beelzewho???

So I suppose I will blog on the state of my research paper. I am exegeting Mark 3:20-30 and comparing Christ’s accusation of casting out demons by the power of Beelzebul to his authority. I had always read this passage and not fully understood its meaning. Only after my studies have I understood fully that Christ was referring to Satan when he said that the strong man is bound. I also am concerned that the issue of honor/shame may be in use here. It may be a possibility that the Kingdom of God is now taking some of the honor that the Kingdom of Satan once had and that Jesus is the catalyst of that change. I still have much research to do to support/negate my theory and it may be the case that once I get further into my studies that I find that my hypothesis is completely incorrect. I believe this will be an exciting endeavor. I suppose that my thesis that was due in stage 2 has been changed as my research has matured. I guess that’s the point of doing papers in stages though huh?

-Steven

Critically Correct/Incorret

I never really thought much about the fact that there might be other valuable material out there for us to read concerning the area of religion, culture, and history other than the stuff that modern theologians have produced. The information that Dr. Foster shared our of 4 Ezra and Psalms of Solomon were amazing to me. I wondered though why, if so valuable, were they not put into the cannon. I found them to be such great help in the lecture. I do however understand that there are great works of literature out there that have been published like music and books that are very valuable for spiritual growth and these fit in that area. However, they are so historically and culturally right on that that even makes me question correctness or incorrectness with it all. I think that is good, because it is simply getting me to think and anything that makes me desire to think is GOOD!

Disciples

I think one thing that has really clicked with me lately, is the fact that the disciples didn't really know that much about who Jesus was....it took them a while to comprehend his greatness. That seems odd to me since they were next to him constantly and experienced his miracles first hand. It seems that if you were around someone as great as that, you would understand a little more about him. I can't imagine what it would be like to be a disciple, or even be alive in Jesus' time. I am thankful that I can read about their experiences and accounts of Jesus time here on earth.

OJ...watch carefully, take notes.

It's interesting how many accounts there are of Jesus' trial. I counted 10 (counting the four Gospels as separate accounts.) That's fascinating to me. Maybe it shouldn't be, but I imagine that most trials in that area and that time didn't have more than one or two accounts, if any. Maybe that's incorrect, but it seems that the spotlights seem to be on this trial. Even more interesting, is how much noise came form that trial, considering how little, the accused actually spoke. He offered no resistance, no pleads for mercy, not even any logical arguments as to why he shouldn't be killed. Strange, that the man who had never lost an argument, even against some of the brightest minds of his culture, didn't offer a single point of argument when death faced him. Paul describes his death as voluntary in several of his writings (like Rom 4:25). Strange that the biggest trial, most talked-about trial in history contained an innocent convict who was willing to die...for the ones who were killing him.

Alex H.

Ya know, the Pharisees werent all that bad...neither was Hitler...

Dr. Foster (as did some of my sources in my paper) talked about the Pharisees building a hedge of protection around the Torah in order to protect it. Somehow, I understand the concept and respect them for aspiring to a higher standard of righteousness than the people of their community would lean to, but I also understand Christ’s frustration with them. They enforced their traditions and regulations because they were widely practiced. Because it became normative, they began to hold it higher than the Law that they were attempting to protect. Beyond that, they took their oral traditions in order to deny responsibility to the Law that they were protecting (see Corban). I hold Pharisees in some level of respect because I too think that we should all be held to the same standard of holiness that God has called us to, but I don’t believe that it should be achieved through undermining the very source of the holiness to which we aspire. Is it unbiblical to believe that all are held to the same standard even in such a relativistic world? Are we Pharisees (Holiness Police) in our day and age?

Zach Pyron

Forget The New Testament the Psudepigrapha works just fine.

Well I reckon thats a pretty good title anyway, even if what I have to say is useless. Monday's lecture that encompassed the Psudepigrapha was very interesting, I knew this literature was out there but I guess I thought that it was completely rubbish worthy. Sure some of the text is not relevant like from the Testament Of Judah the godless are condemned. Well I'm pretty sure I'm screwed then. Now I realise that some parts of the text can be very true and on the right track like in 4th Ezra when the Messsiah was to come from the lineage of David. Sure it already says this in our copy of the old testament today. So why couldn't the bloody pharisees see that it was Jesus. Above all this lecture combined with a lecture in world lit on The Koran have taught me not disgard any literature, if only to understand from another viewpoint what the Jews thought and even the way the Muslims think. So 2nd Temple Literature does have a use. As for the way my title reads I think we all can say that the New Testament is worthy of cover to cover completion.

1, 2, 3, or 4 How many?

As I did the reading in Mark 14:1-10, I remembered studying this passage in Bib. Interp. a few weeks ago. It's the passage where a woman came in with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, and broke the jar and poured it on Jesus' head. When we studied it, I personally never decided how many stories it was throughout the gospels. This story has never intrigued me as much as trying to figure out how many stories it really is. Studying this passage a little bit bit deeper was interesting to me. This passage really intrigues me and I am ready to go over it in class and reading this again has inspired me to study more commentaries.

OT Pseudepigrapha-false writings but purposeful

In last class, when we were learning about the OT pseudepigrapha i thought it was interesting how transmission of the OT actually was only beginning a little before the pseudepigrapha. It must have been hard to discern real from the truth. All these ideas were circulating and indoctrinating the people with something that was not the truth. I do believe that these texts though that proclaim a falsehood do serve a purpose. They illustrate the mindset of the people in their expectations for a messiah. If the messiah was expected to be as Jesus was how would things have been different. Would Jesus have been crucified? I can't help but be amazed at the way God uses everything for his purpose, the bad and the good.

Thoughts on the Messianic Expectation

I found the discussion of the Messianic expection and its origins fascinating. I had never really considered that the Jew's view of the messiah had developed over the years from ideas that were not particularly scriptural. Even more than this, I did not consider that the disciples themselves had the same view and most of the Jews. They don't seem quite so dense to me anymore. More and more, this class is making me learn the history behind the things I just accepted with no explanation. I had always assumed that the Jews just thought up their own idea of a Savior, and that Jesus clearly wasn't it. Only now do I realize that the reason for their disbelief goes much deeper. The readings from the OT pseudepigrapha were eyeopening. For some reason, I had this idea that the apocrypha was the "Catholic" part of the Bible. It's amazing that it has taken me untill my fourth semester at Williams for this light to finally begin to come on in my head.

Jesus

It is amazing to me the more and more I read in the Gospel of Mark, how much Jesus cares for the little man. As we talked in class the other day about the blind man in Mark 8:22, it clicked in my head that the Son of God, cares about little eons like myself. The other thing I find interesting about that story is the ignorance of the disciples. I can fully empithize with the disciples, because I am not always at my sharpest. However, I think if I saw a man named Jesus heal a blind man, that means restore his vision. I am pretty sure that I would fully believe in him. However, so many times I tell God that he can't do things and that he needs to leave it to me. (the human) I do not always trust God to take care of things for me. It seems like the disciples that I will proclaim Jesus in my words and in my prayer, but deny His ability in my daily life.

Reading all of the screw-ups of the disciples has actually been convicting to me. Alot of the mistakes that the disciples make, I make everyday. I deny God the room to do things in my life and through my life. Like the disciples I let my human reasoning get the best of me.

Jesus Must Be Having An Idendity Crisis

I had heard for a while now that the disciples weren't always the brightest characters. This is something I did not learn in Sunday School, however. I had always thought of the disciples as the people who knew what Jesus was all about almost as well as Jesus Himself. After really getting into the Gospel of Mark, though, I can see just how little the disciples actually did understand. Even Peter, one of the closest people to Jesus, did not totally get it. It just blows my mind to think that the disciples really didn't understand the messiahship of Jesus until after the Resurrection.
I imagine I would have been in the same boat as the disciples. Unlike the disciples before the Resurrection, I have the privilege of knowing how the story ends.

Mark

I have been reading Matthew recently and i guess i have just noticed a few differances between it and Mark. In my ignorant youth i thought that all the gospels were the same, some just told different stories that the others had failed to mention. but in comparing the two after studying Mark in depth i can feel a difference, in the author's style and intention and miss the trends of Mark. It is encouraging to know i am learning and that this class is helping me see God's word in new and even exciting ways.

Wars, Earthquakes, and Famines OH MY!!

In Mark 13:7-8 Jesus warns about what "things must happen," before the end. Garland put this into a good prospective when he implies that the point Jesus was trying to make was not so much the individual signs we should look for to herald the end, because famine, earthquakes, and wars are constantly happening somewhere. Besides these signal that the end is "still to come" so they are no sign that the end is upon us. Jesus was telling his disciples that chaos and evil will happen, and often, but God knows this and is still in control. I enjoyed the lovely metaphor of "birth pains" and though I have never had a child, I have watched enough movies and meet to many women that have to know that it is a painful and exhausting experience that only gets worse before it gets better. Some women are even willing to endure it more than once, so it must be either against their will or rather rewarding.
Despite what it might seem, these two verses are a comfort for the passage that follows about persecution. God is in control and like a mother in labor, it will hurt real bad and you'll probably scream a lot, but the reward is worth the wile.

Oh that's why they believe that.

I like all others often wondered where the Jews got their idea of Christ being this great king. I knew they all knew the scriptures and what I read never said he was going to overthrow the Roman government. I would think, "do they just not trust the old testament scriptures?" I was completely at a loss to figure out why on earth they believed these things about the Messiah, and treated Jesus so unfairly. It is almost as Dr. Foster answered every question that I had about this when he told us about the books in the Pseudapigripha. All the books said that he will come to judge the unrighteous and though John 3:17 says he did not come to condemn the world i can see in some instances it seems as though he did judge, not final judgement but did judge. He judged the Pharisees as hypocrites. They also spoke about preserving the ones that do believe basically and I think this is done through his death on the cross. Some of the Pseudipigripha books may have just been misinterpretted by the Jews. At any rate, Jesus did not come and set up a physical throne or over throw the roman government, though he has a thrown in every believer on this earth's heart and in 381 B.C. the roman empire is a christian nation. I believe he rules over that. My last question is what is the inspiration and authority of the pseudapigripha.

JESUS THE EXORCIST

In working on my paper for Life of Christ there has been alot I learned and alot that has really made me think about the things Jesus in dealing with exorcism. Jesus did so many things that made exorcist of his day just wonder what could possibly going on with this man that he can do such things as get demons to give their names to him without him having to even ask for them. What comes to my mind is what would we think if we were seeing this happen. People in our day would freak out but, even people who had seen exorcism in their days were jumping through themselves when Jesus would do this work. In my opinon I believe the things he did would have made a skeptic like most people had become of his day. It would be hard for me to see theses things and not wonder what was going on, and it scares me to think that I would think that. Because in the end the people that seen these miracles nailes him to the cross.

Andy Miller

What would I have done?

It's easy for me to look at the Pharisees and say, "How could they have been so blind? Why do they treat Jesus the way they do? What is wrong with them?" They were looking for the Messiah. Jesus did not fit the mold in their eyes. Jesus was not what they were expecting. Things didn't go down quite the way they wanted. I put myself in their shoes. If Jesus didn't meet my expectations of what the Messiah should be, how would I have been? How would I have treated Jesus? I hate to say it, but I can see myself being just as they were. Sometimes, even know, God does things that I don't expect. He even does things I don't necessarily like. It's these times I realize that His ways are above mine. I can't put Jesus in a box and limit Him. I just need to trust that all things work together for the good of those who love Him, and leave it at that, even if I don't understand...and even when He doesn't meet my expectations.