The Kingdom of God, Jesus, and the Jewish Tradition

The Kingdom of God in the Gospel of Luke

In this course, Dr James Carleton Paget (University of Cambridge) explores what Jesus meant by ‘kingdom of God’ and the presentation of the kingdom in the Gospel of Luke. In the first module, we introduce Jesus’ language about the kingdom of God and the kingdom of God in ancient Jewish tradition. In the second module, we explore debates around the temporality of the kingdom in the works of Albrecht Ritschl, C.H Dodd, and Albert Schweitzer. In the third module we come to look at responses of the failure of Christ to return, before turning to look at Luke’s response to imminent hope for the kingdom in the fourth module. In the fifth and final module, we bring our understanding of the language of the kingdom and Luke’s views on the temporality of the kingdom together, to discuss the nature of eschatological language.

The Kingdom of God, Jesus, and the Jewish Tradition

In this module, we examine Jesus, the kingdom of God and the Jewish tradition, focusing particularly on (i) the appearance of the kingdom of God in the Gospel tradition (ii) reasons why Jesus might have chosen not to define the kingdom (iii) references to God’s reign in the Jewish tradition (iv) notions of a kingdom in the present, and of a coming kingdom in the Jewish tradition (v) distinctive features of the kingdom in the Jewish tradition.