JESUS CHRIST

The divinity of Jesus Christ is indicated by the specific names and titles authoritatively applied to Him. According to man’s judgment there may be but little importance attached to names; but in the nomenclature of the Gods every name is a title of power or station. God is righteously zealous of the sanctity of His own name (Exodus 20:7; Leviticus 19:12; Deuteronomy 5:11) and of names given by His appointment. In the case of children of promise names have been prescribed before birth; this is true of our Lord Jesus and of the Baptist, John, who was sent to prepare the way for the Christ. Names of persons have been changed by divine direction, when not sufficiently definite as titles denoting the particular service to which the bearers were called, or the special blessings conferred upon them.* (more…)

The Greek term (kerygma) means “proclamation” and refers to the early preaching tradition about Jesus the Christ, particularly his salvific death and resurrection. The speeches of Peter and Paul in Acts and the letters attributed to them reveals traces of this tradition, which may have been important source material for the writers of the Gospels.

The New Testament used the term in an eschatological sense to refer to the glorious return of Jesus Christ (see 1 Corinthians 15:23, “coming”). The Greek term means “being present” and was adopted for the state visit of a Roman emperor.

Pericope is a Greek term meaning “cut around” that is used by scholars to refer to short sense units in the text of the Bible that are generally longer than the current verse divisions. A pericope is often equivalent to a King James Version paragraph division.

A parable, literally a comparison (Greek parabole), relates the essence of things rather than the ways things exist in fact. For that reason, parables transcend the limits of time and have meaning in an ever-changing world. The New Testament uses a loose definition of a parable when compared with the more restricted sense held by Greek thinkers. Instead, “parable” in the New Testament can describe an extended metaphor, an allegory, or a true narrative parable. The New Testament follows closely the tradition set forth in the Jewish scriptures (Hebrew or Old Testament) that a parable is anything that compares two objects to one another. “How can Satan cast out Satan?” as a parable (Mark 3:23), while using the same terminology to speak of the Parable of the Sower. The predominance of parables in the New Testament reveals that the parable was a favorite teaching method of Jesus Christ, providing the modern reader with a window into who he really was and how he viewed the world. Jesus preferred to speak of things as they would, could, and would be instead of directly instructing his disciples on how to handle an issue. Rarely did Jesus interpret his own parables (Matthew 13:36-43); he preferred that the task of interpretation be carried out by this disciples. For this reason, the parables offer an open invitation for interpretation to each generation who uses them. Without this continuing window of interpretation, the parables become historically confined and explicable for a determined moment in history. In the New Testament, the Gospel of Matthew contain more parables of Jesus Christ than any other source. Its author was apparently drawn to Jesus’ teachings in parables. Unlike Mark, Luke, and John , Matthew not only records the parables but also gathered them into several concise collections (Matthew 13 and 25) with a distinct aim in mind.

The New Testament consists of twenty-seven books about Jesus of Nazareth and the spread of the “good news” about him beyond Galilee principally in the Mediterranean Basin. Written by various authors through the course of the first century AD, these books soon came to be regarded as authoritative and quickly acquired the status of scripture-on par with the writings of the Jewish scriptures (Hebrew Bible or Old Testament) that Jesus Christ had approved (see Luke 24-44). Some time elapsed however, between the death and resurrection of Jesus and the actual writing down of the texts that have become known as the New Testament. The books of the New Testament are divided and organized by genre or literary type: first, the four Gospels, telling the story of Jesus; next, Acts, a “historical” book about the spread of the message of Jesus through the ministry of selected apostles and missionaries; then twenty-one epistles or letters; and finally Revelation, a type of writing known as an apocalypse.

Although the Gospels appear first in sequence in the New Testament, they were written after many of the letters. The term New Testament derives from “new covenant.” In this context the books of the New Testament contains the story of how in and through Jesus of Nazareth a new covenant was revealed to Israel, replacing the “old covenant” recorded in the Jewish scriptures (hence Old Testament).

The synagogue is a well-attested institution during the first century and was particularly important in the small villages and towns of Galilee, separated from the Jerusalem temple and its officiating priests.  This importance was even greater in the outlying towns and cities of the Roman Empire, where the synagogue helped preserve Jewish identity in the face of a hostile world dedicated to pagan civic religion and emperor worship.

The term synagogue, meaning a ‘gathering’ or ‘gathering places’ in Greek, sometimes referred to an assembly and not to a specific building dedicated solely to Sabbath worship.  Because meetings could be held in a large home, courtyard, town square, or even near a river, archaeologists may never identify a particular location as a synagogue, especially in a small town like Nazareth.

Throughout the Mediterranean basin, the synagogue is usually called proseuche, or ‘house of prayer,’ in Greek.  Archaeological and literary evidence, including references in the second half of the New Testament (Acts through Revelation), provides a picture of the importance of the synagogue as both a religious and community center for Diaspora Jews and those Gentiles who attached themselves to synagogue life (for example, “God fearers”).

For the New Testament authors, the synagogue played an important role as the place where Jesus Christ announced his messianic ministry (Luke 4:16-30); where he preformed miracles and taught and preached the “gospel of the kingdom” (Matthew 4:23); where Christian missionaries found an audience and converts (Acts 9:20); and also as a center of opposition to the “good news” (Acts 17:1-6;13).

Crucifixion was an ancient method of execution the Romans adopted almost exclusively to deter criminal acts by non-roman citizens in the empire. Crucifixions were carried out on busy streets, particularly on roads that led into and out of city centers. The Romans hoped that as many onlookers as possible would see those crucified and reconsider acting against Roman provincial law.

One first-century example of a crucified victim demonstrates that the feet of the crucified were at least sometimes nailed sideways through the heel bones and that the feet were possibly nailed together, although recent commentators feel that side by side was the more common practice. Nailing the feet from the top through the bottom caused the feet to tear, providing little support for the victim and therefore hastening death-something the Romans sought to avoid. The hands were most commonly nailed, and although Christian art commonly depicts the wrists of crucified prisoners as being tied, the only documented practice was nailing. The Romans drove nails into the hands and wrists to fasten the person for long periods of time and also to avoid excessive bleeding. If the victim were to bleed excessively, the main purpose of crucifixion-to execute the individual in as painful and public a way as possible-would be circumvented.

The actual crucifixion of Jesus Christ also differs in another important way from our modern artistic impressions of the event. Crucified individuals were stripped naked to humiliate them as much as possible. We have no evidence that the Romans made concessions to Jews to accommodate the Jews’ prohibitions against nakedness.

In the modern world, leprosy-commonly referred to as Hansen’s disease-is quite rare in developed countries. The condition can be treated through modern medicine; however, it is fatal if left untreated. Actual leprosy severely deforms the skin and bones, slowly crippling its victims and rendering them permanently disabled before a painful death.

In the twentieth century, archaeologists have uncovered first-century evidence of Hansen’s disease in Judea and Galilee, providing clear evidence that popular depictions of disfigured and deformed victims may be more accurate than recently thought.

The Mosaic law devotes an entire chapter (Leviticus 13) to the identification, treatment, and quarantine of leprosy victims. The description of the symptoms of leprosy in that chapter is not consistent with what we call leprosy today. Instead, the chapter appears to group a number of severe skin diseases under the title of leprosy.

Psychologically, leprosy was associated with being cursed by God (see 2 Chronicles 26:16-21). When people in biblical times were healed from leprosy, they were required to offer sacrifice and undergo purification (Leviticus 14:1-32). The elaborate cleansing ritual associated with being healed from leprosy lies behind Jesus Christ’s statement to the healed person with leprosy in Mark 1:44. In contrast to other healings Jesus performed, with leprosy he commanded those he healed to follow the cleansing guidelines of the law of Moses subsequent to their healing (Matthew 8:1-4; Luke 5:12-14; 17:11-19).

Modern readers are usually familiar with the term Messiah both in its Hebrew form (transliterated into modern English as “Messiah”) and in its Greek form (Christ, a modernized spelling of Christos). Both terms mean “anointed” and can be used in a general sense, such as in a sacrifice that is anointed before being offered, and in a technical sense to refer to someone who will come and fulfill the role of the Messiah.

Typically, Christians in the modern era think of the Messiah as a distinct person, Jesus Christ, and speak of the Messiah as having already lived. This refined and specific definition of Messiah has encouraged Christian scholars to look back into the story of Jesus Christ and speak of what the Jews of the first century expected in their Messiah, as though their expectations were parallel to what modern Christians think about the Messiah. This process often causes modern readers to speak of the Jews as having missed their Messiah, in part to emphasize that they were looking for the wrong type of Messiah.

Looking at the same issue from a Jewish perspective yields a very different set of conclusions. First, in the first century AD it is not clear from the surviving evidence that the Jews thought of the messiah as a divine person: rather, they thought of people like Cyrus of Persia as a messiah who delivered the Jewish people from Babylonian captivity (Daniel 9:25-26). Other people, who were anointed by the Lord to deliver the Jewish people, could be considered messiahs. Second, some Jewish groups like those who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls expected two messiahs, each with a different role to fulfill. One role of the Dead Sea Scroll community’s messiah was to lead the members into war against foreign oppressors and thereby to redeem Israel. Finally, the subjugation of Judea and Galilee, first by Seleucid rulers in the post-Alexander era and then eventually by Roman occupiers of the land in the first century BC, likely heightened Jewish emphasis on the expectation that the Lord would send a messiah who would deliver the Lord’s people from oppression. Those who looked for this deliverer appear to have thought of him in terms of Joshua, Cyrus, Zerubbabel, and later Simon bar Kochba.

Today Jews are divided with respect to the role the messiah will play. Some, like orthodox Jews, look for a future redemptive messiah who will help Israel regain its former glory. Others, such as reform Jews, look at those who help the Jews, both nationally and individually, as messiahs. Because of their contributions in helping the Jews, these individuals can be considered messiahs.

Christians on the other hand, think of the return of the Messiah, and they interpret that return in specific ways. The return of the Messiah is often described using apocalyptic terminology and the coming of the Messiah will initiate an age in which the righteous will overthrow the oppressive domination of the kingdoms of the world and establish a new Messianic kingdom. The Messiah will return to earth as a Savior, although the return will be a heavenly descent rather than through birth as in the first coming. Specifically, many Christians look forward to a time when the Messiah will return to earth and appear in Jerusalem on the Mount of Olives, where he will split the mount and save Israel from its enemies (Zechariah 14:1-7).