There is a very unusual story in the Gospel of Mark (Mark 7:24-30) picked up by, and amplified in, the Gospel of Matthew (Mat 15:21-28). It concerns a desperate woman requesting an exorcism from Jesus. Now that doesn't sound so unusual. People, both men and women, requested healings and exorcisms from Jesus seemingly on a …
Continue reading Jesus Bested by a Woman! The Story of the Syro-Phoenician Woman
Did Jesus instruct his Jewish listeners and disciples that the Torah, or Jewish law – the first five books of modern Bibles, traditionally attributed to Moses – was rendered irrelevant with his coming? There are certainly no unequivocal statements by Jesus in the gospels that say so. Yet many Christians from ages past until today …
There are precious few stories in the gospels in which Jesus converses with women. Even fewer are those that grant the woman conversant a voice. Among the latter examples are the conversations between Jesus and the sisters Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38-42; John 11:21-27, 32). The conversation we are interested in today is the one …
Continue reading The Underappreciated Story of the Samaritan Woman
Why would anyone even ask such a question? Didn’t Jesus’s baptism become the prototype for Christian baptism, a practice that was carried out by his followers as evidenced in the Acts of the Apostles and the letters of Paul? How could that have embarrassed anyone who claimed to follow Jesus? To the analytical mind of …
Continue reading Was Jesus’s Baptism an Embarrassment to His Early Followers?
You may already be thinking that if this is to be a “historical” assessment, then it is likely that the entire concept of virginal conception (not “virgin birth”; that is something entirely different) will be dismissed as a mythical fable. But not so fast. History may mean one thing to us today and another thing …
Continue reading The Virginal Conception of Jesus: A Historian’s Assessment
With this post, we complete our historical survey of the lives of the twelve apostles. Here, we discuss the apostles Thaddaeus, Simon, Judas, “and the rest.” Thaddaeus/Lebbaeus/Judas son of James It is possible, though unlikely, that these three names all refer to the same person. Some suggest that the names Thaddaeus and Lebbaeus ultimately …
Continue reading The Twelve Apostles Part 6: Thaddaeus, Simon, Judas & the Rest
We continue our historical survey of the lives of the twelve apostles. In this post, we discuss the apostles Matthew, Thomas, and James. Matthew The Greek word, Matthaios, from which we derive Matthew, comes from the Semitic Mattiyah meaning “gift of Yahweh.” Beyond that, and the appearance of his name in the lists of …
Continue reading The Twelve Apostles, Part 5 – Matthew, Thomas, James
We continue our series of historical investigations into the twelve specially-chosen followers of Jesus with this look at three who bore Hellenist names: Andrew, Philip, and Bartholomew. Andrew Andrew is a Greek name (Andreas = “manly”). All four New Testament gospels (Matt 4:18, 10:2; Mark 1:16; Luke 6:14; John 1:40, 6:8) identity him as …
Continue reading The Twelve Apostles, Part 4 – The Hellenists: Andrew, Philip, and Bartholomew
In this series of posts, we will explore the history of Jesus’s closest followers as recorded across numerous ancient Christian traditions. Along the way, we will find that these traditions are often confused, contradictory, or seriously lacking in details. Nevertheless, we will attempt to distill all the historical data possible and, at times, risk delving …
Getting as close to the historical Jesus as possible has been a preoccupation with biblical scholars since at least the 18th century. Many questions must be asked. For example, which of the Jesus-traditions (sayings and stories) now appearing in the New Testament and elsewhere are the oldest? Which are most likely historical? Which gospel was …
David Christian Clausen 