It seems to be virtually impossible for modern people to imagine what it was like for someone to live in radically different contexts – say, Jesus, in rural Galilee 2000 years ago.  It’s very difficult even for scholars who know a bit about his world. Lots of things never occur to us though.  At least to me.  Since I was roughly nine years old I “knew” that Jesus was a carpenter.  It never occurred to me until roughly three months ago to ask what that actually may have entailed.  And I’ve been reading scholarship on Jesus for over fifty years!  My reflections will take two posts.  This one focuses on the key passage, Mark 6:3. Mark 6 indicates that after engaging in his public ministry for a while, Jesus returns to Nazareth and teaches in the synagogue -- which does not have to mean a building; in most places like that it simply meant what the word literally signifies, “a gathering.”  Technically a synagogue was when a group of adult Jewish men came [...]

It is virtually impossible to disentangle religion and politics when studying ancient sources:, they were not separate entities but tightly interwoven aspects of the same entity, involving questions of authority, who wields it, how they should wield it, and how these “authorities” are “authorized.”  Kings could be gods, and vice versa.  Priests were governmental officials and vice versa.   Laws were divinely sanctioned.  Opposition to the state meant opposition to the gods who supported it and opposition to the state gods meant opposition to the state. That’s why Jesus’s “religious” views that God was soon to bring in a new kingdom and appoint him its ruler was seen as a “political” offense leading to his execution for insurrection. It is also why his so-called “Cleansing of the Temple” was not only a religious statement but also a threat to the established order. The event is recounted in all four of our Gospels, again with important differences in detail (particularly in John), but with the same gist.  Mark provides our earliest account (Mark 11:15-17).   The day [...]

It is precisely the intricate and complete intertwining of (what we would call) “religion” and “politics” in the ancient world (see my previous post) that explains why Jesus’ forthright views about God and understanding of himself as God’s spokesperson let to his arrest and execution, as well as, ironically, his indifference to the governmental and cultic status quo.  His revolutionary views and yet indifference can be illustrated by his two incendiary actions near the end of his life and, oddly, his two discussions of taxation. I will deal with the first of his two actions, typically designated the “Triumphal Entry,” in two posts. The Triumphal Entry refers to Jesus’s coming into Jerusalem on the occasion of the Passover Feast riding on a colt (according to Mark and Luke) or a small donkey (according to John) or both a colt and a donkey (at the same time! According to Matthew), to the acclamation of the crowd of Jewish pilgrims, who welcomed him as the one who was bringing in the Kingdom to Israel (Matthew 21:1-9; Mark [...]

I've received some interesting and important questions involving the Gospel of John -- who actually wrote it and whether it's record of Jesus' claims to be divine are likely historical.  Here are the questions an my attempts to answer   QUESTION: I heard Mike Licona say the other day, that he seems to think Tertius wrote Romans in the same way a literate Greek-speaking secretary wrote the Gospel of John on behalf of John, the son of Zebedee. So strictly speaking, these are his words and the letter ought to be called, the Letter to the Romans according to Paul. What is your understanding of Rom 16:22 – ‘I Tertius, the writer of this letter, greet you in the Lord”?   Was Tertius simply taking dictation or did he put his interpretation of Paul’s thoughts into words? RESPONSE: I’m afraid I don’t think Mike is right about this at all.   Romans 16:22 certainly does come as a surprise to many modern readers of Romans.  What??  Someone named Tertius wrote this letter?  I thought [...]

Capitalist Parables of Jesus There is a lot of truth in Albert Schweitzer’s observation in his book The Quest of the Historical Jesus (German original 1906), that scholars of every generation since the Enlightenment have portrayed Jesus “in their own image.” Thus Enlightenment-era “rationalists” who realized we do not need supernatural interventions to explain what happens in our world -- from lightening strikes and earthquakes to the healing of physical ailments or mental illnesses -- explained the amazing records of Jesus’ “miracles” as misunderstood natural events. And hopeful, positive, progressive liberals who thought Jesus, like modern folk, just wanted all of us to get along emphasized that Jesus was mainly interested in the “brotherhood of man” (as they said it back then) and the “Fatherhood of God.” Moreover, is it an accident the “apocalyptic” understanding of Jesus --  expecting the imminent of the world -- became increasingly popular during the 20th century World Wars and then the Cold war when we (people of my generation) were all being taught to hide under our [...]

  There are passages of the New Testament that I’ve always found puzzling and have left it at that – not digging in deep in order to try to understand them.  That may be kinda weird for a NT scholar, but it is just as common as it is weird.  Some of these puzzlers involve the parables of Jesus.  Recently I’ve decided to put in the brain work to figure them out, and I have – to my own satisfaction, at least.  And hey, who else do I need to satisfy? Here are two examples.  I have long thought neither of these parables made sense, and I’ve thought that whatever sense they made, they sure seemed to stand at odds with one another. Both are found only in the Gospel of the Luke, the Gospel most concerned to portray Jesus’ views on wealth and money, and both are in fact about money: The Rich Fool Who Builds Barns (Luke 12:16-21) The Dishonest Steward who Bilks his Boss (Luke 16:1-8) In this post I’ll [...]