The Fig Tree parable offers assurance that despite the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, Israel will eventually be redeemed.
Son of Man’s Coming
Son of Man’s Coming describes the cessation of the times of the Gentiles and the ultimate vindication of Israel in terms of the apocalyptic image of “one like a son of man.”
Yerushalayim Besieged
In Yerushalayim Besieged Jesus describes and laments the consequences that will befall Israel as a result of its rejection of the Kingdom of Heaven and its ways of peace.
Temple’s Destruction Foretold
Overhearing an innocent expression of appreciation for the beauty of the stones from which the Temple was constructed, Jesus uttered the prediction that the time was shortly to come when not one of those stones would remain in its place.
Like Children Complaining
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?
The Historical Jesus, a Tanna? Charity and Deeds of Loving-Kindness in the Gospels and Early Rabbinic Thought
When nearly precise rabbinic parallels to stories and sayings in the Gospels exist, it may indicate that the Gospels are preserving traditions of the early Jesus movement and, perhaps, the historical Jesus.
Carrion Birds
Carrion Birds describes the enormity of the destruction Jesus foresaw. Israel would be rendered carrion to be picked over by the Roman legions.
Indiscriminate Catastrophe
The consequences of persisting in violent struggle with the Roman Empire would be suffered by the innocent and the guilty alike.
Preserving and Destroying
Jesus’ Preserving and Destroying saying may play off two different senses of the noun נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “soul”).
Lesson of Lot’s Wife
Lot’s wife serves as a warning that overattachment to possessions can come at the cost of one’s life.
Days of the Son of Man
In Jesus’ saying, the Son of Man does not function as the agent of destruction, any more than Noah did in the time of the flood or Lot did in the last days of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Sign-Seeking Generation
What was “the sign of Jonah”? This LOY segment offers a new and surprising answer.
Innocent Blood
How well-read was Jesus? The LOY segment entitled Innocent Blood probes the possibility that Jesus read and quoted a no-longer-extant Second Temple-period Jewish literary work that warned against violent religious extremism.
Generations That Repented Long Ago
Did Jesus condemn his contemporaries for failing to recognize him as the Messiah or for something more insidious?
Woes on Three Villages
The Woes on Three Villages express Jesus’ sorrow that Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum had not responded to his warning not to get sucked into the black hole of violent religious nationalism.
LOY Excursus: Sources of the “Strings of Pearls” in Luke’s Gospel
The “strings of pearls” (Luke 8:16-18; 9:23-27; 16:16-18; 17:1-6) offer an example of the outsized influence of the First Reconstruction on the synoptic tradition.