It’s well known that Jesus had a few things to say about the end of the world. Most people who’ve read the gospels know that Mark 13, Matthew 24, and Luke 21 tell pretty much the same story, which goes as follows. During the last week of his life, Jesus and his disciples were in the Temple. One of his disciples marvelled at the size of the stones used to build the Temple. Jesus said that not one of the stones would be left on top of another—they would all be thrown down. Later, on the Mount of Olives, while …
Jesus and Politics
Jesus and the Pharisees
If you’ve read the gospels, you know that Jesus had a fair number of run-ins with a group called “the Pharisees.” It’s easy to see them as the “bad guys” of the Jesus story. The Pharisees are variously portrayed as “hypocrites,” or “lovers of money,” or worse. But there are several problems with such a one-dimensional portrait of the Pharisees: Now would be a good time to talk about the various political parties within Judaism during the lifetime of Jesus. This is important because these parties changed radically within a few decades after Jesus died—and before most of the New …
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. …