As iron sharpens iron,
one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)
“The accounts of Resurrection Sunday morning in scripture seem to indicate that the resurrection of Jesus bodily from the tomb was a surprise—to the women who went there, to the disciples, and to Jerusalem….
“The simple answer is that they probably didn’t. There were two groups of people. The Matthew account of the Triumphal Entry clearly delineates between the two.” - P&D
“But what might be surprising in all of this, if we are paying close attention, is that there were Pharisees who were followers of Jesus! …. With this in mind, I want us to go back to the gospels and look carefully at Jesus’ interaction with the Pharisees.” - P&D
“Elizabeth Schrader Polczer … claims editors in the second century rewrote the story of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus to hide the original secret story written about Lazarus and only one sister, Mary, who she claims is Mary Magdalene.” - Darrell Post
“While dozens of commentaries have been published on each of the gospels since the year 2000, we recommend these below because they have stood the test of time in an ‘evergreen’ way.” - Christ Over All
“the Bethesda Pool is described as having five porticoes—a puzzling feature suggesting an unusual five-sided pool, which most scholars dismissed as an unhistorical literary creation.
“…there’s a whole lot more you can learn about someone by reading four stories of their life, rather than just one.” - P&D
Pastor, at some point this year you will be providing background context for the NT passage which you are about to preach, guiding your flock in properly visualizing the world of Jesus and the apostles, so that your people might better connect with the passage and also apply the background framework in their own studies. What will you teach them concerning the origin of the Gospels?
My goal in this article is to encourage you to pause and reflect on what will be said concerning the publication date of Matthew’s Gospel.
“Bart Ehrman argues that Jesus didn’t, himself, claim to be God, but this was a belief that arose subsequently after his death, among his followers.” - Gavin Ortlund
Matthew Through Old Testament Eyes, Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2024, 389 pages, paperback.
I have already reviewed the previous volumes from this series. All three were what I would call average to above average works, containing useful content, although my repeated refrain was that in my opinion they fail to live up to the title. If you want to write a NT commentary “through OT Eyes” then you really can’t superimpose the NT on it. At least you can’t unless what you meant to say was something like “How the NT Book of _____ Reads the OT.”
Discussion