Jacob Neusner was one of the best-known scholars of Jewish studies in the 20th century. He reckoned that the three most influential Jews of all time were Moses, Jeremiah, and Yohanan ben Zakkai. Odds are you’ve heard of Moses and Jeremiah. Moses was the great lawgiver. Jeremiah was the great prophet who had the bad luck to see Jerusalem destroyed by Babylon in the year 587 BC. But Yohanan who? What’s he famous for? What We Know About Yohanan ben Zakkai Essentially everything we know about Yohanan ben Zakkai comes to us from the rabbinic writings—the Mishnah, the Tosefta, and …
New Testament History
The Mysterious Aristocrats of Ancient Jerusalem
When I was a kid listening to the stories about Jesus, a mysterious group of “bad guys” kept cropping up. They went by various labels. Here’s a list, which I’m sure you’ll find familiar: Some Synonyms and Definitions The New Testament doesn’t define any of these terms. The authors expected people to know what they meant. The terms have a lot of overlap, and some of them are essentially synonyms. Here’s my best attempt to explain what these terms meant and which are synonyms: Money, Power, and Religion What these groups have in common is that almost all of them …
What Do We Really Know About Nicodemus?
Nicodemus appears in the Bible only in the gospel of John, in three separate passages. According to John, Nicodemus was a Pharisee and a member of the ruling council, the Sanhedrin. The three passages don’t tell us much: This is not much information. Later Christian traditions claimed Nicodemus as a Christian saint, although these come centuries after the time of Jesus. There’s no particular reason to think these traditions are historically reliable. So other than the gospel of John, we have no first-century sources of information about Nicodemus. A Rare Name The name Nicodemus is not common. The Jewish historian …
Jesus and Politics
If you aren’t careful, you might think Jesus never had anything to say about politics. Make a list of all the hot issues in American politics. Guns, immigration, minimum wage, LGBTQ, abortion, voter fraud/voter suppression, inflation, and on and on. Jesus didn’t say a word about any of them. But that should be no surprise, because Jewish politics in the first century had nothing to do with any of those things. Jewish politics in the first century was concerned with exactly one thing—the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of Caesar The issue was that Rome began its occupation of Palestine …
Imagining the Day John Baptized Jesus
Ever wondered what it was like to be there on the day Jesus came to the Jordan River to be baptized by John? There are a lot of questions I’d like answered: When and where exactly did this happen? What did the place look like? What was it like to get baptized by John? Where Did John Baptize? The four gospels all say that Jesus met John at the Jordan River. Mark’s account is earliest and says that John was “in the wilderness” and also “at the Jordan River.” Matthew’s account was written a bit later and is very …
James, the Brother of Jesus, Part I
According to the gospels of Mark and Matthew, Jesus had four brothers, James, Joses, Simon, and Judas. James was apparently the oldest of these brothers. We don’t know a lot about James, or any of the brothers. The New Testament only mentions them a few times, mostly in passing. It has been debated whether they were brothers, half-brothers, or cousins. (See my earlier post, The Mysterious Brothers of Jesus.) But these brothers, whoever they were, must have been important. They grew up with Jesus. If they were older than him, they took care of him. If he was older than …
The Synagogue at Nazareth
Homecomings don’t always work out the way you expect. Three of the gospels tell accounts of Jesus returning to his hometown, Nazareth, where he got a rather rude welcome. The earliest account appears in Mark 6:1-6. Jesus teaches in the synagogue on Shabbat, and his friends and neighbors are, to say the least, unimpressed. Jesus responds by saying that a prophet is not without honor, except in his own country. The townspeople take offense at him. The end result is that, aside from healing a few sick people, Jesus doesn’t make much of a splash. The next-oldest account comes …
Jesus and the Zealots
One of the most surprising verses in the New Testament is Luke 6:15, where we read that one of the twelve disciples of Jesus was a Zealot. His name was Simon, and Luke refers to him as “Simon who was called the Zealot.” The passage in Luke has two parallel passages in Mark 3:18 and Matthew 10:4. Newer translations of these passages typically also call this disciple “Simon the Zealot.” Older translations usually call him “Simon the Cananaean.” (“Cananaean” is just the Aramaic word “qanay” transliterated into the Greek word “kananiten” and then transliterated into the English word “Cananaean.” …
The Amazing Herod Family
If you’ve read through the New Testament, you might be rather surprised at how often “King Herod” keeps popping up in the story. The book of Matthew tells a story of how the evil King Herod killed all the babies in Bethlehem in an attempt to get rid of the infant Jesus. In the story, Joseph and Mary escape with their son to Egypt, and only return a few years later when they learn that Herod is dead. Thirty years later, Jesus is an adult preaching in Galilee, but then he gets in trouble with … King Herod again! …