The Mystery Of The Kingdom Of God: The Secret Of Jesus' Messiahship And Passion (1914)

I found myself first addicted to Schweitzer's writing while reading his "Quest for the Historical Jesus," in which he devotes the final 70 or so pages to summarizing the results of this work here, "The Mystery of the Kingdom of God." With that in mind, i thought i'd try out "Mystery" as well, and was not disappointed at all. His exegesis and reasoning skills are a first rate example and model of how it should be done. He has 2 basic premises - Mark wrote first of the 4 Gospels, and, Jesus thought that the Kingdom of God was within a few weeks to a few months of appearing (by "harvest time"). Taking this thoroughgoing approach that ALL of Jesus' preaching and activities are directly related to the imminent appearance of the Kingdom (hence the term "thoroughgoing eschatology"), Schweitzer brilliantly sheds light on many of Jesus deeds and words, in addition to putting to a plausible historical context the reason for Jesus' execution. Schweitzer will definitely make you think, whether in the end, you agree with him or not. It can be a tough book to read, but with good patience and with keeping a Bible handy while reading, it can offer quite a bit to consider when considering Jesus - who he was and what he was all about. Definitely worth putting in the effort. Understanding Schweitzer is almost foundational for understanding all other Jesus literature, since just about everything in this field refers to him.