Halakha in the Gospels

Articles, DB 85th Festschrift

The Gospels describe Jesus and his followers as keeping halakha to a relatively high extent; they were a group to whom the law was important.

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Two Neglected Aspects of the Centurion’s Slave Pericope

Articles

Ritual impurity and the tensions resulting from Roman imperialism are two aspects of the Centurion’s Slave pericope that often go overlooked.

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Completion

& LOY Commentary

How a promise of safe harbor evolved into a prophecy of the end.

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Like Children Complaining

& LOY Commentary

Were Jesus and John the Baptist like children who played a dance and a dirge? Or was Jesus’ generation one that complained like whining children about the prophets who came to warn it?

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Not Everyone Can Be Yeshua’s Disciple

& LOY Commentary

When three eager prospective disciples asked permission to follow Jesus, Jesus responded to each of them with a riddle. Why would God allow Jesus and his followers to sleep on the ground when he provides safe places even for the animals to sleep? How can the dead bury a corpse? Why would a disciple set his hand to a plow when Elisha had given up plowing in order to follow Elijah? These riddles would have to be puzzled over before their meaning was fully understood. But each of the riddles were ominous, and it appears that each of the three prospective disciples reconsidered his desire to join Jesus.

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Widow’s Son in Nain

& Articles, LOY Commentary

In Widow’s Son in Nain, David Bivin and Joshua N. Tilton ask “Which Nain was the town where Jesus raised the widow’s son?” and “What is the meaning of the people’s exclamation that a prophet had arisen among them?” The possibility of a Judean ministry early in Jesus’ career and of the messianic connotations of the Widow’s Son in Nain story are discussed in detail in this segment of the Life of Yeshua commentary.

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