1132.Although Neither

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Marxsen says:

"Jesus ist als einer verstanden worden, der einbrechende Go tlresherrschaft lebt und als Angebot anderen zu-Iebt" (17). Or, again, "[die Anhiinger Jesu] glaubten, dass Jesus ihnen in seinen Wirken Gatt zu-lebte" (13). "[Die Anhiinger Jesu] haben ein Wirken Jesu gesehen [sic!L durch das sie jetzt schon (so, wie sie waren) in die Gemeinschaft mit Gatt gefilhrt wurden-und das sie dann veriinderte. Durch Jesu Wirken, durch sein Wort, sein Tun, sein Verhalten, wurden sie Gottes Kinder und konnten nun als Gottes/!Kinder leben. Das aber heisst: sie konnten anderen zu-leben, was Jesus ihnen zugelebt hatte" _(14). _All such talk makes clear that Marxsen talks about Jesus' living the rule of God toward his own from the standpoint of a thirdparty observer, rather than from the standpoint of a participant, him-or herself transformed by the fact of Jesus.

Add to this, then, the places where Marxsen explicitly talks about the faith of Jesus (e.g., 32, where he speaks of "him whose faith we live"), and it's clear that he really operates with a conventional kind of revisionary christology, however qualified it may be by a form critical reservation and by an insistence that no historical inquiry can obviate the decision of faith. In this connection, it's clear that there are indeed two main points where Marxsen's christology and mine go different ways-where he inconsistently appeals to the historical Jesus, or insists on the theological necessity of inquiring historically for Jesus, and where he talks about Jesus himself as the first believer in God's rule, and thus as the primary example, rather than as the one through whom the real first believers became such, and thus as the primal sacrament._Marxsen doesn't seem to realize that simply insisting that Jesus is the primary example _of faith, as distinct from being merely a moral example, doesn't go beyond representing him as an example and, therefore, fails to say of him what the New Testament-and any christology, properly so-called!--_plainly means to say. Put differently, Marxsen never succeeds in explainingas, by his own analysis, he is required to explain-why explicit _christology was already implied by the implicit christology of Jesus' activity. Or, put still differently, he never explains why Jesus' activity is implied christology. Even a religious teacher or example is no more than that; and christological categories are not necessary, or even appropriate, to understand and interpret a mere example, even if it be the most perfect possible example .