The Betrayal at Gethsemane
I am reading Christopher Moore’s Lamb, an exciting and amusing book, and the best possible introduction to a new author. I am not very far into it, having barely read to the point where Joshua is back from Kabul, but it got me thinking about Bible classes and Bible studies.
I got my old Bible out (it’s not that old, it just looks like it is because I like thumbing through it a lot) and read randomly. I hit one of my favorite passages, the Naked Man in Mark:
Continue readingWoes of the Pharisees
The usual dramatic name for something that is common to Luke and Matthew, but is not in Mark. This is a list of things Yeshua hates (it’s the word he uses) about the Pharisees. The one that rocked me when I read it is the following:
What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you shut the door of the Kingdom of Heaven in people’s faces. You won’t go in yourselves, and you don’t let others enter either.
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Time Frame of Ministries
John 8:57 has the Jews say that Jesus was not yet 50 when he came to Jerusalem. (They mock him for claiming to have seen Abraham). If that is the case, then Jesus was probably close enough, but not yet 50; maybe in his late fourties?
That is of importance, because the Gospels constantly talk about this generation as the target of the words of Jesus. And while Paul portrays himself as the apostle to the Gentiles, nothing in the Gospels mentions him; there is though a reference to a mission to the entire world, but it surely reads like a late addition.
Continue readingThe Naked Young Man in Mark 14:51-52
I was reading Mark again, the shortest of the Gospels. I reached the passage where Jesus is on the Mount of Olives, getting ready for the last days. The emotions are tense: the High Priest comes with armed soldiers to arrest Jesus; Jesus himself has not slept in days, and has urged his disciples to pray; Judas Iscariot is getting ready for the betrayal that Jesus already prophecied.
Luke has a better account of the story. He will mention that Peter struck one of the soldiers with a sword, cutting off the soldier’s ear. Jesus will reprimand him and heal the wound, while commenting on the cowardice of the High Priest, who could have arrested Jesus at any time in the Temple, but didn’t do so to avoid public uproar.
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