Re: Salvation by Faith alone? Parable of the vineyards
Posted: Thu Sep 07, 2023 3:07 pm
I actually found the idea that Jesus was a Jew talking to Jews, occasionally talking to Samaritans (Jew-adjacent) and only RARELY talking to non-Jews of any type, very useful in understanding the gospels - if less useful for Paul etc.
Seriously - no matter what else - assuming Jesus existed at all, as a person in Judea/Galilee in the first century, as a Jew talking to Jews, he literally HAD to be saying stuff that was somewhat understandable to his audience.
How Paul etc interpreted that for a gentile audience is a whole other topic.
Preachers are far too fond of grabbing verse X from the gospels (Jesus says X) and then pulling some verse elsewhere (in the letter of Paul to the whosis folks, he says Y WHICH MEANS....) but seriously, unless X meant something to the Jews at that time, all that 'it means Y' is at least subject to question.
This is - I think - one of the reasons that Jesus Committee cast doubts on certain statements attributed to Jesus in the gospels - they just weren't something a first century Jew would conceivably actually say and hope to be understood, because it was just too outlandish (example: anything attributed to Jesus conflating him with God - that is simply not just 'weird' but positively impossible in that culture - it would have been clearly understood all right - if his audience were Greek or Roman pagans).
Seriously - no matter what else - assuming Jesus existed at all, as a person in Judea/Galilee in the first century, as a Jew talking to Jews, he literally HAD to be saying stuff that was somewhat understandable to his audience.
How Paul etc interpreted that for a gentile audience is a whole other topic.
Preachers are far too fond of grabbing verse X from the gospels (Jesus says X) and then pulling some verse elsewhere (in the letter of Paul to the whosis folks, he says Y WHICH MEANS....) but seriously, unless X meant something to the Jews at that time, all that 'it means Y' is at least subject to question.
This is - I think - one of the reasons that Jesus Committee cast doubts on certain statements attributed to Jesus in the gospels - they just weren't something a first century Jew would conceivably actually say and hope to be understood, because it was just too outlandish (example: anything attributed to Jesus conflating him with God - that is simply not just 'weird' but positively impossible in that culture - it would have been clearly understood all right - if his audience were Greek or Roman pagans).