Endnote 3 – Jesus and the Teacher of Righteousness—Similarities and Differences

According to the Gospels of Mark and Matthew, Jesus “called” to his disciples in a godlike fashion, bidding them “Follow me!” They followed him immediately without being motivated by a miracle or by any kind of persuasive preaching (see, e.g., Mark 1:16–20; 2:14; Matthew 4:18–22; 9:9). The psychologist Luke noticed this curious manner of enlisting followers, and he replaced it with a more plausible version: Simon Peter and the two sons of Zebedee are driven to become followers of Jesus by an impressive miracle (Luke 5:1–11). All traditions of this kind are secondary and cannot be traced back to the historical Jesus. Jesus’ call of “the Twelve” (Mark 3:13–19//Matthew 10:1–4; cf. 1 Corinthians 15:5) was similarly modified by Luke to the call of the “twelve apostles” (Luke 6:12–18; cf. Acts 1:13). These 12 were clearly considered the representatives of the 12 tribes of Israel in the “new age,” which started with Christ’s resurrection, or with his initial epiphanies (1 Corinthians 15:5–8).