Message/Ministry and/or
Teaching of Jesus
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Introduction to Jesus
Please read the course disclaimer
Consider it carefully
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Sources for the Life and
Teaching of Jesus
The four canonical gospels
3 Synoptics
Fourth Gospel
References in Acts and letters
Josephus
Roman historians
Rabbinic materials
Non-canonical gospels
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What are the gospels?
The gospel genre
Memoirs (apomnëmoneumata)
Acts (praxeis)
Lives (bioi)
Foundation Narrative
Euaggelia
Foundational events of the Christian faith
Kerygmatic perspective
A term coined by Mark for written form
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What are the gospels?
Four gospels
Three gospels, not one gospel
The rejection of the harmonistic
approach
The reason for the gospels
The need of the Christian communities
The need to proclaim the gospel
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What are the synoptic gospels?
How gospels arose
The rise of the gospels (AD 50-80)
The data
Similarities in order between Mark,
Matthew and Luke
Close verbal similarities between Mark
and parts of Matthew and Luke
Less close verbal similarities between
teaching sections in Matthew and Luke
Material in Matthew and Luke with no
parallel in any other gospel
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What are the synoptic
gospels?
What Jesus said and did was
remembered and retold
A collection of teaching was put together
(= Q)
A bit later Mark was written collecting
mostly narrative
Finally Matthew and Luke combined
Mark and Q and their own traditions
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Alternative Hypothesis
What Jesus said and did was
remembered and retold
The telling became standardized into the
basic story plus the teaching
The basic story was written as Mark
The story (expanded) plus the teaching
was written as Matthew and Luke
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The role of Jesus for the
early church
Jesus as foundation story
Jesus as interpreter of Jewish
tradition
Jesus as model of Christian life
The teaching of Jesus
The life-style of Jesus
Jesus as model of Christian ministry
Jesus' teaching on ministry
Jesus' example of ministry
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The Virgin Birth
Redactionally this truth is variously
expressed
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Luke expresses it precisely
Dialogue between Mary and the angel (1:34-38)
Mary protests that she has not had sexual
intercourse
The angels responds: God can work the
impossible
Luke's account revolves around God's visiting
his people and reversing their fortunes
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Matthew is more indirect
He explores the legal nuances of the event
Mary is discovered to be pregnant before the
wedding night
This required a divorce
Deut 22, especially 22:23ff was likely not enforced
m. Gittin divorce; m. Sotah the adulteress
A divorce required two witnesses
• Not to divorce his "wife" would be to cover sin and thus
partake in it, and Joseph was a "righteous" man
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Matthew’s indirect story
Only a direct command of God prevents
Joseph from acting
The virginity of Mary is further stressed
by the remark in 1:25
Matthew's account revolves around the
"fulfillment" of Isa 7:14
Matthew also concerns himself with the
question of legitimacy and legality
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The Matthean birth narrative
There is no birth narrative as such in
Matthew, but a series of incidents
surrounding the birth of Jesus
The arrangement of the incidents may be
linked to a chain of testamonia
Fact which ties all together is that Herod the
Great is king
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The Genealogy
Matt 1:1 consciously formulated to imitate the
formulae of Genesis
The genealogy is an edited form of 1 Chron 1-3 (LXX)
Four women are mentioned, preparing the way for Mary
Names are omitted
The last division has 13 names, either because Mary was
counted or because a name was dropped in transmission
Matt 1:16 is carefully worded to protect both Davidic descent
and the virgin birth
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The schematic form (14 x 3)
may have a meaning
Waxing and waning moon = rise and fall of
Israel's fortunes (Fenton)
Gain, loss, regaining of royalty (Plummer,
Allen)
David repeated 3 times (Hill)
The genealogy varies from the Lucan genealogy
One or both are creations of the evangelist for
theological purposes
One is a descent via Mary and the other via Joseph
One is the royal line and the other Joseph's actual
line
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Luke’s theme = the inclusion of the
outcasts and the poor
The baby is born in poor circumstances
Hired shepherds were “Jews who had
made themselves gentiles”
Only shepherds receive the visitation
The content of the visitation is peace
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In Matthew the theme of the
birth is the coming of the Magi
Herodotus claims they were a Median
clan which became a priestly class under
the Persians
They are clearly pagans, for they refer to
"the King of the Jews"
Point = pagans come from a distance to
worship the baby Jesus
They come from the east
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The Star
The presence of the star is often traced historyof-religions motifs
Num 24:17
Stories of astronomical phenomena in connection
with the birth of pagan greats
Jewish new Moses theme
The nature of the star
The star is seen "at its rising" and then it
apparently is not seen again until after the Magi
leave Jerusalem
The nature of the star is unknown
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Responses to the birth:
Matthew
In Matthew the Jews respond with unbelief
Herod is troubled (Cf. 14:26)
The whole Sanhedrin is gathered
The quotation cited is from neither the MT or the
LXX
In Matthew the response of the gentiles is
worship
The meaning of the gifts
• The giving of gifts = allegiance and submission
• Were the gifts symbolic?
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The Flight into Egypt
Dream motif (Cf. 1:20; 2:12, 13, 22 and Cf.
2:19)
The flight itself does not use supernatural
means
The verb anachoresin is used of Moses' flight in
Exod 2:15 = new Exodus motif
Massacre of the Innocents
Reminds one of Egypt in Exod 1-2
Only 20 or 30 children would have been involved
Jer 31:15 + Gen 35:19
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The Return to Israel
Further use of the dream motif
Joseph withdraws from a place of
unbelief to a place of safety with the
gentiles (Galilee of the gentiles)
The scripture citation does not exist in
the OT
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