Author Archives: rylies

Team 1; Question 1 5/31

Posted on by under john

Of the four canonical gospels, John takes the most care into elevating Jesus’s divinity and focuses more on the theological aspects of Jesus’s actions and words.  The Synoptics are primarily concerned with giving the historical account of Jesus’s life while John “has a chronology that is incompatible with that of the Synoptics and is more concerned with theology and symbolism” (White 347).  John’s audience was the newly Gentile Christian community that had recently become fully separated from Judaism which created tension within the two communities.  John’s gospel features major structural changes which involves the omission of Jesus’s temptation, Jesus casting out demons, or his transfiguration, it includes a significant amount of new and exclusive material such as Jesus’ traveling between Galilee and Jerusalem and the resurrection of Lazarus. Another key structural change is the fact that the Passover meal occurred after Jesus’s crucifixion and burial.  This change most likely contributes to the theology behind Jesus as the sacrificial lamb and the Lamb of God symbolism, therefore elevating his divinity.

The gospel of John invokes the use of “I am” discourses during Jesus’s preachings and in his speech.  Jesus is found using phrases such as “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12-58), which fully eliminates the secretive messiah complex and increases Jesus’s power, wisdom, and Christology.  This is in stark contrast with the synoptic gospels which account Jesus denying that he is the messiah.  In John 16: 28 Jesus says “I came from the Father and have come into the world; again, I am leaving the world and am going to the Father”; John leaves no room for interpretation as to who Jesus is and where he came from.  In John 1:1-18 Jesus is introduced as God, before any events of Jesus’ actual life occur, saying that “the Word was with God, and the Word was God” and that “the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son”.  This passage introduces Jesus with high divinity, basically saying that he is God who came down to earth to live amongst us.  As Jesus’s death approaches, he leaves his followers with the gift of the Holy Spirit so that when the God on earth (Jesus) is physically gone, his people will not be orphaned and will continue to have God’s spirit with them.

Team 1: Question 1

Posted on by under mark

           The classic image of the messiah is a wise man who was known and loved by all. He was expected to be and earthly king from the line of David (White 282).  Mark’s story of the messiah challenges this widespread view of the assumed messiah by evaluating Jesus’s other titles: “Son of God” and “Son of Man”.  The first aspect of Jesus that sets him apart from the other messiah’s is the name “Son of Man” which, according to White, is not a messianic title.  In fact, the term “Son of Man” is just another way of referring to a human being (283).  This term was in fact a new term that Jews were not familiar with.  The name “Son of Man” itself brings on the connotations that Jesus would not bring an earthly messianic kingdom (284). The term “Son of God” refers to Jesus’s adoption into heaven as the messiah. 

             The new age seemed to be something that people of the time, especially the disciples, did not understand. The people of the new kingdom are those that you wouldn’t typically expect to be included in the new kingdom.  Jesus even says “whoever is not against us, is for us” (Mark 9:40) which leads the reader to believe that those who aren’t Christ followers are invited to the kingdom of heaven; anyone is welcome.  This idea was very foreign to the disciples as they were brought up with the idea that the criteria of being a God fearing person was that they should have an exceptional faith, devote his/her life to God, and even experience persecution and death. 

           The story of the blind man at Bethsaida, at face value, appears that Jesus was unable to successfully perform the miracle the first time. However, this account is actually an allegory of how the disciples did not truly understand Jesus as the suffering savior.  This story is in parallel with how Peter’s understanding of Jesus was “blurry” and only partial, much like the blind mans sight on Jesus “first attempt” to heal him (White 278). 

Team 1, Question 1

Posted on by under oral tradition

Oral tradition was the predominate form of accounting and informing believers and nonbelievers of the story of Jesus.  L. Michael White says that there is a known formula in which oral tradition was spoken and passed around.  This formula most often starts with the phrases “I handed on to you what I in turn had received…”, and continues on with phrases such as “that” and “next”, which is exactly how Paul starts off and connects his passion account in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 (108).  Another clue that points to oral tradition being the source of this passage is the use of repetition in groups of threes (ie: “died”, “was buried”, “was raised”), which was a common component of oral tradition (112).

Although oral tradition was certainly a reliable source, later versions of the same accounts contain distinguished differences (110).  This might be attributed to Christian theologian’s additions to stories to fill the gaps of the accounts of Jesus to help better understand the message. The origin of the integration Christian views and theological statements such as “for our sins in accordance with the scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3) is unknown.  However, their firm base in the Greek version of the scriptures hints that these Christian statements were added after Paul heard in Jerusalem (111).  This leads biblical scholars to believe that oral tradition was already expanding by the time Paul wrote it all down.  Although they might be considered minor, the variations in the story of the Passover attest to a flaw in oral tradition.  An example of these minor variations is in the account of the Last Supper; in Luke and 1 Corinthians Jesus is recorded as saying to eat and drink “in remembrance of me”, while Matthew and Mark do not include this key phrase (115).

Christians were compelled to develop traditions centered around Jesus’s death and resurrection because this account is, in the eyes of believers, proof that Jesus is not only the Son of Man, but also the Son of God.  Jesus’s death was unconventional in terms of the traditional stories of heroic mythological deaths.  Jesus was killed on a cross amongst criminals, and that sparks interest amongst believers and nonbelievers alike.  There is a vast, condensed amount of Biblical events that take place all in Jesus’s last days and his resurrection (last supper, Passover, Judas’s betrayal, tearing of the veil) that leads Christians to study and create traditions to help fully understand and remember the significance of each event during one of the most important accounts in Jesus’s lifetime.

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