CyberGroup Discussion - The New Testament - Reading the Gospels Again

READING THE GOSPELS AGAIN
The Hebrew Bible was the sacred scripture used by Jesus and the early church. The majority of Christians were probably Jewish until the middle of the second century. The majority of Jews did not live in the Jewish homeland itself, but were part of the diaspora who dwelt in many parts of the known world. Many of the Christian churches originated in these dispersed Jewish communities. We understand the New Testament best when we see it within the world of first-century Judaism.
The Christian scriptures were profoundly influenced by the Hebrew Bible. The four gospels are foundational to an understanding of Jesus, even though Pauls genuine letters predated them. They originated as anonomous documents. Names were only given to them later. The gospels and Pauline letters became part of the developing Christian tradition.
Elements of both the historical Jesus (the human Jesus) and the canonical Jesus (the formal Jesus known by the early church) are found in the gospels. There are therefore both literal and metaphorical elements to the gospels. Both forms are legitimate and helpful to come to understand. We lose much of the value of the gospels if we read them as either literal or metaphorical. There are elements of both contained there.

The Canonical Jesus
We will focus on the canonical Jesus to help us learn to understand the gospels in the form we have them as the primal narratives of the early church.
Each of the gospels has its own unique thematic construction. The first three - Matthew, Mark and Luke - are known as the synoptics (seen together) because they are similar in many ways. Matthew and Luke borrowed heavily from Mark, and added an early collection of Jesus' teachings known as 'Q'. This source is known to us only through its use by the two gospel writers. John is different, and stands apart.

Mark
Mark has a strong focus on apocalyptic eschatology. That is, it deals with 'end times' which its author and early readers understood to be associated with the destruction of the temple in 70 AD. Mark also introduces Jesus' message that 'the kingdom of God' was coming soon. People were encouraged to follow 'the way' of this kingdom which Jesus came to innaugurate.
Matthew
Matthew was written later than Mark and is the most Jewish as well as the most hostile to Judaism. The school which Matthew represented was that of a 'Christian' Judaism which survived the temple destruction but which was rejected by those of the Jewish tradition who did not accept Jesus as Lord. Matthew goes to great lengths to demonstrate that even though his community follows Jesus, they remain in continuity with traditional Judaism. So there is a kind of 'love-hate' relationship going on here. Matthew portrays Jesus as a great teacher and prophet in the tradition of Moses. Matthew also provides much of the material later used by Christians against the Jews. Matthew represents an early stage in the 'parting of the ways' between Christianity and Judaism, but for Matthew and his community it was still an intra-Jewish struggle.

Luke-Acts
Luke is a complement to Matthew and focuses primarily on the church in Jerusalem. Acts tells the story of the spread of the church to the Gentiles. Luke and Acts make much of the promise of the Spirit of God which would guide the church after Jesus had departed. There is much symbolism in the Spirit stories. The Spirit which was active in Jesus continues in the mission of the community which, by implication, is called to continue Jesus' mission in the world.

John
John is distinct from the other gospels in many ways. His chronology of Jesus' life is different. So also is the main territory in which Jesus ministered; his message and the style of his teaching. John is the most symbolic of the gospels. In John, Jesus reflects certain signs and wonders that demonstrate his power and help people to believe that he is the Messiah.

Metaphor
John contains both intrinsic and historical metaphor.
Intrinsic metaphor is a shorthand for metaphorical meaning intrinsic to the story itself. Words have special associations for those who know them. Historical metaphor is a shorthand for the additional metaphorical meanings that flow out of the specific historical associations of the language. The intrinsic metaphor of the wedding at Cana story is that the wine never runs out. The historical metaphor relates to the special meaning of 'banquet' and 'marriage' in Judaism and early Christianity.
Borg unpacks these two uses of metaphor with references to Jesus walking on water, feeding the multitude, giving sight to the blind and describing himself as 'the way'.
The gospel portraits of the canonical Jesus (the Jesus of the early church) make extraordinary claims about him. He is one with God. He is the revelation of God. He is 'the way'. He is the bread of life. He lifts us out of death into life. He is the Word and Wisdom of God embodied in a human life. He is the disclosure of what a life full of God - a life filled with the Spirit - looks like.

Who Is Jesus For Us?
This is what Jesus means for us as Christians. Some modern Christians view this as triumphalism and find these words 'exclusivistic' in comparison to other faith traditions. But for Christians, these claims should not be watered down. We can say "This is who Jesus is for us"without saying"And God is known only in Jesus"
The gospels are Christianity's primal narratives. These are the most important stories of Jesus that we know, and we know them to be decisively true.

REFERENCES

	ABCNEWS’ Peter Jennings Reporting: The Search for Jesus is a journalist’s exploration of the historical figure of Jesus. The two-hour documentary provided extensive insights into the 2,000-year-old story of Christianity and the man whose life continues to inspire devotion and debate. In this Web version of The Search for Jesus, we invite you to interact with the story and to engage in discussion with others who may or may not share your views. The multimedia presentation features video excerpts from the television special plus original content created specially for the Web.
	Geoff Trowbridge has a most remarkable personal site where he has assembled an extensive collection of information on New Testament Scholarship the equal of any university. It includes a table showing which books were selected for inclusion in the canon of 138 persons or commitees from the early Church Fathers to modern volumes. Click on the blocks to see it. Click on the books to visit his site. A reference highly recommended as we read this last half of Borg's book. "In the two thousand years since the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, the world of Christendom has seen incredible changes, including a split with the Eastern Orthodox Church and a Protestant Reformation, accompanied by a rejection of much core ideology. Yet throughout it all, the collection of scripture called the New Testament has remained unchanged and largely unquestioned, even though it was assembled by the same church leaders whose beliefs many now refute."

	From the collection by the Methodist Women linked on the index page, this is there excellent and most useful set of links of New Testament History. Again check it out as we go through the New Testament.
	The Ecole Initiative. The Early Church On-Line Encyclopedia (Ecole) Initiative is a cooperative effort on the part of scholars across the internet to establish a hypertext encyclopedia of early Church history (to the Reformation) on the World-Wide Web.

Click on the 3 sections below for materials according.
SUMMARY	REFERENCES