Shipwrecked in the deepest darkness: The Lukan rescue of Paul’s imperiled legacy

The objective of the previous two posts was to determine the historical forces that compelled an anonymous Christian (i.e. Mark) to construct the first narrative account of Jesus as the Son of God. Two factors proved central to this reconstruction of Mark's rhetorical aims: 1) Israel's failed rebellion against Rome spanning AD 66-74, and 2) … Continue reading Shipwrecked in the deepest darkness: The Lukan rescue of Paul’s imperiled legacy →

After Jerusalem fell: Israel’s dispossession and the emergence of New Testament narrative

At its inception the Christian gospel was a message to and for Israel. Two Hebrew prophets, John and Jesus, had been sent to the Jewish people on behalf of the Jewish people. They had come to turn Jacob's progeny back to God on the eve of the arrival of Israel's messianic kingdom. John and Jesus … Continue reading After Jerusalem fell: Israel’s dispossession and the emergence of New Testament narrative →

Last of the disciples: John’s death and the Johannine relocation

The redactional treatment of the Apostles—and of John of Zebedee in particular—within the New Testament corpus offers clues as to the dating of the earliest Christian documents and as to the development of earliest Christian belief. In the first Gospel, the Gospel of Mark, Jesus predicts that the sons of Zebedee, the brothers James and … Continue reading Last of the disciples: John’s death and the Johannine relocation →

Last days in Jerusalem: The unfortunate eschatological sin of Ananias and Sapphira

Most readers have little trouble identifying the deceptive deed committed by Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11). According to the popular reading, this Christian couple sought to obtain prestige among the apostles through an act of extraordinary and costly generosity—freely relinquishing the entirety of their property and its value for the good of the church—while at … Continue reading Last days in Jerusalem: The unfortunate eschatological sin of Ananias and Sapphira →

Nations in the hands of an angry God: The political origins of Original Sin

Most readers of the New Testament interpret its texts along individualistic and soteriological lines—assuming, as it were, that Christianity advances a particular system of personal postmortem salvation; the scriptures functioning as a kind of intimate roadmap from sin, through death, into eternal life. The individual reader (i.e. sinner) must therefore decide whether to accept or … Continue reading Nations in the hands of an angry God: The political origins of Original Sin →

Budgeting for the end: Christ’s eschatological economics

Christians typically organize Jesus' sayings on money and property in accordance with one of two models. One of these models attributes to Jesus socialistic aspirations. In this framing Jesus rails against the rich as the defender of the poor and as the prophet who calls into being a more equitable society and a more just … Continue reading Budgeting for the end: Christ’s eschatological economics →

Israel’s merciful physician: Recontextualizing the Parable of the Good Samaritan

*This post builds upon the literary connection between the Parable of the Good Samaritan and the story of the prophet Oded in 2 Chronicles 28. See my previous post here.* Jesus offered two primary images in order to explain and justify his hospitable pursuit of Israel's sinners. By inviting disreputable Jews to his celebratory suppers, … Continue reading Israel’s merciful physician: Recontextualizing the Parable of the Good Samaritan →

Jesus the patriot: Jewish nationalism in Luke’s Christmas story

Most theological systems conscript the Lukan birth narrative, along with its Matthean counterpart, into the service of incarnational Christology. This is to say that Luke's nativity story—the virginal conception in particular—is understood to present the mechanism by which God became a man. In this way the Lukan account fills the lacuna left by the Fourth … Continue reading Jesus the patriot: Jewish nationalism in Luke’s Christmas story →

Suffered under Herod Antipas: Jesus in the hands of an angry king

Christians tend to place the responsibility for Jesus' death upon either the Jewish crowds (as symbolic of fallen humanity) or upon Israel's cultic elite (as symbolic of oppressive and politically-compromised religion). In so doing they follow the general picture offered by the Gospels. Historians, on the other hand, tend to shift the onus in the … Continue reading Suffered under Herod Antipas: Jesus in the hands of an angry king →

The acts of Paul and the Paul of Acts: a forgotten Apostle

The most successful interpreters of Paul's letters have, for the most part, been thinkers and writers, theologians and scholars. That Paul should appear to us primarily as a man of deep and profound thought is therefore unsurprising. According to Luke's account of Paul's ministry, however, neither letter-writing nor theological exposition were central to the Apostle's … Continue reading The acts of Paul and the Paul of Acts: a forgotten Apostle →