Skeptical Bible Study - Calendar for March & April, 2008

All meetings are from 11:00 a.m. to about 12:30 p.m.

Room 307, Haag Hall (northwest corner of 52nd & Rockhill Road), UMKC

(Park on level 4 of the parking structure south, across the street;

3rd floor of Haag is accessed directly through overhead walkway.)

This is not your normal Sunday school class that seeks to learn the "truths" of the Bible. Rather we look to see if there are any truths in the Bible. We ask such questions as does it teach acceptable morals; is it historical; why is the book considered the word of God and such things?

Sunday, March 2, 2008

The Earliest Traditions About Jesus

Even though the earliest traditions about Jesus go back to eyewitnesses who observed the things he said and did, they were circulated by word of mouth for several decades before being written down in the Gospels. . . [G]iven the rapid growth of the religion in so many areas, the people spreading most of these tales were necessarily people who had never seen these things happen or who had even known someone else who had.  As a result, the traditions about Jesus were modified in the process of transmission, and some traditions were apparently made up - as Christians tried both to convince others of the importance of Jesus and to understand him in ways that seemed theologically significant.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Mark – Jesus the Suffering Son of God

The Gospel of Mark is the shortest and earliest account of Jesus’ life and death in the New Testament.  Written by an unknown Greek-speaking Christian about thirty-five to forty years after Jesus’ death, the account is based on oral traditions available to the author.  Rather than simply repeat these traditions in random order, Mark imposed an order on them portraying Jesus as the authoritative but universally misunderstood Son of God.  Even the disciples who acknowledge him to be the “messiah” appear to be obsessed with the traditional Jewish view that the messiah would be a figure of grandeur and power who would overthrow the forces opposed to God on behalf of God’s people, Israel.  But for Mark, Jesus was a messiah who had to suffer and die for the sins of the world.

Sunday, March 30, 2008

Matthew – Jesus the Jewish Messiah

Matthew shares a good deal in common with Mark, especially his view that Jesus is the son of God who must die for the sins of the world.  But there are other emphases here, too, as can be seen in the stories that Matthew has added to Mark’s shorter narrative.  These stories stress both the Jewish-ness of Jesus and his opposition to other forms of Judaism.  Here Jesus is emphatically shown to be the Jewish messiah sent from the Jewish God to the Jewish people in fulfillment of the Jewish Law.  He himself fulfills the Jewish Law in all its totality and insists that his followers keep it even better than do the Jewish religious leaders of his day, the scribes and Pharisees.  These Jewish authorities come under constant attack from Jesus in this Gospel, as he maligns their hypocritical and wicked hearts.  Rather than seeing this Gospel, though, as “anti-Semitic” in any modern sense, it is probably better to see it as the result of inner conflicts within Judaism, as Christian Jews struggled with non-Christian Jews to determine the correct understanding of Jesus and the true interpretation of the Law of Moses.

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Luke – Jesus the Savior of the World

The third of our Synoptic Gospels, Luke emphasizes that Jesus was a Jewish prophet, much like the prophets of old – he was born like a prophet, he preached like a prophet, he healed like a prophet, and he died like a prophet. As a prophet, Jesus knows full well what is to happen to him and is in complete control of himself and his circumstances, up to the time of his death. Moreover, because he knows that it is God’s plan for his salvation to go out into the world, Jesus does not predict the imminent end of the age.  Before the end comes, the message of salvation must be brought to the Gentiles, which will require the passage of time.  Because the church will be in the world for a relatively long time, in this Gospel we see an increased emphasis on the social aspects of Jesus’ message, with its requirement of compassion for the poor, the downtrodden, and the oppressed.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

John – Jesus the Man from Heaven

Whereas Matthew, Mark and Luke are so similar the Gospel of John is quite different.  It lacks many of the familiar and significant accounts that form the backbone of the three Synoptic narratives.  It also contains numerous stories that have come down to us in its text alone.  On the other hand, even where there are similarities in content between John and the Synoptics, the differences in emphases are striking. Some of John’s stories appear to contain discrepancies from the earlier accounts.  The very portrayal of Jesus itself differs. Jesus’ own identity lies at the core of this account; rather than simply being a misunderstood representative of God’s will, or a rejected prophet, or a Jewish messiah sent from the Jewish God in fulfillment of the Jewish scriptures, Jesus is himself divine, equal with God, an incarnation of God’s Word, through which he created the universe.