Back in the Saddle and Eyewitnesses of Jesus – January 10

Well it has been a long break. Hope 2007 is starting off for you well. Obviously things are cranking up again. I am writing you as I return from two days with the entire staff of Search Ministries, a great group reaching out to men int he business community. If any of you are Seminarians, it is a cutting edge evangelistic ministry. Anyway, we covered the missing gospels, the significance of Jesus’ acts to explain who he is and the emergent movement with them in 5 hours of teaching and additional 5 hours of discussion.

Well it has been a long break. Hope 2007 is starting off for you well. Obviously things are cranking up again. I am writing you as I return from two days with the entire staff of Search Ministries, a great group reaching out to men int he business community. If any of you are Seminarians, it is a cutting edge evangelistic ministry. Anyway, we covered the missing gospels, the significance of Jesus’ acts to explain who he is and the emergent movement with them in 5 hours of teaching and additional 5 hours of discussion. It was a great time as it is every year. I have a book to recommend for all of you historical Jesus fans. It is Richard Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. This is a look at the case for an eyewitness base (a living on of the living voice of those who experienced Jesus). It is well done, working carefully through Papias and other key early witnesses as well as other literary arguments for presenting the idea that Mark did work with Peter’s testimony and that John’s gospel is that of an eyewitness (John the Elder, not John, son of Zebedee and one of the twelve). It also works with the idea of how corporate memory is formed. The book is a little of a tough read, stylistically, but is worth it. In the end, he argues that the "Jesus of testimony" does not reveal a great chasm between the Historical Jesus and the Christ of faith.