A Three-Dimensional Jesus: The Audience PDF

# A Three-Dimensional Jesus ## The Audience - To whom did Jesus preach and, some fifty years later, to whom did the evangelists write? ### Just Folks > I'm Nobody! Who are you? > Are you nobody, too? > - Emily Dickinson 45 - The total population of the Roman Empire spanning 2.5 million square m...

# A Three-Dimensional Jesus ## The Audience - To whom did Jesus preach and, some fifty years later, to whom did the evangelists write? ### Just Folks > I'm Nobody! Who are you? > Are you nobody, too? > - Emily Dickinson 45 - The total population of the Roman Empire spanning 2.5 million square miles, including Palestine, with over 6,000 square miles is unknown. - Robert Knapp 46 speculates a figure of 50 or 60 million. - Of that guesstimate, less than half of 1 percent, 100,000 to 200,000 people, belonged to one of the three wealthiest orders that governed everyone else except for the Roman emperor, who occupied a league of one. - Owing to ancestry and assets, the senatorial order, which was not always the richest, comprised the highest political and social rank. - Beneath that, members of the equestrian order tend to acquire wealth, not senatorial status and power. - Elites in these richest _ordines_, some 5,000 adult men, were concentrated in Rome. - The far less affluent decurial order governed the empire's remaining town and cities. - Only some 40,000 adult males, in whom was concentrated over 89 percent of the empire's wealth, made up the decurial order and controlled everything for the remaining 99.5 percent. ## The Gospels - Much farther down the socioeconomic ladder stood the empire's freedmen (formerly slaves). - At worst, these folk could be confident of daily bread; at best, their resources allowed them leisure to pursue political or social interests. - Freedmen comprised top soldiers, modest farmers, artisans and merchants, along with retainers who supplied their needs: architects, physicians, and professional teachers. - By their cooperative labors these men and their families, about 25 percent of the total population, stabilized the empire's day-to-day operation and evidently thought well of themselves. - Lucius Nerusius Mithres, a small-town merchant in Italy, left behind this inscription: "I sold people useful goods; my honesty was acclaimed everywhere; I paid my taxes, was fair and straightforward in my dealings, helped as many as I could, and was highly regarded among my friends" (CIL 9.4796). - Their principal goal was financial security; their persistent concerns, death and disease, were unpredictable and omnipresent (Dreams 2.1, 59). - They enjoyed socializing in public entertainments, including civic associations, public baths (CIL 6.15258), and executions (Metam. 10.29-34). - Religious ceremonies were popular (Metam. 11.8-18). - Theological niceties were ignored, but attacks on divine patronage that could jeopardize finance were not taken lightly (Acts 19:23-41). - Especially for those who enjoyed free birth without legal constraints or financial liabilities, it's not surprising that dominance in the usually monogamous household was an overriding virtue for freedmen; subjugation was a shameful stigma. ## The Conversation Continues ## Humbled by Our Predecessors ### A Conversation with John L. Thompson - John L. Thompson (PhD, Duke), the Gaylen and Susan Byker Professor Emeritus of Reformed Theology at Fuller Theological Seminary, taught historical theology at Fuller for thirty years (1989–2019). - An ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and an internationally recognized specialist in the writings of the Protestant reformer John Calvin, he has concentrated on the history of biblical interpretation with a particular interest in gender issues in Jewish and Christian Scripture and tradition. CCB: John, the history of biblical interpretation is a gargantuan subject, about which you know a lot, I know a smidgen, and this book's readers may know nothing. Let's begin with a basic question. In broad strokes, how would you characterize the differences between the ways modern scholars typically read Christian Scripture and the techniques employed by its interpreters throughout most of Christian history? JLT: Neither modern scholars nor ancient writers are all alike. They come in different flavors. Some modern scholars approach the biblical text as an object, a religious artifact from the past to be analyzed. Indeed, some regard it as a dangerous artifact that has done more harm than good; by deconstructing that text, they hope to neutralize its injurious effect. Yet other modern scholars not only want to address the text but also to feel personally addressed by it, as a word that comes to them not merely by means of human invention or artifice. The contrast between these two ways of regarding the Bible—as an abstract object, external to oneself, thus opposed to a voice that genuinely addresses the reader—was famously distinguished by the theologian Karl Barth (1886–1968) in his commentary on Romans (1919; 2nd ed., 1921).51 - While many practitioners of historical criticism try to get behind the text in order to recover the culture that produced it, scholars of earlier centuries attempted to understand the world depicted or created by the text, with the aim of entering that world: a world, they believed, that is governed or guided by that text's divine author. - Ancient commentators regarded Scripture as a guide to living the Christian life. - The emphasis was on practical application of the text's teachings to daily experience. - With the rise of modern critical scholarship during the Enlightenment, biblical scholarship began to focus on the text's origins and historical context. - This shift led away from the traditional view of Scripture as a divinely inspired and authoritative text. - Modern critical scholarship attempts to understand the Bible as a product of human history and culture. ## Conclusion - We owe an unpayable debt of gratitude to the NT's evangelists, all of whom probably did their work in the last three decades of the first century. - By applying pen to papyrus, they made sure that the earliest remembrances of Jesus would not be lost. - They assured and warned - Christians that faith in Jesus would be regulated, not held hostage to ecstatic visions or private insights. - By these authors' efforts, Jesus of Nazareth remained the central figure with whom Christians would have to come to grips in construing their understanding of God. - Within four centuries the church across the world reached the practical decision, later legalized, that no single Gospel, nor jumble of several, would suffice for Christian faith. - The figure of Jesus was too large, too complex, for any such reduction. - A multidimensional Jesus demanded a multidimensional interpretation. - It is to three of those cardinal presentations that this book is devoted, with highest esteem. *** **Note:** The document referenced in the provided image is not attached. 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