[B-Greek] Luke 17: 20-21

Elizabeth Kline kline_dekooning at earthlink.net
Thu Sep 17 16:57:03 EDT 2009


On Sep 17, 2009, at 11:34 AM, Elizabeth Kline wrote:

> There is some linguistic support for reading ENTOS as "in your  
> midst" or "among you" . This evidence has been known for a long time  
> so obviously it didn't convince everyone.
> .


I found a useful synopsis of the interpertaions online in class notes  
from Professor Barry D. Smith [1]

Here is the section that talks about  Luke 17: 20-21
{start quote}

5. Kingdom of God as Inseparable from Jesus

Jesus sees the Kingdom of God as inseparable from himself. In his  
presence, the Kingdom of God is present to his contemporaries, and  
rejection of him is the rejection of the Kingdom.

5.1. The Kingdom of God in Your Midst (Luke 17:20-21)

Luke contains a saying in which Jesus describes the nature of the  
appearance of the Kingdom of God; in it he connects the Kingdom with  
himself.

Some unconvincingly reject the authenticity of Luke 17:20b-21, viewing  
the passage as Lukan redaction (Strobel, In dieser Nacht (Luk 17,34):  
Zu einer älteren Form der Erwartung in Luk 17,20-37,” ZTK 58 (1961)  
16-39 (26-27); id., “Zu Lk 17,20f.,” BZ 7 (1963) 111-13; D.  
Luehrmann,Redaktion, 72; Merkelin, Gottesherrschaft, 122). Luke is not  
in the habit of creating sayings of Jesus (see Schlosser, Le Règne de  
Dieu dans les Dits de Jésus, 1.181; Perrin, Rediscovering the Teaching  
of Jesus, 68-74).

The Pharisees ask Jesus when the Kingdom of God will come in 17:20a.  
(Although not particularly Lukan, Luke 17:20a may have been composed  
by Luke, as is often suggested. If he did his goal was to provide a  
context in which to understand the apophthegma saying that follows has  
been suggested. But this does not mean that it is a historical  
fabrication.) Jesus’ response in 17:20b-21 is constructed in  
antithetical parallelism. The negative member of Jesus’ response  
consists of two coordinating clauses joined by “nor” (oude), which  
describe how the Kingdom of God does not come: “The Kingdom of God is  
not coming with signs to be observed (meta paratêrêseôs), nor will  
they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or, ‘There it is!’”

Schlosser argues that the phrase meta paratêrêseôs is Lukan redaction  
(Le Règne de Dieu dans les Dits de Jésus, 1.196-201). He begins by  
noting first the difficulty of finding a Semitic equivalent of the  
phrase and second the fact that the word belongs to “la langue relevée  
et savante” (196). These data consistent with a Lukan origin. He then  
observes that the construction meta + genitive is as much Lukan as it  
is traditional, and, since it is a hapax in the New Testament, the  
wordparatêrêsis can no more be attributable to the tradition as to  
Lukan redaction (197). Yet he observes that the word is not part of  
common speech but a literary word and so would more likely originate  
with Luke than in the tradition. In fact, the verb paratereô occurs  
six times in the New Testament and four of these are in Luke’s  
writings; this supports the hypothesis that the noun paratêrêsis is  
also Lukan (197). Against the argument that logion 113 in Gospel of  
Thomas, which contains the clause “"It will not come by watching for  
it,” is an independent translation of the original Aramaic, Schlosser  
claims that the logion is literarily dependent on Luke 17:20-21. This  
means that it cannot be used as evidence for the originality of the  
phrase “with signs to be observed” in the saying. Schlosser also  
argues that there is no evidence to conclude that 17:20b (without the  
phrase “with signs to be observed”) has been added to the tradition  
either by Luke or the early church (199-200). In conclusion, he  
reconstructs the original saying, which he considers to be basically  
identical to what Jesus actually said, as: ouk erchetai hê basileia  
tou theou idou (gar) hê basileia tou theou entos estin (17:20b+21b).  
Schlosser’s argument is an example of trying to prove too much with  
too little: his reconstruction of the alleged original form of the  
tradition is too speculative.

     The first way in which the Kingdom does not come is “with signs  
to be observed.” In the context, the meaning of “signs to be observed”  
probably describes empirically observable phenomena associated with  
the inception of eschatological fulfillment. Jesus’ questioners hold  
the view that the coming of the Kingdom of God will be universally  
recognizable by its accompanying manifestations, and they want to know  
when Jesus believes these premonitory manifestations will begin to  
occur, thereby heralding the Kingdom. (On this interpretation “come”  
has a future meaning since it is referring to the future Kingdom of  
God.) The second way in which the Kingdom of God does not come is in  
such a way that someone could say “Look, here it is!’ or, ‘There it  
is!” The meaning seems to be the same as “with signs to be observed.”  
In other words, Jesus is saying that, contrary to their expectation,  
the Kingdom of God will not come in such a way as to be universally  
recognized as such. He rejects the presupposition behind the question,  
namely that the Kingdom of God will all at once come as a publicly  
observable event. In other words, the Kingdom will not come all at  
once, as full-blown, so that no one could deny that it has come.  
Rather, Jesus' conception of the Kingdom of God is that it begins  
inconspicuously, so that it is possible to deny that it has come at  
the earliest stages of its historical development.

In 1 Enoch, God’s eschatological appearance is described three times.  
In such cases, that this is time of the eschaton will be universally  
known. First, in the introduction to the Book of Watchers, Enoch says  
that what he expounds is revelation pertaining to the distant future  
(1 En 1:2–3b). (There are parallels in vocabulary and form between 1  
En 1:2–3b and the oracles of Balaam, especially Num 24:15–17.) Then  
comes the description of the eschatological theophany: God will come  
from his dwelling, identified later as “the heaven of heavens,” to Mt.  
Sinai in order to judge the whole world (1 En 1:3c–9). (For the  
biblical sources of this theophany, see, in particular, Deut 33:1–3;  
Jer 25:31; Micah 1:3–4.) God appears eschatologically as a warrior  
accompanied by his angelic armies to bring judgment not only to all  
human beings, but also to fallen angels known as the Watchers (1 En  
1:5). As the author says in 1 En 1:9, “He comes with the myriads of  
his holy ones to execute judgment on all.” That the appearance is to  
be upon Mt. Sinai is probably due to the fact that it was on this  
mountain that God gave the Law to Moses; the implication is that God’s  
judgment will be on based on the Law. (In Deut 33:2, God appears from  
Sinai, and it is not the place to which he descends.) The theophany is  
accompanied by cosmic disturbances and upheaval, caused by God’s  
appearance (1 En 1:5–7) (see Exod 19:16–20; 20:18; Judg 5:4; Ps 68:7– 
8; Mic 1:2–4; Nah 1:5; Hab 3:6). Second, later in the Book of  
Watchers, on his journeys Enoch comes to a tall mountain, one of seven  
mountains, situated in the center of the other six (1 En 24–25). The  
archangel Michael explains to Enoch that on the summit of this  
mountain is the throne upon which God will sit when he descends to  
visit the earth in goodness (1 En 25:3). What is being described is  
the eschatological theophany for the purpose of judgment, or, to use  
the idiom, the time when God will “visit” the earth. Third, in the  
Epistle of Enoch, Enoch explains that on the day of final judgment,  
God will appear as a warrior and with the help of his angelic army  
execute eschatological judgment (1 En 100:4; see 91:7). Finally, in  
the discourse on eschatological judgment preserved in 4Q416 frg. 1 (=  
4Q418 frg. 2), using biblical imagery, the author appears to depict  
the time of eschatological judgment as a theophany, with the result  
that all creation will respond in fear and trembling to the appearance  
of God as righteous judge (4Q416 frg. 1.11–15) (see Isa 24:18; Ps  
77:16–18).

     The positive member of Jesus’ response is the remarkable  
statement that the Kingdom of God has already come: “For behold, the  
kingdom of God is in your midst” (see Xenophon, Anab. 1.10.3;Hellen.  
2.3.19; Herodotus, Hist. 7.100.3; Arrian, An. V, 22, 4. In its use in  
this phrase, it is a synonym for en mesô). In Aquila Exod 17:7 the Heb  
wnbrqb is translated as entos humôn). Jesus’ point is that the Kingdom  
of God is in the midst of his questioners insofar as he is in their  
midst, so inseparable is he from the Kingdom. Of course, the Kingdom  
is in its initial phases and so is still only partially and even  
ambiguously present. For this reason, the possibility exists to deny  
that it is present at all, in which case Jesus would be seen as having  
no salvation-historical significance at all. When it comes to  
completion, the Kingdom of God will be undeniable, but until then a  
person will be able to accept or reject Jesus’ claim that the Kingdom  
of God is already present insofar as he is present.

The prepositional phrase entos humôn could also be translated as  
"within you" (Dalman, Words of Jesus, 143-47; Dodd, Parables, 63 n 2  
R. Sneed, “The Kingdom of God is within You” (Lk 17,21),”CBQ 24 (1962)  
363-82. Percy argues that the reason that Kingdom does not come with  
signs to be observed is because the Kingdom is a purely inward  
phenomenon (Die Botschaft Jesu, 216-23) Moreover, the linguistic  
evidence may slightly favor such an interpretation (Moule, An Idiom  
Book of the New Testament, 83-84; But the interpretation "in the midst  
of you" better coheres with Jesus' understanding of the Kingdom of God  
as already present in its incipient stages by virtue of his own  
presence by virtue. In no other saying does Jesus internalize the  
Kingdom as a spiritual reality within. Another interpretive  
possibility is that Jesus is saying that the Kingdom of God is within  
the reach, grasp or possession of his hearers in the sense of being  
their disposal: “within your reach, grasp or possession” or “to take  
it lies among your choices and within your power” (H.J. Cadbury, “The  
Kingdom of God and Ourselves,” Christian Century 67 [1950] 172-73;  
C.H. Roberts, “The Kingdom of Heaven (Lk xvii. 21),” HTR 41 [1948]  
1-8; A. Rüstow, “Entos hymon estin: Zur Deutung von Lukas 17.20-21,”  
ZNW 51 [1960] 197-224). The context does not support this  
interpretation because it must be in antithetical parallelism with  
come with signs to be observed: already present but hidden.

{end quote}


Elizabeth Kline

[1] Religious Studies 2203
Life of Jesus
Lecture Questions
Part Two
Professor Barry D. Smith
Atlantic Baptist University
Fall Semester 2008-2009





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