Darrell bock who is jesus

First, it is important to have an awareness that gospel writers have differing goals and distinct audiences, causing them to portray events from complementary not contradictory angles. Since the gospels are literary texts, sometimes one author addresses a scene with more brevity or compression than another gospel writer, leaving the impression of a difference.

A recognition that all authors make choices and come with perspectives also opens up options for interpretation. These texts are handled on a case-by-case basis and there are a myriad of options for what is going on. Sometimes unnecessarily flat readings rule out legitimate interpretive options, and lead someone to insist on a contradiction when in fact something more complex is taking place.

This is a question that is hard to answer in a few sentences, as books of hundreds of pages are really required to make the case. For one thing, the fact that there is a core portrait , which focuses on the uniqueness and centrality of Jesus and is common to all the gospels, points to the general accuracy of the portrait as a whole.

The mix of distinctness and agreement actually points to a lack of collusion adding to a sense of authenticity. The real answer to this question requires working with the details of these texts. Some of what is contained in the skeptical idea that the gospel texts were created and fabricated is harder to explain given the tenacity of the faith of those closest to Jesus. That faith suggests that the core theology of the earliest church was there very early.

A figure like Paul who was in the locales where these events took place and whose mind changed about Jesus, also reflects the presence of this core early Christian theology. There still is no better explanation for the rise of Easter faith than that a resurrection and empty tomb was the cause, considering that there was no precedent for the belief of a resurrection in the midst of history from a Jewish perspective.

What are some starting points for bringing our faith in a historical Jesus into the public square? The best way in is to use the resources written by people of faith about this discussion. Gaining an understanding of the skeptical arguments and the faithful responses to such claims is almost a prerequisite for such discussions.

The more comfortable one is with what the positions of faith involve the better one is prepared to engage in such a conversation without being defensive or pugnacious. Craig A. We should all be grateful not just for a big handy map like this but also for the experienced trail guides putting it into our hands.

Assuming a historically and theologically complementary relationship among the diverse and complex materials in the four Gospels, Bock and Simpson have with the second edition strengthened this important resource for assessing the meaning of Jesus of Nazareth for the twenty-first-century church.

Although reading each Gospel on its own terms is an essential step, and commentaries on the Gospels abound, all four need to be read together for the full picture of Jesus they provide.

Jesus according to Scripture offers something of undeniable value: a comprehensive investigation of the portrayal of Jesus in the four Gospels informed by the best historical Jesus research, taking careful note of similarities and differences among the four accounts. The book represents a major resource for restoring the full portrait of Jesus from the Gospels. Here we have a much more fulsome and helpful portrait of Jesus than is offered in many recent treatments of the historical Jesus.

Highly recommended. Andrews University. Neither a contribution to historical-Jesus research nor a conventional textbook on the Gospels, this is a common-sense yet academically informed commentary--first on a synopsis of Matthew, Mark, and Luke and then on John.

Laypersons, theological students, and pastors needing a review course will greatly benefit from it. The author's great knowledge of historical criticism is here employed in a study that takes the final form of the biblical texts as a literary unity. Bock's work has a wonderful balance between a respect for the uniqueness of each Gospel and an appreciation of the overall unity in the portrait of Jesus provided for the church.

Teachers of courses on the life of Jesus who want a textbook that blends these approaches are likely to find here just what they're looking for. The result is a readable textbook that respects the exegetical diversity of the Gospels while emphasizing the unity of their underlying witness. Our students have already benefited from a pre-published version of this volume and speak with enthusiasm about it.

Darrell L. He is the author or Continue reading about Darrell L. Darrell Bock You're a veteran of The Table. We're glad to have you back and you teach Christology here at the school? Scott Horrell I do, yes. Darrell Bock Okay and when you do it in a context of systematic theology, what kinds of things are students covering? Scott Horrell Well, I do like to start with our lord's humanity but also you're talking about the two natures side by side.

Darrell Bock That's right. Scott Horrell So the beauty and mystery of holding those together I think is fascinating. But, of course, typically we look at the passages where the deity of our lord is made clear both whether in his own self-profession, which is very rare, to take Johannine passages Darrell Bock [Crosstalk] Exactly, yeah.

Scott Horrell … but then the high Christologies: John 1; Colossians and on, Hebrews 1, these high Christologies that really do declare this one as the exact manifestation of God. So putting that together with our Lord's humanity you've got this almost paradox but not finally of humanity in all its mystery and beauty and deity together in the one personal consciousness of our Lord.

Darrell Bock Okay, let's just to cover our bases quickly run through some of these texts. Obviously, John 1 and particularly John , "In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God. The Word was God," is one such text. You alluded to I think Hebrews , the exact manifestation of God.

Later on in that chapter we've got Jesus sitting on the throne. You talked about Colossians 1, which puts Jesus on what I call the creator side or the creator … Scott Horrell That's right, yeah. Darrell Bock … creature divide, which in the context of the Jewish monotheism if there's only one God and there's only one creator and you say Jesus is associated with the creation rather than being a creature, you've shoved him off to the deity side of things.

Fair enough? Will I pass the exam? Scott Horrell And if you don't get it in Chapter 1, you get it in Chapter 2.

Exactly, good text. Justin Bass And Romans 1, I mean, Paul makes clear that we worship and serve the Creator rather than the creature and so Paul would not worship any creature no matter how exalted that creature is. Darrell Bock Now that begins to build a bridge to what we're eventually gonna be talking about and that is those kinds of things that Jesus does or that he is the object of without saying that point to that. So I'm gonna put a save button on that one because that's one of the places we're going.

Now, the other thing that I think befuddles people — I think that'd be a good word to use — is this combination of how the human and divine work together.

We've just come out of a discussion on our campus in the context of a chapel in which the discussion was made did Jesus learn math. Terrible question, right? What we can say very clearly is what is not the case. Jesus — well, there was a guy named Appolinarius who wanted to say that Jesus was divine on the inside: his mind, his higher soul you might say but then human on the outside, kind of a coconut.

God on the inside, human and on the outside. And already Gregory of Nazianzus and others were saying — this is around — no, if what is not assumed, that is what the Son did not assume fully in his human nature is not saved, is not healed. So Apollinarianism was condemned as a heresy early on. But then came Nestorius who wanted to preserve the full deity and the full humanity of our lord but he kind of put those in a body. So you have kind of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in one body and that seemed at least allegedly … Darrell Bock I'm God.

No, I'm not. I'm God. No I'm not. Darrell Bock [Crosstalk] Schizo Christ. Scott Horrell So that too is rejected about and the one objecting to that forcefully was another man named Eutyches who was mixing up the nature so the divine became human and the human became divine, and the Church said, "No, that's not right either.

Darrell Bock Yeah and so we end up with the interesting questions like well and then alongside this we have texts. Jesus grew in wisdom, you know, in Luke 2. We have the idea of Jesus suffering a death.

Scott Horrell Oh, yeah. Justin Bass Pronouncing that correct? I love that. The mutual in-dwelling of the Son and the Father and the Spirit in one another. I think that's just such a beautiful teaching and we see it in John Even angels are — Darrell Bock [Crosstalk] Absolutely. Scott Horrell Chapters 2, 3, 4 and up to he's tempted in all manner like as we. He was proved faithful as our servant — as our high priest in all of this.

You have them put together and yet there's no final theology of explaining this to us. That's what's given us 2, years of fascination. Darrell Bock That's why you have a job, right? Darrell Bock That's good.

Well, they'll be writing you later. They'll send me the cards and letters and I'll just pass them on. Scott Horrell There you go. Justin Bass But to you agree that all the Trinitarian theology is a footnote to the Chalcedonian and the Cappadocian Fathers and. Scott Horrell Well, I wouldn't say — I would say in one way Chalcedon is a footnote to Nicea or the confession of trinity. Jesus really is God like the Father is God. There's not two gods.

There's one God and yet Father and son are in real relationship so this has been interesting. At the ETS, the Evangelical Theological Society meeting, the annual one just a month ago as we're speaking right now, trinity was the main topic.

Does God have one mind, one will, one action or can we say with Father, Son, Holy Spirit there's three wills, three minds, three activities as each glorifies and loves the other? And I think I want to say yes, both. Both have to be true if you have true trinitarianism.

Darrell Bock [Laughs] Right, right, interesting. Scott Horrell So then Chalcedon is how is it? Is Jesus is really God, how is he human? How is he man? And there's Chalcedon. Darrell Bock So you take a semester, I take it, to go through this or a good part of the semester to go through this for students? Scott Horrell Oh, surely. Love it, yes. Justin Bass One of the greatest classes here other than Luke and Acts.

Darrell Bock And you put — I'll pass on that. And you'll — you associate, help students associate passages with concepts that have been discussed and the way this has been articulated philosophically? We've stayed out of the Trinitarian language of the ousian and homousian and all that stuff that comes earlier that's a part of this.

Scott Horrell Sure. Darrell Bock So there's a very technical conversation, particularly on trying to nail down the divine side of things and how it interacts with the human I think is what often happens.

And then what I think happens to people popularly is that they create this and articulate this Jesus in which obviously the super-human or the divine features almost overwhelm the human side. Taught right by the Pontifical University. In Latin thought very often the deity of Christ is raised so high that I can't — he's God.

He's not gonna sin. He doesn't really understand me, but Mary his mother really does. So I'll talk to her or the saints as in more classical Catholicism. They understand me and Mary will talk with her son and her son won't deny his mother what I request, so Jesus is almost taken out of the equation.

Darrell Bock So the kind of transcendence that often comes in a theology that has a high view of God that almost removes him from being in touch with us … Scott Horrell Practically so. Darrell Bock … comes into place and that actually is not a biblical faith, is it? Scott Horrell No, not at all. We also see Jesus as the most human. I mean he learned obedience through what he suffered in Hebrews 5 and we also see in John how he is clearly getting tired, learning.

He's very clearly presented as a human in John even though he in the beginning was Word, was the Word and the Word was God so … Darrell Bock Well, all of that is to lay groundwork for the rest of what we want to talk about, which is thinking about Christology kind of turned on its head and to think about if I'm a person who walks up to Jesus and what I see is just kind of another human being, okay, I don't have this theological understanding.

How does the scripture provoke my thinking to think about who it is that Jesus really is? And granted, as you mentioned, there are a few places where it just outright says it.

There are even fewer places where Jesus himself outright says it and, as you noted, those are predominantly present in spots in the Gospel of John and some of them are said by Jesus and some of those are said to Jesus and he accepts it.

Perhaps the most famous of those is the word of the doubting Thomas, "My Lord, my God" at the end of that narrative. There are a wide variety of ways in which this is done, but my point is that scripture is literally loaded with other ways to do this that we often don't think about and that often are in many ways just as revealing.

So I want to talk about those for a second and talk about it from a New Testament side on the one hand and then theologically reflect on the other. So I'm gonna just go through kind of a list of texts and so let's start here. Perhaps one of the ones that shows up earliest in a gospel narrative is the scene in Mark 2 where Jesus is confronted with a paralytic who has come to have Jesus heal him and I love this.

This is one of my favorite passages in all of scripture. It's a great story. I mean it's crowded. They can't get in. I mean everything about it says this isn't happening. Justin Bass It's blasphemy. Darrell Bock The creative group climbs up on the roof, lowers him down in front of Jesus. I can imagine watching the whatever descended from above … Scott Horrell Digging into the roof Darrell Bock … digging as they dug into the roof and cut out the way to drop down and they put it before him.

And what Jesus says to the guy is not be healed or get up and walk. He says to him … Justin Bass Your sins are forgiven. Darrell Bock Your sins are forgiven. And then there are the theologians in the audience. Scott Horrell [Laughs] Easy. Darrell Bock Now you always got to be aware of theologians in the audience, okay, because the theologians in the audience, they immediately pick up on what Jesus has actually done. They get what we call the cultural script.

They get what's going on here and their reaction is he can't do that and why can't he do it? Justin Bass Only God can do it.

Isaiah Darrell Bock Only God can forgive sin. But you got a problem, okay. This is why I love this, okay. How do you see forgiveness of sins? Ever thought about that for a second? Justin Bass It's difficult. Darrell Bock Okay, you're a theologian, right. Scott Horrell Good point.

Failing to meet Hi. Later, I gazed out my kitchen window, shocked at how sharp and clear the outli. She talked. We appreciate the electronic map, but often our GPS misses the point. To reach our destination, we. God knew about Covid He knew about the lockdown. He knew about the death toll. He even knows about the cure or vaccine for Covid In this we can once again have hope in Him, knowing that He has everything under control.

When I look at my own l. And then Jesus took all my fears away in one miraculous sweep, and for the first time in my adult life, I enjoyed flying. My religious conversion has lasted and grown deeper over the decades. But the f. As part of our morning routine, we break into small groups to discuss a Bible lesson based on the parables of Jesus.

Team mem. So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. Sit quietly with Scripture and wait t. I looked around at our group and the elaborate set and props surrounding us, my heart beating fast.

Our youngest daughter worked at this new facilit. Perhaps like the widow at Zarephath, your cupboards are bare and your bank account is empty. Or perhaps you are exhausted from difficult people, conflicts that never resolve, and daily wounds. You may fe. How can this be happening? These were the q.

Here are some key questions in my thoughts: Is hav. His example showed me three truths that I can apply to following Jesus. Because of their roundabout route, the kings ran into a problem: no. I try to stay involved, but my head throbs on the first page: subparagraphs; special exclusions; rules, and more rules.

According to some sources. We would go back and forth in various settings. He would raise his questions. Why do accounts about the same event have differences? How can we really determine what took place? Like a good lawyer, he would press the issue. He would not let me get away with superficial answers. How could we really know how or why to take a detail seriously?

Simply saying it was in the Bible was not an answer enough. I would engage him and try to answer his questions, and we would try to sort out what we had heard from what we could believe. But it was not easy. Sometimes there was the sense we were playing by different rules. I had a regard for Scripture. My brother had natural historical questions. And there were the many things he had read about and heard from people who taught at well-known schools who raised questions about some of the things I believed.

Our conversation lasted many years—we would regularly resume it, picking up old threads of a previous conversation or sometimes taking up fresh questions based on the latest things we had heard. Our conversation now spans decades. I have come to appreciate the questions he raises and how to think about discussing them. He has come to have a much higher appreciation for Jesus and what we can know about him as a matter of history.

Together we have helped each other gain a deeper understanding of Jesus. In part, this book is about that kind of conversation. How can we talk about Jesus in the public square? How can we talk about the Bible as it relates to this conversation, especially as a historical document and with people who question Scripture?

How do Scripture and the person of Jesus fit with what many people think about history? Is there really a way for both sides, those who treat the Bible with some historical skepticism and those who treat the Bible as trustworthy, to have this conversation and have it go somewhere other than stalemate?

The historical study of Jesus is controversial, complex, and captivating—controversial because of the array of conclusions made about him as a historical figure; complex because it involves working with ancient sources, a pre-modern culture, and claims about divine activity never an easy topic for discussion ; and captivating because whether a person embraces Jesus or not, no one can deny that his life has impacted our world, whether that impact is seen as positive or negative. But in order to talk about Jesus within popular culture, there has to be some common ground, some mutual agreement over what we can really know about Jesus and how we know it, or at least, how to have such a conversation when so many views about Jesus exist.

This book starts in a place that says public conversation about Jesus can be profitable, even when we start where the church often does not—with skepticism. A key part of the public conversation about Jesus involves the historical study of Jesus. This is a study that plays by its own rules—rules that were not made by the church, nor for the church. To appreciate this part of the conversation and how it works, we need to know how the game is played.

I will introduce those rules and their rationale shortly, but first we need to see where these rules came from and why. These rules come from a mixture of tools that Jesus historians regularly use in trying to confirm a historical event as well as issues that the nature of our sources about Jesus raises.

Almost any Easter or Christmas we can see television shows or read news reports about findings that are supposed to change the way we have seen or should see Jesus. Both people of faith and people who challenge faith sit at the table and debate who Jesus is and how we can know who he was. As you might expect, sometimes the discussion is heated.

Can these diverse students of Jesus have a conversation without claiming that one has to accept all the church believes in order to discuss Jesus? That is part of what historical Jesus study attempts to do. The wide array of views about Jesus can be confusing to many, whether secular or religious. A fresh take on that conversation—what it can and cannot achieve—is also what this book is about. The first quest for the historical Jesus reaches back into the late seventeenth century.

Looking at differences in the texts and questioning whether the Bible was giving us history alone, scholars set out to distinguish between the real historical Jesus and what they called the Christ of faith, a figure many of the originators said was not the real Jesus but a later construction of the early church.

The initial discussion was rooted in a deep skepticism about what the Bible said about Jesus. The goal of getting us back to a truly historical Jesus often led to a moralist turn, with Jesus becoming one prophet among many the world has hosted. It became common to argue that there was a vast difference between the Christ of faith and the Jesus of history.

The portraits, the biblical one and the historical one, were that distinct. The claim was that the gospels really did not give us the real Jesus. He had to be rooted out of the sources through all kinds of historically based questions.