1E - The Early Church in the Acts of Apostles Flashcards
What is the Kerygma?
Kerygma is a Greek term for ‘preaching’ or ‘proclamation’ and is related to keryx meaning herald or someone who makes a bold declaration. A kerygma therefore is an announcement rather than a set of teachings or doctrines.
The term is used in the NT to describe the ministry of Jesus – ‘to proclaim release to the captives’.
When the disciples presented their message about Jesus they did not deliver a lecture but heralded or announced a new event or era.
In Acts 2 + 3 there are the first of many speeches by the Apostles – the key message is that God’s plan for salvation that has unfolded through the Jewish scriptures have found fulfilment in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. This plan continues, says the Apostles, by the power of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church.
These speeches are presented as the first public messages of a tiny group of Jewish Christians – it’s noteworthy and spectacular that this small movement prevailed and became a major world religion when there were so many other small movements which died out.
CH Dodd on the Kerygma
Dodd argued we should be careful not to confuse kerygma with teaching or historical fact (although they can overlap) – we shouldn’t think about the New Testament as a memoir or a call to moral improvement – because at it’s heart is a bold set of claims that confront its readers with a decision to make.
Six Main Elements of the Kerygma presented in Acts 2+3
1) An age of fulfilment has dawned – the words of the prophets explain the miracles that have taken place
2) This new age has come about through Christ. This is confirmed by his descent from David, his miracles, his death and resurrection.
3) Jesus has ascended to the right hand of God – confirming he is the Messiah.
4) God’s Holy Spirt has been poured out on the Church so that it is now the sign of Christ’s power and glory.
5) Christ will return to bring the Messianic age to consummation.
6) Everyone should repent so that their sins can be forgiven and the can receive the Holy Spirit to participate in the special, new life of the Church.
Arguments against the reliability of the Acts accounts
The author of Acts (Luke) was likely not present at the key events he describes.
The book of Acts was likely written 40-50 years after the events described.
Acts appears highly organised – which may be evidence that its material has changed from it’s original form.
The language used in Luke-Acts is not similar to Paul’s theology expressed elsewhere in the NT. The ‘voice’ of Paul does not match up.
Many important themes of Paul’s writings do not feature in Paul’s speeches in Acts.
The events portrayed in the book of Acts contain reports of miraculous events more associated with myths or legends of ancient literature.
Is the kerygma irrelevant?
Scholars question whether the early Church accurately portrayed Jesus. Did they represent his teaching in the way he wanted it to be represented? Or when they proclaimed their message about Jesus, did they twist and distort his message to suit their purposes?
Reimarus (18th century Enlightenment thinker) accuses the disciples of changing the views of Jesus. Reimarus said that Jesus agreed with Jewish apocalypticism – that the end of the world was going to come suddenly and soon – Reimarus believed the disciples removed the apocalyptic viewpoints of Jesus, changing his message into timeless spiritual truths. The world didn’t end, Jesus didn’t really resurrect, they didn’t want to go back to being fishermen – so they invented a religion!
Linking to Reimarus’ criticism – some have argued that the kerygma of the Apostles is irrelevant since the historical Jesus believed that the world would end in his lifetime with sudden, apocalyptic coming of God.
Jesus therefore should be viewed as an apocalyptic figure – his aim was to bring his own generation to God before the coming judgement. Did the early Church also believe that history was about to end?
Albert Schweitzer declared that the one thing that could be known about the historical Jesus was the one thing that made him irrelevant for today – his belief in the imminent end of the world.
CH Dodd’s defence of the kerygma
Argues that much of acts goes beyond the imminent return of Jesus – instead it is more focussed on the experience of forgiveness and living in the power of the Holy Spirit in the present.
Early Christians were more focused on the joy they had in their experience of Jesus and the community of the Church than they were on the life to come. This explains why the Church didn’t disappear when Jesus didn’t come back after a period of time.
Dodd said Jesus believed that God had broken into the world through his own life and ministry – a realised eschatology – one does not have to wait until the end of the world to experience the fullness of God normally associated with life in heaven – this can be realised now in the present.
Some would argue that this does not fit with the apocalyptic elements of the NT – Dodd said that these should be viewed not as pictures of a final judgement but as a picture of the challenges faced by the Church.
We should be careful to avoid an ‘eschatological fanaticism’ and instead focus on the saving power of Jesus which we can experience now.
Bultmann on the Kerygma
Bultmann saw the NT as being filled with mythological elements, irrelevant to people living in a modern age. We need to distinguish the kerygma from the myth so that it becomes relevant to our lives.
Bultmann believed the mythological elements of the Bible confront people with 3 options we can take:
1) Literal belief – this necessitates a retreat from the modern of world of rationality and science.
2) You can cut out the mythological sections from the Bible and build a religion out of what remains – the ethical teaching of Jesus (see Crossan). However this could seem to lose the sense of power and joy that religious believers derive from their faith.
3) Try to find the underlying truth that is a part of the myth. This path means exploring the myth to try to discover the truths about humanity and existence they are expressing. Bultmann argued for the 3rd option – to do this we need to be aware of
A) The influence of Jewish apocalyptic mythology
B) The myth of Gnosticism – a set of beliefs in the ancient world which pictures all the created world in a spiritual battle. Each person is a spark of light trapped in the darkness of the world – a being of light has been sent down from God to bring special knowledge to liberate our sparks.
Bultmann believed Christians adapted the gnostic mythology to their own beliefs in Jesus as a pre-existing heavenly being sent to liberate humanity.
Bultmann said that when the disciples encountered Jesus they had something awaken in them – not beliefs in doctrines – but an experience of God – this is because the kerygma expresses basic truths about who we are – we are not the masters of the world; our plans and powers are finite; there is transcendent power in the universe; there is forgiveness; it is possible to find a spirit of openness to the future.
When the apostles proclaimed their message – individuals felt a power behind their words, a power we can still feel today. The kerygma is a personal message that proclaims truth and elicits a response from the hearer.
Some have argued that Bultmann too easily ‘wrote off’ Christian doctrine’ as mythological – there are good arguments for believing the Christian claims about Jesus are true. Others have argued that Bultmann ignores the communal message of Acts and instead focuses to much on the individual. Others accuse Bultmann of replacing one set of myths with another (his ideas about the meaning of the Gospel.
