review

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JESUS ACCORDING TO

THE NEW TESTAMENT

James D. G. Dunn

WILLIAM B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING COMPANY

GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN

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Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

4035 Park East Court SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

www.eerdmans.com

© 2019 James D. G. Dunn

All rights reserved

Published 2019

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ISBN 978-0-8028-7669-0

eISBN 978-1-4674-5254-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Dunn, James D. G., 1939- author.

Title: Jesus according to the New Testament / James D. G. Dunn.

Description: Grand Rapids : Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2019. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018024862 | ISBN 9780802876690 (pbk. : alk.
paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Jesus Christ.—Person and offices—Biblical
teaching. | Bible. New Testament—Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Classification: LCC BT203 .D859 2019 | DDC 232—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018024862

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For St. Paul’s Church,

Chichester, and the Chichester Diocese

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Contents

Foreword by Rowan Williams

Preface

1. Jesus according to Jesus

2. Jesus according to Mark, Matthew, and Luke

3. Jesus according to John

4. Jesus according to Acts

5. Jesus according to Paul: Part 1

6. Jesus according to Paul: Part 2

7. Jesus according to Hebrews

8. Jesus according to James, Peter, John, and Jude

9. Jesus according to Revelation

Postscript

Appendix 1. The Probable Date and Place of Origin for

Documents of the New Testament

Appendix 2. The Life and Mission of Paul

Bibliography

Index of Subjects

Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Texts

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Foreword

eaders of the New Testament in Christian congregations
(and among a wider public too) are quite likely these days

to feel a certain amount of bewilderment at the variety and
complexity of what is written on the subject. Those who
venture a little into the scholarly literature, as well as
those who pick up the latest sensational stories in the media
about “lost” gospels and alternative histories, may feel
like echoing Mary Magdalene: “They have taken away my Lord,
and I do not know where they have laid him.” What do we—
what can we—really know about Jesus? Is the New Testament
just the deposit of a confused mass of unreliable traditions,
put together under the iron hand of a narrow church
authority?

Professor Dunn, one of the most respected and prolific
biblical scholars of our time, with a long string of
innovative, comprehensive studies of the New Testament text
to his name, begins with a simple but all-important question
in this book. It is really a commonsensical one: What must
have been going on in the life, and indeed in the mind, of
Jesus for any of the New Testament texts to have been
possible? To ask such a question does not mean that
everything we read in the New Testament is a straightforward
record of events or that the ideas of the first believers are
immediately accessible to us. But it does remind us that the
movement whose writings we read in the canonical Gospels,
Acts, and letters began with the narrative of a specific
historical figure whose words and actions were sufficiently
different from the norm to attract attention.

Like some other scholars in recent years, Professor Dunn
is skeptical about the skepticism that has prevailed in a
fair amount of learned discussion. If certain things had not
been true about Jesus, it is simply very hard to see how

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certain kinds of text and certain kinds of talk would ever
have emerged. Many writers have stressed that there are
aspects of the gospel stories that seem to be preserved even
though the earliest churches did not fully understand them—
like Jesus’s description of himself as “Son of Man” or the
whole way he is remembered as speaking about God’s kingdom.
If he never said a word about how he understood the death he
knew he was risking, it would be hard to see why and how the
quite dense and complicated language used to interpret
baptism and the Lord’s Supper got started. And—most simply
of all, a point well brought out by Professor Dunn—Jesus was
remembered as a storyteller in a way that is not true of any
other figure in the New Testament and that is rare among his
Jewish contemporaries. The parables are among the most
plainly distinctive things in the traditions about Jesus, and
they tell us something of his understanding of the relation
between the everyday and the holy which is still radical.

The New Testament is tantalizing for readers because its
texts are both startlingly different from one another and
startlingly convergent. Just this mixture of difference and
convergence is exactly what should make us pause before
accepting the fashionable idea that what we have in the New
Testament is some sort of unrepresentative selection of
writings which just happened to be acceptable to dictatorial
prelates in the early centuries. With exemplary clarity and
understated scholarly acumen, Professor Dunn traces both the
continuities between these diverse texts and the communities
that used them, and the discontinuities, the local emphases
and sometimes controversial new twists to the story that
developed in some quarters. Many readers will find it
liberating to realize that to believe in the consistency of
the New Testament is not the same as having to suppose that
every writer says the same thing. From the very first, what
happens in and around the figure of Jesus is experienced as
too immense to be communicated in one telling, seen from one
perspective; as the end of John’s Gospel already says so

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eloquently, the world could not contain all that would need
to be said.

So this survey of what the story of Jesus meant in the
first Christian generations becomes a powerful theological
testimony to the scale of the mystery laid bare in those
events. This is a book that will nurture a faith that is not
uncritical but is also being directed constantly back toward
the wonder of the first witnesses. It is as we make that
wonder our own that our faith grows and deepens; Professor
Dunn helps us toward that enrichment of joy, trust, and
gratitude.

ROWAN WILLIAMS

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Preface

he Diocese of Chichester, in south coast England, some
years ago launched a splendid tradition. It began with the

intention of preparing the diocese for the Gospel of the year
—first Matthew, then Mark, and then Luke. Somewhat oddly, I
thought, John was never the Gospel for the year. So in
Chichester we broke with the tradition after the third year
and turned first to John and then to Paul.

In 2015, I was invited to lecture in Canterbury, and the
happy thought came to me that I could adapt my Chichester
lectures for Canterbury. The obvious focal point was, of
course, Jesus—the challenge being to sketch out the
different ways in which Jesus was presented by the Gospel
writers. With only three lecture slots to work with, and the
first three Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) being so
similar, it made sense to take them together, when their
distinctive features could be brought out by close
comparison. John was sufficiently distinctive in itself to be
considered separately. That left free a third slot. And what
could be better than to start by focusing on what we could
know of the reports, memories, and traditions of Jesus and
his ministry behind the Gospels?

And so emerged a sequence: Jesus according to . . . First,
“Jesus according to Jesus,” then “Jesus according to Mark,
Matthew, and Luke,” and finally “Jesus according to John.”
These lectures seemed to work well, bringing into sharper
focus the distinctive features in each case, indicating how
differently Jesus was remembered and his significance
celebrated.

Then the thought arose: Why not continue the sequence,
highlighting the different impacts Jesus made and the central
role he filled in the writings that make up the New
Testament? And so emerged “Jesus according to Acts,”

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“Jesus according to Paul,” and the rest. Some introduction
was necessary in each case. But the old introductory
questions that begin particular commentaries on the New
Testament writings (Who wrote what, when, and where?) seemed
to be for the most part unnecessary. After all, they usually
do not much affect what we learn from the writings
themselves. But they do help set the writings in their
historical context, and thus also help us understand them
better—especially when the historical situation helps
explain features of the text that we might otherwise
misunderstand. So I have added at the end an indication of
where and when the writings are thought to come from
(Appendix 1). That there is uncertainty in many cases should
not detract from the recognition that the documents were
written at particular times and to serve particular needs.
Also indicated is the probable time line and historical
context of Paul’s mission and writing (Appendix 2), since he
is the principal contributor to the New Testament and since
we have a fuller idea of his mission and writings than that
of any other New Testament author.

And then the further thought came: Why not continue on the
same pathway? The story of Jesus and reactions to him hardly
cease with the end of the New Testament. But to press forward
into the second century and beyond, with chapters such as
“Jesus according to Ignatius,” “Jesus according to
Augustine,” “Jesus according to Luther,” would extend the
project into two or more volumes. And I had to admit that I
lacked the knowledge about such historic writers on Jesus to
do them justice. I also wondered about a final chapter with
contributions from friends in our local church adding their
own brief testimonies, including my own testimony, “Jesus
according to Me.” But to slot our own brief pieces alongside
those of the New Testament writers began to seem rather
vainglorious. So I let that idea slip away too, not without
regret.

Nevertheless, if the present volume has any appeal, there
is no reason why other volumes should not follow, with

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someone else better equipped than me to draw out the
testimony of Christian greats through the centuries. And no
reason why a(nother) volume of brief testimonies from
disciples of today should not follow. After all, everything
we know about Jesus is thanks to the personal testimony of
his most immediate followers. But for Christians, Jesus is
not just a figure of the past. Christians today are disciples
of the present. So why not continue the story of Jesus up to
the present, with everyday believers bearing witness to what
attracts or intrigues them about Jesus? How about it?

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C

CHAPTER ONE

Jesus according to

Jesus

an we be confident that we are able to get back to
Jesus’s own message and views of himself? John Meier

certainly has no doubts on the subject—and the five volumes
of A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus include a

clear and fully worked-out answer.1 Perhaps, however, a
briefer answer will help focus attention on the key features
that enable us to speak with confidence not only of the
impact that Jesus made but also of Jesus’s own understanding
of what he was about. The obvious way to go about it is to
focus on the distinctive features of what the first
Christians remembered about Jesus as recorded by the earliest

evangelists.2 The following pages explore this in three ways:
lessons learned from Jesus, distinctive features of Jesus’s

ministry, and Jesus’s own self-understanding.3

Lessons Learned from Jesus

There are quite a number of emphases and priorities that we
can say with some confidence the first followers of Jesus
attributed to Jesus.

The Love Command

The summation of the love command is recorded by the first

three Gospels.4 Since all three agree on the principal
features, we need cite only Mark’s version:

One of the scribes . . . asked him, “Which commandment is the
first of all?” Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O
Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; and you shall love
the Lord your God with all your heart. . . .’ The second is

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this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is
no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:28–31)5

The first quotation comes from Deuteronomy 6:5, the
fundamental creed of Israel, so it would occasion no surprise
to those who first heard and circulated the Jesus tradition.
It is the second commandment that would be something of a
surprise when first uttered. For it comes from a much less
well-known and less-used passage in the Torah: Leviticus
19:18. In early Jewish reflection it is hardly as prominent
as the first—the third clause in a verse that is part of a
sequence regarding personal relationships and obligations.
“You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you
shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt
yourself. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge
against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor
as yourself: I am the LORD” (Lev 19:17–18).

Such esteem for Leviticus 19:18c as the second of the two
commandments that sum up the law of God is exceptional.
Explicit references to Leviticus 19:18 are lacking in Jewish
literature prior to Jesus, and the allusions that exist give
it no particular prominence—though, subsequently, the
opinion is attributed to Rabbi Akiba (early second century
CE) that Leviticus 19:18 is “the greatest general principle

in the Torah.”6 Since the prominence given in the earliest
history of Christianity to the command to “Love your

neighbor as yourself”7 is most obviously attributed to the
influence of Jesus’s teaching, it is probably not unfair to
deduce that the similar emphasis of Akiba attests the same
influence. At any rate, the abstraction and exaltation of
Leviticus 19:18c as the second of the two greatest
commandments can be confidently attributed to Jesus and
strongly attests his influence.

Priority of the Poor

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This priority is most striking in several Gospel passages.
Notable is Jesus’s response to the rich young man, who had
observed all the commandments but lacked one thing: “Go,
sell what you own, and give to the poor, and you will have
treasure in heaven” (Mark 10:21 parr.). Similarly his
commendation of the poor widow who in giving two copper coins
to the treasury had, in Jesus’s perspective, “out of her
poverty . . . put in everything she had, all she had to live
on” (Mark 12:42–44 // Luke 21:2–4). In Jesus’s response
to the Baptist’s question as to whether he (Jesus) was the
fulfillment of (messianic) expectation, the climax in
Jesus’s answer is that “the poor have good news brought to
them” (Matt 11:5 // Luke 7:22). Notable too is the way Luke
begins his account of Jesus’s mission, by narrating Jesus’s
reading from Isaiah 61 in the Nazareth synagogue: “The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to
preach good news to the poor” (Luke 4:18). And equally
striking is Luke’s version of the Beatitudes—the first
being “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the
kingdom of God” (Luke 6:20; an interesting variation of the
version in Matthew: “Blessed are the poor in spirit” [Matt
5:3]). It should occasion little surprise, then, that for
Luke a key feature of the gospel is that it is good news for
the poor: that it is the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the
blind who should be invited to a great feast (Luke 14:13,
21); and Zacchaeus demonstrates his readiness for salvation
in that he gives half of his goods to the poor (Luke 19:8).

Of course, the priority of the poor is a prominent
emphasis within Israel’s own law (e.g., Deut 15:11). But
that the particular concern for the poor so prominent among
the first Christians is to be attributed to the influence of
Jesus’s own emphasis can hardly be doubted. So with the
early concern among disciples in the Jerusalem community for
the poor widows among their members that resulted in the
first formal Christian organization (Acts 6:1–6). The
profound concern for the poor displayed by James attests the
same concern (Jas 2:2–6). The same impression is given by

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the fact that in the Jerusalem agreement—that gentile
converts need not be circumcised—the only other concern
indicated was “that we remember the poor, which,” Paul
adds, “was actually what I was eager to do” (Gal 2:10).
Similarly there can be little doubt as to why Paul gave such
importance to helping the poor among the saints in Jerusalem,
making a special collection for them in the churches that he
had founded, and was willing to risk his own life to bring

the collection to Jerusalem.8 We may be confident, then, that
concern for the poor is one of the priorities that the first
Christians learned from Jesus.

Sinners Welcome

A particular feature of Jesus’s ministry that caused
surprise and shock to his religious contemporaries was his
openness to those regarded as unacceptable in religious
company. According to the first three Gospels, it was one of
the features of Jesus’s conduct that drew criticism from the
“righteous.” Early in his account Mark reports the offense
Jesus caused by his readiness to eat “with sinners and tax
collectors.” “Why does he do this?” complained Pharisees
and scribes. To which Jesus famously replied, “Those who are
well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I
have come to call not the righteous but sinners” (Luke adds
“. . . to repentance”; Mark 2:16–17 parr.). Matthew and

Luke (Q)9 note a similar criticism later: “Look, a glutton
and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!”
(Matt 11:19 // Luke 7:34). But it is again Luke who gives
particular emphasis to this aspect of Jesus’s conduct. He
notes the repeated criticism of Jesus on this point: “This
fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them” (Luke 15:2). To
which Jesus replies with the parables of the shepherd’s lost
sheep and the woman’s lost silver coin: that of course the
shepherd goes in search of the sheep and the woman for the
coin until they find what had been lost (Luke 15:3–10). Luke
alone narrates the parable contrasting the prayers of the

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Pharisee and the tax collector, in which it is the latter who
prays, “God, be merciful to me a sinner,” whose prayer is
truly heard (Luke 18:9–14). And it is Luke alone who
narrates the episode in which Jesus goes to be a guest with
the “chief tax collector,” Zacchaeus, despite the criticism
that Zacchaeus was “a sinner.” The episode ends with
Jesus’s reassurance that salvation has come to this house,
since he (Zacchaeus) also is a son of Abraham (Luke 19:1–
10).

It is hardly surprising, then, that Paul could sum up the
gospel in terms of the great reversal—of God’s love for
sinners. “God proves his love for us in that while we still
were sinners Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). “For just as by
the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by
the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous”
(Rom 5:19). And it was Paul who pressed the logic of the
gospel: that if gentiles are to be classified as “sinners,”
then, of course, the gospel is for them too, justification
being by faith in Christ and not by doing the works of the
law (Gal 2:15–17). It can hardly be doubted that this
extension of the gospel, to gentiles as well as Jews, was the
direct result of the recognition that the good news that
Jesus brought was primarily for sinners.

Openness to Gentiles

Jesus’s commission of his disciples, in effect to join in
his ministry, raises the question whether Jesus himself was
open to gentiles: “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter
no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of
the house of Israel” (Matt 10:5–6). But Matthew records
this as in effect simply a (preliminary) phase in Jesus’s
ministry, since he takes more pains to emphasize that Jesus
saw the gospel as for gentiles also. It is Matthew alone who
provides Isaiah 42:1–4 as one of the Old Testament
prophecies that Jesus fulfilled, climaxing in the expectation
that “in his [Christ’s] name the Gentiles will hope” (Matt

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12:21). It is Matthew who adds to the account of the healing
of the centurion’s servant the prediction of Jesus that
“many will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham
and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the heirs
of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness” (Matt
8:11–12). And it is Matthew who ends his Gospel with Jesus
commissioning the apostles to “Go therefore and make
disciples of all nations” (Matt 28:19). So we can be
confident that Matthew was fully in accord with the early
Christian conviction that the gospel was also for gentiles
and that this conviction was fully in accord with Jesus and
with his preaching and expectation during his earthly

ministry.10

Women among His Close Followers

Somewhat oddly Mark concludes his account of Jesus’s
crucifixion and death by noting that on the edge of the
onlookers were women, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of
James the younger and of Joses, and Salome, who had followed
and ministered to him in Galilee, and also “many other women

who had come up with him to Jerusalem” (Mark 15:40–41).11

The oddity, of course, includes the fact that precisely at
this point Jesus’s male disciples seem to have abandoned
Jesus altogether—though John adds that “the disciple whom
Jesus loved” was there with the women (John 19:25–27). Luke
and John earlier both tell the touching story of Jesus’s
closeness to the sisters Martha and Mary (Luke 10:38–42;
John 11). And Matthew and John make special mention of
initial resurrection appearances to Mary Magdalene in

particular at Jesus’s now empty tomb.12 The fact that none
of these appearances are included in what we may regard as
the formal list of resurrection appearances drawn on by Paul
in 1 Corinthians 15:3–8 is presumably just a reminder that
women’s testimony was not given as much weight as men’s. It
is all the more notable, therefore, that, despite what was
regarded as the weaker status of women’s testimony, Matthew

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and John nevertheless give prominence to the appearances to
Mary Magdalene in particular.

That this testimony would have been regarded as shocking
to Jesus’s contemporaries may well have been a factor in
ensuring that the testimony was preserved and given
expression in the written Gospels—a reminder that women were
an important part of Jesus’s disciple group and played a
vital role within it. And should we not see a connection here
with the prominence of women among Paul’s coworkers? That
the ex-Pharisee, previously committed to the maintenance of
Jewish tradition, including the lower status of women, should
after his conversion include many women among his close

colleagues and “coworkers,” a little over 20 percent,13

should probably be regarded as an indication of the often
unmentioned influence of the tradition of Jesus’s ministry
on Paul.

Openness to Children

The key incident recollected by the first three Gospels is
Mark 10:13–16 parr. Notable is the fact, recorded by all
three evangelists, that when people brought children to
Jesus, that he might bless the children, his disciples
rebuked them. Jesus’s own indignant response was, “Let the
children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as
these that the kingdom of God belongs” (Mark 10:14). Mark
and Luke add Jesus’s saying, “Truly I tell you, whoever
does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will

never enter it” (Mark 10:15 // Luke 18:17).14 Given the
notable influence of Jesus on the personal relations of his
disciples, we should probably detect the influence of Jesus
here too in the “household codes” that appear in the later

Pauline letters.15 Such household codes were familiar then,
but notable in Paul’s exhortations is the assumption that
children and slaves would be fully part of the Christian
gathering and could or should be addressed directly. It is
hardly straining the evidence to infer that this too attests

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the continuing influence of Jesus’s mission on his
disciples.

Relaxation of Food Laws

This is one of the most remarkable features of Jesus’s
mission, not least since it cut so sharply across a
traditional Jewish concern for purity. Not surprisingly it is
given extensive treatment by Mark and Matthew (Mark 7:1–23
// Matt 15:1–20). It begins with some Pharisees’ criticism
that Jesus’s disciples “ate with hands defiled, that is,
unwashed.” The Greek word used here (koinos = “common”)
reflects the distinctively Jewish sense of “profane,

unclean, defiled.”16 Jesus responds by citing Isaiah 29:13:
“This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are
far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human
precepts as doctrines.” And from that he draws the highly
critical conclusion: “You abandon the commandment of God and
hold to human tradition” (Mark 7:6–8).

The Jesus tradition continues in both Mark and Matthew, by
further challenging the traditional Jewish concept of purity
(Matt 15:10–20 // Mark 7:14–23). The Matthean version of
the tradition is content to draw a sharp comparison between
inner and outer purity: “It is not what goes into the mouth
that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth

that defiles” (Matt 15:11).17 But in Mark the teaching is
sharper: “There is nothing outside a person that by going in
can defile, but the things that come out are what defile [a
person]” (Mark 7:15). And in the following explanation that
Jesus gives, it is clear that Jesus is remembered as teaching
that what goes into a person cannot defile the person. Mark
makes the point clear by adding, “Thus he declared all foods
clean” (Mark 7:18–19).

We know from Paul that the issue of clean and unclean
foods came alive in the wider gentile mission. The issue
there was whether Jesus’s followers could eat meat that had
been sacrificed to idols (the most common supply of food in

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the ancient meat markets).18 Paul’s advice was clear:
“Nothing is unclean in itself; but it is unclean for anyone
who thinks it unclean” (Rom 14:14). What is intriguing is
that Mark’s version of Jesus’s teaching on the subject of
food purity seems to reflect the strong affirmation of Paul.
In other words, it is in this teaching in particular that we
can see the influence of Jesus’s priorities being further
reflected on by Paul, and the inferences drawn from his
teaching being reflected back into the memory of his
teaching.

The Last Supper or Lord’s Supper

Finally, in recounting what Christianity learned from Jesus,
we should not forget the centrality in the first Christians’
memory and practice of Jesus’s last meal with his disciples
before his death. The first three Gospels make plain how
important that special time with Jesus was for his disciples
(Mark 14:22–25 parr.). We do not know how frequently the
Lord’s Supper was celebrated in the earliest decades of
Christianity. But Paul makes it equally clear that the shared
meal, beginning with the shared bread (“This is my body that
is broken for you”) and ending with the shared cup (“This
cup is the new covenant in my blood”), was explicitly
remembered as a sacred memory initiated by Jesus himself (1
Cor 11:23–26). It sums up as nothing else does that
Christianity is deeply rooted in Jesus’s own ministry
climaxing in his death.

It is striking, then, how much of what was important for
the first Christians can be traced back directly to the
influence of Jesus’s own ministry and teaching.

Distinctive Features of Jesus’s Ministry

For much or indeed most of the twentieth century, primary
attention in scholarship on Jesus was given to what the first
Christians thought about Jesus. Surprisingly little attention

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or concern was devoted to the impact made by Jesus himself,
to such an extent that it could easily be concluded that
little can now be discerned of the historical Jesus and his
teaching. But the probability that Jesus made an impact on
his first disciples, and that this impact is clearly
indicated in the Jesus tradition, is such an obvious starting
point that any scholarship that denies our ability to speak
with credibility of the teaching and ministry of Jesus would
seem to be unduly skeptical and prejudiced. We have already
noted how much in earliest Christianity can be attributed
with confidence to the influence of Jesus’s …