Review Jesus and His
Promised Second Coming
Dr. Tucker S. Ferda is an Associate Professor of New
Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. He earned his Ph.D. from the
University of Pittsburgh in 2016, an M.T.S. from Duke University in 2009, and a
B.A. from Bethel University in 2007. Dr.
Ferda's research interests encompass the Gospels, the historical Jesus, Second
Temple Judaism, eschatology, and hermeneutics. He has authored several
scholarly works, including "Jesus, the Gospels, and the Galilean
Crisis" (2019) and "Jesus and His Promised Second Coming: Jewish
Eschatology and Christian Origins" (2024). This present review will
analyze Ferda’s most recent work titled Jesus and His Promised Second Coming.
In Jesus and His Promised Second Coming, Dr. Tucker
Ferda challenges the prevailing scholarly consensus that the expectation of
Jesus’s second coming was a later development, crafted by his early followers
in response to his death and the delay of the kingdom. Instead, Ferda argues
that this hope was not a posthumous invention but had its roots in Jesus’ own
eschatological convictions. Employing an
innovative methodological approach, he meticulously traces the second coming
expectation backward through reception history. He starts with the writings of
Paul and the canonical Gospels and ultimately situating its origin within
Jesus’ own self-understanding and teachings. In his foreword,
Dale Allison Jr. says this book significantly contributes to scholarly research
on Jesus Christ, the second coming and early Christianity.
Dr. Ferda highlights how early modern Christian scholars played a
significant role in relocating the second coming hope from Jesus himself to his
followers. This shift, he contends, was driven by an effort to distance Jesus
from what was perceived as an overly apocalyptic or nationalistic “Jewish
messianism.” By exposing the ideological motivations behind this scholarly
move, Ferda challenges readers to reconsider longstanding assumptions about
Jesus' relationship to Jewish eschatology. Ferda drives
In Part One, he addresses the widely held belief in
academics that Jesus was uninterested in eschatology and did not expect to be
crucified, raised, and subsequently returned to earth as the eschatological
judge. Because Jesus is supposed to be non-eschatological, scholars claim that
anything hinting he would leave for a while and then return after an interim is
a later insertion by the early church. In Part Two, he provides grounds for the
widespread rejection of an eschatological Jesus in Historical Jesus research.
In Part Three, Ferda discusses early Christian anticipation for Jesus'
return.He begins with the apostle Paul and progresses through the several
strata of the gospel tradition. After establishing the early church's
confidence in Jesus' imminent return, he examines his teachings. This is his
last layer of research done in part 4
Few historical Jesus scholars believe Jesus predicted
his return after death. Ferda examines this in part one, reviewing studies by
T. F. Glasson (The Second Advent, 1946/1963)
and J. A. T. Robinson (Jesus and His Second Coming,
1957). While these books are dated, most late 20th-century scholars also denied
Jesus foresaw a second coming. N. T. Wright, more recently, interprets the
Olivet Discourse symbolically as referring to Jerusalem’s fall.
Ferda notes that 19th-century critics rejected an eschatological Jesus as
“too Jewish” and unspiritual, leading to assumptions about Jesus’s ethics and
misrepresentations of Judaism. However, dismissing eschatology entirely
undermines historical plausibility, as Jesus’s followers clearly expected his
return. Later theological trends further problematized eschatology, though
Christian history consistently maintained a second advent hope, despite debates
on its timing and nature.
This eschatological hope, Ferda argues, has been a “thorn” for historical
Jesus scholars. Nineteenth-century Protestant liberals downplayed eschatology,
associating it with Christian apologetics or dispensationalism. Many scholars
sought to distance Jesus from Jewish messianism, a trend dating back to early
Christianity. However, Tertullian observed that Christians anticipated Jesus to
fulfill Jewish messianic hopes.
In part three, Ferda traces early Christian eschatology, showing its
pervasiveness in Paul’s letters and the Synoptic Gospels. Paul’s kerygma
centered on Christ’s return (1 Thess 4:13-18, 1
Cor 15), and Mark aligns with this expectation. Matthew and Luke,
while modifying Mark, still anticipate Jesus’s return, refuting the idea that
eschatological hope faded by the late first century. The Synoptics and John
draw on messianic texts like Daniel 7:13-14. Even John,
despite a more developed theology, retains an expectation of Jesus’s future
return.
Ferda also challenges the common view
that the Gospel of John represents a “realized” eschatology in which Jesus’s
return is purely symbolic. He acknowledges that John’s language is more
theologically developed than that of the Synoptics, but he argues that the
Gospel still contains a future eschatological expectation. He examines John’s
farewell discourse and its parallels with the Synoptic traditions, showing that
John’s Jesus speaks of a future coming, even if the language has been stripped
down. Ferda thus rejects the notion that early Christianity gradually abandoned
the expectation of Jesus’s return.
Ferda concludes that the most plausible origin of this pervasive second
advent hope is Jesus himself. By 1 Thessalonians, the issue of
Jesus’s return was already debated, and by 2 Peter, it
faced skepticism. Rather than reconstructing Jesus’s exact words, Ferda argues
his teachings implied an interim between resurrection and return, rooted in
Second Temple Jewish eschatology.
At the heart of Ferda’s argument is the claim that Jesus’ anticipation of
the kingdom’s nearness and his wrestling with the implications of his impending
death were central to the development of early Christian eschatology. Rather
than being a theological construct developed after his death, the hope of his
return was deeply embedded in his mission and message. In recovering this
original context, Ferda not only reframes the conversation about Jesus'
eschatological vision but also illuminates the remarkable diversity of Jewish
messianic thought in the Second Temple period. His work breathes fresh life
into a long-stagnant debate, offering a compelling reassessment of Christian
eschatology’s historical roots.
Thanks to Eerdmans for kindly
providing me with a review copy of this book. This did not influence my
thoughts regarding the work.
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