When I was a kid listening to the stories about Jesus, a mysterious group of “bad guys” kept cropping up. They went by various labels. Here’s a list, which I’m sure you’ll find familiar: Some Synonyms and Definitions The New Testament doesn’t define any of these terms. The authors expected people to know what they meant. The terms have a lot of overlap, and some of them are essentially synonyms. Here’s my best attempt to explain what these terms meant and which are synonyms: Money, Power, and Religion What these groups have in common is that almost all of them …
Randy Ingermanson’s Blog
What Do We Really Know About Nicodemus?
Nicodemus appears in the Bible only in the gospel of John, in three separate passages. According to John, Nicodemus was a Pharisee and a member of the ruling council, the Sanhedrin. The three passages don’t tell us much: This is not much information. Later Christian traditions claimed Nicodemus as a Christian saint, although these come centuries after the time of Jesus. There’s no particular reason to think these traditions are historically reliable. So other than the gospel of John, we have no first-century sources of information about Nicodemus. A Rare Name The name Nicodemus is not common. The Jewish historian …
What Do We Really Know About Mary Magdalene?
Mary Magdalene is one of the most mysterious people mentioned in the Bible. Was she really a prostitute? Was she really married to Jesus of Nazareth? In this blog post, I’ll cover the 9 New Testament passages that mention Mary Magdalene in first-century sources. That’s right—there are only 9 passages in the entire Bible that mention Mary Magdalene. Financial Support in Galilee Luke 8 tells how Jesus walked around Galilee with 12 disciples and a number of women who gave him financial support. The first woman on the list is Mary Magdalene, and Luke tells us Jesus cast 7 demons …
James and John, the Wild and Crazy Disciples of Jesus
On the surface, two of the most famous disciples of Jesus sound wild and crazy. James and John, the sons of Zebedee, appear to have had serious impulse-control issues (although they weren’t the only disciples to leap before they looked). There’s a story in the gospels about that time James and John got ridiculously ambitious, infuriating the other disciples. But the craziest story about James and John tells how they once volunteered to commit mass murder. We’ll look at these stories in detail, and then ask what Jesus saw in James and John. People aren’t always what they seem on …
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Peter and John, the Dynamic Duo Disciples
The Twelve disciples of Jesus often argued about which of them would be the greatest. But Jesus tried to turn that question inside out. He taught that the greatest leader would be the greatest servant. Two of the Twelve did eventually stand out from the pack. Peter and John appear together frequently in the New Testament documents. Let’s work backwards through the stories to see where they fit in to the leadership of the Jesus community. Stories About Peter and John Sometime in the late 40s or early 50s, the apostle Paul wrote the book of Galatians. In it, he …
Andrew, the Coolest Disciple of Jesus
Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, is one of the less-known disciples of Jesus. But that doesn’t mean he was unimportant. He played a key role in three stories about Jesus, including one of the most famous stories. By some strange coincidence, all three of those stories are in the gospel of John. In the other gospels, Andrew doesn’t get much air time, and in fact, he comes across as a bit player. How Mark, Matthew, and Luke Treat Andrew Mark is the earliest gospel, and it names the twelve disciples in a very strange order. Peter is listed first, …
The Mysterious Disciple Jesus Loved
The gospel of John refers several times to “the disciple Jesus loved.” But this gospel never tells us exactly who this disciple is. And no other book of the Bible gives us any direct evidence about this disciple’s identity. You’ve probably heard many times that it’s “obvious” that the Beloved Disciple was John the son of Zebedee, one of the Twelve. But many biblical scholars think that it’s not really obvious at all. They’ve suggested a number of other options. The problem is that there isn’t any consensus on this question among scholars. In this blog post, we’ll look at …
Jesus and “The Jews”
The gospel of John tells a lot of stories about Jesus and his run-ins with a group of people that are usually translated into English as “the Jews.” Who were these people, “the Jews?” And what was their beef with Jesus? This is a tough question, and a number of answers have been suggested by biblical scholars. The Greek term is Ioudaioi, a plural word. The singular version is Ioudaios. So what does this word mean? That depends on the context. The word was used by different authors in various ways, so it has quite a wide range of meanings. …
How We Know Jesus Existed
You might think that everybody at least agrees that Jesus of Nazareth existed. Because we have quite a lot of evidence for that, right? But a surprising number of people in the US actually think Jesus never existed, that he’s all a myth. Let’s be clear that they’re not claiming the resurrection of Jesus is a myth. They claim there wasn’t even a crucifixion of Jesus. They claim there wasn’t a Jesus to crucify. Many of them claim that Nazareth itself wasn’t populated at the time of Jesus. There’s a term for these people. They’re called “Jesus mythicists.” What the …
Jesus and Politics
If you aren’t careful, you might think Jesus never had anything to say about politics. Make a list of all the hot issues in American politics. Guns, immigration, minimum wage, LGBTQ, abortion, voter fraud/voter suppression, inflation, and on and on. Jesus didn’t say a word about any of them. But that should be no surprise, because Jewish politics in the first century had nothing to do with any of those things. Jewish politics in the first century was concerned with exactly one thing—the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of Caesar The issue was that Rome began its occupation of Palestine …
