Jesus was a failed apocalyptic prophet

The argument

This argument holds that Jesus was indeed an apocalyptic prophet — and specifically a failed one, in the sense that his predicted imminent end did not arrive on the timetable the texts suggest. Scholars in the tradition of Albert Schweitzer and, more recently, Bart Ehrman argue that the historical Jesus is best understood as a first-century Jewish apocalypticist who proclaimed that God was about to intervene catastrophically in history to overthrow the present evil age and establish his kingdom. On this reading, the urgency of imminent transformation runs through the earliest layers of the gospel tradition. The evidence cited is that Jesus appears to announce the end as near at hand within his own generation. He is reported as saying that some standing there would not taste death before they saw the kingdom of God come in power, and that 'this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place'. Proponents argue that the most natural reading of such sayings is a literal expectation of an imminent, world-transforming event — an expectation that, on the plain timeline, was not fulfilled, since the cosmic kingdom did not arrive as those words seem to promise. The very existence of later New Testament texts addressing why the end had been delayed is taken as evidence that the early movement had to come to terms with a prophecy that had not come true on schedule. That the prediction went unfulfilled, on this argument, does not undermine the claim that Jesus made it; rather, the awkwardness of an unfulfilled apocalyptic timetable is itself a reason to think the early church preserved it because it genuinely went back to Jesus. Because Jesus proclaimed an imminent end that did not arrive as expected, this argument holds, he was an apocalyptic prophet — a failed one.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Scholars on the other side argue the 'imminent end' sayings can be read non-literally — as the kingdom coming in Jesus's own ministry, at the Transfiguration or resurrection, or as the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70 — so 'this generation will not pass away' need not name a failed cosmic prediction. Others, following interpreters such as N. T. Wright or the non-apocalyptic strand of scholarship, contend the apocalyptic sayings are later community formulations rather than authentic to Jesus. On these readings the premise that Jesus predicted a datable imminent end is contestable, and 'failed prophet' assumes a literal timetable that many exegetes reject.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] The 'this generation' sayings admit non-literal readings — the kingdom present in his ministry, the resurrection, or the AD 70 fall of Jerusalem — so they need not encode a failed cosmic prediction. [Rejecting P3] Some scholars hold the apocalyptic sayings are later community formulations rather than authentic to Jesus, so the 'unfulfilled prophecy' the later texts address may not go back to him at all.