I have been talking about Jesus' life before he was baptized, the so-called "Lost Years."  But how many years was that?  How old was he when he met up with John the Baptist?  And beyond that, how long did his ministry last?  How old was he  when he died? The standard line is that Jesus started his ministry when he was thirty and was executed three years later when he was thirty-three.  But none of the Gospels says all that.  So why is it the common view? It'll take a bit to explain how it's calculated (and a bit more to explain why it's highly uncertain). Only one of the Gospels says about how old he was when Jesus began his ministry.  Luke says that he was “about thirty” years old when he John baptized him (Luke 3:23). This number is not confirmed by any other source and we really don’t know if Luke had special information about this or if he was just guessing. The other three canonical Gospels say nothing explicit at [...]

I continue here with events from Jesus’ life before he started his public ministry that I think we can treat as historical.  (If you need some background on how I’m claiming this information is historical, see the previous post).   His Parents In all our sources Jesus’ parents are assumed to be Jewish.  They, as we’ve seen, came from Nazareth, a small rural village in Galilee, the northern part of what we today think of as Israel.  They are consistently named Joseph and Mary in our sources (for example, independently, Matt. 1:16-18; Mark 6:3; Luke 2:5, 16; 3:23; John 1:45; even rabbinic sources call his mother “Miriam”). In none of our traditions are there stories about Joseph after Jesus begins his public ministry.  It is usually assumed that he had died by then.  The idea that he was already an old man when he became betrothed to Mary is not found until the second century, when it is sometimes used to explain why they never had sex.  But it has absolutely no basis [...]

I’ve been thinking a lot about the social/cultural/economic/historical context of Jesus lately, and reading a good bit on what we know about Galilee from the time.  I’ll be saying more about all that anon, but I thought this might be a good chance to cover some of the basics on the blog – what do we know about Jesus from the time he was born to the time he was baptized as an adult, which is how he begins his ministry in the Gospels. For stories of his life before that, of course, all we have are Matthew and Luke.  I won’t explain here why I don’t think their accounts of his genealogy and birth can be historical.  I’ve posted on that a good deal before and you can find them on the blog by doing a word search for “virgin,” “Bethlehem,” “census,”  and so on. But both Gospels also have short stories about him as a boy.  Matthew describes the circumstances of his “descent to Egypt” with his family to escape the [...]

I have been arguing that that are many political and social issues that many of us care deeply about that, surprisingly, Jesus apparently did not.  Another passage that illustrates Jesus relative indifference to governmental policies and economic systems is his discussion with Simon Peter about paying the “temple tax,” a story found only Matthew (17:24-27). They have come to the town of Capernaum and some collectors of the “two drachma” temple tax ask Peter if his teacher pays the tax or not. Peter replies that he does, but when he goes back home, Jesus talks to him about it, asking whether kings tax their own children or only other people.  Peter naturally replies that children of the king don’t pay taxes, only others. Jesus agrees:  the ruler’s “children” are exempt from taxes – implication being that God’s children should not have to pay for the running of God’s house any more than a king’s children pay for the running of his palace. Jesus indicates that, even so, they should “not give offense” and [...]

How concerned was Jesus about the social, economic, cultural, and political issues that are so vitally important to us and occupy so much of our mental space? The answer is surprising. First some (probably unexpected) background. As a Jewish peasant in early first-century rural Aramaic-speaking Galilee, Jesus would not have known about Greek Stoics or their philosophical views.  He nonetheless appears to have shared a perspective with them, one that is a bit unexpected.  Like them, he was completely indifferent to a number of issues most people find deeply relevant and important, including fundamental questions connected with governmental policies and religious practices. Stoics insisted that a person’s happiness depended on maintaining an internal state of peace and calm, undisturbed by external events and circumstances.  There are only so many things that a person can control in their life.  Those are the things they should focus on.  Anyone who worries about things over which they have no control creates unnecessary stress and anxiety.  So it is best to distance yourself, simply not to be [...]

I don’t recall hearing or reading anyone make the case that Jesus and his disciples survived during their time of itinerant ministry by foraging.  But it’s an idea that makes a good bit of sense and there is some evidence for it in the Gospels. In this post I explain why it seems to make sense; I’ll deal with some of the evidence in the next post.  Let me say I’ve only started thinking and reading about all this – so this is my first attempt to articulate my thoughts (at this point). In most developed countries today, foraging is a hobby that outdoorsy and environmentally minded people pick up through books and live instruction, practiced more as a pastime or a social statement than as a mode of survival.  In large part that’s because we live in capitalist societies, principally in cities and towns, and most of us can purchase about anything we want from a store.  Those who do need or choose to scavenge tend not to do so in isolated [...]

How did Jesus and his disciples support themselves?  They left their families, homes, and jobs, to engage in a life of itineracy, preaching about the coming kingdom.  But until it came, how did they survive?  Specifically, how did they eat? I don’t recall ever seeing any extended discussion of the question in a scholarly (or a popular) book or article.  If one of you has, let me know.  It seems like an obvious question, and I suppose most people think there is an obvious answer.  There may be (I can think of three), but it’s worth thinking about in greater depth. One very BIG problem about understanding the historical Jesus (I confront this all the time) is that nearly everyone (including lots of scholars) seems to assume that modern common sense – both in our minds and our actions – would have been common sense in the time and place of Jesus.  And so scholars (and people who read them) talk about Jesus being middle class, or having a summer home around Bethlehem, [...]

Of all the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament, the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30; the same parable, with important differences, is the Parable of the Pounds in Luke 19:11-27), in my view, is the one most amenable to a capitalist interpretation – easily and often seen as an exhortation to invest one’s money to make money, at the highest possible rate. Even so, this, in my calculation (!), would be a serious misreading of the parable.  It is indeed a parable that discusses money and investment at interest.  But it is not about that at all. I’ll explain. But first, by way of summary (recall: a talent not a personal ability but a large unit of money): A man goes on a long journey and entrusts money to three of his slaves: five talents to one, two to another, one to the third.  The first two invest the money at interest and double what they received.  When the man returns, he showers them with praise for their stewardship.  The third slave, however, [...]