‘Jesus: His Life’ Event Series Coming to HISTORY

From Reel Faith-

Jesus: His Life, an eight-part event documenting the life of Christ produced by Nutopia, will premiere on the HISTORY Channel March 25 and air for four weeks leading up to Easter. The channel had big success xix years ago with the epic Bible series produced by Roma Downey and Mark Burnett, drawing ratings.

The series interviews and consulted with a diverse group of scholars, faith leaders, and theologians from across the ideological spectrum to provide a rounded picture of the life and times in which Jesus lived, including:

• Robert Cargill – Assistant Professor of Judaism, Christianity and Classics, University of Iowa
• Christena Cleveland – Associate Professor, Duke University Divinity School
• Bishop Michael Curry – Presiding Bishop and Primate of the Episcopal Church

More here-

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/reelfaith/2019/01/jesus-his-life-coming-to-history-channel.html

New ad has dying Jesus as organ donor

From WND-

The death of Jesus has been portrayed countless times in many famous movies, from “Ben Hur” and “The Gospel of John” to “The Passion of the Christ.”

But now, a controversial ad is showing the Son of God agreeing to become an organ donor while He’s being crucified.

The spot commences with two soldiers asking Jesus, who is nailed to the cross, if he thought about becoming an organ donor.

“Is this really the best time to bring this up?” Jesus answers.

One soldier responds: “We get it. No one wants to talk about death. But you know, not all of us are going to the eternal paradise, and your organs could save the lives of up to six people.”

“Obviously I would do it. I am Jesus,” says the Savior.

Read more at https://www.wnd.com/2018/10/what-would-jesus-do-donate-your-organs/#XFLfBdPG4ICAYe5A.99

Did the Syrophoenician woman teach Jesus to be Jesus?

From Psephizo-

The episode of Jesus’ encounter with the Syrophoenician woman in Mark 7.24–30 often brings readers up short, containing as it does what appears to be a rather shocking insult. Jesus is seeking to withdraw from public attention, needing some time for rest and recuperation, but (as characteristic of his portayal in Mark’s gospel) he is unable to keep his presence secret. A woman approaches him to ask for deliverance for her daughter and (Mark having emphasised her pagan gentile credentials), Jesus appears to insult her with a racial slur by calling her a ‘dog’. Yet her stubborn faith persists, and her clever response to Jesus’ ‘insult’ persuades him to act, so her daughter is delivered and healed.

There seems to be quite a strong trend in ‘progressive’ readings of this text to draw a particular point from this episode: Jesus was in fact fallible and racist; the woman taught him something by her response; he changed and moved on from his narrow, exclusive view; and so we should be willing to do the same. Here is one example, which sees mainstream readings of this texts as ‘workarounds’ which are avoiding the awkward reality that we find in the text:

More here-

https://www.psephizo.com/biblical-studies/did-the-syrophoenician-woman-teach-jesus-to-be-jesus/

How to Avoid the Folly of the Pharisees

From Christianity Today-

You’ve probably heard someone say at some point “Don’t be such a Pharisee.” Typically these words are uttered when someone is being overly scrupulous in “rule keeping” in the Christian life. If there’s one type of person in the New Testament that you don’t want to be compared to, surely it’s the Pharisees. Though one could consider the question of the Pharisees from a variety of perspectives, let’s look at how Jesus responds to the Pharisees in the Gospel of Matthew.

The Pharisees frequently oppose Jesus in the Gospels. Jesus is often critiqued by the Pharisees, and he in turn reproaches them for their errant ways. He strongly warns his disciples not to follow their teaching. But what exactly was the Pharisees’ problem? Was it that they were too concerned with following God’s law? Or was it something else?

More here-

https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2018/august-web-only/pharisees-how-to-avoid-law-gospel-theology.html

Did the Early Christians Understand Jesus?

From Plough-


There are statements so ­bewildering that they are quoted again and again. Among these is a remark, now a century old, by the French biblical scholar Alfred Loisy: “Jesus proclaimed the kingdom of God – and what came was the church.”1 I’ll leave to the side the question of what Loisy himself meant by this sentence. Rather, I’ll focus on how it’s understood by those who gleefully quote it. Usually, they understand it as bitterly ironic.

Here, on the one side, is the kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed: the immense, all-comprehensive, yet incomprehensible trans­form­ation of the world under God’s reign – and there, on the other side, is the church that came after Easter: a finite body with all the limitations of any other social structure. Clearly, then, there’s a gaping chasm between Jesus’ proclamation and the post-Easter reality! Here the glory of the kingdom of God; there the bitter paltriness of the actual existing church.

I’ll say immediately what merit I find in this approach: None. None at all. For it rends open a cleft between the will of Jesus and the reality of the church in a way that does injustice to both Jesus and the church. How so?

More here-

https://www.plough.com/en/topics/faith/early-christians/did-the-early-christians-understand-jesus

Renowned scholar John Dominic Crossan says Jesus was talking about God’s style, not a place in time

From Pennsylvania-

In first-century Roman-occupied Israel, when Jesus talked about the Kingdom of God, he wasn’t speaking of a place in space and time.

Rather, he was referring to the “ruling style of God,” said John Dominic Crossan, a scholar and author known for his writings on the historical Jesus.

“When Jesus used that term, he’s really asking you to imagine, what would this world be like if God sat on Caesar’s throne?” Crossan said when giving the Walters Garvin Lecture on May 4 at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Lancaster.

Crossan, who spoke on “Jesus and the Kingdom of God,” also gave additional presentations at the church last Saturday and delivered the sermon at Sunday’s service.

The Irish-born Crossan, a former Roman Catholic priest and emeritus professor of religious studies at DePaul University, was co-chair of the Jesus Seminar, founded in 1985 for scholars interested in historical Jesus research. The group received media attention for its members using colored beads to indicate how likely it was that certain sayings actually came from Jesus.

More here-

https://lancasteronline.com/features/faith_values/renowned-scholar-john-dominic-crossan-says-jesus-was-talking-about/article_14325d8c-554a-11e8-9772-bf78fa8fc257.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=user-share

What did Jesus wear?

From The Conversation-

Over the past few decades, the question of what Jesus looked like has cropped up again and again. Much has been made of a digital reconstruction of a Judaean man created for a BBC documentary, Son of God, in 2001. This was based on an ancient skull and, using the latest technology (as it was), shows the head of a stocky fellow with a somewhat worried expression.

Rightly, the skin tone is olive, and the hair and beard black and shortish, but the nose, lips, neck, eyes, eyelids, eyebrows, fat cover and expression are all totally conjectural. Putting flesh on ancient skulls is not an exact science, because the soft tissue and cartilage are unknown.

Nevertheless, for me as a historian, trying to visualise Jesus accurately is a way to understand Jesus more accurately, too.

The Jesus we’ve inherited from centuries of Christian art is not accurate, but it is a powerful brand. A man with long hair parted in the middle and a long beard – often with fair skin, light brown hair and blue eyes – has become the widely accepted likeness. We imagine Jesus in long robes with baggy sleeves, as he is most often depicted in artworks over the centuries. In contemporary films, from Zefirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth (1977) onwards, this styling prevails, even when Jesus’ clothing is considered poorly made.


More here-

https://theconversation.com/what-did-jesus-wear-90783

Washington Post to Christians on Christmas Morning: Jesus Didn’t Exist

From The Stream-

Early Christmas morning, the Washington Post thought it should stick its thumb in the eyes of those celebrating the birth of Jesus.

Its official “Post Opinions” Twitter account tweeted, “Did historical Jesus really exist? The evidence just doesn’t add up.”

Many commented on the provocative timing. Publisher of Encounter books and author Roger Kimball said that the Post’s tweet was, “Really, all you need to know about that pathetic publication.” Conservative actor James Woods tweeted, “Why is this necessary today? Why insult people of a certain faith on the day they most cherish? It’s not a matter of being right or wrong, it’s a matter of simple courtesy. #Rude”. (He added a ruder hashtag as well.) Many others were affronted.

More here-

https://stream.org/washington-post-christmas-jesus-didnt-exist/

Did Jesus Exist? Searching for Evidence Beyond the Bible

From Biblical Archeology-

After two decades toiling in the quiet groves of academe, I published an article in BAR titled “Archaeology Confirms 50 Real People in the Bible.”a The enormous interest this article generated was a complete surprise to me. Nearly 40 websites in six languages, reflecting a wide spectrum of secular and religious orientations, linked to BAR’s supplementary web page.b Some even posted translations.

I thought about following up with a similar article on people in the New Testament, but I soon realized that this would be so dominated by the question of Jesus’ existence that I needed to consider this question separately. This is that article:1

Did Jesus of Nazareth, who was called Christ, exist as a real human being, “the man Christ Jesus” according to 1 Timothy 2:5?

The sources normally discussed fall into three main categories: (1) classical (that is, Greco-Roman), (2) Jewish and (3) Christian. But when people ask whether it is possible to prove that Jesus of Nazareth actually existed, as John P. Meier pointed out decades ago, “The implication is that the Biblical evidence for Jesus is biased because it is encased in a theological text written by committed believers.2 What they really want to know is: Is there extra-Biblical evidence … for Jesus’ existence?”c

Therefore, this article will cover classical and Jewish writings almost exclusively.3

More here-

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/jesus-historical-jesus/did-jesus-exist/

Jesus and the apocalypse

From Mark Vernon-

It’s Christmas time. It’s the winter solstice. It’s our appropriation of the Saturnalia. Yes, yes. And it’s the official birthday, in the west, of Jesus. So it’s timely to revisit an old question: who did the baby turn out to be?

I’ve been reading around the latest in the quest for the historical Jesus and it’s striking how much has settled in the last few years. Quite a lot about the man is now agreed and what’s agreed amounts to quite a lot.

Aside from the occasional conspiracist, no-one now doubts that Jesus actually lived. As the sceptic and religious studies scholar, Bart D. Ehrman, summarizes in How Jesus Became God (2014): “Jesus was a lower-class Jewish preacher from the backwaters of rural Galilee who was condemned for illegal activities and crucified for crimes against the state.”

Of course, many of the things that the gospel writers say about Jesus are hard to verify historically, and some of them are clearly not historically accurate. Only Matthew describes wise men visiting him at the time of his birth. Only Luke describes shepherds visiting him as a baby in Bethlehem. But we should be too surprised at these inventions. The gospel writers were more interested in conveying the significance of Jesus, rather than capturing the facts of his life. As was common at the time, they used mythical ideas and reinterpreted sacred texts, alongside historical events, to show what they thought was important.

More here-

http://www.markvernon.com/jesus-and-the-apocalypsis

FIRST COPY OF JESUS’S SECRET WRITINGS TO HIS BROTHER RECOVERED FROM ANTIQUITY IN ORIGINAL GREEK

From Newsweek-

For the first time, scholars have found a copy of the original Greek manuscript describing what Jesus secretly taught his brother James.

Biblical scholars at the University of Texas at Austin discovered the manuscript in the Nag Hammadi Library at Oxford University, where it may have been a tool teachers used to help students learn to read and write. According to a press release from The University of Texas at Austin, to find a copy of such a manuscript in Greek, the language in which it was originally written, is incredibly rare.

The Nag Hammadi Library is a collection of 13 Coptic Gnostic books, also called codices, that were found in Egypt more than 70 years ago. Only a small handful of works from the library have been recovered in their original Greek versions.

More here-

http://www.newsweek.com/copy-jesus-writings-his-brother-recovered-antiquity-original-greek-727815

Age of Jesus Christ’s Purported Tomb Revealed

From National Geographic-

Over the centuries, Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre has suffered violent attacks, fires, and earthquakes. It was totally destroyed in 1009 and subsequently rebuilt, leading modern scholars to question whether it could possibly be the site identified as the burial place of Christ by a delegation sent from Rome some 17 centuries ago.

Now the results of scientific tests provided to National Geographic appear to confirm that the remains of a limestone cave enshrined within the church are remnants of the tomb located by the ancient Romans.

Mortar sampled from between the original limestone surface of the tomb and a marble slab that covers it has been dated to around A.D. 345. According to historical accounts, the tomb was discovered by the Romans and enshrined around 326.

More here-

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/11/jesus-tomb-archaeology-jerusalem-christianity-rome/

JESUS AND POLITICS

From Jake Owensby-

Some Christians are making political commitments that Jesus would hesitate to call, well, Christian. Let me explain by way of a political run-in that Jesus had with a group called the Herodians and some Pharisees.
We don’t know much about the Herodians.

Their name suggests that they were like other groups whose names derive from a person they follow in some way. Think of Marxists or Freudians or even Christians.

So, it’s reasonable to think that the Herodians may have sought to restore the Herodian family to the throne of Israel. They were a politically-motivated group. They had hitched their political, social, and economic wagon to Herod and his descendants. If Herod’s line came to power, their political muscle, social status, and personal wealth would increase.

In Matthew’s Gospel, we read that Herod the Great was not actually about making Israel great again. At least, not great in any spiritual or moral sense. He was mostly about making Herod great.

More here-

https://jakeowensby.com/2017/10/20/jesus-and-politics/

Anglican priest, author Tom Harpur argued that Jesus was an allegory

From Canada-

Tom Harpur was a devout Christian who was not certain that Jesus existed, but did believe in the principles that were taught in his name. He knew before he wrote his most powerful book, The Pagan Christ, that his views would be controversial and unsettling.

“My goal is not to summarily dismiss the deep beliefs held by many millions in North America, Europe, and increasingly now in the Southern Hemisphere, where the vast majority of today’s Christians live. But I do want these people to think deeply about their faith anew,” Mr. Harpur wrote in that book.

Tom Harpur, who died last month at the age of 87, was an ordained Anglican priest and theology professor at the University of Toronto who gained international fame, not from the pulpit, but from his newspaper columns and books. He wrote for the Toronto Star for almost 40 years, first as its full-time religion editor and then as a freelance writer.

More here-

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/anglican-priest-author-tom-harpur-argued-that-jesus-was-an-allegory/article33946605/

Unsealing of Christ's Reputed Tomb Turns Up New Revelations

From National Geographic-

Researchers have continued their investigation into the site where the body of Jesus Christ is traditionally believed to have been buried, and their preliminary findings appear to confirm that portions of the tomb are still present today, having survived centuries of damage, destruction, and reconstruction of the surrounding Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem's Old City.

The most venerated site in the Christian world, the tomb today consists of a limestone shelf or burial bed that was hewn from the wall of a cave. Since at least 1555, and most likely centuries earlier, the burial bed has been covered in marble cladding, allegedly to prevent eager pilgrims from removing bits of the original rock as souvenirs.

When the marble cladding was first removed on the night of October 26, an initial inspection by the conservation team from the National Technical University of Athens showed only a layer of fill material underneath. However, as researchers continued their nonstop work over the course of 60 hours, another marble slab with a cross carved into its surface was exposed. By the night of October 28, just hours before the tomb was to be resealed, the original limestone burial bed was revealed intact.

More here-

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/10/jesus-christ-tomb-burial-church-holy-sepulchre/

Jesus, Mel Gibson, and the alpha issue

From The Living Church-

I embraced the Anglican current in the Catholic stream of Christianity when I became an Episcopalian as a young adult in the mid-1970s, after having been raised in a free-church evangelical tradition. From the very beginning, endemic conflict has marked my experience as an Episcopalian. I can yearn for no golden age, no peaceful days of yore. There has always been a fight going on.

In looking back over the last four-plus decades, basically my entire adult life, I am struck, even as the details of the controverted issues have evolved, by how easy it has been all along to predict which side of the divide du jour any particular Episcopalian will land on. In the ’70s, most (not all, but most) of those who were exercised about the replacement of the 1928 Prayer Book were also opposed to the ordination of women. As the years progressed, most (again, not all, but most) of those opposed to the ordination of women were also deeply concerned about the gradual normalization of homosexual relationships (a movement that arguably reached its omega point only this year at the 78th General Convention). And those who remained troubled by the Church’s redefinition of marriage to include partners of the same sex will doubtless join the frontlines in the coming fray over liturgical language, arguing against the abandonment of masculine pronouns for God and loaded words like “Lord,” “Father,” and “Kingdom.” (This is not to say that others will not also oppose such abandonment.)

More here-

http://livingchurch.org/covenant/2015/12/07/jesus-mel-gibson-and-the-alpha-issue/

What Would Jesus Do (for Lent)?

From "Mockingbird"-

There is a widely preached theology which tells us that we can somehow identify with Jesus. This lens is all too often used to justify whatever behavior we are interested in spiritualizing. And so we get to be angry because Jesus turned over tables in the temple. We get to invoke righteous indignation at politicians or religious figures because Jesus yelled at the Pharisees and the hypocrites. At Lent, our WWJD theology is allowed to go into overdrive. We must “give up” something in order to identify ourselves with the suffering and self-denial of Jesus in the desert.

While all of this sounds earnest and well-intentioned, this theology misses the point–devastatingly so. Jesus wasn’t just hanging out in the desert, dancing to the beat of a one man drum circle. Jesus was going toe to toe with the Satan himself. And there’s nothing relatable about that for us.

More here-

http://www.mbird.com/2015/02/what-would-jesus-do-for-lent/

Why Are We Silent About the Falsification of Biblical History in Artworks?

From Algemeiner-

When I recently visited the impressive Marc Chagall exhibit at the Jewish Museum in New York City, I was surprised that more than half of the 31 paintings include a crucifixion theme.

More surprising, the dying Jesus is clearly a Jew, frequently shown wearing a Jewish prayer shawl rather than a plain loin cloth. For Chagall, the crucifixion represented the common ground of suffering of Christians and Jews. In reminding us of Jesus’ Jewish identity, Chagall departed from the massive numbers of artworks that have falsely pictured Jesus as strictly Christian, thus fueling the historic rift between Christians and Jews.

“Do you know that Jesus was Jewish?” I posed this question to both Christians and Jews when I was doing research for my book Jesus Uncensored: Restoring the Authentic Jew. Many people acknowledged that Jesus was indeed Jewish. But I discovered that what they really meant was that he used to be Jewish – before he became Christian.

“Of course, he was Jewish,” said Jane, a young woman educated in Catholic schools. “And did he remain Jewish throughout his life?” I asked her. “Oh, no, he became a Christian.” “When did that happen?” I asked. “When he was baptized by John the Baptist,” she said. “It says so in the Gospels.”

More here-

http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/01/22/why-are-we-silent-about-the-falsification-of-biblical-history-in-artworks/

Five myths about Jesus

From The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette-

Perhaps no historical figure is more deeply mired in legend and myth than Jesus of Nazareth. Outside of the Gospels -- which are not so much factual accounts of Jesus but arguments about his religious significance -- there is almost no trace of this simple Galilean peasant who inspired the world's largest religion. But there's enough biblical scholarship about the historical Jesus to raise questions about some of the myths that have formed around him over the past 2,000 years.

Read more:

 http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/opinion/perspectives/five-myths-about-jesus-706422/#ixzz2gwG4djPi

How Reza Aslan's Jesus is giving history a bad name

From ABC Religion and Ethics-

He is my favourite subject, academically and personally, but popular accounts of the "historical Jesus" are getting tedious, and some of them are giving history itself a bad name.

Hardly a month goes by without a media outlet announcing something "new" about Jesus. Some half-qualified scholar tells us how the original Jesus was, unsurprisingly, quite unlike the figure of the Gospels. He was married, he was gay, he was both, he never existed, he was peaceful, he was violent, and on and on it goes.

The most recent effort is Reza Aslan's Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth. Typical of this genre, the author's principal credentials are not in ancient history, classics, New Testament or Jewish studies - the directly relevant disciplines. Instead, he has a PhD in the sociology of religion and is a "professor of creative writing," which explains both the riveting prose and eccentric content. The mismatch between Aslan's grandiose claims and his limited credentials in history is glaring on almost every page. The sizable bibliography and notes are no substitute for formal training - as is equally well-attested in the similarly blustering works of fundamentalist Christian apologetics.

Naturally, everyone is allowed to express a view on historical matters. All I am saying is that not everyone is allowed to claim the mantle of "expert" in what is a vast and highly specialized field of academic enquiry, in which Aslan has not contributed a single peer reviewed article, let alone monograph.

More here-

http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2013/08/09/3822264.htm