Never Mind The Bullocks

So the Jesus Seminar is pretty much made up of forty year old guys gathering a couple times a year at hotels around the country playing with some marbles debating whether or not to tie their shoes. What did that guy Jesus say? He never really rose from the grave and he was actually poisoned to death?....hmmmnnn...lets ponder on this. This book Real Jesus was an extremely difficult read for me because the whole direction of the book is evident in the prologue. The author wines through the whole book and gives examples of their false teachings which at times were amusing and other times very daunting. Someone out there is very midled by the teachings of Funk, Theiring and the rest of them. Also that some of the books described are on best seller lists is very disturbing. Thomas' point that we need to market ourselves with books of ours with the same marketing schemes is ludacris. We need to find our own new ways of marketing Christ and our faith to the people of the twenty-first century.

The Jesus Seminar's quest of the real Jesus is really misleading they don't want to find out the real Jesus. The real Jesus is discovered by faith and these guys just want to dismiss Jesus for people who are searching for him. Jesus said 'I am the way the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me." I'm sure that this is one of the sayings that receives a grey or black marble.

The Mystery Q

Well somehow with everything going on in my classes I still managed to stay tuned into Dr. Foster's lecture today. Perhaps it was the changing of rooms, why can't we always be in that one, it's beaut. So the lecture basically divided into three section entitled Source Criticism, Red-action Criticism and The Quest for the Historical Jesus. It was all interesting to me however the first section was wild. So we have this imaginery book called Q that Matthew and Luke supposedly have drawn from as well as Mark's gospel. Why couldn't they have just wrote about the stories that they had seen or heard and ofcourse what they saw in Mark's gospel. What is the majority of believe behind another document. I certaintly can't see a connection between Matthew and Luke that is not contained in Mark. Then we add M and L documentation to the mixture. Oh boy, what fun. Streeter are you serious about this Four Source hypothesis?

3 Parables Luke 15

On the way out of Life of Christ on Monday Dr. Foster drops the line don't forget to read Luke 15 because we will talk about it in more depth next lesson. I read the chapter which is broken down into three parables that Jesus speaks to sinners, taxcollectors, The Pharissees and other teachers of the law. There is a lost sheep and a lost coin these story pretty much are mirror imagesof one another. The shepherd leaves the 99 to find one and the woman searches the whole house for the one lost coin. They both rejoice when they find their lost possessions and call their friends and neighbours up on their mobile phones to rejoice with them. Jesus says in both of these parables that there is much celebration in heaven when a sinner repents. The parable of the lost son stills gets the same message across however Jesus doesn't talk about heaven rejoicing in this parable. Instead Jesus talks of the angry brother who refuses to party in the wake of his younger brother's return. His father says you don't understand "you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found." I'm really interested in Dr. Foster's notes on this because sometimes stories that I'm so familar with I just skip over but the class lesson he talked about turning the other cheek. His performance with Abbott I will never forget, I never even considered that take on that passage. Warning to Dr. Foster though, I may steal your story on that for a sermon of mine.

The Ending Of Mark

Well after finishing the excellent book of Mark in great detail, I'm pretty dissapointed that we don't know what was really the end of Mark. I haven't really discussed this ending anywhere else probably cause the church kind of hides this, not exactly Sunday School material. Right now to me the longer ending sounds quite foolish cause of the drastic change in the way it was written. So I'm actually stuck between Mark 16:8 is the intended ending and that we can't find the real ending, which is diffucult to determine. Is it out of the question that Mark himself never finished the book? Maybe he didn't know how to end it, so handed in the manuscript as is? Is this out of the question? If anyone else has an idea of their own put it forward to me; I'd love to hear it.

The Fig Tree Dilema

The part in Mark where Jesus cursed the fig tree I had never understood until Dr. Foster elaborated on why Jesus despised the tree. You see if a fig tree has leaves it must bear fruit because that the way God made it. Before knowing this I thought Jesus could have cursed all of the fig trees in the area cause non of them would bear fruit if it was not the season for figs. However now I realise that if any leaves are on the tree, it must have some fruit, it just may not ripe. Maybe Jesus planned to eat the unripe fruit. Who knows ? We do know that Jesus said to the tree "may no one ever eat fruit from you again." Now I realise his frustration because off in the distance when he was approaching tree he thought beauty, it has leaves on it, so I can eat from it. Only to realise when he got closer that the tree was deceiving and he could not eat from it.

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.

What Do You Think You're Doing, Mate?

Jesus sends the money exchangers out of the temple. After reading the cleansing of the temple in all of it's four gospel contexts I was surprised by how much they differ. What is said on page 820 of the DJG has helped me understand the slightly different messages of the same story. They can be put in these four categories: 1) It's a religious event intented to cleanse the Temple of impurities. 2) It is a messianic event intented to include the Gentiles in the scope of Temple activities. 3) It is a prophetic event intented to announce the destruction of the temple and it's eschatogicial restoration. 4) It is a politicial event intented to disrupt the wrongful activities of the Temple because they had become exploitative. I think you really need to read the contexts in the order of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John to understand how they differ and how Mark may have influenced the writings to come. The major point of the text I still got what I have always got; what Jesus did what in the Temple eventually led to the authorities challenging him and later his cruxifition. People still listened to this character because he had authority and he spoke with an incredible knowledge of the Torah.

Anyone can go

In The Dictionary Of Jesus and The Gospels, I found it interesting how Mark's view on the disciples is so varied. Did Jesus think that the people he choose were important or did he just pick up the first people he saw. These were the people who were eventually going to start the church, bar Judas. The Disciples are able to heal, preach and exocise demons. After seeing the amazing miracles like feeding the five thousand, they still don't believe their eyes when they see Jesus walk on water. Jesus isn't just walking on pool water he is walking on rising waves and rocking seas. My question to others could Jesus have picked any young fit men at the time, to be his disciples along the way? I think so.