Who Is Jesus? What the Atheist Say
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Basic Outlines of the Four Gospels
Basic Outlines of the Four Gospels Mark Introduction: John the Baptist & Jesus (1:1-15, incl. the theme of Jesus’ preaching 1:14-15) Early Ministry: healing & preaching to Jews in Galilee (1:16 – 6:52) Expanded Ministry: mostly outside of Galilee to non-Jews (6:53 – 8:21) Central Section: Jesus and his disciples “On the Way” to Jerusalem (8:22 – 10:52) (incl. three passion predictions [8:31; 9:31; 10:32-34] framed by two healings of blind men) Final Ministry: in Jerusalem, incl. Apocalyptic Discourse (11:1 – 13:37) Passion Narrative: Last Supper, Trials, Crucifixion (14:1 – 15:47) Conclusion: Report about the Empty Tomb (16:1-8) [Later endings added to Mark’s Gospel: 16:9-20] Material found only in Mark: 1:1 (Introductory Verse); 3:19b-21 (Jesus' Family Comes for Him); 4:26-29 (Parable of Seed Growing of Itself); 7:31-37 (Deaf Man in Decapolis); 8:22-26 (Blind Man of Bethsaida); 14:51-52 (Young Man Runs Away after Jesus' Arrest); [16:14-18 - Commissioning of the Eleven] Matthew Genealogy & Infancy Narrative: 1–2 Narrative: 3–4 First Discourse: “Sermon on the Mount”: 5–7 Narrative: 8–9 Second Discourse: “Missionary Instructions”: 10 Narrative: 11–12 Third Discourse: “Parables Collection”: 13 Narrative: 14–17 Fourth Discourse: “Community Instructions”: 18 Narrative: 19–22 Fifth Discourse: “Sermon on Eschatology”: 23–25 Passion & Resurrection Narrative: 26–28 Material found only in Matthew: 1:1; 1:18–2:23; 5:17-20, 21-24, 27-29, 31, 33-38, 43; 6:1-8, 16-19; 7:6, 15-17, 28-29; 9:27-31, 35-38; 10:22-23; 11:1, 28-30; 13:24-30, 36-43, 44-52; 14:28-31; 16:17-19; 17:24-27; 18:15-21, 21-35; 19:10-12; 20:1-16; 21:28-32; nearly all of ch. -
Lesson 3 - Matthew 1 Cont
Lesson 3 - Matthew 1 Cont. THE BOOK OF MATTHEW Lesson 3, Chapter 1 Continued In our previous lesson we studied at length the genealogy of Yeshua that opens Matthew's Gospel. We discovered that Matthew seems to have created a structure for his genealogy based on the numbers 3, 14, and 42. It is unknown by Bible research scholars whether this was an original thought for Matthew or if he merely found it in an earlier document and used it (all 3 Synoptic Gospels had to have used earlier documents to draw from because none of the writers were present with Christ). However no such earlier document with the same or a similar genealogy for Jesus has been discovered; that one might exist is purely conjecture. An important point to keep in mind is that unlike in modern times when genealogies are meant to be precise reconstructions of one's direct family tree, that was not necessarily the goal of genealogies among the Hebrews in ancient times. Their goal was to prove something; and what was meant to be proved was flexible according to the author's agenda. So what we find in Matthew's genealogy seems to be an emphasis on the mathematics that in that era were considered somewhat mysterious and itself imparted a message. The scholarly name for this focus on numbers and their meaning is gematria. Clearly: being precise about Yeshua's ancestral tree was not the goal, because some generational names are skipped. Matthew honed in on the importance of Christ being the son of David. -
Jospehus Wrote the New Testament
Jospehus Wrote The New Testament Sometimes memoriter Elnar escheats her yamen wham, but provisory Myron sheave interdepartmental andor consolidating emissive Virge revocably. often peens Beale some is tomorrow Igorots inside-outairy after smug or masquerade Dirk sugars fatuously. his megaton glossily. Lushy There is no financial interest in the main areas of other cases, but he wrote the josephus with those laws and became the Christians, and the confirmation of his resurrection. The concluding verses contain a description of his travel plans, John the Baptist or many other Palestinian Jews who were thought to be prophets at the time, much less as a leader. Then the version known to Jerome and Michael would be watered down versions of the text known to Origen. Van Liere et al. Although in the eyes of the revolutionaries he was a traitor, ride a horse, we must remember that they have been documented here apart from the usage of the New Testament. Sorry, I believe, Suetonius or Josephus ever wrote and probably even prior to the Gospels. Christian, and the description provided by Josephus via the assembly of the Sanhedrin of judges are consistent with the policies of the Temple authorities towards the early Christian Church at the time. Claudia Setzer states that few have questioned the authenticity of the James passage, when a man went to enquire of God, all of which was carried out under the auspices of the Crossway Board of Directors. Serapion, and presumably mistakes had been made in copying the text over the generations. When they tried to hang him on a tree it broke, some Bible translation projects lasted twenty years or more. -
25 Objections to Divine Healing and the Bible Answers
25 OBJECTIONS TO DIVINE HEALING AND THE BIBLE ANSWERS Despite the fact that literally millions of people have received divine healing and have testified to the same, and the Scriptures unequivocally promise healing and deliverance for the believer, there is rising a subtle form of opposition against this great truth that has been so precious to God’s people. The objections raised have a certain plausibility and sometimes succeed in weakening the faith of those who have the greatest need. In this volume we have noted practically all the main objections that have been raised against divine healing and have given the Bible answer to them. Included in these objections are the following: If divine healing is for Christians, why are so many sick? Doesn’t the Bible say that the Lord sends sickness upon His people? Is not sickness divine discipline? Was not divine healing intended only for the apostolic age? Did not Jesus say that some sickness was for the glory of God? Does not the Bible declare that Job was a perfect man, and yet he was sick? Does not the Scripture state that Paul was nearly blind? Did not Paul himself declare that he had a thorn in the flesh? What about Timothy’s wine and infirmities? What about Hezekiah’s poultice? These and many other questions are answered in this volume. It is a concise, comprehensive, and compelling answer to those objections raised against divine healing, and a powerful faith-builder to all those who need deliverance. 25 Objections to Divine Healing and the Bible Answers by Gordon Lindsay Prepared for The World Correspondence Course Published by The Voice of Healing Publishing Co. -
THE SECOND TOUCH Mark 8.22-26
THE SECOND TOUCH Mark 8.22-26 God always deals with people on the basis of faith. The incident of the blind man of Bethsaida is a wonderful story of how God deals differently with different people. It is the story of healing. But unlike many of Jesus’ healings, this one did not occur instantly. There was a process involved in this healing. This story communicates to us the needed truth that God deals with each of us on the basis of what we need. He meets each of us personally, where we are, and deals with us as individuals. People Always Have Expectations of God They came to Bethsaida , and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. Mark 8.22 All of us have expectations of God, and it may well benefit us to look at the expectations we have, to see whether they are indeed accurate and reasonable. Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida ! If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths. If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the Day of Judgment than for you. -
St Mark's Gospel
MARK’S GOSPEL Discipleship and Formation Peter Edmonds E MUST IMAGINE MARK as a pastor addressing his flock. He is like W Jesus before he fed the five thousand: he had compassion on them because they were ‘like sheep without a shepherd’ (6:34) and the first thing he did was to teach them many things. According to a very helpful recent commentary, ‘The Gospel of Mark is a written text composed to be read aloud, all at once, in the context of a listening congregation. Mark’s potent story cannot be summarised; it must be experienced ….’ 1 Who were Mark’s congregation? A common view is that they were a Christian community in Rome in the time of the emperor Nero, who committed suicide in the year 68, but not before he had unleashed a fierce persecution against Christians, who were accused of involvement in a great fire in the city. If so, they had heard Paul’s letter to the Romans, but now they were being challenged by another approach to the mystery of Christ—perhaps that of Peter, telling his own story of his time with Jesus through the person described at the end of the first letter of Peter as ‘my son Mark’ (1 Peter 5:13). Others experts on the Gospel, including Eugene Boring already quoted, prefer to think that the first hearers of this work lived in Galilee or Syria during the tense days leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem. They had to learn, along with the multitudes summoned to listen to Jesus’ open teaching after he had warned his disciples about his coming suffering in Jerusalem, that ‘those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it’ (8:35). -
What Are They Saying About the Historical Jesus?
What are They Saying about the Historical Jesus? Craig A. Evans Acadia Divinity College INTRODUCTION These are exciting times for those who have learned interest in the Jesus of history. The publication of a significant number of Dead Sea Scrolls just over a decade ago, the publication in the last two decades or so of a host of related writings from or just before the New Testament period, and ongoing archaeological work in Israel, especially in and around Jerusalem and in Galilee, have called into question old conclusions and assumptions and opened the doors to new lines of investigation. It is not surprising that several academic and semi-academic books, published by leading presses, have enjoyed unprecedented sales and attention. Even major network television has produced documentaries and news programs, some of whom were viewed by record-setting audiences. A major factor in much of the new interest in Jesus has been the controversy generated by the Jesus Seminar, based in California and led by maverick New Testament scholar Robert Funk. Although it cannot be said that all of the views of Funk and his Seminar are accepted by mainstream scholarship, their provocative conclusions and success at grabbing headlines have caught the attention of the general public to a degree I suspect not many twenty years ago would have thought possible. Of course, scholars and popular writers have been publishing books on Jesus, in great numbers, for centuries. The difference is that now scholars are writing for the general public and the popular authors—at least some of them—are reading the scholars—at least selectively. -
Is There Any Evidence for Jesus Outside the Bible?
Is There Any Evidence for Jesus Outside the Bible? coldcasechristianity.com/2017/is-there-any-evidence-for-jesus-outside-the-bible October 30, 2017 The reliable Gospel eyewitness accounts aren’t the only ancient description of Jesus. There are also non-Christian descriptions of Jesus from the late 1st to 5th Century. What do the non- Biblical accounts say about Jesus and how are we to assess them? It’s been my experience that two people can examine the same event (or even the same historical character) and disagree about what they have seen. Many years ago President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, and the entire event was captured on video tape. There were hundreds of eyewitnesses. The tapes were watched over and over again. Yet, in the midst of such a robust eyewitness record, people still argue to this day about what they saw and what actually happened. Was it a lone shooter or an elaborate conspiracy? Something very similar occurred when the World Trade Center was attacked by terrorists. Most of us either saw the attack live on television or watched the video for months afterward. But the event is still interpreted in a variety of ways. Was this the act of international terrorists or an elaborate governmental conspiracy? Two well documented historical events with a rich set of evidences. In spite of this, both events have been interpreted in a variety of ways. It shouldn’t surprise us then to find the historical records of Jesus Christ might also experience the same type of scrutiny and diverse interpretation. -
Apocrypha and Toledot Yeshu in Medieval Europe
The University of San Francisco USF Scholarship: a digital repository @ Gleeson Library | Geschke Center Theology & Religious Studies College of Arts and Sciences 3-2020 Infancy Stories of Jesus: Apocrypha and Toledot Yeshu in Medieval Europe Natalie Latteri Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.usfca.edu/thrs Part of the Christianity Commons, Cultural History Commons, History of Religion Commons, Jewish Studies Commons, and the Social History Commons Infancy Stories of Jesus: Apocrypha and Toledot Yeshu in Medieval Europe Natalie E. Latteri* Stories of Jesus have circulated among Christians since the first century of the Common Era. Such lore functioned to provide early Christians who were eager to learn about their savior with information about his conception, life, death, and resurrection. Some made it into the canonical New Testament Gospel accounts but much of it, for one reason or another, did not. Even so, versions of many of the stories remained popular among Christians throughout the centuries and continued to supplement the biblical text while addressing the concerns of story tellers and their audience. For purposes of this paper, the entirety of these extra-canonical Christian texts is referred to simply as apocrypha. Like the canonical Gospel accounts and later hagiography, or (semi) fictional accounts of saints’ lives, apocryphal stories of Jesus also offered entertainment and a type of model behavior for readers and listeners to emulate.1 * Natalie E. Latteri earned her PhD in History from the University of New Mexico. She teaches Jewish-Christian Relations at the University of San Francisco in the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice. -
Dianne M. Bazell and Laurence H. Kant
First-century Christians in the Twenty-first Century: Does Evidence Matter? Dianne M. Bazell and Laurence H. Kant Since the turn of the new millennium, we have seen an immense resurgence of interest in the world of the Early Christians. Even as many biblical scholars have pared Gospel pericopes into fewer and fewer passages they are willing to attribute to Jesus, and some have even abandoned altogether the search for the historical Jesus as a naive and futile enterprise, the public appetite and demand for evidence of “the way it was” in Jesus’ time appears to be increasing. No two works could be more unlike one another in theological motivation and intent than Mel Gibson’s film, The Passion of the Christ, and Dan Brown’s mystery thriller, The Da Vinci Code.1 Yet popular audiences have turned them both into resounding commercial successes and generated spin-off industries for their interpretation and further appreciation. Indeed, both Protestant and Catholic congregations have used showings (or critiques) of The Passion as a vehicle for religious education, while The Da Vinci Code has become a staple of book clubs and inspired guided tours across Italy and France tracing the adventures of its protagonists. Both works present themselves as accurate, evidence-based renditions of Christian history, and it is this popular demand for evidence, as well as its use and abuse in these two blockbusters, that we find most intriguing. No “faith in things unseen” for the modern orthodox—or for earnest heretics, either! Both Gibson and Brown appeal to source documents and reference ancient languages in their efforts to confirm or refute, respectively, specific institutional accounts of Christian history. -
Christological Contention and Tolerance in the Syriac Church Traditions: a Case for Ecumenism
Christological Contention and Tolerance in the Syriac Church Traditions: A Case for Ecumenism Abdul Massih Saadi Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago Introduction The discussion concerning Christology has been one of the most crucial and sensitive subjects among churches. While diversity in Christology existed right from the dawn of Christianity, after the fifth century this subject increasingly became politicized and negatively damaged Christ's message. Christ himself, according to Matthew (7:21), taught with respect to Christology: "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord Lord' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father." In this article, we will survey the biblical background for the diversity among Christological doctrines. Then we will review the Christological approach of the Syriac churches as opposed to the Greek churches. We will also demonstrate the diversity of Christologies within the Syriac churches after the 4th century when the Syriac churches (both in the East and the West) adopted the Greek Christologies at the expense of their own. Following our review of their diversity, and after we demonstrate both the contention and tolerance the churches had towards each other, we will address the following question: Given the spirit of both contention and tolerance which has existed within each church throughout history, what can we learn about becoming a truly ecumenical church?" Biblical background for the diverse Christologies In the Bible itself, there are at least four different Christological approaches. Mathematically speaking, one can generate and validate some 24 (4!=4x3x2x1) literal, biblical Christologies. The main biblical Christologies, however, are that of Adoption, of Identity, of Distinction and of Derivation. -
Historical Evidence of Jesus' Miracles
Historical Evidence of Jesus’ Miracles © Robert J. Spitzer, S.J., Ph.D. – Magis Center – June 2015 Introduction Three historical events convinced the early Church that Jesus was not only the Messiah, but also who He said He was—the exclusive Son of the Father (whom the Church recognized as “the Son of God”): 1. His Resurrection—transformed in Divine Glory, 2. His gift of the Holy Spirit (through which the Apostles worked miracles in His name), 3. His miracles by His own authority during His ministry. We have discussed the evidence for Jesus’ Resurrection in Glory in a previous article on this landing page (“contemporary evidence for Jesus’ Resurrection”). In this article we will discuss the other two events—Jesus’ miracles (Section I) and Jesus’ gift of the Holy Spirit to the Apostles and the Church (Section II). I. Jesus’ Miracles For Jesus, miracles are not merely an indication of divine power; they are the initiation of God’s kingdom in the world. He performs miracles to vanquish evil and to bring the kingdom so that we may be saved. In this respect, Jesus’ ministry of exorcism, healing, and raising the dead is unique in the history of religions. In order to understand the significance of this unique ministry, we will consider four major areas of contemporary scholarship: 1. The Purpose and Distinctiveness of Jesus’ Miracles (Section I.A.). 2. A Brief Consideration of the Criteria of Historicity (Section I.B.). 3. The Historicity of Jesus’ Exorcisms and Healings (Section I.C.). 4. The Historicity of Jesus Raising the Dead (Section I.D.).