ladd

F.D. Maurice (Proto)

SEE ALSO:

Jürgen Moltmann

A.L. Moore

C.F.D. Moule

Norman Perrin

  • 1967: Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus – An attempt to establish what may be known with reasonable certainty of the teaching of Jesus, “an irreducible minimum of historical knowledge available to us at the present time” (1967). Fully appreciative of Bultmann, yet advancing beyond his work, the author opens up a new approach to understanding the significance of the teaching of Jesus.

Bo Reicke

SEE ALSO:

  • 1976: J.A.T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament
  • 2013: Stanley Porter, Reicke and Robinson The second position, by Reicke and Robinson, argues along similar lines as do van Bruggen and Johnson. They note that the prison letters and 2 Timothy have many elements in common, including those listed as colleagues in both 2 Timothy and the prison epistles. The major difference is that Reicke and Robinson both place all of the prison epistles and 2 Timothy during Paul’s two year Caesarean imprisonment under Roman authority.

Ernest Renan (Proto)

J.A.T. Robinson

SEE ALSO:

Albert Schweitzer

  • 1906: Quest for the Historical Jesus – The apocalyptic discourses in Mark xiii., Matt. xxiv., and Luke xxi. are interpolated. A Jewish-Christian apocalypse of the first century, probably composed before the destruction of Jerusalem, has been interwoven with a short exhortation which Jesus gave on the occasion when He predicted the destruction of the temple..  His construction rests upon two main points of support; upon his view of the sources and his conception of the eschatology of the time of Jesus. In his view the sole source for the Life of Jesus is the Gospel of Mark, which was “probably written exactly in the year 73,” five years after the Johannine apocalypse.

SEE ALSO:

N.T. Wright

SEE ALSO:

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *