The Evidence for Jesus
The original lectures represented in The Evidence for Jesus by James D. G. Dunn was written in response to a television series aired by London Weekend Television entitled Jesus: The Evidence. The series aimed to present the effect of modern New Testament scholarship on the traditional understandings of the identity of Jesus. Although the series began with well-documented and generally accepted opinions it quickly progressed to more radical, unrepresentative ideas. In response to the great distress and confusion that this series caused among its Christian viewers the need for an alternative explanation became great. This need spurred the creation of a series of lectures to interchurch audiences by James Dunn, Professor of Divinity at the University of Durham. The purposes of Dunn's lectures entitled "The Evidence for Jesus" was to clarify and present the true findings of scholars in regards to the life of Jesus and the early church and to stimulate a continuing adult Christian education. In Chapter 1 of the book Dunn addresses the issue of the veracity of the Gospels. Dunn particularly seeks to answer the question of whether the gospels are based on accurate historical fact. One of the main focuses of this chapter is the com
First, Dunn explains that John's discourses are built around central themes. When more than one theme is being expressed at a time it becomes a cumbersome and confusing task to express these themes through dialogue. So, instead of expressing the idea in the complicated dialogue form, John presents them in the form of the sermons of his day where a main theme was presented and referred to throughout the teaching and a corollary theme would develop through the expression of the first theme. This leads into the second argument that the style of this Gospel is merely in its simplest form the style of John. This argument is supported by examining the epistles of John as well as his Gospel, in so doing it becomes exceedingly clear that the style of discourses and sermons is present in all of John's writing which leads to the conclusion that it is his personal "style". Take as an example the story of the Centurion's Servant (Matt. 8:5-13, Luke 7:1-10, p. 14). The telling of the story and its general details are mostly the same in each version, but the points or morals that the evangelists seek to draw from it are significantly different. Through his retelling, Matthew seeks to highlight the faith of the centurion. In his version the centurion seeks put Jesus and asks him to "but only say the word and my servant will be healed" (Mt. 8:8). The story concludes with Jesus' words to the centurion "Go; be it done for you as you have believed" (Mt. 8:13). Thus, although the wording of the body of the story is practically identical in the two accounts the choice of one word and the inclusion of one phrase give the story a distinctive meaning. When Dunn addresses the question of whether Jesus sees himself as the Son of God he gives the seemingly ambiguous answer "Yes and No". He begins the argument with the statistics of the number of times that Jesus was referred to as the Son of God in each of the Gospels. In so doing it is easily notable that these references by Jesus are much more readily found in the Gospel of J
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1366
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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