Jesus on Justice and Mercy in Constitutional Perspective

Abstract

This essay places accounts of the mission of Jesus, including his politics, within a wider frame. It does so by offering a constitutional approach. This situates Jesus’ teaching of the kingdom of God in a Mediterranean context of ancient constitutional reflection, as also of certain Palestinian constitutional ideas and forms. An account of three main aspects of Jesus’ mission is offered within this wider, constitutional frame: first, power and authority; second, law and custom; and third, ethos and praxis. Jesus’ identity as an eschatological prophet of national renewal, whose aims are at least implicitly constitutional, comes to the fore.