Biblical Literacy

Session 8: April 8, 2021

The Session Assignment [link]

The Lead-in:

We now put away our Kugel and plunge into the heart of Ehrman! We have the background to understand the historical (and I would say, emotional) context of apocalypticism so now the question is: what came of it?

We'll divide our sessions more or less evenly between the New Testament texts and the quest for the historical Jesus.

For Mark, one of the most intriging questions is the theme of the clueless disciples. I've put together some material from Ehrman's blog (including a portion of Ehrman's NT textbook) to give us some background. It's very lightly stitched together so forgive the bumpiness!

I leave to you how deeply you'd like to explore the Synoptic Problem. The consensus view is pretty solid and easy enough to grasp: both Matthew and Luke had Mark's text and each copied most of it; they also had another written source called "Q" containing mostly sayings (so also called "the sayings source") and they both used it extensively.

The Lead-out:

How terrific to be tackling the New Testament. I was very pleased that everyone is absorbing the important details from Ehrman such as the positions espoused by the Jewish sects. Knowing those things makes a big difference!

I'm sorry we got scrunched at the end of the session. We'll review the messianic secret device at next weeks meeting.