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Thoughts on New Testament Eschatology1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

C. E. B. Cranfield
C. E. B. Cranfield
Affiliation:
30 Western Hill, Durham City, DHI 4RL
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Extract

To deal with NT eschatology in the time available to me, I should have either to be a vastly more competent NT scholar and theologian than I am or else to be prepared to state my own views dogmatically and treat differing views in a cavalier fashion, a procedure I regard as unscholarly and unacceptable. So what I amoffering is something much more modest —just some thoughts on the subject.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 35 , Issue 6 , December 1982 , pp. 497 - 512
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1982

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References

2 I have not yet been convinced by Robinson's, J. A. T. dates for Luke, Acts and John in his Redating the New Testament, London, 1976Google Scholar, but freely acknowledge that arguments will need to be weighed with care.

3 London, 1967, p. 84.

4 Die Mitte der Zeit: Studien zur Theologie des Lukas, Tübingen. I have used the 3rd ed., 1960Google Scholar. There is an English translation, The Theology of St. Luke, London, 1960.Google Scholar

5 Attempts to explain eV ⋯ν τ⋯Χειhere as meaning ‘suddenly’ or ‘unexpectedly’ seem to me unconvincing. See further Cranfield, C. E. B., ‘The Parable of the Unjust Judge and the Eschatology of Luke-Acts’, in SJT 16 (1963), p. 299CrossRefGoogle Scholar, n. 1; Marshall, I. H., The Gospel of Luke: A commentary on the Greek text, Exeter, 1978, p. 676Google Scholar; and the new revised and augmented ed. of the W. F. Arndt–F. W. Gingrich translation of W. Bauer's dictionary, Chicago and London, 1979, pp. 806–807.

6 op. cit., p. 677.

7 Die Apostelgeschichte Götting,12 1959, pp. 118–119.Google Scholar

8 The Gospel according to St. John: An introduction with commentary and notes on the Greek text, London, 2nd (revised) ed. 1978, p. 491.Google Scholar

9 ibid.

10 See, e.g., Barrett, commentary on John, pp. 88 and 90 (especially what is said of the Spirit as ‘the eschatological continuum’); and ‘New Testament Eschatology I’, in SJT 6 (1953). pp. 238–239.Google Scholar

11 Thesecond person plural ⋯ψεσθε in Mark 14:62 is sometimes adduced asevidence that Mark (or Jesus) expected the Parousia in the lifetime of the High Priest and his associates; but the verb could equally well cover a seeing after resurrection to judgment as a seeing within their natural lifetime.

12 In commenting on Phil. 2:7 he says, ‘… it is with right that Paul says that He who was the Son of God, in reality equal to God, nevertheless refrained from His glory when in the flesh He manifested Himself in the appearance of a servant’ (The Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians, tr. By Parker, T. H. L., Edinburgh, 1965, p. 248).Google Scholar

13 Jesus and the Gospel Tradition, p. 85.

14 op. cit., p. 83.

15 DeLorenzi, L. (ed.), Dimensions de la vie chretienne (Rm 12–13), Rome, 1979, p. 233.Google Scholar

16 A critical and exegelical commentary on the Epistle to the Romans 2, Edinburgh, 1979, pp. 682–684.Google Scholar

17 A Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, London, 1957, p. 276.Google Scholar

18 op. cit., p. 277.

19 cf. my commentary on Rom. 2, pp. 766–8.

20 For the view that there is a change of emphasis between these two passages see Dodd, C. H., New Testament Studies, Manchester, 1953, p. 110Google Scholar; Barrett, , in SJT 6, p. 143.Google Scholar

21 So, e.g., on the pages cited in the preceding footnote.

22 p. 166 of his commentary on John already cited.

23 op. cit., p. 143.

24 See further my contribution, ‘some observations on Romans 8:19–21’, in Banks, R. J. (ed.), Reconciliation and Hope: New Testament essays on Atonement and Eschatology presented to L. L. Morris on his 60th birthday, Exeter, 1974, pp. 224–230.Google Scholar

25 p. 105.

26 ibid.

27 Note, e.g., his argument on p. 84 from the alleged later response to delay of the Parousia back to the probability that Naherwartung ‘has deep roots in the tradition’.

28 Commentary on Romans 2, p. 577.

29 In support of his suggestion (p. 47), in connexion with the γρηγορ⋯τε of Mark 14:34 and 38 and the sleeping of the three disciples, that ‘The evangelists mistakenly turned into a command to remain physically awake an exhortation to look out for the long-expected fulfilment of the apocalyptic hope, and went on to draw the inference that those to whom the command was addressed were falling asleep’, Professor Barrett argues that it is scarcely credible that the disciples could have fallen asleep, since they must have realised that they were in a situation of real peril and at least one or two of them were armed, and ‘In these circumstances men may run away, but they do not normally fall asleep’. With regard to this argument I can only express my surprise that the author could have lived so long without ever having himself experienced or witnessed in another the irresistible power which sleepiness can have. The disciples had, after all, probably had a rather exhausting few days —or weeks. A further observation, relevant to the Gethsemane pericope but also more generally— as someone who in 1981 remembers much from the later 1920's and early 1930's, when I was at school, and from university days in the 1930's and from life in the army from 1942–6, I am inclined to make more allowance than many NT scholars seem to be for the part which human memory may have played in the production of the Gospel material. It does seem to me to require quite extraordinary resources of credulity to believe that the disciples did not remember as long as they lived with some measure of accuracy the most stirring months of their lives.

30 The contention that the surprise of the disciples (Mark 14 and 15) at the suffering and death of Jesus makes it difficult to believe that Jesus had predicted his suffering and death fails to allow for the well known fact that men are extremely good at not believing what they do not want to believe.

31 See Barrett, op. cit., p. 13, n. 26.

32 Barrett, commentary on John, p. 140. At no stage in the Church's life was the interim ‘almost insignificant’. The recognition of its shortness, while in some ways demoting the interval-time, also fills it with positive significance as time of opportunity for repentance, faith, witness.

33 In this connexion it is important to see that what is said in Mark 13:5–23 about signs is not the sort of answer which the question ascribed to the disciples in v. 4 was seeking. Its function is not to enable the readers to predict the date of the end but to hold them faithful to their task of watching. For believers the events of history as they occur are to be reminders and pledges of their Lord's coming and of its nearness in the sense we have tried to suggest, and so an again and again recurring summons to faith and obedience. See further the author's The Gospel according to Saint Mark, Cambridge,7 1979, pp. 387–412.Google Scholar

34 cf. Calvin, J., The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews and the First and Second Epistles of St. Peter, tr. by Johnston, W. B., Edinburgh, 1963, p. 303.Google Scholar

35 Some bibliographical material on the subject of this paper will be found in my commentary on Romans (already cited) 2, p. 684, n. 3.