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(ENTIRE BOOK) Grant deals historically with the New Testament writings. He discusses both the methods used in analyzing and interpreting the New Testament and the conclusions to which they lead. Topics include textual criticism, translation, and literary and historical criticism.
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Unlike the liberals, Bultmann is not in the least interested in the evolution of religion. What he is interested in is the once-for-allness of the deed, the revelation of God in Christ. So we must ask: what was the ascension? Is the resurrection of the dead capable of description? Does preaching simply mean repeating word for word what the Bible says? Or are we allowed to paraphrase, translate, and change the terminology?
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Can we ever really dispense with myth? That is an ambiguous question. Much of our ordinary language is based on mythology in any case, and there are certain concepts which are fundamentally mythological, and with which we shall never be able to dispense — e.g. the idea of transcendence. In such cases, however, the original mythological meaning has been lost, and they have become mere metaphors or ciphers. As for mythology in its original sense, not only can we dispense with it, but it is essential to do so.
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Arndt and Gingrich, Lexicon: A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament. Translated and edited by W. F. Arndt and F. W. Gingrich from W. Bauer’s Griechisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 1949-52; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, and Cambridge: University Press, 1957. ATR: Anglican Theological Review. AV: Authorized Version (King James Bible). b or B.T.: Babylonian Talmud. BJRL: Bulletin …
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It may be that the real first step of Dr. Bultmann’s whole plea is the exhortation to embrace existentialism or drown, and that everything else is a mere corollary to that. But in fact many of us are not, and are not going to be, existentialists of the Heidegger school, and so we try to see what Bultmann’s position amounts to if we leave the dogmatic existentialism out.
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(ENTIRE BOOK) A clear, concise analysis of the New Testament and each of its books: Mark, Matthew, Luke, John, Acts, the Epistles (Galatians, Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans, Colossians, Philemon, Philippians, Ephesians, Jude, 2nd Peter, Revelations. The context, authors, circumstance of writing, the oral tradition, how the books were selected, their teachings, and suggested references.
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Nine annotated bibliographies detailing information concerning the various authors and books referred to in the text along with some other sources.
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Many of you may be asking why a former politician is giving a Bible lecture to an assembly of highly qualified Christian leaders. My only credential is experience. I began teaching Bible lessons as a young midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy, and have continued this practice for the past 62 years — now as …
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The hugely popular “Left Behind” series of novels continues to frustrate mainstream pastors and biblical scholars who object to an “end-times” theology they consider just as fictional as the books’ genre. The readers are real, however. The tenth and most recent volume in the series, The Remnant, picked up 2.4 million orders in the two …
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The invisibility of God excludes every myth which tries to make him and his acts visible. Because of this, however, it also excludes every conception of invisibility and mystery which is formulated in terms of objective thought. God withdraws himself from the objective view: he can only be believed upon in defiance of all outward appearance.
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No subject has caused such a stir in theological circles in recent years as the debate on "New Testament and Mythology". For this subject is not only of immense practical importance; it also raises the most ultimate and profound issues for the academic theologian.
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Review and examination of the birth and genealogy Jesus, and the visit of the wise men.
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God knows at first-hand the mysteries of childhood, youth, and adulthood.
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A brief history of the church’s dependence upon its founder for the last nineteen centuries.
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The Messiah, Son of David. The promises to Elizabeth and Mary. Mary visits Elizabeth. Birth of John the Baptist and Jesus. Shepherds. Wise men. Flight to Egypt and return. Trip to Jerusalem at age twelve. Jesus’ childhood and youth. (Mt 1:18-25; 2:1-23; Lk 1:1-80; 2:1-52).
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In approaching many ways to God Barclay sets out four conceptions of religion, plus personal experience and temperament.
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John’s prologue in his book of John, and the witness of John the Baptist are examined.
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Mark sets up the coming on scene of Jesus; the beginning of His ministry.
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There are many important points on which critical opinion is likely to continue divided, but there are good grounds for thinking that we can still get from the New Testament a knowledge of Jesus and of his Church different in some respects from that of earlier days but with the same power to inspire men to follow him in their lives.
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We are so used to thinking about the human quest for God that we cannot easily grasp the idea of God’s taking the initiative in making himself known, especially when it is affirmed that he has done so in specific historical events and developments.
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Nothing shows better the radical difference between the Greek doctrine of immortality of the soul and the Christian doctrine of the Resurrection than the death of Socrates in contrast to the death of Jesus.
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The gospel was first of all an oral gospel and was essentially an eschatological proclamation about the nature of the end of the world, spoken in Aramaic and later written in Greek.
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John announces the good news, and tells both from whom it comes and to whom it is sent. The startling information he gives is that the message and the messenger are one and the same. Proceeding from there John establishes Jesus and the message.
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The ancestry, birth and childhood, baptism, temptations, and vocation of Jesus are examined while bringing him to the point of his work on earth.
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The author examines the various sources available, and cautions that the more we learn about those sources the more difficult the task seems to become. He suggests that students must do justice to the categories of first-century Judaism in terms of which the teaching was originally expressed, and must always set the teaching of Jesus in the context of the circumstances and situation of his ministry. Finally, he insists we must employ the “form-critical approach” which uses methodology arising out of the nature of the sources rather than being imposed upon them from outside.
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Who the book is addressed to, the ascension of Christ, and when and how the eleven disciples became apostles are addressed. The stage is set for the first Christian church and the converts to it.
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It is the parts of the Bible that we do understand which troubles us the most. And that fits the Sermon on the Mount.
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An important element in Christianity from the very beginning has been a sense of fellowship with Christ, conceived not merely as a "spiritual" but as an historical person. For all the importance of the resurrection in the church’s rise, the character of Jesus was the deeper element, making the resurrection faith itself possible and making it a faith worth preaching.
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The New Testament is the product of the Church while the Church is not the product of the New Testament. The church could have proclaimed, and in fact did proclaim, the gospel without possessing the New Testament; but the New Testament could not have come into existence apart from the Church.
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It would seem that God knows first hand what it is to be in prison.
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In the other gospels the authors have been primarily compilers of material, and their personal interpretation of the events of Jesus’ life and of his teaching play only a subordinate part in the shaping of their material. In this gospel the historical facts of Jesus’ life serve primarily to illustrate the author’s main themes, and the speeches put into the mouth of Jesus are made the vehicles for the author’s own interpretations of Jesus’ thought.
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Jesus’ route to Jerusalem. Pharisees question him about divorce. Eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven. Luke’s account of the journey. A Samaritan village will not receive Jesus. The expedition and return of the seventy; Jesus rejoices. A lawyer asks how to gain eternal life. The good Samaritan. Mary and Martha. The friend at midnight. A woman blesses Mary. Jesus refuses to adjudicate a dispute. The rich fool. Three metaphors for God. Jesus must cast fire on the earth and undergo a baptism. Galileans massacred; the tower in Siloam. A crippled woman healed. (Mt 19:1-12; Mk 10:1-12;Lk 9:51-62; 10:1-42; 11:1-54; 12:1-59; 13:1-30)
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Revelation has been doubted, and stated as difficult to understand. Despite these objections it is a book of victory, the victory of Christ, and finally for Christians.
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From the landing on the moon, to a new kitchen appliance, we are beset by knowledge and apparatus to the point that we are often asking, Who and What can we trust. The flip side of that is anxiety. Here are some answers.
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It’s difficult to determine if Mark was anti-Semitic or anti-Jewish. Relations between Jews and Christians in the East remained friendly for at least five centuries. The whole of the teaching of Jesus, as recorded in the Gospels, and likewise that of Paul and of the rest of the New Testament, presupposes a background of intense, informed, earnest, and consecrated Judaism.
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Although the end was postponed, as Matthew envisioned, we should not agree that it was originally regarded as imminent. Similarly while Luke minimizes Jewish-gentile differences it is possible that in Galatians Paul exaggerates them. The fact that Acts reflects certain purposes on its author’s part does not mean that views contrary to those purposes are necessarily authentic, or more authentic.
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The author was probably not the son of Zebedee but a Jerusalem disciple of Jesus who wrote his gospel around the time of the Roman-Jewish war of 66-70 (probably not long after it) in order to present faith in Christ to bewildered and distressed Jewish sectarians. These sectarians lived either in Palestine itself or in the Dispersion.
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Jesus warned that Herod wants to kill him. His lament over Jerusalem. A Sabbath dinner at a Pharisee’s house; a man with dropsy healed. Humility recommended. The great banquet. Counting the cost of discipleship. The lost sheep and coin and the prodigal son. The dishonest steward. Pharisees condemned as men-pleasers. The rich man and Lazarus. The unprofitable servant. Ten lepers healed. The kingdom in the midst (or within). The days of the Son of man. The corrupt judge. The Pharisee and the tax collector. (Mt 22:1-14; Lk 13:31-35; chapters 14-17; 18:1-14)
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Was Jesus’ teaching “social?” Yes and no! It was not in our modern sense of sociological utopianism; but it was something vastly profounder, a religious ethic which involved a social as well as a personal application, but within the framework of the beloved society of the Kingdom of God. The rest of the New Testament and most of the other early Christian literature takes this for granted.
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The author has looked at the diversity of the writers of the New Testament, and their writings. Now he shows that the diversity has a common faith and goal. The proclamation of the Gospel remains intact as one teaching.
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The references to Jesus in pagan and Jewish writings of the first and second centuries A.D. do little more than confirm that he really lived, was put to death under Pontius Pilate (so Tacitus, Annales, 15:44), and was recognised by those who believed in him as the Christ. Despite the lack of references to him, the universality of the teaching, and its appeal to Gentile as well as to Jew, is responsible for Christianity’s rapid spread.
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We go through life making judgments of others, while avoiding judgment of self, knowing that others are making judgments of us. Making a good impression can become a vicious cycle of judging, and being judged. But Jesus said, Judge Not. The author deals with this idea.
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There were many apocryphal gospels in existence as well as the four synoptic gospels. The most important was one ascribed to Peter, the other the Gospel of Thomas. Thomas was discovered in 1945 but not identified until 1952, and was probably written in the first part of the second century.
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What is the meaning of this earliest Gospel for our time? It set forth the message of salvation to men and women who lived in a world not unlike our own. Indeed the “world,” that is, human society, has not changed very much in nineteen centuries, and the message of salvation is as greatly needed now as then, or ever.
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God is up ahead of us, waiting for us to catch up with what God is doing.
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The author reviews the situation today for preaching — noting such things as ignorance, and the need for balance.
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Jesus blesses children. The unsatisfied rich man. The disciples reassured. Thrones promised to the twelve in the Son of man’s kingdom. Renunciation and following. The laborers hired at different hours. Jesus’ third prediction of his death and resurrection. The ambitious sons of Zebedee. The disciples’ lack of understanding. The Son of man’s death a ransom. Jesus reaches Jericho. Blind Bartimaeus healed. The conversion of Zacchaeus. The pounds (or talents). (Mt 19:13-30; 20:1-34; Mk 10:13-52; Lk 18:15-43; 19:1-27)
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Neatly packaged life is the desire of many. The advice “Follow the Golden Rule” is a neat package often heard. But separated as it often, it does not have the significance that it does when it is integrated and interacting with the whole of one’s life.
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The most important goals in studying Paul’s letters, are to determine: (1) what the gospel was which he preached and (2) what the nature of the controversies was in which he was engaged.
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Luke traces for Theophilus (who is unknown to us) the stages by which the Christian message had spread from Jerusalem in A.D. 29 to a time and place where Theophilus’ own knowledge could continue the story.
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Jesus reaches Jerusalem; his approach to the city; he predicts its destruction. He enters and goes to the temple; blind and lame people healed. Children acclaim Jesus, and he defends them. A fig tree, cursed by Jesus, withers. The cleansing of the temple. Controversies: first, Jesus’ authority challenged. The two sons. The rebellious tenants. Second controversy: paying taxes to Rome. Third, the resurrection of the dead; fourth, the greatest commandment; fifth, David’s son. (Mt 21:1-46; 22:15-46; Mk 11:1-33; 12:1-37; Lk 19:28-48; 20:1-44)
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Society tells us to be tolerant of all people. God does love all people, sending the sun and rain on all. But God is intolerant of anything that smells like sin. Jesus emphasizes it by saying “narrow is the gate and strait is the way.” So where then should our faith be?
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Denunciation of scribes and Pharisees. The poor widow’s offering. Leaving the temple, Jesus foretells its destruction. The apocalyptic discourse on the Mount of Olives, Matthew’s fifth discourse. The Messianic woes: false Messiahs, wars and rumors, persecution, false prophets, treachery, the worldwide preaching of the gospel, the desolating sacrilege, flight from the city. The times of the Gentiles. The unmistakable coming of the Son of man. The elect gathered by angels. The sign of the budding fig tree. The certainty of Jesus’ words. The absent householder. The watchful householder, and the faithful and wise servant. The ten bridesmaids. The judgment by the Son of man. (Mt 23:1-39; 24:1-51; 25:1-46; Mk 12:37-44; 13:1-37; Lk 20:45-47; 2 1:1-38)
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For the early history of the Church, as for the life and teaching of Jesus, the books of the New Testament are virtually our sole important sources. Only one of these books, the Acts of the Apostles, is in any sense a history of the Church, and that to only a limited degree.
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We are not altogether justified in treating the Pastorals and Hebrews together, for the objections to the Pastorals have arisen chiefly in modern times; ancient Christians, who in general knew Greek better than we do, had no difficulty in regarding the Pastorals as authentically Pauline, while they regarded Hebrews as written by someone else. We are not altogether justified in treating any of them as non-Pauline, for the Pastorals explicitly represent themselves as by Paul while Hebrews does so by implication.
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Worship of God through Christ will draw us closer to God, right? Wrong in many cases. Worshippers are cheated by identifying their desires with petty human thoughts and desires.
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We should conclude that the book was written or dictated by an early and significant John, perhaps the son of Zebedee. Two important features of this book are the End Times which dominates it, and the use, throughout the writing, of hymn-like materials.
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A plot against Jesus. A woman anoints Jesus’ feet at a Pharisee’s house; the two debtors. At a leper’s house in Bethany a woman anoints Jesus’ head; he defends her extravagance. Judas goes to the chief priests to betray Jesus. Preparations for the Passover; Jesus foretells his betrayal and indicates the traitor. The Last Supper. The covenanted kingdom and the twelve thrones. Jesus predicts that Peter will deny him. The two swords. Going out to the Mount of Olives, Jesus foretells the desertion of the disciples. (Mt 26:1-35; Mk 14:1-31; Lk 22:1-39)
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The gospels and the speeches of Peter and Paul in Acts give important testimony as to what the apostles taught about the Christian life and proclaimed about the meaning of Jesus’ own life, death, and resurrection; yet both the gospels and Acts were written, not by apostles, but by later disciples, and their evidence on particular points stands in need of confirmation, if possible, from the apostles themselves.
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Jesus taught as one with authority. He did and does. And who better to teach us than He who the Christian religion follows?
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Some of the writings of the Apostolic Fathers were accepted as canonical at a very early date. Among these are the Didache ("The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles"), the letter of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians (I Clement), and the "epistle" of Barnabas.
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The agony in Gethsemane. Jesus betrayed, arrested, and arraigned before the chief priests, elders, and scribes at the high priest’s house. The question of Jesus’ understanding of himself as Messiah. The exaltation, coming, and kingdom of the Son of man. Peter denies knowing Jesus. The death of Judas. Jesus brought before Pilate; the trial. Pilate sends him to Herod, who mocks him and sends him back. The crowd demands the release of Barabbas. The dream of Pilate’s wife. Pilate washes his hands. The question of responsibility for Jesus’ death. Barabbas released; Jesus flogged and delivered to the soldiers. The Praetorium and the Pavement. Jesus mocked by the soldiers. (Mt 26:36-75; 27:1-31; Mk 14:32-72; 15:1-20; Lk 22:40-71; 23:1-25)
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The authorship and early date of the epistle are matters of probability and not of certainty. Yet if James, the brother of Jesus, is accepted as the author of the epistle, it becomes our best witness to the beliefs of the earliest Jerusalem church.
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Jesus led out to be crucified. The Via Dolorosa. Golgotha (Calvary). The Seven Words from the Cross; incidents connected with the crucifixion; Jesus’ death. Joseph of Arimathea; Jesus’ burial; the tomb. The guard. The reality of Jesus death. (Mt 27:31-66; Mk 15:20-47; Lk 23:26-56; Jn 19:17-42)
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While the epistle remains a work of great spiritual power and lasting value, whoever was the author, its especial historical significance is bound up with the connection with Peter.
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Many aspects of the Graeco-Roman world have relevance to Christian origins. These include the Roman Government, the religion of the time, and the considerable emphasis on education.
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Only the rise of a new and greater power than those of the then active world could bring some sort of stability to the upheavals of the area and the corridor of Palestine within which many of the military operations took place.
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We are severely limited in what we know about Paul, and what little we do know comes mostly from a dozen or so letters he has written and from what Luke has to say about his career and teaching in the Acts of the Apostles.
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Predictions of the resurrection. The empty tomb. Post-resurrection appearances of Jesus; his ascension. Emphases in the accounts: the disciples’ incredulity; the reality of Jesus’ resurrection body; the difference between the risen Lord and the Master the disciples had known. The historical facts. The meaning of the resurrection. (Mt 28:1-20; Mk 16:1-20; Lk 24:1-53; Jn 20:1-31; 21:1-25; Acts 1:1-11)
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Modern critics have confirmed that the epistle cannot be attributed to Paul. The writing is one of consolidation, written to stave off apathy and apostasy by giving a better understanding of the supreme excellence of the new covenant mediated through Christ.
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The possibility of recovering a true picture of Jesus’ personality and character. Outstanding characteristics: devotion to the will of God, sincerity, patient endurance, love for the Father and consciousness of sonship, authority, insight into human nature, keenness of intellect, sense of proportion, rejection of asceticism, friendship with outcasts, relations with women, love of children, love of nature, humor, tolerance, anger, grief, compassion, mysticism, prayer.
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What can we know historically about Jesus? A critique is given in the following areas: Extra-biblical writings, oral tradition, form criticism, Jesus’ birth, Jesus in the temple, John the Baptist, Jesus’ baptism, the temptation, Galilee, call of disciples, the apostles, the miracles, Jesus’ teachings, the transfiguration, the Jerusalem ministry, the Lord’s Supper, Good Friday, the rejection of Jesus, and the resurrection.
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God does not turn away in the face of evil.
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While the New Testament can now be regarded as ‘apostolic’ only partially, and in a very wide sense, it remains true that the New Testament does contain substantially all that has survived of those first-century Christian writings which preserved the knowledge of the early ministry of Christ and the teaching of the first Christian generation. As such it is of unique authority for Christians.
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John appears at the Jordan, preaching and baptizing; imprisoned by Herod Antipas. Baptism of Jesus. His threefold temptation. (Mt 3:1-17; 4:1-11; Mk 1:1-13; Lk 3:1-22; 4:1-13)
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The primary goal of New Testament textual study remains the recovery of what the New Testament writers wrote. To achieve this goal is well-nigh impossible.
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Although one cannot be altogether sure of any particular saying of Jesus, the body of teaching which as a whole can be relied on as authentic is by no means inconsiderable. No reader of the Synoptic Gospels can miss the characteristic ardent, vivid quality in Jesus’ teaching which no reader of the Synoptic Gospels can miss, and which no writer of the Synoptic Gospels could have invented. It is not to be paralleled, whether in ancient or modern sources.
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The meaning of Christ, the theme of the new birth, Christ as the giver of life, and more examining Christ and his meaning to us.
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The birth of the church was not by a group of men setting down and planning its organization, and then going about obtaining members. Rather it started with the doctrine, and guided by the Holy Spirit, the Apostles set about converting men to followers, and then it began to take shape. As the number grew organization took place.
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What the gospels say about the founder of Christianity and some of the problems in knowing the reality of the events chronicled.
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The Apostle John displays the Word in a series of incidents and encounters that Jesus had at the beginning of his ministry. And by the birth of Jesus, God reveals his purpose.
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The Kingdom of God is the power of God expressed in deeds; it is that which God does wherein it becomes evident that he is king. It is not a place or community ruled by God; it is not even the abstract idea of reign or kingship of God. It is quite concretely the activity of God as king.
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This part of the ministry of Jesus is set in Galilee, mostly in towns. It includes healings or miracles, problems with the scribes.
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What Mark put together was a narrative of the mighty works and death of Jesus — a book largely devoted to explaining why Jesus had died — and he had to write it in haste in the midst of danger, not for Jews, but for Gentile converts.
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The members of the New Testament community knew that they stood at the great climacteric moment of all history, that in and through the things which had happened among them and of which they were witnesses, God had visited and redeemed his people, that no argument is needed. We do in fact believe it. Belief in the revelation of God in Christ is a necessary implication of the Christian life itself.
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New to his listeners, Jesus starts with His revolutionary words, the start of the Sermon on the Mount. Often heard they yet need refreshing for us today.
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The Gospel sets forth the God of old as King and judge, then into the Christian era as loving, yet still as the king and judge. Thus God has not changed. Only His plan for man has changed.
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Jesus taught and healed many people. During all these events, and in private, Jesus was also teaching those twelve disciples that later are known as Apostles. The interaction of Jesus with everyone he came into contact with is a model we can all use.
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The belief in the resurrection presupposes the Jewish connexion between death and sin. Death is not something willed by God, as in the thought of the Greek philosophers; it is rather something, abnormal, opposed to God.
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The weight of the epistle lies in its authorship. Could Jude be the brother of Jesus? Jude writes as one whose authority is unquestioned, and as one who can himself remember and vouch for the original content of the gospel, departure from which is fatal. The epistle was written from somewhere in Palestine between A.D. 60 and A.D. 80, and to whom we do not know.
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It is impossible to understand early Christianity unless Paul’s labors are taken into account. We have two main sources of Paul’s work: 1. His letters. 2. His work as described by Luke in the Acts of the Apostles.
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There are not many references to the “church” in the New Testament. But the existence of the Church is obviously implied by the existence of the oral tradition embodied in the various gospels, as well as by the existence of the gospels themselves. In finding out what the Church meant to early Christians we need to bear in mind the whole of their life, not just the explicit statements they make about the nature of the community.
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The evidence is clear that there is no possibility this letter could have been written by Peter. It was written sometime in the first half of the second century.
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There is evidence these epistles of John were written by the author of the Fourth Gospel. The purpose of the first epistle was to build up the faith of a community known only to the author. The second epistle is a warning against those holding heretical views. The third epistle threatens to expose Diotrephes who refused hospitality to some missionaries.
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The core of the earliest Christian kerygma consisted in the proclamation that Jesus had by his life, resurrection, exaltation, and pouring forth of the spirit been proved to be from God, that he would return in judgement, and that salvation was offered to those who repented and received baptism in His name.
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Was the eschatological expectation of Jesus expressed in the crude material forms of contemporary Jewish apocalyptic, or do such passages in the gospels represent the distortion of his original message under the influence of Christian prophecy?
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There is no ‘teaching’ as such in the Revelation. Even in the letters to the churches it is not teaching which is given, but commands from the Spirit, and the main purpose of the book as a whole is the revelation of the future.
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The expectation of the recurring theme of the imminent end of the present age and the approaching judgement was not fulfilled and many earnest Christians throughout the centuries have echoed the words of the ‘mockers’ in 2 Pet. 3:4. ‘Where is the promise of his coming…?’
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The murder of John the Baptist, feeding the crowds, controversy with the Pharisees.
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God has a vision of a better world for all of humanity.
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The religious teaching of Jesus reveals an individual of superlative genius, and this genius undoubtedly accounts in considerable measure for the impression he made.
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Cannon examines the travels of Jesus and some interactions showing how He went to the people in fulfilling His mission, and how many responded favorably. There are good lessons for us today in this study of the gospel as Matthew recorded it, and Jesus as the Son of Man.
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John and the Gospel of John are explored noting that John did not do any writing until about AD 100. John, in his book, tells about the personal Jesus, writing to both Gentile and Jew.
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The sayings of Jesus indicate an individual mind. What is the nature of that mind — its style, its characteristics, its manner and mode?
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The keynote in the ‘ethical’ teaching of Jesus is that of response to the reality of God. Since all the teaching is set in the context of the proclamation of the Kingdom, it follows that the ‘ethical’ teaching is not to be considered, and indeed could not exist, apart from the challenge to recognize God eschatologically at work in the experience of men.
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The beginning activities of the church in Jerusalem are examined, revealing the reaction favorably and unfavorably to Christianity and the apostles.
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There was no such thing as a gospel in Mark’s day. He was only writing a little book about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, gathering up the current information about his life and death, endeavoring to prove that he had already been the Messiah or “Son of Man” while he lived on earth, and explaining why he had died on the cross. Jesus’ teaching is taken for granted, but it is not quoted extensively nor expounded by Mark.
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The first community was convinced that he who had died lived again. They were convinced of this not primarily because some of them had had visual experiences of him, but because the Spirit had come upon them. We too are convinced that he who died lives still, and in our case too this conviction is not the consequence of visual experiences reported in the Gospels and Epistles, but of the presence of the Spirit in the community.
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Jesus returns to Galilee, proclaiming the kingdom of God. The first four disciples called; the miraculous catch of fish. Teaching and healing in the synagogue at Capernaum. The miraculous element in the Gospels: nature miracles and healing miracles. Peter’s mother-in-law. Healings at evening. The Messianic secret. Preaching and healing throughout Galilee. (Mt 4:12-25; Mk 1:14-39; Lk 4:14-44; 5:1-11)
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Christ is risen: that is we stand in the new era in which death is conquered, in which corruptibility is no more. For if there is really one spiritual body (not an immortal soul, but a spiritual body) which has emerged from a fleshly body, then indeed the power of death is broken.
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This section of the gospel is replete with acts of kindness on the part of Jesus. In becoming God’s incarnate Word, Jesus was the everlasting expression the heavenly Father has for his children. His every deed was an act of compassion and caring love.
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This chapter parallels material found in the first nine chapters of the book of Mark. The examination of material distinguishes also between the three books.
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We face the question of translation: We are not first-century Greeks. We all use translations. Thus we need some clear principles for translating. 1. What did the word mean to the author? 2. What did that word mean to the earliest readers? 3. What has it come to mean in later times? We must avoid a clear defined meaning to all the mysteries of the Bible. We must not place New Testament words and thoughts into an inflexible meaning.
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A guide through the final actions of Jesus during his crucifixion, and beyond.
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The reliability of the text is of great importance for the New Testament claims from its readers an unique authority. We wish to be assured that, when we read it, even in translation, we are reading essentially what the original authors wrote, and not a corrupted version of their work. The reader of any of the standard modern translations, such as the Revised Version, the new American Version, or Moffatt, can have confidence that he will nowhere be seriously misled on important points of Christian doctrine in his reading.
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We love our own glory, but Jesus turns these values upside down, presenting reality, which is good for us.
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Evangelism begins moving out of Jerusalem into other areas of the region by the apostles, and by persecuted Christians fleeing for their lives. The church spreads, and grows.
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God freely forgives sins, which are not to be regarded as cause for illness.
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In this section are outlined the basic principles governing life in the kingdom set up by Jesus. Whether in His kingdom or not these are principles that all would benefit from by learning.
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The author discusses the Kingdom of God as a future expectation, the apocalyptic Son of man sayings, and the sayings which set a time limit to the coming of the End.
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The primary function of literary criticism is the understanding of the structure of a document and the reflection of the author’s purpose as expressed by means of this structure.
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Barclay casts Paul’s writings as issuing from faith. He then proceeds to show why.
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Materials from this special source — an interested writer and historian.
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Mark is not writing history or biography, not even giving an account of Jesus’ teaching. He is writing an apology, an explanation of the death of the Messiah. It was not circulated among the littérateurs, but privately among the oppressed, despised, and persecuted handful of Christians . Only later was it carried to other Christian communities.
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Christians often want to follow rather than lead, to have cushioned pews, to be comfortable forgetting what comforted means. But there is a cost for anything good, even today.
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The supreme importance of Christ is best seen when he is viewed as the living creative center of the supremely important event of human history, and also that the "nature" of Christ is most truly known under that same category: God’s action is the divine nature of Christ.
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John portrays Jesus as the Light Of The World. It is overpowering. It is the all-pervading light of God that dispels all darkness, reflected in the countenance of Son, Jesus.
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Beatitudes and woes. Salt and light. Fulfillment of prophecy and the law; exceeding the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. Murder, adultery, the offending eye or hand, divorce, oaths. Nonresistance. Love of neighbor and enemy, being sons of God, perfection. Ostentatious piety: charity, prayers. The Lord’s Prayer. Fasting. Treasure in heaven. Light within. God versus Mammon. Anxiety. Seeking God s kingdom and righteousness. Judging others. Respect for what is holy. Confident prayer. The Golden Rule. The narrow gate. False prophets. Profession versus performance; the two builders. (Mt 5:1-48; 6:1-34; 7:1-29 Lk 6:20-49)
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To the superficial reader the gospels appear to furnish a uniformly consistent representation of Jesus’ life and message, but closer examination reveals that there are in fact serious inconsistencies in the accounts both of what Jesus did and said.
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Jesus’ teaching is oriented in a direction which differentiates it from rabbinic Judaism. His whole approach to morals was different from that which prevailed among Jewish teachers of his time. His critics rightly divined that his teaching threatened the integrity of Judaism as a system in which religion and national solidarity were inseparable.
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The influence of Paul is discussed in this chapter. His words, "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself," from the Second Letter to the Corinthians sums up as well as any brief sentence the gospel Paul preached.
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Death is conquered, but it will not be abolished until the End. Nothing is said in the New Testament about the details of the interim conditions. We only hear this: We are nearer to God.
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A study method for Peter’s confession, discipleship, children, are covered in this chapter.
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The author asserts that Matthew and Luke follow Mark’s account of the final days of Jesus ministry. Parables and events, make up this final section of Part One.
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The transfiguration represents the invasion of memory by faith, the backward movement of the Spirit into the realm of remembered facts, a step — perhaps the first step — toward the absorption of the earthly career in the resurrection life, a process which was to culminate, at least so far as canonical literature goes, in the Fourth Gospel, where there is no transfiguration scene only because the whole career of Jesus has now been transfigured.
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God feeds the hungry; it would be inhuman of God to do less.
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Historical criticism is concerned with the time/place setting of a document, its sources, events discussed in or implied by the document. Historical criticism builds on textual and literary criticism, and its end product is the writing of history, a narrative which reports events in a sequence roughly chronological.
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The entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, along with events and teachings prior to His crucifixion.
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Jesus was born king of the Jews first, fulfilling the prophecies. Later He also brought all to the other nations. But there were some who had difficulty understanding that His kingdom was, and is, a spiritual kingdom rather than a civil kingdom. Yet His entrance into Jerusalem was welcomed.
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“Light” is Christians letting the light Christ shine through their everyday behavior and words, while secrecy refers to doing good works quietly, without show.
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The Christian interpretation of Christ did not merely use history; It grew inevitably out of history and is therefore itself of the very stuff of history. Men had in very truth found God in Jesus. When he had said, "Thy sins are forgiven thee," the sinner had known he was in fact forgiven and that the hold of his enemy had been broken.
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The first missionary journey of Paul and problems associated with accepting gentiles are examined, along with their solutions.
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Apart from God, there is nothing that has always been alive. And, for a person to have his or her life restored to that person after death, the restoration can come only from the hands of God. So then we come to eternal life, and eternal life comes only through Jesus Christ.
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The author shows us the “draw near to God” approach taken in the Hebrew letter. The idea is a new and free approach to God through Jesus Christ.
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The modern interest in detailed biography was not marked in the ancient world. There can be no doubt that the apostles and the family of Jesus in fact told much more of the life of Jesus than has been preserved, but with the passing of the earliest Christian generation, and with the catastrophe of the Jewish War and the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, which largely severed the communications between the Christians in Palestine and those of the Gentile world, most of this information, preserved only orally and temporarily, was lost to posterity.
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Violent convulsions had disturbed society for more than a century. Then Jesus came proclaiming, “The time has come, the kingdom of God is upon you!” This was interpreted as having revolutionary implications. This misunderstanding persisted to follow Jesus until the end. He was put to death as “King of the Jews.”
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A leper healed. The centurion’s slave. Foxes and birds and the homeless Son of man. Leaving the dead to bury their dead. A paralytic healed; opposition begins. Matthew (Levi) called; more opposition. A discussion of fasting. New patches and new wine. The mission of the twelve and their instructions. (Mt 8:1-22; 9:1-17, 35-38; 10:1-42; 11:1; Mk 1:40-45; 2:1-22; 6:6-13; Lk 5:12-39; 7:1-10 9:1-6)
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The New Testament as a whole implies that Christian faith is necessarily faith in the Christ of the Church’s proclamation, in which proclamation today historical knowledge may play a part, but as proclamation, not historical knowledge. As proclamation it helps to build the faith-image, to provide the content for a faith which ‘believes in Jesus’.
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The Gospel arose in a Semitic milieu. Jesus spoke in Aramaic; his Bible was the Hebrew scriptures. The evidence seems to fall somewhat short of demonstrating the existence — or even the probability — of an Aramaic Gospel. Nevertheless, other possibilities raised are by no means without value or significance.
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If we care about the things God cares about, God will take care of the money.
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Even though the Book of James has been contested in the past, it is yet a book that could have been written yesterday. The author here contends that it may have been a sermon by James which someone put in writing for James. Regardless, James is a book relevant to today.
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Where did the earliest resurrection appearances take place, in Galilee or in Jerusalem? We cannot find the answer. We do not even know where the appearance to Peter took place.
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The resurrection was the moment when not only the spiritual lordship of Jesus began but when also the whole earthly life was "transfigured" before his disciples — the moment when the event they had witnessed and were still witnessing was realized to be one whole and to be in its wholeness an act of God.
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The early Christians were known as followers of the way. John presents Jesus as the incarnate Way, the divine intention for life demonstrated in human form. That way is the way of salvation.
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The passion and crucifixion are the deposition of Jesus as the King of the Jews, yet at the same time, they are His exaltation as the king of glory. He now rules His kingdom enthroned on the right hand of God.
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Jesus’ action towards his being called “Messiah,” and other symbol. “Christ,” or “Messiah,” is here neither a personal name nor a theological term, but an index to an historical role.
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The second missionary journey of Paul, and what he learned and gained at several locations where he stopped along the way before returning to Antioch.
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There is no particular reason for studying the New Testament over any other collection of ancient documents unless we consider why they wrote. This is the ultimate question of New Testament study.
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The human craves something new nearly all the time, it seems. When all such things become disinteresting the person finds that the New Testament is still fresh, and alive. For believers, it is always new and fresh.
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The last supper, betrayal, arrest, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus are dealt with according to Mark.
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John’s question and Jesus’ tribute to John. Woes on Galilean cities. Thanksgiving for revelation to babes. Jesus’ easy yoke. Plucking grain on the Sabbath. The man with a withered hand. Multitudes healed. Appointment of the twelve. The widow’s son at Nain. The women who provided for Jesus and the disciples. Jesus’ friends try to restrain him. The Beelzebub controversy; blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. The sign of Jonah. The demon’s return. Jesus’ relatives. (Mt 11:2-30; 12:1-50; Mk 2:2328 3:1-35; Lk 6:1-19; 7:11-50; 8:1-3, 19-21)
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Many more written accounts of Jesus’ teaching, his controversies, his miracles, and his ministry, may have been in existence when our gospels were written. If so, they have perished, and we can only search for traces of them in our existing gospels. Sources involved in Luke, Matthew, Mark, Q, and others are discussed.
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Knox discusses the historical, the ontological and the mythological and states that "the indubitable fact is that the resurrection of Christ, no less than the life of Jesus, did occur, whether everybody witnessed it or not. The church is beyond any doubt historical, and its very existence is a testimony to this occurrence."
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First Peter is shown as the book of obligations for the Christian. The Christian has received gifts, so must take responsibility for them and act accordingly.
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God works in mysterious ways to bring peace on earth.
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Perhaps the hardest teachings of Jesus are forgiveness, return good for evil, and love for our enemies. But in these Jesus shows us the kind of love He and God practice.
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Parables and interpretations: the sower, seed growing of itself, weeds, mustard seed and leaven, treasure and pearl, dragnet, the householder’s treasure. The purpose of parables. (Mt 13:1-52; Mk 4:1-34; Lk 8:4-18)
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A great achievement of New Testament criticism of our times has been the establishment beyond reasonable doubt that the gospel of Mark formed one of the principal sources used both by Matthew and Luke, and that it is both the earliest and in some ways the most important of our gospels, yet for centuries Mark had been the least read and regarded of the four gospels.
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Almost all analysis of when, why, where, and how the gospels were written ultimately fails because it neglects the extent to which the evangelists were involved in the transmission of the Christian tradition as well as the extent to which they were free to arrange and rewrite their materials in ways which seemed meaningful to them and to the communities of which they were members.
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Divine truth is clothed in the person and personality of one human being, Jesus. John makes no distinction between the person speaking and the spoken word. Jesus is the truth of God, the example for us today, as He points the way.
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A chronicling of the events of Jesus life — his childhood, his occupation (learning his father’s trade), his baptism, various human aspects of his life in the turbulent history of first-century Palestine.
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Mark takes for granted the apostolic faith; for he writes as a Christian, a believer, not as an outsider or critic — not even as an historian or biographer. Hence his “theology,” so far as he has a theology, is not his own, but merely the theological interpretation — as far as it had gone in his day — of the tradition as held by the contemporary church.
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The third missionary journey of Paul was his most extensive going through Asia Minor and Greece. It was his last voluntary journey.
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If God did in fact choose to reveal himself in history, as Christian faith affirms, that act becomes the sign and guarantee of a purpose of God in history, a purpose to which all of nature is subordinate. The decisive ground of our faith that that purpose exists is the historical revelation, which began with the calling of Israel and culminated in the great event — the life and death and rising again of Jesus and the coming into being of the community of Christ the Lord.
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There are no prayers that God will not allow.
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The inference seems to be that the Marcan passion narrative was already in fairly stable form when Mark wrote, and that it continued to be told and retold in practically this form — possibly at the Christian services of worship and quite apart from the written Gospels, indeed before The Gospels were compiled
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Jesus calms a storm on the Sea of Galilee. The demoniac. Jairus’ daughter raised and a woman with a hemorrhage healed. Two blind men healed. Jesus rejected at Nazareth. Herod Antipas hears that John the Baptist has risen from the dead; the death of John. The twelve return from their mission. Five thousand people fed. Jesus walks on the water; Peter fails. Healing miracles at Gennesaret. Clean and unclean. In the region of Tyre and Sidon Jesus heals Syrophoenician woman’s daughter. Return to Galilee; a deaf mute healed. Four thousand people fed. Demand for a sign from heaven refused. The leaven of the Pharisees. A blind man healed at Bethsaida. (Mt 8:23-34; 9:18-34; 13:53-58; 14:1-36; 15:1-39; 16:1-12;Mk4:35-41;5:1-43;6:1-6, 7:1-37; 8:1-26; Lk 8:22-56; 4:16-30; 9:7-17)
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Most of the gospel of Mark consists of materials, apparently derived from oral tradition, concerning what Jesus did and said. To some extent they are bound together by summaries which reflect the evangelist’s own view of these materials.
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Matthew’s gospel is an attempt to improve and supplement Mark as a record of Jesus’ teaching and as a testimony to his Messiahship for the guidance of Jewish Christians. Matthew adds to the narrative of Mark, which he shortens but reproduces in essentials, only an account of Jesus’ birth and infancy, a few incidents from Q, a couple of other stories, a few variations in Mark’s narrative, and a Resurrection appearance in Galilee.
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John shows us that Jesus has incarnated and therefore manifested in human form and behavior the great attributes of the omnipotent and everlasting God. Characteristics such as Word, Deed, Light, Life, Way, and Truth, are revealed. Through Jesus we see the incarnate God.
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In 1 John, the author is shown as one writing to those he knew well, as a pastor who cares for his flock.
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Jesus taught about prayer, listing the wrong reasons to pray, and giving a model prayer, commonly know as the Lord’s Prayer.
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The travels of Jesus during his ministry after his baptism. He evidently left the Galilee area and probably did not return. Speculation of his various travels and confrontations is outlined leading to his final journey to Jerusalem.
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The study of Acts closes with the last trip of Paul, this one to Rome. But it was not voluntary. The Roman government was transporting Paul to Rome for trial. It was Paul’s last trip.
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God’s love runs the risk of betrayal.
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There is some doubt as to whether these two books should be in the New Testament. Yet, as the subtitle shows, these are about the good life, and have been read in the early church, as well as now.
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Peter’s declaration at Caesarea Philippi; Jesus predicts rejection, death, and resurrection; demands self-denying dedication, and proclaims the kingdom’s coming within that generation. The meaning of the kingdom of God. The transfiguration. Elijah’s coming interpreted. An epileptic boy healed. Second prediction of the cross and resurrection. The half-shekel in the fish’s mouth. An argument about greatness; the child as a model. The unauthorized exorcist. Various sayings. The lost sheep. Forgiving a repentant brother. The unmerciful servant. (Mt 16:13-28; 17:1-27; 18:1-35; Mk 8:27-39; 9:1-50; Lk 9:18-50)
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Decisions are made daily, even hourly. They are a part of life. But some decisions can be put off, some forever, but there are decisions that must be made whether we like the position or not. Jesus way of life, and His teachings demand decisions.
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The epilogue reveals the result of Jesus coming to earth, and His continuing work with His followers after His life on earth is over.
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It is unlikely that Luke, with many opportunities for gaining information, depended for the bulk of his information, outside what was provided by Mark and Q, on written sources. While his gospel is in some ways the most important historically of the four, it is probable that he wrote under the handicap of being no longer able to check the value of some of his material.
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Matthew’s own religious interpretation of the story of Jesus points in the direction of an apocalyptic-minded Christianity emerging from Judaism toward the direction of a universalizing Catholicism.
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An evaluation of the beliefs, ideas and speculations about Jesus after the crucifixion. Clearly something had changed his followers. There is no answer as to what actually happened, but we do know that starting from there the church embarked on the far-reaching intellectual enterprise which is the building of a Christian theology, and philosophy of life, upon the foundation thus laid, and that is an unfinished story.
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Paul’s Judaism was not of the orthodox Palestinian type, which later became normative. Early Gentile Christianity, both before Paul and also outside the area of his influence, was far more substantial than the Book of Acts and the surviving Pauline letters have led many to assume.
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Secular attacks on Christianity demand that the church take seriously the valid historical roots of the Jesus record. Chapters which follow deal with a scientific presentation of the event, with the hope that it can strengthen and inform those persons of faith who must deal with the meaning of the event as a revelation of God.
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This chapter deals with the sources upon which a historical knowledge of Jesus can be based. A small amount of non-Christian testimony is presented, but the major sources are the Christian witnesses, the Gospel tradition, and the narrative sections of the Synoptic gospels.
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This chapter asks the questions, “What were the people like, the political situation and the area of Palestine to which Jesus came? To which people and race did Jesus belong? What was the religious community like at that time?
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This chapter traces the chronology of the Life of Jesus, ahd the historicity of his movement in its own time.
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The author examines the New Testament record of the build-up of secular and religious forces which lead to the resistance to and rejection of Jesus, and ultimately to his being accused, judged and crucified.
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In the crucifixion, God took death upon God’s self.
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The very first Christians proclaimed that the great divine event, the eschaton, had already entered history; the Messiah had come, and any day the Lord would be coming a second time upon the clouds of heaven to end the age. When this did not happen, the demand for readjustment was a principal cause of the development of early Christian thought.
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The present task of New Testament criticism is to explore, by a comparative study of the several writings, the common faith which evoked them, and which they aimed at interpreting to an ever-widening public.
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Dodd explains why we cannot expect to find in the Gospels bare matter of fact, unaffected by the interpretation borne by the kerygma, (preaching or proclamation) of the early church. The present task of New Testament criticism is to explore, by a comparative study of the several writings, the common faith which evoked them, and which they aimed at interpreting to an ever-widening public.
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Jesus defines his movement in terms of two opposites: A conviction that the Kingdom of God is future and opposed to this world, and a consciousness that the Kingdom is already in the process of coming, and has already put itself in motion.
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Through Jesus’ actions—his judging, criticizing, warning, encouraging, promising and healing—the signs of the Kingdom are present, not the Kingdom in its fulness.
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What Jesus demands is not a formal confession of his Messiahship, with political or other overtones, but that one sees in his acts God’s working, perceives in his appearing God’s coming with his Kingdom.
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Jesus does not give a series of rules for a life of faith, enabling one to get “right” with God. God’s absolute will cannot be compressed into a law for this world. It can be set forth only in “signs”, evidences of the Kingdom. Therefore he demand of Jesus in its deepest meaning does not run: So must thou act, but rather, So must thou be! What he wants to create is not ascetic or ethical achievements, but persons who in word and deed witness to, show forth, God’s Kingdom.
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Acts is our most important historical source for the earliest development of Christianity, and as such of immediate relevance for present-day Christians.
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The infancy narrative by Luke, where the author points out the differences to Matthew’s account.
Book Chapter
The teaching of the great philosophers Socrates and Plato can in no way be brought into consonance with that of the New Testament. That their person, their life, and their bearing in death can none the less be honoured by Christians as the apologists of the second century have shown.
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It has been the attempt of this writing to follow a method likely to produce relatively verifiable conclusions to the documents we possess. The principle virtue of this approach is that it proceeds from the known to the unknown, beginning with the texts we have and proceeding to a literary analysis of them, then to historical analyses and syntheses.
Article
I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of …
Article
In Mark’s Gospel the disciples are as much a hindrance as a help to Jesus. They do not understand Jesus’ words or support him in his mission. Repeatedly Jesus rebukes them for their inability to see and comprehend and for their hardness of heart. But when the disciples misunderstand Jesus and in other ways fail …
Book Chapter
The author focuses on two contrasting ways of life that were open to Christians in the third decade of the Movement: to live according to the example of Christ, or to set their minds on earthy, sensual things.
Book Chapter
The author explains that through the gift of the Spirit it is possible to follow Paul’s injunction always to rejoice, pray and give thanks.
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(ENTIRE BOOK) A New Testament scholar analyzes selected scripture used with the Christian calendar.
Book Chapter
The first of these three books was written in 1941, the last six years later. Some changes in thinking between the two the author cannot deny as this volume was prepared (1958), but despite the comments of some critics, Knox believes his basic beliefs in the authenticity and the unique quality of Jesus’ humanity stand unchanged.
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The name of Martin Dibelius, of the University of Heidelberg, is well known among Biblical scholars throughout the world. We in this country knew him, not only through his learned works in New Testament criticism and exegesis, but also as a result of his memorable visit in 1937 when he spent several weeks at our …
Book Chapter
The New Testament is the Word of God spoken through the words of men, and since the proclamation of the act of God as the incarnate word confronts us in this particular form, it can never be spoken of in direct, straightforward language, and therefore there cannot be in the strictest sense any “assured results”. . We must hearken to the testimony of the New Testament itself. In this problem we are concerned with the right hearing of the New Testament message, of the kerygma of Jesus Christ the Son of God. This right hearing is the decisive presupposition for every interpretation.
Article
By the close of 1977, Theologian James M. Robinson of Claremont, California, had reached the end of what he called “a forced march” of more than a decade. All 13 books, or codices, of the Nag Hammadi (NAHG Ha-MAH-dee) Library had been put into the public domain with the publication in December of the tenth …
Continue reading “Fragments from an Earthen Jar–James Robinson and the Nag Hammadi Library”
Article
Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, "Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from hurt and harm!" And God granted what he asked. (1 Chron. 4:10, NRSV) Bruce Wilkinson’s The Prayer of Jabez rode the top …
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(ENTIRE BOOK) Presents the life and work of Jesus, from birth to resurrection. Employing passages chosen from all four of the Gospels, it explores the idea that the human face of God is turned to us in the person of Jesus Christ.
Book Chapter
The author interprets the Prologue to John’s Gospel as a hymn in four stanzas, as the recitation of salvation history in poetic form.
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The author treats Luke 1:21 as a traditional announcement story, with special attention to these three words used of Jesus: “Savior, “Christ,” and “Lord.”
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The author chooses an interpretation of the Transfiguration narrative in which the time on the mountain is like a spiritual retreat–from which Jesus and the disciples must return to the life of active obedience.
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Three questions are considered: (1)Who is the Son of Man? (2) When is he coming? and (3) What does this coming mean?
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The author places John the Baptist within the ethos and practices of the Qumran Community, and links his preaching with that of the prophets.
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The author finds in this passage three distinct terms for the goal of life as manifest in Christ:: Kingdom of God, eternal life, and salvation.
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The basic concepts. Eschatalogy: the differences in the Jewish and Christian tradition. Salvation: who shall be saved? The Kingdom of God: is it now or in the future?
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The basic terms. Apocalypticism. Dispensationalism. Dispensation,. Chiliasm and Millennialism, Rapture and Tribulation – their history and meaning.
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The Pre-millennialist picture: the Second Coming of Christ. Is this really God’s message to us? The dispensational interpretation of Scripture: the dangers of a closed-in future.
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ENTIRE BOOK) Professor Cullmann compares the Greek conception of the immortality of the soul with the early Christian conception of the resurrection, and shows that they are so different in orgin and in translation into experience as to be mutually exclusive. To the Greek, death was a friend. To the Christian death was the last enemy, but the enemy conquered by Christ in His resurrection, and conquered by all who are His.
Article
The institution of jubilee and its economic regulations, detailed in Leviticus 25, may never been put into practice in the history of Israel. But the ideals of redemption and restoration, which it envisioned for the nation’s covenantal relationship with God and its attendant establishment of justice, were appropriated and applied by Israel’s prophets to the …
Book Chapter
The religious implications of modern New Testament criticism and encouragement to follow up the evidence for oneself with the more intensive study of the text and the important books and commentaries to which it is the function of an Introducion is the challenge.
Book Chapter
The symbol of Matthew is a man, while the symbols of the other evangelists are animals and a bird: the lion of Mark, the ox of Luke, and the eagle of John. There is a reason why antiquity gave to each of the writers of the Gospels the symbol it did. Each symbol then had …
Book Chapter
Matthew, Mark, and Luke are related to John and the account of each. The major focus is on John himself, and how he related Jesus and his ministry.
Book Chapter
P>Luke was the first person to write the history of the beginnings of organized Christianity. He composed the Acts of the Apostles before the close of the first century, when all the events he describes took place. No one else attempted to do what he did until the fourth century. As an historian, he is …
Book Chapter
The author treats Matthew and Luke as a single story, which required omitting some material, but shows the single purpose of both books.
Book Chapter
The book of Mark, originally appears to have been titled “The Gospel of Jesus Christ”. It may have been written to reassure Christians during the time of Nero’s false blame and persecution.
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The introduction looks at who is John, with comments about the writings of John, to set the stage for their study.
Book Chapter
The widely accepted idea of ‘The immortality of the soul’ is one of the greatest misunderstandings of Christianity. The concept of death and resurrection is anchored in the Christ-event (as will be shown in the following pages), and hence is incompatible with the Greek belief in immortality.
Book Chapter
We are going to try to look logically at many questions concerning the New Testament. Much exegesis of the New Testament has suffered from its lack not of theological but of logical method.
Book Chapter
Burrows states clearly the “synoptic problem” (why the three first gospels do not always agree), and points to the direction that his research has led.
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Those who care about peacemaking and alternatives to a nuclear holocaust — who believe that God loves the world and expects us to do all we can to preserve and enhance life on earth — have a responsibility to pay attention not only to what the “last things” preachers are saying but also to what the mainstream of Christian tradition says about “last things.”
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Signs of the times. Armageddon. hat makes people think we may be coming to the end? Significant changes in understanding since Scofield published his Reference Study Bible.
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(ENTIRE BOOK) Dr. Dibelius describes the New Testament as the humanly conditioned deposit of an historical event, and considers that the crucial question in the struggle over Christianity is whether God made his will manifest in this event. Doing this, he reconstructs the life and teachings of Jesus, showing the real content and significance of what Jesus said and what he did.
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(ENTIRE BOOK) A clear, detailed, and accurate account of the real life of Jesus, presenting facts from Jesus’ birth through his resurrection in such a manner as to make studying his life and the Gospels easier, more rewarding, and very enlightening.
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(ENTIRE BOOK) This is a combination of three books: The first probes beyond modern historical criticism to establish the facts and importance of Jesus’ human career; the second explores Jesus’ significance as "Christ" and "Lord" within the first Christian community and among the New Testament writers, and the third gives an original interpretation of the saving event centered in Jesus Christ, and what it means to every believer to follow.
Article
Jesus eschatological assertion was a response to a skeptical question raised by Sadducees during his last week in Jerusalem. They found no basis for a doctrine of resurrection in the "books of Moses," the only scriptures they recognized as authoritative. Quite accurately, that priestly party recognized that the concept of an individual afterlife arose long …
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(ENTIRE BOOK) Bultmann’s famous essay, "New Testament and Mythology," is contained here in which the whole controversy over Demythologizing is brought out in miniature. Five critics give there rejoinders along with Bultmann’s response.
Article
“I tell you, that on that night there will be two in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. There will he two women grinding meal together; one will be taken and the other left.” Luke 17:34-35, NRSV. The “Left Behind” fiction series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins borrows its …
Article
Parables are tiny lumps of coal squeezed into diamonds, condensed metaphors that catch the rays of something ultimate and glint it at our lives. Parables are not illustrations; they do not support, elaborate or simplify a more basic idea. They are not ideas at all, nor can they ever be reduced to theological statements. They …
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(ENTIRE BOOK) This book is primarily about the writers of the New testament, and emphasizes their differences in personality and actions, yet their single attention to Christ.
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So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone,for they were afraid. — Mark 16:8 At the end of the Gospel of Mark, three women come to Jesus’ grave, where they encounter a young man sitting in the empty tomb who …
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Among the first meanings that the resurrection opened up to the surprised disciples was that Israel’s hope had been fulfilled. The promised time had come, as Jesus himself had announced during his public career; but it looked very different from what they had imagined. The eschaton had arrived. The long narrative of Israel’s history had …
Continue reading “On the Third Day: God’s Promise Fulfilled”
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The meaning of Jesus in the early church is nothing less than the whole meaning of the whole New Testament. It is even more than that, for it is the meaning of the life of the early church itself. Jesus’ Nazareth origin, his baptism by John, the Galilean locale of his ministry, his execution by the Gentiles — all are examples of facts of which we can be especially sure because later interests and beliefs of the churches would have led to a denial of them if they had not been well authenticated and firmly established.
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As constantly as Jesus apparently used the words" kingdom of God," we are not too sure of what he meant by them. The same can be said of his words, "Son of Man." which seems to have assumed some of the functions of the Messiah. The burden of Jesus’ preaching seems to have been the proclamation of the kingdom of God.
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A distinction between the Jesus of history and the Jesus of theology is often made, but the whole meaning of Jesus is lost if limited thus, for Jesus was not merely remembered and interpreted in the primitive church: he continued to be known there.
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The most striking feature of the ethical teaching of Jesus is the uncompromising nature of its demands. It is preoccupied with the absolutely good and spends little time with the better or the worse.
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It was from the first perhaps inevitable that Jesus’ lordship, rather than his messiahship, should dominate the church’s Christology, because his lordship was a matter of present knowledge, while his messiahship was a matter largely of expectation and hope. But at the beginning the two conceptions, logically incompatible, were held closely together.
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Whatever may be the real and ultimate truth of God’s being and purpose we never approach so near to that truth as when we say with Paul, "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
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The Jews of Jesus’ time, the preacher intoned, were slavishly devoted to the practices of their ancestors. They studied scripture but did not apply it. Their temple was "rotten to the core." Ancient Judaism was a religion whose rituals were "impressive, inspiring and empty" It was a faith preoccupied with the superficial and lacking in …
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Among the religions of the world there are, I suppose, few which have no ethical content at all. Religions which we regard as primitive sometimes surprise us by the comparative elevation of the moral ideas which they contain. At the same time, there are religions, and some of them among the “higher” religions, which so …
Continue reading “Preaching and Teaching in the Early Church”
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Preface The three lectures contained in this volume were given under the auspices of the University of London, at King’s College, London, in the Michaelmas Term, 1935. They are printed substantially as delivered, with only a minimum of revision. I have added as an appendix a paper which was read as a presidential address to …
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The author makes the case for Guide to the four gospels, along with some reference materials that would be good reading.
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“No other publication of mine has provoked such enthusiasm or such violent hostility. Exegesis has been the basis of this study, and so far, no critic of a wide variety of kinds has attempted to refute me by exegesis.”
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This work was originally conceived as an expansion of the last chapter of Norman Perrin, The Kingdom of God in the Teaching of Jesus (London: SCM Press, and Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1963), into a full-scale study of the teaching of Jesus. As it progressed, however, it began to take on some special features. In particular, …
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For economic reasons the text of this book has been severely compressed and abridged, and the apparatus of scholarship has been almost entirely jettisoned. It would be pleasant, therefore, to name here some of the scholars to whom I am indebted, but there are too many of them. Not to mention my own teachers, time …
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What essentially is the gospel? It is Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom of God and the apostolic proclamation of this message of salvation with the added emphasis and fresh meaning given to it by the resurrection of Jesus and the continuing work of the holy Spirit in the church. But this all requires understanding and interpretation.
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This books is based on the author’s four lectures given in February 1954 at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth.
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(ENTIRE BOOK) An attempt to establish what may be known with reasonable certainty of the teaching of Jesus, “an irreducible minimum of historical knowledge available to us at the present time” (1967). Fully appreciative of Bultmann, yet advancing beyond his work, the author opens up a new approach to understanding the significance of the teaching of Jesus.
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The dispensational conclusion is that peace is not possible; prepare for war. How can people live with such a non-Christian view? This perspective has nothing to do with the permissive will of God that allows us to live with the consequences of our actions, and to strive for peace in out time.
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Given the shoddy level of analysis and argument evidenced by these books, perhaps the most pertinent questions to ask are: Why were they written? and Why were they published by houses of at least residual reputation? Neither book adds a single thing to the world’s knowledge about Jesus. Neither makes the slightest claim to original …
Continue reading “Reshuffling the Gospels: Jesus According to Spong and Wilson”
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While most studies of Paul’s autobiography in Galatians 1.13-2.14 acknowledge the importance of Paul’s relationship with the Christians of Galatia, little attention has been given to the language Paul uses to describe relationships within the autobiographical narrative itself. This study will examine the relationships that Paul portrays and creates with the Jerusalem apostles, his opponents, …
Continue reading “Rhetorical Identification In Paul’s Autobiographical Narrative”
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Norman Golb’s claim (“The Qumran-Essene hypothesis: A fiction of scholarship,” Dec. 9) that the recent release of previously withheld Qumran texts has made it clear that “many of them support the hypothesis of Jerusalem origin” is itself a fiction, the speculation of one scholar’s imagination. When I read that claim, I wondered to what recently …
Continue reading “Scroll Origins: An Exchange on the Qumran Hypothesis”
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Understanding is not simply a way of knowing; it is a priori a way of "being-in-the-world". This, in essence, is the paradigm shift that hermeneutics has undergone during the past seventy years as a result of Martin Heidegger’s unveiling of the ontological conditions of understanding. The fundamental reality of human existence is not "being with", …
Continue reading “Shakespeare in the Bush, and Encountering the Other”
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Christians who seek answers to these burning questions recognize the New Testament as an essential resource. Champions of various viewpoints often draw upon particular texts, like the Beatitudes or Romans 13. But since the New Testament itself contains various kinds of social witness — as its use both for and against slavery and patriarchy, for …
Continue reading “Social Teaching and Social History: Learning from the Early Church”
In this special lecture, John Cobb explores the central the message of Jesus, “God’s Kingdom.”
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The figure of the Roman emperor has, until relatively recently, been of marginal interest to students of the New Testament. Even though interest has increased, it has not been the object of an extensive study since Stauffer’s Christ and the Caesars in 1955 and has only played a significant part in a handful of other …
Continue reading “Taking the Emperor’s Clothes Seriously: New Testament and the Roman Emperor”
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Book Review: An Introduction to the New Testament and the Origins of Christianity. By Delbert Burkett. Cambridge University Press,. 600pp., $80.00. Introducing the New Testament: Its Literature and Theology. By Paul J. Achtemeier, Joel B. Green and Marianne Meye Thompson. Eerdmans, 614 pp.$35.00. It’s the toughest job you’ll ever love. And no, it’s not …
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In John 14:12 more or less at the beginning of his long Farewell Speech, Jesus issues a startling pledge to his disciples: “Amen, amen, I say to you, the one who believes into me will do the works that I do, and greater than these she or he will do because I am going to …
Continue reading “The Actualization of Christ’s Achievement in Our Historical Existence”
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(ENTIRE BOOK) Three lectures given at King’s College, London, in 1935, describing preaching in the early church as found particularly in the Gospels, John and in the writings of Paul.
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(ENTIRE BOOK) A straightforward, comprehensive study and commentary of the Acts of the Apostles. Includes an overview of the beginnings of the Christian church, and covers subjects including the ascension of Christ, the apostles at Pentecost, the church organization at Jerusalem, and the conversion and travels of Paul.
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Anybody half awake these days will be aware that there are many Christians who are exceedingly confident in their understanding of the Gospels, and who are exceedingly self-confident in their understanding of themselves in their faith. They appear to know precisely the purposes of God, and they appear to be perfectly assured that they are …
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1. One cannot gain even a little acquaintance with the early church—which means, one cannot do even a little reading in the New Testament—without recognizing not only the importance of what the word "Christ" stands for in its life, but also the richness and manifoldness of this same reality. If we examine the Christian community’s …
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(ENTIRE BOOK) In this important work, Dr. Grant provides a dozen vivid chapters on Mark, the earliest gospel — how it came to be, and what its main teaching are.
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(ENTIRE BOOK) Details about Jesus’ life, by one of the nineteenth century’s greatest New Testament scholars. First Century writings about Jesus, his personal traits, his teachings, the people around him, his concept of “Messiah,” his travels and final trip to Jerusalem, the crucifixion and responses thereafter.
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(ENTIRE BOOK) John saw Jesus, not so much as he appeared to be from the outward aspects of his ministry, as he did from the basic purpose that ministry was designed to achieve. And what John relates about Jesus actually took place, and is consistent with the accounts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
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(ENTIRE BOOK) Matthew is studied in sections, revealing stages in the life and work of Jesus. These stages also show the interactions of Jesus with people, and characteristics about him self. The study will certify that Jesus is the Son of God.
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I hear very few sermons about Jesus. Perhaps this is because of the kinds of churches I have most frequently attended (Lutheran, Presbyterian, Episcopalian), though I think it is probably the same for most mainstream churches. True, sometimes a parable or saying or healing act of Jesus may be preached on, but I seldom hear …
Continue reading “The Historical Jesus and Christian Preaching”
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A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (Vol. 1): The Roots of the Problem and the Person, by John P. Meier. Doubleday 484 pp., $25.00 The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant, by John Dominic Crossan. Harper-SanFrancisco, 507 pp., $30.00. These two lively books represent strikingly different methodologies and present some strikingly …
Continue reading “The Historical Jesus and the Life of Faith”
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When it seeks to tell us who Jesus is, John’s Gospel begins at the same place as Genesis 1:1. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God [in his “heart”], and the Word was God.” (Note that the Word is no “thing,” but is “He,” on the ground that God is …
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(ENTIRE BOOK) An ideal introduction to the historical background, varying accounts, textual problems and correct interpretations of the life of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
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Does the New Testament embody a truth which is quite independent of its mythical setting? If it does, theology must undertake the task of stripping the Kerygma from its mythical framework, of “demythologizing” it.
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Redemption is not a miraculous supernatural event, but an historical event wrought out in time and space. For the kerygma maintains that the eschatological emissary of God is a concrete figure of a particular historical past, that his eschatological activity was wrought out in a human fate, and that therefore it is an event whose eschatological character does not admit of a secular proof.
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I think that I can begin to locate myself both personally and professionally by referring to a book published in 1970, Brevard Childs’s Biblical Theology in Crisis. Childs describes the biblical theology movement as a peculiarly American phenomenon which, though it owed something to European neo-orthodoxy, was also considerably influenced by the fundamentalist-liberal controversy in …
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The classical definition of New Testament studies essentially involves the historical-critical method. It is not so much a method, of course, as a theoretical construal of the field. New Testament studies has had as its object the historical reconstruction of early Christianity. It has demanded that the canonical writings be analyzed in strictly historical terms, …
Continue reading “The New Testament and the Examined Life: Thoughts on Teaching”
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The Oldest Extant Editions of the Letters of Paul (David Trobisch, 1999) David Trobisch was born in Cameroon (West Africa) as the son of missionaries. The family then moved to Austria. He studied theology at the Universitiesof Tuebingen and Heidelberg in Germany. He taught at the University of Heidelberg for ten years before accepting teaching …
Continue reading “The Oldest Extant Editions of the Letters of Paul”
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Unlike the other evangelists Matthew introduces his gospel with a table of ancestry.(1) Certain features distinguish it as a novel presentation of a family tree. In contrast to Luke 3:23-38, the only other genealogy of Jesus in the New Testament, it begins with Abraham, the grand patriarch of Israel, and moves forward through the individual …
Continue reading “The Origin of Jesus Christ: Matthew 1:1-25”
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The new Christology proceeding out of the Christian-Jewish dialogue, expressed by such theologians as Catholic John Pawlikowski and Anglican Paul van Buren, challenges traditional Christian assumptions in a manner that can seem threatening, yet captures an important strain of our faith too long suppressed. The earliest church was barely, if at all, removed from Judaism; …
Continue reading “The Pharisaic Jesus and His Gospel Parables”
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In his new book, The Great Awakening, Jim Wallis describes how as a young man growing up in an evangelical church, he never heard a sermon on the Sermon on the Mount. That telling personal observation reflects a phenomenon about which I have been increasingly concerned: that much evangelical Christianity on both sides of the …
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The topic of “the real Jesus” did not even exist until the Enlightenment, unless one wanted, as a latter-day Monophysite or Arian or Adoptionist, to revive long since forgotten heresies. But with the Enlightenment, or, more precisely, with the historicism of the nineteenth century, the question of the real Jesus was posed: Who really was …
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During a recent year spent in Italy, as I walked the dusty Roman-charted roads, sat by splashing medieval fountains, and gazed at the altars of Renaissance and Baroque churches, I found myself, much to my surprise, falling in love with a saint named Mary Magdalene. I am not the first Protestant to be attracted to …
Continue reading “The Red-Haired Saint: Is Mary Magdaline Key to the Easter Narratives?”
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Bultmann has thrown down a serious challenge to the very foundations of the Church, and our investigations have substantiated this contention. Clearly we must risk the dangers of such an undertaking, even the danger of stirring up the ghosts of heresy.(E.g. the dissolution of the historical basis of the kerygma, or the separation of the historical objective genitive, “of Jesus Christ”, from the sola fide.) We therefore owe a debt of gratitude to Bultmann.
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To have its faith tried and tested in the fires of doubt is of the very essence of Protestant theology. It may freely admit both its strength and its weakness, but it knows that the act of God which is the ground of its own experience is greater than myth, and that it can experience that act more genuinely the more it penetrates behind mythology to the essential core of truth.
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BOOK REVIEW: Mary Magdalene, the First Apostle. By Ann Graham Brock. Harvard University Press, 235 pp.’ $25.00. Mary Magdalene: A Biography. By Bruce Chilton, Doubleday, 206 pp., $23.95. The Mary Magdalene Tradition. By Holly E. Hearon. Liturgical Press, 236 pp., $24.95. The Gospel of Mary of Magdala. By Karen L. King. Polebridge Press, 230 pp., …
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Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time: The Historical Jesus and the Heart of Contemporary Faith. By Marcus Borg. HarperSan Francisco, 160 pp. $16.00 paperback. Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography. By John Dominic Crossan. HarperSanFrancisco, 208 pp., $18.00 paperback. The Religion of Jesus the Jew, by Geza Vermes. Fortress, 244 pp., $13.00 paperback. “The historical Jesus” …
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(ENTIRE BOOK) The author shows why the Sermon on the Mount has proved to be one of the most influential parts of the entire New Testament. Excellent book for those without a strong biblical and theological background.
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Introduction I formulate my experience of reading Eliade as a student engaged in the study of Christian theology particularly that of New Testament with a purpose of making use of his insights in the search for developing new perspectives and paradigms to do theology. NT discipline is one of the fields of study within ‘Theology’ …
Continue reading “The Significance of Mircea Eliade for Christian Theology”
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One of the more bizarre experiences of my career took place at the Christian Booksellers Association meeting two years ago in Denver. A press conference was set up for the media to interrogate several authors who are of a more traditional bent on the historical Jesus. In the midst of booths selling everything from schmaltzy …
Continue reading “The Wright Quest for the Historical Jesus”
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Dasein has been rendered as "human life", "human Being", or even "Being." Geworfenheit is rendered as "thrownnness". Existentiell is rendered as existential, existential is rendered as existentialist. Geschichtlich is "historic" whereas historisch is "historical" or, sometimes, "past-historical".
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The evangelists are genuinely authors, authors using traditional material but nonetheless authors: they write for a definite purpose, they give their work a distinct and individual structure, they have thematic concerns which they pursue, the characters in the story they each tell function as protagonists in a plot, and so on. . . If the …
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The message of the TV evangelists: the end of the world; the Tribulation; the Millennium; and the last judgment. But their God is tiny. In an age when people learn of an infinite or expanding universe, these preachers depict a tribal god on a heaven-made throne in an immensely big city!
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The perspective of the Reformed tradition differs greatly from the millennialist picture. The Christian hope is not in an interventionist God.
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The Christian gospel is not addressed to only a part of life, but to the whole of it. The Nicene and Apostles’ Creeds mention four themes — resurrection, return of Christ, judgment and eternal life — with clarity and economy.
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We must be sure not to attribute dispensational doctrines to all fundamentalists. For the dispensationalists there is no hope in change, but only hope of escape.
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(ENTIRE BOOK) A detailed analysis and critique, by a Reformed theologian, of what preachers like Jerry Falwell are saying about ‘the last things.’
