The Mission of Jesus

From the inception of critical Jesus research, the questions of Jesus' understanding of his authority and his aims have been central to this field of inquiry. Up to this day, scholars are making efforts toward resolving those questions. This volume is a collection of contributions that were originally presented at the second Nordic Symposium on the historical Jesus in Lund 2012. Researchers from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden continue and broaden a conversation that was initiated in Turku 2010. The topics of Jesus' identity and aims are coupled under the concept of »mission,« which includes his notion of being sent, the purposes that he aimed to fulfill, and the means of carrying out these purposes. Contributions to the volume discuss methodological problems, analyze proposals made in previous research, and suggest new understandings of various aspects of the mission of Jesus.Samuel Byrskog/Tobias Hägerland: Introduction ‒ Per Bilde: Can It Be Justified to Talk about Scholarly Progress in the History of Modern Jesus Research since Reimarus? ‒ Halvor Moxnes: The Mission of Jesus to »the Totality of the Jewish Land« in Schleiermacher's Life of Jesus ‒ Samuel Byrskog: What is Historical about the Mission of the Historical Jesus? Rudolf Bultmann and the Hermeneutics of Memory ‒ Jostein Ådna: The Messianic Claim of Jesus: An Appreciation and Appraisal of Martin Hengel's Portrayal of the Historical Jesus ‒ Kari Syreeni: From John's Ministry to the Mission of Jesus: The Question of Continuity and Change in a Psychological Perspective ‒ Mogens Müller: The Effect of Jesus as Source for the Historical Figure ‒ Eve-Marie Becker: Jesus and Capernaum in the Apostolic Age: Balancing Sources and their Evidence ‒ Renate Banschbach Eggen: Do the Parables Tell Us Something about the Mission of Jesus? ‒ Matti Kankaanniemi: Mission as Reaction: Exhausted Jesus at the Well of Sychar ‒ Tobias Hägerland: The Role of the Disciples in the Prophetic Mission of Jesus ‒ Ville Auvinen: » Eloi, eloi, lema sabakhthani « (Mark 15:34) - A Cry of Despair or Trust?