Like Children Complaining

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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?

Yeshua’s Immersion

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The words of the heavenly voice that spoke at Jesus’ immersion foreshadowed the trajectory of Jesus’ career.

Yohanan the Immerser’s Execution

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The story of John the Baptist’s martyrdom was rich with allusions to stories from the Hebrew Scriptures.

Yohanan the Immerser’s Eschatological Discourse

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John the Baptist anticipated the coming of an Elijah-like priestly messiah who would purify the Temple on an eschatological Day of Atonement.

Yohanan the Immerser’s Exhortations

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In Yohanan the Immerser’s Exhortations John the Baptist instructs his audience how they are to behave in order to bear the fruits of repentance.

Yohanan the Immerser Demands Repentance

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In Yohanan the Immerser Demands Repentance John the Baptist challenges his audience, which had gone through all the trouble of going out to the Jordan River to receive his baptism, to accept his even more important advice: to repent of their evil deeds and imitate the faithfulness of Abraham their father.

A Voice Crying

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An examination of the Jewish setting of John the Baptist’s proclamation of an immersion of repentance for the release of Israel’s sin indebtedness.

Yeshua’s Words about Yohanan the Immerser

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Did Jesus regard John the Baptist as a prophet? As more than a prophet? What did he mean that the least in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than John the Baptist? Explore these questions in Yeshua’s Words about Yohanan the Immerser.

“Yohanan the Immerser and the Kingdom of Heaven” complex

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The Hebrew Life of Yeshua, the source that Robert Lindsey believed ultimately lies behind the Synoptic Gospels, contained a conversation about John the Baptist and his relationship to the Kingdom of Heaven. David N. Bivin and Joshua N. Tilton attempt to reconstruct that conversation here.

The Programmatic Opening of Jesus’ Biography as a Reflection of Contemporaneous Jewish Messianic Ideas

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In this study Professor Ruzer suggests that there was a broader first-century Jewish context behind the narrative strategies employed in Mark’s prologue to Jesus’ messianic biography. On the other hand, he also demonstrates that Mark 1:9-11 can be used to recover an early phase of a pattern of messianic belief, seemingly shared by wider Judaism, that continued into the rabbinic period. In other words, New Testament evidence can be an important witness to broader trajectories in early Jewish messianic beliefs.

The Gospel of John’s Jewish-Christian Source

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In an important study entitled The Gospel of Signs, Robert Fortna correctly identified a Jewish-Christian source embedded in the Fourth Gospel. This article is based upon the conclusions of Fortna’s research and explores their significance. I will also point out additional evidence Fortna overlooked that clarifies the origins and intentions of the Jewish-Christian source embedded in the text of the Fourth Gospel.

Jesus’ Place in First-century Judaism and His Influence on Christian Doctrine

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The main aims of this contribution are, first, to show what Jesus’ place was among the various trends of the Judaism of his time and, second, to estimate the impact on Christianity of his teachings and of his life and death.

A New Two-source Solution to the Synoptic Problem

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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.

Jesus’ Reference to Folklore and Historical Events

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An inherent consequence of our distance from the world of Jesus is that we primarily understand Jesus’ words as they apply within our twenty-first century eschatological and theological framework. However, Jesus’ teachings reflect his cultural background as a Jewish rabbi in first-century Galilee.

A Time To Fast?

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Once, when Jesus and his disciples were enjoying themselves at a dinner party, a simple observation was made: “Your disciples don’t fast!” The observation was innocent and simple enough; it was not an accusation, but an honest exclamation of perplexity. Jesus’ response, however, was far from simple.