Isaiah 53

Tonight at The Cafe

Mark Cowan will conclude his 2 week preaching series out of Luke 6 tonight. 9pm @ Newport Beach Cafe.


Kellie Robinson leads worship.

Keep It Simple...

"Narrative criticism is a precise, subtle, and complex discipline that has developed a refined conceptuality and vocabulary to express its nuances. It is relatively easy to discuss these nuances with other specialists, using the technical jargon designed for this purpose. It is not so easy to communicate such subtleties to noninitiates without either dumbing down the content or talking down to the reader. It is also risky to be clear, for sometimes when the complex jargon is removed and the point is made in plain English, it no longer seems all that profound." Eugene Boring

More Language Talk

David Bivin of The Jerusalem School of Synoptic Research uses the following story as evidence toward his argument that Hebrew was the primary language of 1st century Israel (you can find the article in it's entirety here):

Randall Buth has pointed out to me a fascinating indication that Hebrew was the spoken language in the first century. The Jewish historian Josephus describes an incident that took place during the siege of Jerusalem (War 5:269-272). Josephus relates that watchmen were posted on the towers of the city walls to warn residents of incoming stones fired from Roman ballistae. Whenever a stone was on its way, the spotters would shout “in their native tongue, ‘The son is coming!’” (War 5:272). The meaning the watchmen communicated to the people was: Ha-even ba’ah (the stone is coming). However, because of the urgency of the situation, these words were clipped, being abbreviated to ben ba (son comes). (This well-known Hebrew wordplay is attested in the New Testament: “God is able from these avanim [stones] to raise up banim [sons] to Abraham” [Matt 3:9 = Luke 3:8].)

The wordplay (and pun) that Josephus preserves is unambiguously Hebrew. This wordplay does not work in Aramaic: kefa ate (the stone is coming), or the more literary avna ata, when spoken rapidly, do not sound like bara ate (the son is coming). Another Aramaic word for “stone,”aven, which is related to Hebrew, changes the gender of the verb and, in any case, does not work with “son.”

Certainly, a warning about an incoming missile needs to be as brief as possible (and, of course, shouted in the language of speech). How many words would an English-speaking soldier use to warn his unit of an incoming artillery shell? The Hebrew-speaking spotters on the walls of the besieged city of Jerusalem needed only two, and these they abbreviated to one syllable each.

The Language of Jesus

Did Jesus speak primarily Hebrew or Aramaic?

Hal in Israel 2008 

Was He fluent in Greek?

Mark Roberts has several new posts on his blog this month on those subjects. His opinions differ from those of our friend Halvor Ronning and his colleagues at The Jerusalem School of Synoptic Research. I believe it is highly probable that Jesus spoke Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Every step we get closer to understanding the cultural and social context surrounding Jesus we also get closer to hearing Him clearer than before.

Go to the following links to get Mark Robert's perspective on the language(s) of Jesus debates:



What Languages Did Jesus Speak? An Introduction.

Jesus and Aramaic in the Gospels.

Did Jesus Speak Hebrew?

Did Jesus Speak Greek?

Bible Study

I have been rereading and  preparing to teach Bible Study Methods at RMS. I believe they are the two best seminary level texts available as introductions to hermeneutics and exegesis. Like many great works, I am still learning new things after multiple readings. I will be using excerpts of these books in the class and in future posts.


I use as the textbook for the class. This is the most interactive bible study textbook I have seen. This book, while not as thorough or technical as those above, is aimed at the practice of bible study. It does a better job of showing how to study the bible soundly than any other I have seen.


The writings of Craig Blomberg, co-author of "Introduction to Biblical Interpretation", and Grant Osborne, author of "The Hermeneutical Spiral", have been significant resources for my personal study. Osborne's commentary on Revelation is the best of the many I have used. Blomberg's works on the parables of Jesus is groundbreaking and goes against the current of scholarly consensus that has flowed for over 200 years.

A Moment With Sarah Edwards

Sarah Edwards

On Wednesday January 27, 1742 Sarah Edward's (wife of Jonathan) had an experience with God that transformed her. After hearing a lecture by Samuel Buell she felt so moved by God that she felt like "her bodily strength was overcome". For three hours she talked with people and felt consumed with joy and thankfulness.

The next morning she was still feeling the effects of the experience. She had a hard time completing her daily tasks due to her excitement. During another message by Buell she fell out of her chair onto the floor. When people helped put her in a chair she shared passionately with them about God's kindness in redeeming her from Hell.

During a hymn she leaped spontaneously out of her chair feeling like she was ascending into heaven. Later she went to the ground again, and was taken to a place to lie down. While in bed she continued to "contemplate the glories of the heavenly world". She felt "wholly indifferent" to worldly cares and personal ambition. For more than four hours she was so overcome with joy and love that she could not even sit up in bed. Sarah called it "the sweetest night I ever had in my life".

Jonathan said that this experience caused her to "have a great aversion to judging other professing Christians" (Now THAT is a experience all of us could benefit from) and her sense of the glory of The Holy Spirit overwhelmed her both in soul and body. He also said, “If such things are enthusiasm, and the fruits of a distempered brain, let my brain be evermore possessed of that happy distemper!  If this be distraction, I pray God that the world of mankind may be all seized with this benign, meek, beneficent, beatifical, glorious distraction!”

Ben Collins praying for Mark before the message.

Last night Mark Cowan challenged everyone at Newport Beach Cafe to radically love those who seem unlovable in our lives. Next Friday when we gather we will begin by giving everyone a chance to share the ways they have responded to Mark's challenge.

RMS Fall Schedule

Redeemer Ministry School

 

Enrollment is still available for the 2010-2011 class. If you have any questions please email me at josh@redeemerministryschool.com.

Spiritual Formation
Tuesdays, 9:30 – 1
Instructor: John Piippo

Description: In order to be used by God as an agent of renewal and transformation one must themselves be in a continual place of personal renewal and transformation. This course will combine times of personal prayer, spiritual journaling, and teaching from biblical and historical resources on what it means to dwell in the presence of God and be renewed and transformed.

Worship I
Wed., Fri., 9:30 – 11
Instructor: Holly Benner

Description: True worship and adoration comes from intimacy with God. It is founded on the understanding of God's great love for you. Intimacy and Worship will focus on building and furthering that love relationship with Him while defining what a lifestyle of worship looks like. This class will include an in-depth look at Song of Solomon and Old & New Testament character studies.


Bible Study Methods

Thursdays, 9:30 – 1
Instructor: Josh Bentley

Description: This course will provide students with systematic methods of studying scripture. Through those methods students will also learn how to practically apply their understanding as they study different books of the Bible.



Kingdom of God I
Thursdays, 4:30 – 7:30
Instructor: Jim Collins

Description: The main teaching of Jesus was about the "Kingdom of God" or "Kingdom of heaven." This course will present the major interpretations of the meaning of the kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed. Students will learn to understand the real Jesus from the perspective of God's kingdom message.

Regardless of whether anyone reads this blog or not I feel compelled to write about things that I am passionate about. Things like Revival. Things like Christology, Exegesis, and Hermeneutics.

Things like...Fantasy Football.  

The draft is 31 days, 14hours, 24 minutes, and 40 seconds away as of this moment.

Jesus Beyond the Gospels

As we near the end of our studying and preaching "The Real Jesus" at Redeemer I am beginning to look ahead. The past four and a half years going through the Gospels verse by verse has been invaluable to me. I am sad that the seemingly never ending sermon series is about to actually come to a close but I am also excited to read the rest of the New Testament through the lens of "The Real Jesus".

Today, I am reading an excerpt of Henry Wansbrough's work "The Acts of the Apostles". The portion I am studying is about the Christology throughout The Acts of the Apostles. Wansbrough was the General Editor of "The New Jerusalem Bible". 

Holly Benner's debut album is now available for purchase here through iTunes.

A Little Advice

As I enjoyed Dilbert yesterday I thought about a phrase (or a slight variation of) I have heard Pastor John say several hundreds of times over the years, "Unasked-for advice almost always sounds like criticism." I am thankful I have heard it repeatedly. I am just now beginning to, as Jim Hunter would say, "Get it into my game." PJ wrote a piece on his blog about this subject earlier this year. I've stolen it in it's entirety and posted it directly below.

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Unasked-for advice is usually received as criticism. Imagine that I come up to you and say, "Did you know that there are some really nice clothes on sale at Macy's today?" The thought comes to you: "He doesn't like my clothes."

Mostly (but not entirely) people give unasked-for advice to others to try to change them. If you want to give a piece of advice to someone because you see they are having a problem and you've got the answer, try asking their permission: "May I suggest something?" That's cool. But a whole lot of advice-giving is about control and manipulation. It produces anger and bitterness, because who likes controlling people who are out to change them?

On changing other people: you cannot do it. Period. You can force people to do something, threaten them, imprison them, and guilt-manipulate them. But the human heart, the human spirit, cannot be changed by other people. The human heart is, however, influenced by other people. In my life there are a handful of people who have significantly influenced me. One of them now comes to mind. In the decade of the 1980s he was in my church in East Lansing. I was privileged to be in a small group with him and his wife that met weekly. He was a great scholar, which I admired. He spoke when asked, and never advised when not asked. I found this intriguing because he was a psychologist, and psychologists (so I thought) were there to give advice. His character and demeanor and humility and Christ-in-him were compelling. So much so that, eventually, I sought him out to advise me about some things. Which he did, with wisdom and love.

I think I am to focus my life on connecting with Jesus, and allow Jesus to work on the stuff inside of me that He knows about and is able to change. I need to be continually saved from my own self. You, "the other," cannot do this. You are not my Savior. But if you also remain connected to Jesus and allow Him to change your heart about things, the chances increase that God will use you to effect real heart-change in me. The initial life goal is to know Christ, not advise other people.  The break-up that God does in you will bring breakthrough in the lives around you.

Today seek to live your life in Christ.

Holographic Pastors & Inflatable Churches (yes, seriously)

 Ben Witherington has a post on the value of simulation technology in churches. I am reposting it in full below.


__________________________________________________________________________________
Sometime back I told you the story of an inflatable Catholic Church a priest was using on a beach to get Catholic beachcombers to come to Mass and take the sacrament, apparently with some success.  Below is a picture of said 'church'----

Now, alert reader Craig Beard has sent me a CNN article about the Holographic preacher.  The article by John Blake begins as follows----
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The Sunday morning service at Fellowship Church in Dallas, Texas, was humming along with hymns and prayers when something unusual happened.

The lights in the sanctuary suddenly dimmed, and members of the church hushed as they peered at a pulpit shrouded in darkness.  The parishioners then erupted in cheers and whistles as Ed Young Sr., the church's senior pastor, emerged from the darkness with a microphone in hand.

"Please be seated, be seated," Young said as he grabbed the Bible.  "How are you guys doing today?  Doing well?"

Young delivered his sermon, but he couldn't hear or see his congregation respond: He wasn't physically there.

Young's parishioners were instead looking at a high-def video image of their pastor beamed into their sanctuary from a "mother" church in Grapevine, Texas.

Young is part of a new generation of pastors who can be in two places at one time.  They are using technology -- high-def videos, and even holograms -- to beam their Sunday morning sermons to remote "satellite" churches that belong to their congregation.
(more on the CNN website).
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My focus in this blog post is to ask and answer the question---- Is this a good thing, and what are the potential problems with this model of ministry?

Let's consider the promise rather than the problem side of this model.  On the positive side, if one really does have the gift of preaching, I would far rather hear a good sermon from a remote pastor, than a not remotely good sermon from a present one. Holographic images make this possible, and some churches are investing $50,000 to 2 million dollars to go hi tech in this way.  There is furthermore the point that, like or not, we live in the visual learner plasma screen generation.  I once had the humbling experience of taping a class live in the TV studio and had a remote group of students watching on a screen in a classroom as well as students in the studio with me.  My assumption was---- all would have preferred to be in the studio with me.   Boy was a wrong.  Various of the students in the remote classroom said "I like virtual Ben better than real Ben".  He's bigger, and easier to watch and follow.  After swallowing my humility I began to rethink deliver modes when it comes to good teaching and preaching.  For sure, more people can be reached simultaneously using the holographic transmission model from a live (or taped) original. 

What are the problems with this model, and do they outweigh the promise?   First of all,  I was very unimpressed with the rationale given by Pastor Young for doing things this way. He argued that Paul used letters to congregations he couldn't be with to communicate with them from a remote location. This is a very lame argument since those letters were orally presented by various Pauline co-workers (Timothy and Titus and Phoebe for example) in rhetorically effect ways  in person.  The pastor seems to have overlooked this minor detail.  There was always an embodied real live person delivering the message in Paul's day, whether it was Paul or one of his co-workers.  This practice provides no precedent for what Pastor Young is doing.  Were he to follow the Pauline precedent, he would send a real person to his other umpteen churches to deliver the same message.  The second major problem with this model is of course the disconnecting of preaching from pastoral care and getting to know one's people.  Again, a rationalization is given in the Blake article that goes like this-- "I actually have more time for pastoral care with people by not having to go to multiple locations to preach the same Word'.   This is a weak rationale, because the 'more time for pastoral care' only applies to congregation members in the mother church, apparently.  And this brings up a further point.  The holographic pastor, unlike the Pastor Paul, is not available for personal interaction, for questions or counseling after the message is delivered.  This is simply left to the 'staff'. In other words, this just further promotes the preacher superstar model with less accountability, and less weekly contact and accessibility with the full scope of one's congregation.  

But this brings up another point----are multiple churches in multiple locations without a local preacher really all part of one body of Christ?    Here is where the real rub comes.  The answer is no.   Above all else, the body of Christ is local, and locally expressed in the NT model--- the church in Corinth, the church in Ephesus, and so on. In Pastor Young's situation we are dealing with multiple bodies of Christ for sure, in very different locales, sometimes not even in the same town. This is not what the NT generally means by 'body of Christ in....'. 
A body of Christ, including its leadership structure must be locally accountable, whatever other bodies and groups it is accountable to.  In this holographic model the preacher is not accountable to the remote congregations, nor is he regularly fellow-shipping with them apparently. 

Go back and read Act 2 and 4--- and underline the bit about 'and they were altogether in one place' and then the bit about and they were all in one accord.  Those two things are connected. You can't have embodied fellowship and embodied worship with a body of believers unless you are present with them.    I could say more but here I will just conclude---  while this technology may be very useful for evangelism or exigent circumstances, it does not, on the whole, seem to comport with Biblical models as to how the body of Christ is supposed to work, and my big fear would be that it would make it all that much easier to allow proclaimers to operate without accountability to his whole people, as well as to God.

Read more: http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/2010/07/of-inflatable-churches-and-holographic-pastors.html#ixzz0u9yB30Fh

Repentance

This morning as I was reading Matthew 11 I found myself focusing on the word "repent" again. I stopped reading in Matthew and began a quick word study. One of the resources I used was "The Complete Word Study Dictionary: New Testament" by Spiro Zodhiates. A portion of that is included below.

There are two words in the NT which convey the idea of repentance, metanoéō and epistréphō (1994), to come back, convert, turn about. These words derive their moral content not from Greek, but from Jewish and Christian thought, since nothing analogous to the biblical concept of repentance and conversion was known to the Greeks. Metanoéō presents repentance in its negative aspect as a change of mind or turning from sin while epistréphō presents it in its positive aspect as turning to God. Both, however, have much the same content of meaning. Christ’s call to repentance (Matt. 4:17) has as its motive the nearness of the kingdom, participation in which is conditioned upon the new disposition (Matt. 18:3). It is addressed, not as in the OT to the nation, but to the individual; and not merely to flagrant sin, but to all sin (Luke 13:3), both great and small. The inner and radical character of the change required is illustrated by the figure of the tree and its fruits. The first four Beatitudes may be taken as descriptive of elements of true repentance. Poverty of spirit (the confession of one’s spiritual helplessness–see ptōchós [4434], poor), sorrow for sin, meekness, and hunger and thirst for righteousness are all characteristics of the soul that is turning to God from sin. In the parable of the prodigal son, Jesus draws a picture of the true penitent person. Such is assured of the forgiveness of the Father whose love has anticipated his return and gone out to seek and save (Luke 15:4). Of fastings and other external accompaniments Christ says little, as indicated in the parable of the publican and the Pharisee (Luke 18:10–14). No external acts can take the place of an internal sorrow for one’s sins.

Zodhiates, S. (2000). The complete word study dictionary : New Testament (electronic ed.). Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers.

God's Dwelling Place

 This morning I am thinking about Colossians 2:9:
 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form,

Douglas Moo says, "God in his fullness has not taken up residence in and therefore revealed himself in a building but in a body. Characteristic of the new covenant administration is the replacement of the Temple with Christ as the focus for God’s presence and as the nucleus of God’s people."*

*Moo, D. J. (2008). The letters to the Colossians and to Philemon. The Pillar New Testament commentary (193–194). Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co.

Tonight @ Newport Beach Cafe

Everyone is Invited at 9pm

 
Val Fowler is Preaching


Luke Jaskowiak is Leading Worship

Could Wally have been a Chief Priest?

John 19:12&15

12From then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free, but the Jews kept shouting, "If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar."


15But they shouted, "Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!"
"Shall I crucify your king?" Pilate asked.
"We have no king but Caesar," the chief priests answered.

For the past several weeks I have been thinking about the manipulation the religious leaders used to coerce Pilate.  It has been over a dozen years since my Intro to Logic class but I think (rather, i am guessing) this is the fallacy of a appeal to fear. 

Manipulation and fear tactics are funny to me in Dilbert. In real life they always feel demonic in nature. The religious leaders had to threaten Pilate in a veiled manner; "If you do not meet our wishes, we will inaccurately portray you to the emperor as one who is disloyal and acts impotently toward treason." Pilate chose to yield to the manipulation and fear.

Manipulation and fear tactics will not be a part of the eternal Kingdom of Jesus. For that I am thankful. Leave it to Dilbert to get me focused on eternal things.

Jonathan Edwards and the Revival of 1735

I have been reading a little book titled "Jonathan Edwards on Revival" the past couple of days. It begins with a narrative account of the revival he pastored in Northampton, Massachusetts in 1735.

Prior to Good moving Edwards writes of Northampton, "Licentiousness for some years prevailed among the youth of the town; they were many of them very much addicted to night-walking, and frequenting the tavern, and lewd practices, wherein some by their example, exceedingly corrupted others. It was their manner very frequently to get together, in conventions of both sexes for mirth and jollity, which they called frolics; and they would often spend the greater part of the night in them, without regard to any order of the families they belonged to; and indeed family government did much fail in the town."

After a time God began to move on the town of 200 families. The young people began to change their ways and Edwards put them into small groups to discuss "religion" rather than staying out all night. Several people were converted to Christ (both young and old) and changed their lifestyles to reflect it.

Edward's says that people were so transformed that former worldly things seemed very unimportant. People became passionate about the bible and prayer. House church meetings began and "there were remarkable tokens of God's presence in almost every house."

The church services were filled with eager people hungry to learn the scriptures, weeping,  joy, a great love, and a concern for the unsaved.

Larry Hurtado, Professor of  New Testament Language, Literature, and Theology at The University of Edinburgh (pictured right), has recently posted an essay surveying the formation and development of New Testament Studies in the 20th century. You can read it here.

Has The Church Replaced Israel?

Here are the notes from Michael Vlach's lecture series evaluating (opposing) Replacement Theology at Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary earlier this year. He has also written the book "Has The Church Replaced Israel?" that should be available later this year. I found the notes to be interesting as a Cliff Notes guide to the arguments for and against Replacement Theology (also called Supersessionism).

Gordon Fee on the Christological Implications of God's Designation as Father in the Pauline Corpus

In his book "Pauline Christology" Gordon Fee seeks to find how the designation "Father"  became Paul's most common way to refer to God whenever Christ and God are mentioned in conjunction with one another. He believes there are four strands of evidence that show Paul views God as "our" Father because he is "The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ."

1 - Paul uses "Christ" as a title and not a name in places like Romans 9:5 and 1 Cor. 1:23 highlighting Jesus as the Jewish Messiah - The Son of God.

2 - God is referred to as "the Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ" beginning in 2 Cor. 1:3 and 11:31 (also in Rom. 15:6; Col.1:3; Eph. 1:3). Obviously God and Jesus are being stated plainly as Father and Son.

3 - In 1 Cor. 15:25-28 and Col. 1:12-15 Jesus identity as "The Son" is directly tied to His kingly reign.

4 - God is our Father through the gift of the Holy Spirit which Paul defines in Gal. 4:6 as "the Spirit of the Son." It is the Spirit of the Son (Jesus) that causes us to cry out "Abba!" to God as Father.

An Excellent Essay on the Historicity of the Jesus of the Gospels by Craig Keener

By Craig Keener
Professor of New Testament at Palmer Theological Seminary,
Eastern University
February, 2010

Scholars reconstruct the historical Jesus in various ways. Often they do so based on which sources about Jesus they privilege and how much they accept as reliable in these sources. Some scholars accept very little in the Gospels as reliable, hence sometimes offer reconstructions from the silence that remains - arguments from silence. Because of their minimal trust in the Gospels, others feel free to play some elements of the gospel tradition off against others - though usually these elements are not intrinsically contradictory.

Neither of these approaches suit the way that we would read comparable documents not associated with a world religion. That is, if these sources involved a first-century emperor or philosopher, we would likely read them less skeptically. We would not bend over so far backward to apologize for our sources and to provide a minimalist reading; we would simply use the best available information to offer the likeliest reconstruction possible. Most of what follows parallels an argument detailed more extensively in chapters 5-10 of my recent Historical Jesus of the Gospels.¹

The Gospels as Biography

Readers through most of history approached the Gospels as “lives” (bioi) of Jesus. The Gospel authors’ contemporaries were familiar with this genre, which is attested both before and after their time. Nevertheless, these ancient biographies differed in many respects from modern biographies. Often ancient biographers arranged these works topically rather than chronologically, and they focused on the most relevant elements of the person’s life (such as their public career, teaching, or martyrdom) rather than trying to summarize the life as a whole. For this reason, much of twentieth-century scholarship rejected the “biographic” classification for the Gospels. In recent decades, as scholars have examined the best ancient analogies for the Gospels, it has become increasingly clear that the Gospels were designed as biographies—though as ancient rather than modern ones.²

But what was an ancient biography? Scholars have sometimes lumped together a variety of works in this category, some of them clearly different from the mainstream form of biography attested in most biographers of the period.³ Some scholars have placed some novels in this category, but these works show little interest in historical information or sources.

Given the clear dependence on sources in Matthew and Luke, the Gospels seem to belong to the mainstream of the genre that worked on the basis of information. (Since they readily depend on Mark, it is clear that Mark’s first interpreters, writing less than a generation after him, construed Mark as biography as well; and given the relative chronology, these interpreters were undoubtedly better informed than we are.)

Ancient biographies were, as classicists note, primarily historical works. Biographers typically wrote at a more popular level than writers of multivolume histories, but they did seek to convey information. Like novelists, biographers could seek to entertain, but in contrast to novels, they also sought to inform, using prior material available to them. Biographers, like historians, had agendas: they explicitly sought to offer moral lessons, and often betrayed particular political or even theological perspectives. But such lessons characterized biographies far more than novels and were offered on the basis of received accounts about a person, not pure imagination.

These observations do not mean that biographies always got their information correct. Nevertheless, we can often distinguish which biographies tend to be most accurate. Biographers and historians writing about recent figures tended to be right far more often than those writing about ancient ones. Those writing about figures who lived centuries earlier had to depend on sources that typically included many legendary developments, elements rarer in works about events less than a century old. (Ancient historians themselves acknowledged these differences.) We also can sometimes test biographers against other extant sources, to observe which writers stayed closest to their sources.

Such considerations about ancient biography are quite relevant for how we approach the Gospels. The Gospels address events easily within two generations of their composition; their sources date to within a generation of the events. When we compare them with one another, it is clear that Matthew and Luke (whom we can best test) use their sources very carefully by ancient standards (as a synopsis of the Gospels will reveal). (As E. P. Sanders and others observe, if the writers were inventing stories freely, we would not have “Synoptic” Gospels—i.e., Gospels overlapping greatly in their material.) This does not mean that these writers concerned themselves about telling every detail in exactly the way that they received it—most ancient audiences expected writers to exercise more freedom than that—but that, by the standards we apply to their contemporaries, the Gospels are remarkably useful sources.

Our Earliest Writings about Jesus

Most early sources we have about Jesus outside the Gospels (for example, a few lines in Josephus) offer only snippets about Jesus. Meanwhile, the authenticity of later sources is usually questionable. There is no consensus on the date of some Gnostic gospels, but most scholars date the earliest of these works (which are more sayings collections than “lives” of Jesus) to roughly seventy years after the Gospel of Mark. Most other “gospels” (usually novels or sayings collections) are generations or centuries later.

Our earliest substantive informants are the Gospels and their sources. These include Mark, completed perhaps a generation after Jesus’ ministry (usually considered somewhere around 70 CE) and “Q,” scholars’ nickname for a common source that most (though not all) scholars believe stands behind shared material in Matthew and Luke.⁴ The vast majority of scholars argue that these sources stem from within a generation of Jesus.

Classicists only rarely have access to biographies written within a generation of their subjects. Although some of the best ancient historians include eyewitness accounts, much of our history of the early empire depends on second-century historians summarizing the previous 150 years of history. Gospel materials written within four decades of Jesus’ execution therefore provide a remarkably special opportunity for early insight into Jesus’ ministry. Gospels scholars should apologize less for their sources and mine them more confidently.

As W. D. Davies pointed out a generation ago, probably only a single lifespan “separates Jesus from the last New Testament document,” and the material is “not strictly a folk tradition, derived from long stretches of time, but a tradition preserved by believing communities who were guided by responsible leaders, many of whom were eyewitnesses of the ministry of Jesus.”⁵

Luke’s Historical Preface

While the Gospels taken on their own terms constitute biographies, one of them—the Gospel of Luke—also doubles as the first volume of Luke’s two-volume historical project, Luke-Acts.⁶ Luke’s preface (Luke 1:1-4) reveals his historical subject (“matters fulfilled among us”) and is a fitting historical preface unsuitable for novels.

In this preface, we learn that by the time Luke writes, many had already written about Jesus (Lk 1:1). Scholars usually date Luke’s writing between 70-90. (Scholars who date Luke later generally concede that they constitute a minority, fewer than either the majority view or the number of scholars dating the work in the 60s.) While we sadly lack most of these sources today, they were apparently available to the writers who composed our extant first-century Gospels.

We also learn that much of the information in these written sources was previously handed down from eyewitnesses (Lk 1:2). I will discuss further below the degree of reliability one might expect in such oral transmission, but here it suffices to point out that eyewitnesses remained in a position of leadership in the Jerusalem church. Not too many years before Mark wrote his Gospel, Jesus’ key disciples and own brother led the Jerusalem church and retained the respect of churches even far from Jerusalem (1 Cor 9:5; Gal 2:9). No less than today, people in antiquity recognized that eyewitnesses were the best sources for information.⁷ If the eyewitnesses were basically reliable, sources being written during the period of their leadership or a few years afterward would likely remain fairly reliable as well.

In Luke 1:3, Luke claims “thorough knowledge” of the matters about which he is writing, matters that he has already attributed to eyewitnesses. How might Luke have obtained such intimate acquaintance with these matters? Lukan scholars divide as to whether the author of Acts actually traveled with Paul, but many of us argue that this is the best explanation for Luke’s “we” material. A fictitious “we” makes little sense of the claim’s rare appearance, often in comparatively minor scenes in particular locations. Luke does not preserve first-person pronouns from other sources in his narrative. Moreover, the use of “we” almost always included the author in the action in other historical narratives (as noted by classicist Arthur Darby Nock and others).⁸ In fact, no one treats “we” claims so suspiciously in other histories; why should we treat them differently in a work just because Christians later made it part of their Bible?⁹ If, as I and many others argue, the author of Luke-Acts did travel with Paul, then Luke spent up to two years in Judea—plenty of time to consult with early sources (Acts 21:17; 24:27; 27:1).

Finally, we learn that Luke’s purpose was to confirm what his audience (or at least his elite dedicatee Theophilus) had already heard in that early period (Lk 1:4). Luke could hardly appeal to Theophilus’ prior knowledge of his basic story if Luke were inventing it.

Even Less than a Generation

On what sources did Mark and “Q” depend? As we have noted, written sources proliferated by the time of Luke, probably within two decades of Mark’s composition. But Luke also draws attention to oral sources, which emerge much earlier than Mark. Although we lack firsthand access to these oral sources today, there is no reason to doubt Luke’s claim that he had access to them.

Examining the character of oral memory and tradition in Mediterranean antiquity offers us analogies for how accurately material could have been transmitted during the first generation or two. Again, by “accuracy” I do not mean verbatim recall—oral tradition allows variation in wording, and in fact even ancient school exercises required students to be able to paraphrase sayings as well as memorize them. But would the substance of information usually be preserved?

Events four decades before Mark are no likelier to be shrouded in amnesia than four-decade-old events reported by persons we know today. Indeed, an emphasis on rigorous memorization pervaded antiquity, inconceivable as that seems today (with our instant access to information). Extraordinary feats of memory appear in antiquity, and some of Jesus’ disciples might have performed such feats. We need not appeal to the extraordinary examples, however, because basic memory skills were widespread. Memorization characterized oratory (often speeches over an hour long), storytelling, and, most relevantly, both elementary and advanced education.

Memory was important in all forms of advanced education: philosophy, rhetoric, and (among Jewish disciples) Torah study. Many ancient Mediterranean disciples took detailed notes; one professor of rhetoric, while complaining that his students published notes on his lectures without his permission, conceded that they accurately reflected his lectures. Students of rabbis or philosophers would not always end up agreeing with their professors, but they were expected to respect and accurately convey what they taught. Disciples in this period did not normally attribute to their mentors ideas that contradicted what they actually taught.

Why would scholars assume that the disciples of Jesus were less reliable transmitters of his teaching than other disciples were for their teachers? If Jesus’ disciples respected him as more than a teacher, rather than less than a teacher, this respect would surely not justify deliberately misrepresenting his teaching. The disciples’ collective memory could correct individual recollections during retellings of Jesus’ story.¹⁰

Another recent project has reinforced for me what intuition suggests: first-generation recollections can prove very dependable. Since finishing my historical Jesus book, I have begun editing my wife’s memoirs of her experience as a war refugee in the Congo. Only halfway through the project did I realize its usefulness as an analogy for understanding how well eyewitnesses could preserve information.¹¹ In addition to her memory of the events, on which I had taken notes during oral interviews with her in 2001, we had her journal of the events, composed in French during the time that the events took place. Comparing the two sources sometimes provided what appeared to be minor contradictions, but because I had access to her as the eyewitness source, I could confirm what she meant. In most cases, apparent contradictions were easily resolved by further information that she provided; sometimes they simply reflected different but inadequate English equivalents for particular French terms (as the Gospels sometimes reflect variant Greek equivalents for Aramaic terms).

Suspicion of Supernatural Claims

Some critics object that the Gospels, unlike other ancient historical sources, report miracles or anomalies. In fact, such reports do appear in many other ancient historical sources, but the Gospels naturally include more of them because they narrate the activity of a figure known as a healer. Philosophic assumptions articulated by David Hume and others preclude for many western interpreters the possibility of affirming genuine supernatural causation for the miracle claims. Much of the world’s population today demurs from such assumptions, however, and an increasing number of philosophers are arguing that the question should be reopened. I plan to address some of these questions more thoroughly in a sequel to the above-mentioned historical Jesus book.¹²

But theological questions about supernatural causation aside, the historical question as to whether many people believed that they witnessed people cured by Jesus is more easily answered. Even today, literally hundreds of millions of people claim to have witnessed events that they interpret as miracles.¹³ Why should we deny that first-century followers of Jesus’ ministry could have had analogous experiences, however we explain them? Most historical Jesus scholars today, regardless of their personal theological orientation, do accept that Jesus drew crowds who believed that he performed cures and exorcisms.¹⁴ The presence of such elements in the Gospels should not, then, be cited against their usefulness as historical sources, or even against them containing eyewitness elements.

Conclusion

Scholars have often proved too skeptical of our best historical sources for Jesus, the Gospels. Drawing more fully on these sources would provide a more complete and well-rounded picture of the Jesus who lived in history than some historical Jesus scholars have allowed.

---

1 Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009.

2 Charles H. Talbert (What Is a Gospel? The Genre of the Canonical Gospels [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977]) and others argued for this classification several decades ago; more recently, Richard A. Burridge’s Cambridge monograph (What Are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography [SNTSMS 70; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1992]) has proved especially influential in this reorientation.

3 Such as Cornelius Nepos, Arrian, Tacitus, Suetonius, Plutarch, and later Philostratus on sophists or Diogenes Laertius on philosophers. Xenophon’s earlier Cyropedia and Pseudo-Callisthenes later historical novel about Alexander, are examples of works that do not fit biographies of this period.

4 Matthew and Luke each seem too oblivious to key elements in the other Gospel, e.g., their infancy narratives, to be dependent on the other as a finished work.

5 W. D. Davies, Invitation to the New Testament: A Guide to Its Main Witnesses (Garden City: Doubleday, 1966), 115-16.

6 Despite some notable scholars’ dissent, the majority of Acts scholars today view Acts as a historical monograph, with biography as the second most common option. (Many do, however, allow for a mixture of elements from various genres.)

7 See e.g., discussion in Samuel Byrskog, Story as History—History as Story: The Gospel Tradition in the Context of Ancient Oral History (Boston, Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2002).

8 See Nock, Essays on Religion and the Ancient World I and II (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1972), 828.

9 Some do so because Luke’s perspective on Paul differs significantly from Paul’s own, a question we cannot engage in detail here; but some of the criticism is overstated; but see counterarguments in e.g., Peder Borgen, “From Paul to Luke: Observations toward Clarification of the Theology of Luke-Acts,” CBQ 31 (1969): 168-82; Karl Paul Donfried, Paul, Thessalonica, and Early Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; London: T & T Clark, 2002), 90-96; Stanley E. Porter, Paul in Acts (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2001), 189-206.

10 Richard Bauckham has recently offered a controversial but substantive case for substantial eyewitness tradition in the Gospels (Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006]). Other senior scholars (including James D. G. Dunn, in A New Perspective on Jesus: What the Quest for the Historical Jesus Missed [Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005]) have also recently drawn renewed attention to oral tradition.

11 Granted, our period of transmission was shorter than the Gospels, but she also retells her story less regularly than Jesus’ immediate disciples would have been asked to do.

12 Miracles, Hendrickson, forthcoming.

13 One could start by adding the figures of those claiming to have experienced or witnessed healings in the executive summary of “Spirit and Power: A 10-Country Survey of Pentecostals,” Pew Forum Survey (2006), at http://pewforum.org/surveys/pentecostal.

14 E.g., Geza Vermes, Jesus the Jew: A Historian’s Reading of the Gospels (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1973), 79; Morton Smith, Jesus the Magician (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1978), 16; E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 11; John P. Meier, Mentor, Message, and Miracles (New York: Doubleday, 1994), 2:678-772; Gerd Theissen and Annette Merz, The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998), 113.

Early Church Growth at a Glance

Yale Professor of History, Ramsay MacMullen, was very curious how Christians were able to survive and thrive in The Roman Empire without political power or social prestige. Christianity was even illegal for some of the years between 100-400AD.  He found that the Christianity did not grow primarily because of erudite teaching or persuasive apologetics but rather because of power evangelism. Miracles, often physical healings and demonic deliverances, were catalytic to the growth of Christianity. He documents this in page 62 in his book "Christianizing The Roman Empire" published in 1986.

Professor MacMullen,  was the recipient of a lifetime Award for Scholarly Distinction from the American Historical Association. The citation begins, "Ramsay MacMullen is the greatest historian of the Roman Empire alive today."

I thank God for the work of a credible scholar, albeit a secular one, recognizing the role of God's supernatural workings in Christianity's formative years.

Things I'm Learning

I am currently:


Reading The Gospel of Matthew in The Message. I find it invigorating to look at passages through multiple perspectives.


Listening to The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle. As a lover of learning and teaching I am loving this book.








Listening to select teachings by Randy Clark while reading the companion manual on Revival Phenomena and Healing. Randy's knowledge of church history challenges me to go deeper into study. I am specifically studying The Cane Ridge Revival at the moment.

Beginning Gordon Fee's book Pauline Christology.






Continuing to study through The real Jesus passages with the RFC family. This week we are in John 19:25-27.

Newport Beach Cafe @ 9pm

Tonight I will be speaking at The Cafe on Jesus choosing the twelve apostles. Kellie  Robinson will be leading worship.

Joseph the Dreamer

Today I am noticing some of the attributes of Joseph in the first two chapters of the  Gospel of Matthew. There are three different times that he makes major life decisions that would have seemed wildly foolish based on dreams from God.
       Joseph:

1. Marries a pregnant girl & believes she is a virgin
2. Takes his family into pagan Egypt
3. Returns to the place where children were being murdered just a short time ago.

I am asking God to give me some more Joseph-type qualities today. I want to live in a way where I am  moved by God's voice.

The Message version of Matthew 3:1-12

 While reading these verses in The Message this morning I felt a new attraction toward them. I feel like the radical nature of God's message through John emerges in the passage below. Thanks Eugene Peterson!

While Jesus was living in the Galilean hills, John, called “the Baptizer,” was preaching in the desert country of Judea. His message was simple and austere, like his desert surroundings: “Change your life. God’s kingdom is here.”
      3      John and his message were authorized by Isaiah’s prophecy:
      Thunder in the desert!
      Prepare for God’s arrival!
      Make the road smooth and straight!
      4–6      John dressed in a camel-hair habit tied at the waist by a leather strap. He lived on a diet of locusts and wild field honey. People poured out of Jerusalem, Judea, and the Jordanian countryside to hear and see him in action. There at the Jordan River those who came to confess their sins were baptized into a changed life.
      7–10      When John realized that a lot of Pharisees and Sadducees were showing up for a baptismal experience because it was becoming the popular thing to do, he exploded: “Brood of snakes! What do you think you’re doing slithering down here to the river? Do you think a little water on your snakeskins is going to make any difference? It’s your life that must change, not your skin! And don’t think you can pull rank by claiming Abraham as father. Being a descendant of Abraham is neither here nor there. Descendants of Abraham are a dime a dozen. What counts is your life. Is it green and blossoming? Because if it’s deadwood, it goes on the fire.
      11–12      “I’m baptizing you here in the river, turning your old life in for a kingdom life. The real action comes next: The main character in this drama—compared to him I’m a mere stagehand—will ignite the kingdom life within you, a fire within you, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out. He’s going to clean house—make a clean sweep of your lives. He’ll place everything true in its proper place before God; everything false he’ll put out with the trash to be burned.”

Peterson, E. H. (2002). The Message : The Bible in contemporary language (Mt 3:1–12). Colorado Springs, Colo.: NavPress.

John 19:19-20

 ¹⁹Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read:| JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. ²⁰Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek.

I find it interesting that a sign intended to be a mockery actually declared the truth to the hundreds of thousands (maybe more than a million) of people in Jerusalem for the Passover. Aramaic (possibly Hebrew) was the language of the native Jewish people, Greek was the common language spoken throughout The Roman Empire, and Latin was the official language of the Roman military. The truth was proclaimed in an understandable way for all to see even if it was understood at the time by only a few.

The Furious Love Event

Redeemer Fellowship Church 

April 6-9, 2011

Register Here

The Furious Love Event is not a conference. Not really. A typical conference will have 2-4 speakers. This event will feature 10 speakers. All of the speakers have been featured in Darren Wilson's first two films, Finger of God and Furious Love, and Wanderlust Productions will be filming the entire event to create a teaching supplement for those films that can be used in churches, small groups, or individually.

 



Heidi & Rolland Baker

Rolland and Heidi Baker began Iris Ministries, Inc., an interdenominational mission, in 1980 and have been missionaries for the past twenty-five years.

Today Rolland and Heidi cry out for a continuation of the visitation of God experienced by the children of H.A. Baker's orphanage in China long ago. That is beginning to happen, and more testimonies are accummulating than can be communicated! May the Word of God spread in power to the remote corners of the world, and may the the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind, people who have never before tasted the goodness of God, be drawn the King's great banquet!

WEBSITE: Iris Ministries Inc.

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Philip Mantofa

Philip Mantofa graduated in theology from Columbia Bible College, British Columbia, Canada. Since 1998, He has been serving in Mawar Sharon Church, a growing church of 30,000 in Indonesia. Currently, He is the assistant head of Gereja Mawar Sharon denomination, which has a network of 70 local churches. Since his younger age, he has brought more than 100,000 souls to Christ. His passion is to ignite the fire within the younger generation to become pastors and spiritual leaders all around Asia. Moreover, he has a burning desire to see nations experience and encounter the love of Jesus Christ. He is happily married to Irene Saphira with three lovely children : Vanessa, Jeremy and Warren.

WEBSITE: Philip Mantofa on Facebook

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Robby Dawkins



Born to missionary parents in Japan, Robby had an early start in ministry. In his father’s church he began a children’s ministry at the age of 12, and became the youth minister at 16 years old.

Robby and his wife, Angie, married in 1992, have pastored the Vineyard Church of Aurora, IL since 1996. They feel God called them to plant in a poor urban community, and continually use “power evangelism” to gather for the church.

“In addition to starting and pastoring this church, God has called me for the purpose of building up and equipping the local church with power tools for harvesting,” Robby shares. These “power tools” are prophetic ministry, healing, ministry of the presence of God, and deliverance from demonic power.

WEBSITE: Robby Dawkins

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Will Hart

In 1999 Will Hart walked into the basement of a church not knowing why he was there. That night the Holy Spirit reached out and grabbed him by the heart and he was never the same. While the rest of his senior class was walking down the aisle collecting their diplomas, Will was already on a plane to Paraguay.

During his 19 months in Paraguay he witnessed the power of revival first hand. Ministering alongside his mentor Bob Bradbury, he saw salvations, healing and deliverances. The power of the Spirit was on him to preach and set people free. In 2002 he received a call from Randy Clark to travel with him full time.

After three years of hands on training with Randy, Will and his wife Musy moved to Mozambique to serve Heidi and Rolland Baker. Will's call is to take the simplicity of the gospel and power of the Holy Spirit wherever he goes. Whether it is the jungles of Congo or the streets of Thailand, he is expectant and confident in the Holy Spirit showing up in power.

WEBSITE: Hart Ministries

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Angela Greenig

Angela’s teaching and insights come from years of experience on the front lines of Spiritual warfare. A seasoned Seer/Warrior for Christ, and a leading force in deliverance ministry. Author and TV personality Justice for All. For the past 26 years Angela has traveled the world, teaching an setting people free.

WEBSITE: SetFree Ministries

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Shampa Rice ("Shanti" from the film)

Shampa Rice was raised in Calcutta, living across the street from Mother Teresa’s headquarters from the age of 12, Shampa was often inspired by her faith and simplicity. She prayed that God would raise her out of poverty so that she too could someday help the poor as Mother Teresa was doing. God heard her cries above and beyond anything she could have dreamed; eventually she would be reaching people all over the world with God’s love.

One of Shampa’s favorite themes is that God likes to use simple, “little people.” “I love to cook. I am a woman from the kitchen,” she says. “God is not looking for someone important; He's looking for anybody who loves Him because He wants to be found more than we want to find Him.”

Shampa has been the director for Iris Ministries in North India since 2005.

WEBSITE: Iris Ministries // India

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Mattheus van der Steen

The founder, pastor and CEO of Touch Reach and Impact the Nations, Mattheus van der Steen was born in Holland. He is passionate for and about Jesus, and speaks prophetically about revival and transformation, God's heart for the orphans and the widows, the John the Baptist generation, the Church in the end time, Joel's Army, depression and burnout, signs and miracles, being filled with the Holy Spirit, the Great Commision, and, his favourite subject, "If you see the invisible God, you can do the impossible."

WEBSITE: Mattheus Van Der Steen

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Greg Boyd

Greg is an internationally recognized theologian, preacher, teacher, apologist and author. He has authored or co-authored 18 books and numerous academic articles, including his best-selling and award-winning Letters From a Skeptic and his most recent books (co-authored with Dr. Paul Eddy) The Jesus Legend and Lord or Legend.

WEBSITE: Greg Boyd

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J.P. Moreland

J.P. Moreland (Ph.D., USC; Th.M., Dallas Theological Seminary) is one of the leading evangelical thinkers of our day as a prolific philosopher, theologian and Christian apologist. He is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Talbot School of Theology and director of Eidos Christian Center.

With degrees in philosophy, theology and chemistry, Dr. Moreland has taught theology and philosophy at several schools throughout the United States. He has authored or coauthored over forty books, including Philosophical Foundation for a Christian Worldview, Scaling the Secular City, Does God Exist?, The Lost Virtue of Happiness and Body and Soul.

He is coeditor of Jesus Under Fire and a frequent contributor to popular Christian magazines and scholarly journals. Dr. Moreland served ten years with Campus Crusade for Christ, planted two churches, and has spoken on over 200 college campuses, in hundreds of churches, and over 25 debates.

Moreland and his wife and partner in ministry, Hope, have two married daughters, Ashley and Allison.

WEBSITE: Kingdom Triangle