Dominican Scholar The Scott Sinclair Lecture Notes Collection Social Justice | Faculty Collections 2021 One Year Introduction to the New Testament [Lecture Notes] Scott Gambrill Sinclair (Retired) Dominican University of California, [email protected] https://doi.org/10.33015/dominican.edu/2021.sinclair.01 Survey: Let us know how this paper benefits you. Recommended Citation Sinclair, Scott Gambrill, "One Year Introduction to the New Testament [Lecture Notes]" (2021). The Scott Sinclair Lecture Notes Collection. 10. https://doi.org/10.33015/dominican.edu/2021.sinclair.01 This Course Materials is brought to you for free and open access by the Social Justice | Faculty Collections at Dominican Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Scott Sinclair Lecture Notes Collection by an authorized administrator of Dominican Scholar. For more information, please contact [email protected]. One Year Introduction to the New Testament: Lecture Notes by Scott Gambrill Sinclair Table of Contents My Methodology to Reconstruct the Historical Jesus in Comparison with That of Other Scholars ......................................................................................................................................................... 5 The Social and Political Setting of Jesus ........................................................................................ 8 The Life of Jesus until the Ministry of John the Baptist ............................................................... 13 The Life of Jesus from the Ministry of John until the Final Trip to Jerusalem ............................ 16 Jesus’s Vision of a New Kind of Human Being ............................................................................ 19 The Miracles of Jesus.................................................................................................................... 23 The Social Teaching of Jesus ........................................................................................................ 27 Jesus’s Kingship and his Plan to Confront the Nation with His Royal Claims ............................ 30 The Final Days of Jesus ................................................................................................................ 33 Competing Historical Explanations for the Claim that Jesus Rose from the Dead and the Larger Convictions Underlying Each ....................................................................................................... 41 The Personal Assumptions that I Bring to the Resurrection Texts ............................................... 45 The Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus, One Evaluation ...................................... 49 (time permitting) The Theological and Spiritual Evidence for the Early Church's Understanding of the Resurrection ........................................................................................................................ 53 (time permitting) Can We Affirm Our Own Future Resurrection From the Dead, and Is This Affirmation Consistent with the Resurrection of Jesus? ............................................................... 57 The Significance of the Resurrection for the Early Church .......................................................... 60 The Jewish Diaspora and the Church Before Paul ........................................................................ 63 Paul's Life and Thought ................................................................................................................ 66 Paul's Letters and the Problem of Contextual Thought as Illustrated in Philemon and 1 & 2 Thessalonians a reading of Paul’s letter to Philemon ................................................................... 70 Corinthians as a Response to Enthusiasm at Corinth.................................................................... 73 Paul and the Law Part 1--The Problem of Whether Gentiles Should Adopt the Law. Galatians as a Response. ................................................................................................................................... 76 Paul and the Law Part 2--The Problem of the Purpose and Continuing Value of the Law. Romans as a Response. ............................................................................................................................... 79 Homosexuality and the Epistle to the Romans ............................................................................. 82 The Transition to the Post-Pauline Era in Paul's Churches; Philippians, Colossians, and Ephesians ...................................................................................................................................... 87 The Debate Over Paul's Legacy; James, 2 Peter, 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus ....................................... 90 The Struggle Over What Is Orthodox: Jude and 1, 2, & 3 John .................................................. 93 (time permitting) An Additional Reflection on the Johannine Epistles: Towards an Understanding 2 of Christian Love .......................................................................................................................... 96 Roman Persecution; 1 Peter and Revelation ................................................................................. 99 Hebrews ...................................................................................................................................... 101 Preface to the Synoptic Gospels ................................................................................................. 103 Literary Criticism and the Basic Message of Mark .................................................................... 104 Mark's Historical Context and Its Significance for His Presentation of Discipleship ................ 109 Mark's Theology of Miracles .......................................................................................................114 Mark's Christology .......................................................................................................................117 A Brief Methodological Introduction to Matthew: The relationship of Matthew to Mark: redaction criticism. ...................................................................................................................... 121 The Basic Message of Matthew .................................................................................................. 123 Matthew's Historical Context and Its Significance ..................................................................... 126 Anti-Semitism and Matthew’s Gospel ........................................................................................ 129 Matthew's Theology of Law ....................................................................................................... 130 Matthew's Christology ................................................................................................................ 133 (time permitting) One Interpretation of the “Beatitudes” in Matthew 5:3-12 ............................ 136 Matthew’s Gospel and the Problem of Divorce–One Liberal Interpretation .............................. 138 An Additional Reflection: The New Testament's--and, especially, Matthew's--Portrait of Peter and Its Significance ..................................................................................................................... 141 A Brief Methodological Introduction to Luke ............................................................................ 145 The Basic Message of Luke-Acts ............................................................................................... 146 The Setting and Historical Accuracy of Luke-Acts .................................................................... 148 Luke's Theology of the Oppressed .............................................................................................. 150 Luke's Spirituality ....................................................................................................................... 153 (time permitting) The Eucharist in Luke-Acts ............................................................................ 157 (time permitting) The Problem of the Atonement and Luke-Acts .............................................. 159 Ascension, Pentecost, and the Achievement of Luke ................................................................. 160 (time permitting) Luke-Acts and the Problem of Unity in Diversity Then and Now ................. 163 Introduction to John’s Gospel: The Nature and Origin of the Fourth Gospel ........................... 165 The Theme of the Gospel: We Are Saved by Believing that Jesus is God Infleshed ................ 168 The Problem of the Credibility of John's Gospel and Its Christology Now and Originally ....... 171 An Illustration of the Technique of the Fourth Gospel and the Problem of Credibility: The Gospel's Treatment of John the Baptist ....................................................................................... 174 Learning to Read Johannine Narrative a reading of John 2:1-11 ............................................... 176 3 Appendix not covered in lecture: One Possible Analysis of John 2:1-12, the Changing of Water into Wine ..................................................................................................................................... 178 The Final Editing of John's Gospel as One Response to the Problem of Credibility; John 21 ... 181 Signs in John's Gospel ...............................................................................................................