PDF version of the lesson notes.

Introduction

• A big thanks and good luck to Cassie B. for agreeing to substitute for me this week. Read the rest of this entry »

PDF version of the lesson notes.

I. Introduction

• Authorship: Acts, like the four gospels, is an anonymous book. Nowhere in the book itself is the identity of the author asserted. The earliest attribution of authorship is made by Irenaeus in the late 2nd century. Irenaus identifies Luke, the traveling companion of Paul, as the writer of the gospel now called Luke and the writer of Acts.[1] Thus, “[a]ncient church tradition attributed the third gospel [and acts] to the Luke who appears in Philemon 24 as Paul’s ‘fellow worker’ and is called ‘the beloved physician’ in Collossians 4.14.”[2] Read the rest of this entry »

PDF version of the lesson notes.

I. Lesson Coverage and Structure

• The lesson covers the “resurrection narrative.” I am going to use Matthew as the primary text as I did for both the events of the garden and the crucifixion narrative. This is not a manifestation of a preference for Matthew over the other gospels. Rather it is a manifestation of a preference for continuity in the literary account across these important events. Read the rest of this entry »

PDF version of the lesson notes.

I. Lesson Coverage and Structure

• The reading for today’s lesson covers the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and events leading up to the crucifixion. It certainly covers more material than we can cover in class with any depth at all. Thus today’s lesson will be less systematic than usual (and I don’t think I am usually that systematic). I am going to skip around to different parts that caught my attention. Read the rest of this entry »

PDF version of the lesson notes.

I. Background Issues

Today, the lesson covers the events of the garden of Gethsemane. It is hard to overestimate the importance of these events. However, notice how short the selected text is for the lesson. For example, the Matthean version of these events is confined to just 11 verses (likewise for Mark and the Lukan version is even shorter). Compare that, for example, to the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1. The genealogy of Jesus takes up about as much space in the Matthew’s account as the events in the garden of Gethsemane.Why do the gospel writers devote so little space to these events? Does this “tell us anything about how we should understand what scripture is or is not?”[1] Read the rest of this entry »