This Week on New Testament Nexus
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Here’s what’s on the menu this week:
Who Were the Pharisees? Part 2
What do the works of Josephus tell us about the Pharisees? How did he view the beliefs and practices of this group? Does his account match that found in the Gospels?
Have You Heard of the Historical Jesus?
Something happened in biblical scholarship during the Enlightenment, especially with how thinkers of this period viewed the Jesus of ‘history’. This spurred several ‘quests’ to understand the historical Jesus as distinct from the Jesus of the Gospels. Come read how that worked itself out, the developments of these projects, how biblical scholars currently approach Jesus historically, and whether this whole project of “the historical Jesus” has been worth it.
The History of the Jews, Part 1
So, we have gotten a sense of the topography and geography of the land of Israel. Now, let’s talk about Jewish history. You might be asking: why study the history of the Jews? Well, they were God’s chosen people in the story of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, and the first folks to receive the Gospel and follow Jesus were Jews. Not to mention that Jesus himself was a devout Jew. Thus, it behooves us to understand Judaism before and during the time of Jesus as a fundamental window into understanding the world of the New Testament. Turns out, there’s a lot we know from various sources, but especially from Josephus. Getting our footing on the history of the Jews will need to be a multi-post endeavor. Stick around for all of them! This information comes out of my engagement with Readings from the First-Century World: Primary Sources for New Testament Study, edited by Walter Elwell and Robert Yarborough.