Thoroughgoing eschatology: did Jesus expect an imminent end, and was he mistaken?

Albert Schweitzer, answered from the texts and cited to the page.

The position in brief

He expected the Kingdom within the lifetime of those he sent out, and it did not come.1 The delay is not an embarrassment to be explained away; it is the fact from which the rest of the history follows.2345

Sources

  1. Jesus' expectation of the Kingdom is an expectation based upon a fact which exercises an active influence upon the Kingdom of God. It was not He, and not the Baptist who " were working at the coming of the Kingdom "; it is the host of penitents which is wringing it from God, so that it may now come at any moment.
    The Quest of the Historical Jesus, p. 356
  2. It is clear from the fact that he forbids them to go into Gentile territory or the cities of Samaria that he expected their journey to extend beyond Galilee. In what directions and how far they went in pairs is not recorded. At any rate they do not seem to have proclaimed their message in Judaea and Jerusalem. We get the impression that they were not absent very long.
    The Kingdom of God and Primitive Christianity, p. 115
  3. This thought disappears once for all. In the secret of His passion which Jesus reveals to the disciples at Caesarea Philippi the pre-Messianic tribulation is for others set aside, abolished, concentrated upon Himself alone, and that in the form that they are fulfilled in His own passion and death at Jerusalem. That was the new conviction that had dawned upon Him. He must suffer for others...
    The Quest of the Historical Jesus, p. 387
  4. In the movement to which the Baptist gave the first impulse, and which still continued, there was an initial fact which was drawing after it the coming of the kingdom, in a fashion which was miraculous, unintelligible, but unfailingly certain, since the sufficient cause for it lay in the power and purpose of God.... Jesus must have expected the coming of the kingdom at harvest time.
    Reverence for Life, The Ethics of Albert Schweitzer, pp. 248–249
  5. First, the death of the Baptist. The Baptist for him was Elijah. If he was slain by the hand of man before the messianic Day, such was God's will, and so it was foreordained in the messianic drama. This occurred while the Disciples were away. His embassage to the Baptist perhaps never reached him. He must come now to an understanding of this matter.
    The Mystery of the Kingdom of God

Where the argument is made

  • Das Messianitäts- und Leidensgeheimnis (1901)
  • Von Reimarus zu Wrede (1906), especially the treatment of Matthew 10 and the closing chapters

How the argument was received

The thesis on which everything else depends, and the one every subsequent school has been organised to accommodate or evade.