The Life of Yeshua: A Suggested Reconstruction

The Life of Yeshua: A Suggested Reconstruction attempts to follow the stages of Gospel transmission backward to the earliest form of the stories about Jesus that originated in the conjectured Hebrew Life of Yeshua.

David N. Bivin, General Editor

Joshua N. Tilton, Researcher and Writer

Lauren S. Asperschlager, Copy Editor

Updated: 14 December 2022

Under the direction of David Bivin, Jerusalem Perspective (JP) has launched an attempt to reconstruct the account of Jesus’ life which, according to church tradition, was written in Hebrew by Jesus’ disciple Matthew. Although this ancient eyewitness account is no longer extant, we believe that significant portions of this source have been preserved in the canonical Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. If this theory is correct, then the first three canonical Gospels are the grandchildren or great-grandchildren of that conjectured Hebrew biography, which we refer to as the Hebrew Life of Yeshua (LOY).

An attempt also has been made to reconstruct the first Greek translation of the Hebrew Life of Yeshua, a more immediate ancestor of Matthew, Mark and Luke.

Reconstructing the Hebrew Life of Yeshua is possible because the traditions preserved in the Synoptic Gospels show signs of literary development that occurred as these traditions passed through various stages before reaching their present form.

These stages include:

Translation from a written Hebrew biography to Greek;
A stage in which the highly literal and, consequently, unidiomatic Greek translation passed into improved Greek versions;
The stages of development that took place as the traditions passed from the earliest Synoptic Gospel to the second Gospel, and from the second to the third.

The two videos above offer an introductory explanation of how Robert Lindsey’s solution to the Synoptic Problem works and what his theory is able to explain.

The Life of Yeshua: A Suggested Reconstruction is an attempt to follow those stages backward to reach the earliest form of the Gospel traditions that originated in the Hebrew Life of Yeshua.

A commentary accompanying each segment of the reconstruction explains the reasons for the decisions we made and discusses new insights that are gained from reconstructing Jesus’ words in their original language and in their original contexts.

Subscribers to JP’s Premium Content already have full access to the LOY Commentary (make sure you’re logged in). Although JP membership gives the best value for your dollar, non-subscribers who prefer to do so may purchase access to just the LOY Commentary. Click here to learn how.

LOY Introductory Materials

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Video: Navigating LOY (How to Use LOY)

LOY Reconstruction Segments with Commentary

Commentary on Pericopae External to LOY^[1]

Jesus and a Canaanite Woman

Spontaneous Growth parable

Withered Fig Tree (Recently Published!)

Be Ready for the Son of Man (In Preparation)

LOY Excursus

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^[1] By “external to LOY” we simply mean that we believe a given pericope did not originate in the Hebrew Life of Yeshua, but was derived from another written or oral source, possibly even from eye-witness testimony. The designation “external to LOY” refers exclusively to our source-critical analysis, and implies nothing about the historical, religious or theological value of a given pericope, or our opinion of its inspiration or canonicity. ↩