Jesus the Priest

Nicholas Perrin

• Publisher: SPCK Publishing
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780281065011
• eBook ISBN: 9780281079667
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

This major new study advances our understanding of the historical Jesus by exploring the model of Jesus the priest. As priest, Jesus claims to reveal God's unchanging character through his own person; as priest, too, he announces the impending eschatological climax, constituted by the arrival of the heavenly temple on earth. Focusing on critically assured sayings of Jesus, Perrin argues that the two announcements (the kingdom and Jesus' priesthood) are mutually confirming and mutually authenticating. The nature of the kingdom is derived from his priestly office; his priestly office is given shape and substance through teachings on the kingdom. Jesus saw himself as the unique eschatological high priest and therefore as the local embodiment of Yahweh. He announced the kingdom of God as the space of true worship; he regarded his life as revealing both the identity of God and the true worship of God.

Contents

Introduction
1. The Prayer of Jesus
2. The Baptism of Jesus
3. The Kingdom of Jesus
4. Jesus Son of David
5. The Identity of the Son of Man
6. A Re-envisioned Priesthood
7. Final Confrontations
Conclusion

1 The prayer of Jesus

Introduction

It is a truth universally acknowledged that any single, young faith-tradition in possession of at least a few adherents and some longevity must be in want of marrying itself to certain defining practices. The early Church is no exception. Judging by our sources, the most central of these must have been baptism and the Lord’s Supper. But right up alongside these two was yet another practice integral to the life of the Church: the recitation of the Pater Noster (PN) or the Lord’s Prayer. The late first-century Didache called for the repeating of the Lord’s Prayer three times a day (Did. 8.2). The second-century church father Tertullian summarized the petition as an ‘abridgement of the entire gospel’, and summoned believers to preface their own personal prayers with the words of this prayer (Or. 1). A third-century Carthaginian bishop by the name of Cyprian labelled it as ‘a compendium of heavenly doctrine’ (Dom. or. 9). Finally, the late fourth-century Apostolic Constitutions (7.44) required that the Lord’s Prayer be uttered while standing, much as Jews for centuries had recited the Amidah. Even though the canonical writings record no instance of the early Church reciting the Lord’s Prayer, by the post-apostolic era the repeated words had already become well entrenched in its li...

Table of contents

• Preface
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1      The prayer of Jesus
• 2      The baptism of Jesus
• 3      The kingdom of Jesus
• 4      Jesus Son of David
• 5      The identity of the Son of Man
• 6      A re-envisaged priesthood
• 7      Final confrontations
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index of ancient and biblical sources