By Schubert Ogden
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According to the Jesus-kerygma, as Marxsen interprets it:
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Characteristic of the Jesus-kerygma lying behind and expressed in the synoptic gospels is the gradual introduction of titles – -- "Messiah," "Son of Man," "Lord" – -- although such titles as well as other expressions of explicit christology are still relatively rare.
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The various explicit qualifications of Jesus are, in one sense, unhistorical, since Jesus does not seem to have so qualified himself – -- or, at any rate, was not experienced to have done so by the earliest witnesses. But in another sense, these qualifications still have support in what Jesus actually did – -- or, better, what had actually been done through Jesus as he was experienced by those witnesses. On the other hand, these qualifications are legitimately made and used only to the extent that they so express what was done through Jesus as to make God happen
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The content of the Jesus-kerygma is precisely Jesus – -- not simply his proclamation understood as so many general truths detached from, or merely exemplified by, him himself.
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