Like Children Complaining

& LOY Commentary Leave a Comment

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

Articles 2 Comments

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

& LOY Commentary Leave a Comment

Carrion Birds describes the enormity of the destruction Jesus foresaw. Israel would be rendered carrion to be picked over by the Roman legions.

Days of the Son of Man

& LOY Commentary Leave a Comment

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

& LOY Commentary Leave a Comment

What was “the sign of Jonah”? This LOY segment offers a new and surprising answer.

Innocent Blood

& LOY Commentary Leave a Comment

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

& LOY Commentary Leave a Comment

Did Jesus condemn his contemporaries for failing to recognize him as the Messiah or for something more insidious?

Woes on Three Villages

& LOY Commentary Leave a Comment

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.

Calamities in Yerushalayim

& LOY Commentary Leave a Comment

Did ancient Judaism teach that personal misfortune was proof of sin?

Darnel Among the Wheat Parable

& LOY Commentary Leave a Comment

Is the Darnel Among the Wheat parable an allegory about eschatological events, or a lesson about God’s character?

A Woman’s Misplaced Blessing

& LOY Commentary Leave a Comment

When a woman in the crowd praised Jesus’ person, he redirected her attention to the Kingdom of Heaven, which is realized through the doing of God’s word.

Yeshua, His Mother and Brothers

& LOY Commentary Leave a Comment

Did Jesus reject his natural family in favor of a spiritual kinship, or did he pay Mary and his brothers the highest possible compliment?