“Now if Jesus were still on earth he would not be a priest at all, since there are already priests who present gifts according to the Law; offering worship in a sanctuary that is but a shadowy sketch of the true heavenly abode. For Moses, when he was about to erect the Tabernacle, was […]
As a humble yet passionate “biblical scholar” in my own right1, it can come as no surprise to learn that I have intentionally entertained thousands of in-depth conversations with all sorts of Christians during my devout immersion into biblical theology and its various religious manifestations. Also unsurprisingly, a great many of these conversations involved speaking […]
First and foremost, it is critical to remember that Jesus was a Jew – born of Jewish parents, brought up in a Jewish home, raised in a Jewish community, and immersed in Jewish traditions. He lived among Jews, he developed relationships primarily with Jews, and his followers were mostly Jews. Per Jewish custom he was […]
So as the reader can now surmise, it was not the Law itself with which Jesus took issue (despite Paul’s many subsequent & highly errant claims to the contrary – see “Jesus is the end of the Law” ~ Romans 10:4 et al), but rather the way in which the Law was being interpreted, taught, […]
Returning to Repentance: what Jesus truly meant on the Mount And so it is that we return to what Jesus must have meant in Matthew 5:17-18; what he must have meant when he climbed that Galilean hillside in the very beginning of his ministry and told his listeners in no uncertain terms: “Do not think […]
It was a well establish fact in Jesus’ day that the Law (and by “the Law” I mean the 613 edicts set forth in the Pentateuch – the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, what is today known by many as “the Old Testament”) was to be absolutely revered and devoutly upheld, with a […]
In the second chapter of Luke we see a twelve-year old Jesus who had decided to remain behind in Jerusalem on his own after fulfilling the Passover obligations with his family. While it might not be especially unusual for a young man of that age1 to “rebel” by setting off on his own adventures, it […]
While the original telling of Jesus’ 40-day retreat1 to the wilderness2 in the Gospel of Mark is relatively unspectacular (“And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was there for forty days, and he was tempted by Satan; and he resided among the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him” ~ […]
It is interesting (and quite telling as well) that Jesus is only seen reading Scripture in a synagogue once in the entire Bible (see Luke 4:16-211) and that the passage he therein chooses to read is a most meaningful one – first & foremost for its content; which openly claims that he himself had been […]
One of the more notable biblical stories related to Jesus is his first “miracle”1 – turning water to wine at a wedding in Cana. According to the story (relayed in John 2:1-11), Jesus, his disciples, and his mother Mary were attending a wedding to which they had been invited when the wine ran out. Mary […]
Contrary to popular belief, Jesus actually “cleansed the Temple” on two different occasions during his three year biblical ministry – once near the beginning thereof (cited in John 2:13-17) and once near the end (described in Matthew 21:12-13, Mark 11:15-17, & Luke 19:45-46). And despite the obvious similarities in the way these two events are […]
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