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…)

Luke is the longest Gospel of the four and as much as half of the material in Luke is unique to his Gospel providing additional information about Jesus Christ.

The Gospel of Luke is the first half of a two-part work (Luke-Acts). The Gospel informs the reader what Jesus said and did and the Book of Acts reveal what Jesus did through the Holy Spirit following his ascension—a continuous story that was composed to be read together. (more…)

The Gospel narratives often highlighted the people’s reactions to Jesus Christ’s words, including Mark’s insight that they were often “amazed” or “astonished” (Mark 1:22, 27). John recalled the reaction to the Bread of Life Sermon delivered in Capernaum when Jesus declared that he was the “living manna” and that all must “eat his flesh and drink his blook,” noting that many of Jesus’ disciples responded, “This is an hard saying; who can hear it? (John 6:60; emphasis added). Apparently, for many, this was the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back because, as John noted, “From that time many of his disciples. . . walked no more with him” (John 6:66). (more…)

Among the four canonical Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke are sometimes referred to as the “Synoptic Gospels.” Literally, synoptic means “with the same eye” and refers to the fact that these Gospels share the same material and are closely related to each other.

The Passion Narratives were some of the earliest oral or written accounts of the suffering and death of Jesus Christ. The term passion comes from the Latin for “suffering” (patior/passus) and is found in the King James Version of the Bible in Acts, “To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3, emphasis added). Although scholars differ on where the Passion Narratives begin and end in the individual canonical Gospels, they usually agree that the material dealing with the period from Gethsemane through the Grave is included (see Matthew 26:36-27:66; Mark 14:32-15:47; Luke 22:39-23:56). In the Fourth Gospel the material found in John 18:1-19:42 is often associated with the Passion.

The modern student of the New Testament is presented with a wide variety of possibilities for dating the various books of the New Testament. The dates provided by scholars appear in textbooks and dictionaries as though they are based on concrete historical information; however, most readers of the New Testament would be surprised to learn how little is actually known about when the books of the New Testament were written.

Dating any text from antiquity should proceed from physical to literary evidence, with preference being given to such historical factors as location of the manuscript find, time needed for a text to circulate, and number of manuscripts found. Surprisingly, one of the texts typically assigned the latest date in the New Testament-the Gospel of John-is the first physically attested book. The earliest fragment of the Gospel of John can be dated to A.D. 125 and was found in Egypt, indicating that the original text must have been written before that date. Therefore, we can conclude that the Gospel of John must have been written between the resurrection of Jesus around A.D. 30 and A.D. 125; for all other books of the New Testament, this time span is considerably greater.

Because no precise historical evidence exists that would date the books of the New Testament, scholars turn primarily to literary considerations for dating purposes. If, for example, an early church writer quoted from a book of the New Testament and if that author could be dated definitively, then a comparative date could be assigned to the text he is quoting. The earliest quotations from the New Testament come from an epistle written by Clement of Rome (1 Clement) that quotes from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and several Pauline epistles, including Hebrews. This letter can be dated quite accurately to A.D. 95-96. Therefore, for several books of the New Testament, we can argue that they must have been composed before the last decade of the first century and also circulated as far west as Rome.

Internal quotations, those by one New Testament author of another, also provide important clues. Matthew and Luke quote the Gospel of Mark (Mark 12:1-12 was quoted and altered to reflect Jesus’ death outside the walls in Matthew 21:33-39 and Luke 20:9-15), and 2 Peter quotes the epistle of Jude (portions of Jude 1:6-13 are quoted in 2 Peter 2:1-22). This information can then be used to date the Gospels and epistles comparatively; Mark must precede Matthew and Luke, and Jude must have been written before Peter.

A second internal consideration is whether the text makes any reference to a historical event, person, or group. For example, Acts places Paul in Corinth when Gallio (A.D. 51-52) was governor (Acts 18:12), 1 John makes reference to a datable heresy called Docetism (c. A.D. 90), and Luke places the birth of Jesus Christ at the time of the census of Quirinus “Cyrenius” (Luke 2:2).  Dating an event in the text provides a date after which the text must have been composed, typically referred to by scholars as the terminus ante quam-the point before which a text must have been written- and the terminus post quam-the point after which a text must have been written. Therefore, some scholars conclude that 1 John must be dated after A.D. 90 because of an internal historical reference.

Although the synoptic Gospels contain much common material and frequently “have the same view,” the Gospel of John contains much unique information, some 92 percent of its text being exclusive material.  This fact, combined with the Gospel’s often unique understanding of the person and mission of Jesus Christ, led the early Church father Clement to write, “Last of all, John, perceiving that the external facts had been made plain in the Gospel, being urged by his friends and inspired by the Spirit, composed a spiritual Gospel” (c. A.D. 150-215, Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 6.14.7).  Implicit in this statement is the idea that John purposely avoided much of what the other Gospels had already recorded, focusing on events and teachings that had deeper spiritual significance.

Some scholars have noted, however, that the Gospel of John need not necessarily be a late composition.  Of the synoptic gospels, Luke has the greatest amount of unique material: approximately 41 percent is common to the other Gospels, and 59 percent is exclusive to Luke.  Some of this exclusive material actually seems similar to that found in John, raising the possibility that Luke used John’s gospel or John himself as a source.  Likewise, John’s differences from the Synoptics could suggest that he wrote before the language of the three synoptic Gospels had gained a sure footing.

One document that has recently come to public attention is the Gospel of Judas. This text was discovered near El Minya, Egypt, in the early 1970’s. Like other New Testament documents and the Nag Hammadi codices, this papyrus manuscript survived because of the dry conditions of Egypt. The text was moved from Egypt to Europe to the United States, where it was kept in a safety deposit box in Long Island, New York, for sixteen years.

Eventually, the manuscript was acquired by National Geographic, through a series of institutional contributions and private donations. Like many previous manuscript discoveries, several individuals attempted to use the manuscript for personal gain, which delayed the process of publication. The Gospel of Judas was discovered together with three other badly damaged texts, but at this stage only the gospel has been translated and made public.

Perhaps surprising to some is the fact that the Gospel of Judas, or perhaps a version of it, was in circulation at the beginning of the second century A.D. Already by A.D. 180, Irenaeus, a bishop in Lyons, denounced the Gospel of Judas as a Gnostic text that purported to pass on secrets from the last week of Jesus’ life as well as a revelation of the order of heaven. Until recently, scholars have been left to guess at the specific contents of the Gospel of Judas, but the recent publication of the text makes it obvious that Irenaeus was correct on at least one point.

The document is of Gnostic origin, a point made obvious when in it Jesus Christ teaches Judas about the evil creator god who opposed the true God of heaven. The apostles, who appear in the text to have mistakenly followed the evil creator god, do not realize that Judas understands the true nature of the God of heaven.

The text likely originates from Gnostic circles in Egypt at the turn of the century, and much like its cousin-the Gospel of Thomas-this text supports the Gnostic belief that secret teachings were transmitted to the disciples. In fact, the text begins similarly to the Gospel of Thomas when it reports, “The secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas Iscariot during a week three days before he celebrated Passover” (New York Times translation, 2006).

What is Gnosticism?

Gnosticism by definition is a belief in hidden knowledge and mysteries (Greek Gnōsis) that were purportedly passed on to the disciples through private revelation. These mysteries often describe how the soul ascends in the afterlife. According to Gnostic thinking, angelic intermediaries, called archons, stand in the way of the soul’s progress, and therefore the believing Gnostic must discover how to pass by the intermediaries unscathed. Many Gnostic texts pass on the names of the angelic intermediaries.

Gnosticism was not a monolithic movement within the church; instead, there were many different beliefs and practices among Gnostics. Most discussions of Gnosticism refer to second-century forms of the religion such as Valentinian, Sethian, Barbelo, and other forms of Gnosticism. Therefore, it is difficult to speak of a single form or belief among Gnostics. Perhaps, however, the most pervading feature among Gnostic sects was the idea that Jesus Christ was a revealer of secret teachings-but not the savior of the world. He did not redeem mankind through a sacrificial death as the canonical Gospels teach us; rather, he redeems mankind through the transmission of secret teachings.

Gnosticism is referred to explicitly in the New Testament when Paul denounces the movement to Timothy saying, “O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science [gnōsis] falsely so called: Which some professing have erred concerning the faith” (1 Timothy 6:20-21). Other sayings of the apostles may have been directed at Gnostic teachings.

Scholars have long considered the Gospel of John to be one of the latest written texts in the New Testament. The reasons for the conclusion that the Gospel of John was written after the letters of Paul, the Synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), and many of the later letters, is based on a variety of evidences that when considered collectively suggest a post-90 AD composition.

Perhaps the most basic assumption regarding the date of composition of the Gospel of John is its theology in comparison to the other three gospels. Specifically, the fourth gospel emphasizes the divinity of Jesus and his premortal role as deity (John 1:1, 14). Jesus also appears to be omniscient in several episodes, such as the story of the woman at the well in Samaria, when Jesus knows intimate details concerning the woman’s marital status without being told them (John 4:16-18). Jesus also declares that he is God in the Gospel of John (John 8:58) and associates himself with Jehovah of the Old Testament. Other stories present a very exalted portrait of Jesus in comparison to the Gospel of Mark, for example, where Jesus appears to be angry (Mark 3:5) or where he appears to be “beside himself” (Mark 3:21). If theology and belief in Jesus developed from a more primitive understanding to a more exalted belief in Jesus as scholars suggest, then the Gospel of John is the end product of that development whereas the Gospel of Mark is the beginning.

A second leading factor in the discussion is that the Synoptic gospels are clearly in a conversation amongst themselves and they have in common roughly 90% of their material; whereas the Gospel of John can often be considered as a later commentary to that early conversation. An example of this occurrence may be found in the account of the Mount of Transfiguration, which the Gospel of John omits, by chance because the story was already recorded in three earlier sources. Many of John’s omissions can be interpreted in this way, even though the logic is clearly circular.

Another important consideration is that the Gospel of John may be trying to counteract certain break-off Christian groups, sometimes designated as Docetists, because of their belief that Jesus was not actually mortal, but instead, they advocate, Jesus only appeared to our eyes to be mortal. John may have attempted to undermine these claims by including stories of Jesus eating fish (John 21:12-15) and that he was flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). The Docetic movement is dated by scholars to the last decades of the first century and then into the second century, which would place the time of writing for the Gospel of John contemporary with the rise of Docetism.

All of these considerations, including several others, are certainly subjective pronouncements that cannot be proved or disproved. The physical evidence for the Gospel of John is likewise inconclusive and therefore our only recourse is to consider the surviving literary evidence. As long as the scholarly model of theological development continues to hold sway, the Gospel of John will be considered a late first century document that captured one of the final theological statements of the first century church. Scholarly caution mandates, however, that the late dating of the Gospel of John remain a tentative conclusion that is the result of a theory of Christian origins rather than a comprehensive literary theory used to explain the Gospel of John itself.

The genealogy that opens Matthew’s Gospel begins with the formula, “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Matthew 1:1). Beginning with Abraham, it ends with Joseph, “the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ” (Matthew 1:16). Although the subsequent text makes it clear that the infant Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost, Joseph accepted full responsibility for Jesus Christ, as illustrated by his formal naming of the baby in Matthew 1:25. This act constituted legal recognition of Jesus as Joseph’s son and helps explain the prominence of Joseph in Matthew’s infancy narrative-as compared to Luke’s, where Mary takes the more central role.

The Matthean genealogy is broken into three sets of fourteen generations. These divisions stretch from Abraham to David, from David to the exile, and from the exile to Jesus Christ. The first of these periods was roughly 750 years, the second 400, and the third 600, making it unlikely that each period actually consisted of fourteen generations. By being selective about which names he included in the list, Matthew was able to stress the significance of the number fourteen, the numerical equivalent of the name David, emphasizing the Gospel theme that Jesus Christ was the rightful son of David.

The emphasis on Jesus’ descent from Abraham suggest another, often overlooked, theme-that Jesus Christ was the seed of Abraham through which all the nations of the earth would be blessed (Genesis 22:18). In addition to Mary-and rather than the expected four matriarchs of Genesis (Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Leah)-the genealogy surprisingly includes four different women, all with colorful histories: Thamar (Tamar, Genesis 38), Rachab (Rahab, Joshua 2); Ruth (Ruth 2-4); and the wife of Uriah (Bathsheba, 2 Samuel 11-12). These women acted instead of being acted upon. Furthermore, because they were foreigners or outsiders, their positions in the ancestry of Jesus Christ may symbolize that everyone has a part in Christ.