Heschel’s detailed examination of German Christian nationalism during the Nazi era can help us to think critically about Christian nationalisms of every flavor in the world today.
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Language Use in the First Century: Spoken Hebrew in a Trilingual Society in the Time of Jesus
Hebrew was alive and well in a basically trilingual society in the land of Israel during the first century C.E.
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Failures of the Aramaic Solution: Aramaic’s Inability to Explain Jesus’ Halachic Questions on the Sabbath (Luke 14:5; Matt. 12:11-12a)
How well does Aramaic explain Jesus’ sayings on healing on the Sabbath?
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Did Jesus Call God “Abba”?
In the past, some scholars have relied on the evidence of Jesus’ use of the word “Abba” to draw far-reaching conclusions about Jesus, the language he spoke, and his relationship to Judaism. As part of their ongoing research for the LOY project, David Bivin and Joshua Tilton revisited the evidence for Jesus’ use of “Abba” as an address to God. Tilton summarizes their findings here.
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David Flusser on the Historical Jesus: An Interview with Roy Blizzard
In the interview Flusser discusses the language of Jesus, the importance of studying ancient Judaism of the Second Temple period for the understanding of Jesus’ message, and Jesus’ high self-awareness.
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Evidence for Hebrew Roots of Matthew 1:21
The oldest known manuscripts of the New Testament were written in Greek, but by comparing Matt. 1:21 in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek with the knowledge of the naming formula so common in the Hebrew Bible, we see that this verse only makes sense in Hebrew. Since the naming formula depends on a wordplay that does not work in Greek or Aramaic, Matt. 1:21, or the oral tradition behind it, had to be in Hebrew.
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The Pope, the Prime Minister, and the Jerusalem School
During his recent tour of the Holy Land, Pope Francis shared his views on the language of Jesus with Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Jerusalem School scholars weigh in on the debate.
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LOY Excursus: Greek Transliterations of Hebrew, Aramaic and Hebrew/Aramaic Words in the Synoptic Gospels
One of the clues that the Synoptic Gospels descended from a Hebrew Life of Yeshua is the number of foreign words that were transliterated into Greek from either Hebrew or Aramaic (it is often impossible to distinguish Hebrew from Aramaic in Greek transliteration).
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The Hebrew Life of Jesus
Despite the popularity of the modern suggestion that the Synoptic Gospels are the end result of several decades of oral transmission, the internal evidence indicates that this is not the case. Dozens of pericopae in Matthew and Luke translate to Hebrew so easily and so idiomatically that we must conclude that the Synoptic Gospels are the result of literary transmission.
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A New Two-source Solution to the Synoptic Problem
Shortly after Robert L. Lindsey’s eureka moment (“Luke is first!”) on February 14, 1962, and at Professor David Flusser’s urging, Lindsey submitted the following article to the editors of Novum Testamentum. The article was published in the journal’s November 1963 issue as “A Modified Two-Document Theory of the Synoptic Dependence and Interdependence,” Novum Testamentum, Vol. 6, Fasc. 4 (November 1963): 239-263. Lauren S. Asperschlager, David N. Bivin and Joshua N. Tilton have updated and emended the article to bring it in line with the modifications Lindsey made to his hypothesis over the following 30 years. Pieter Lechner has created the tables and graphics.
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