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How, according to Marxsen, was Jesus experienced, understood, and represented in the Jesus-pictures (= christologies) making up the synoptic tradition?

"The basic structure of every \[such\] christology," he answers, is that "a worker is proclaimed _rein\[ein Wirkender wird verkiindigtverkündigt\]" ("Christliche" und christliche Ethik im NT_:_ _48). Christology began, he argues, when certain persons experienced and understood Jesus' working to be qualified in a certain way and presented it accordingly. This can be called_ _"implicit_ _christology," because it is the_ _man_ _Jesus of whom a qualified working is asserted. But it is nonetheless christology because this working -- however differently qualified -- is always and only asserted of_ _Jesus. Explicit_ _christology arose later, then, when the worker was qualified on the basis of his working._ \\

Other things Marxsen says by way of answering the same question include:

Jesus cannot possibly have been understood as one who proclaimed the God who makes rigorous demands, as distinct from the God who makes relatively mild demands (Hillel) or the God whose demands are stricter (Shammai). On the contrary, Jesus was understood as one who proclaimed the God who gives communion, and so the God who invites human beings to live in communion with him (108 f.).

 Jesus Jesus was experienced as one who again and again gave himself up completely (117). f.).

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Jesus was understood as one who, in the midst of the old age, again and again lived the rule of God--thereby provoking the opposition of the old age (128 f.)

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