Joachim Jeremias

Life

Jeremias was born in Dresden, Germany. Because his father served as pastor of the German Protestant congregation in Jerusalem, he spent his boyhood there. During these years he became closely acquainted with the customs and languages of Palestine, an experience that reportedly laid the foundation for his later research into the everyday background of Jesus' time. After studying theology and Oriental languages in Germany, he taught at the University of Greifswald. From 1935 he served for many years as professor of New Testament at the University of Göttingen. He died in Tübingen in 1979.

Work and Contributions

Jeremias read the sayings of the Gospels in light of the language and culture of first-century Palestine, seeking to recover what Jesus actually said and what his words originally meant.

• Study of the parables: His best-known work, The Parables of Jesus (1947), criticized the tradition of reading the parables as allegory, in which each detail is matched to a particular lesson. He sought instead to reconstruct the setting in Jesus' ministry in which each parable was first spoken. For example, he argued that, judging by its vocabulary, the interpretation attached to the Parable of the Sower (Mark 4:13–20) most likely originated as an explanation in the early church. He identified the central theme of the parables as the kingdom of God, which he understood as already beginning to be realized.
• The Lord's Supper and the words of Jesus: In The Eucharistic Words of Jesus, he examined the background of the Last Supper and the original form of Jesus' words of institution.
• Study of "Abba": He regarded Jesus' addressing God with the Aramaic word "Abba" as an intimate form of address distinctive to Jesus. This claim strongly shaped the understanding of Abba, Father and the study of the Lord's Prayer.
• Other works: His other writings include Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus and the first volume of New Testament Theology. He is also known for arguing that the early church baptized infants, a position that drew him into the infant baptism controversy with Kurt Aland, who rejected it.

Assessment

Jeremias is still frequently cited as a scholar who brought the study of historical background to bear on the interpretation of the parables. His work has also drawn criticism.

• Some critics contend that he was overly confident that the original words of Jesus could be recovered.
• Others note that he relied on later rabbinic literature as evidence for the first-century background.
• James Barr challenged on linguistic grounds the popular interpretation that "Abba" simply means "Daddy."
• E. P. Sanders and others criticized him for portraying the Judaism of Jesus' day in a negative light.
• Some conservatives who emphasize biblical inerrancy reject his view that the interpretations of parables found in the Gospels are early church additions.