Exploring c. 3 & Historical c. 12

Galilee of the Gentiles (Matthew 4)

• Jesus withdrew to Galilee to fulfill prophesy

  • darkness → light
  • death → dawned

• Repent → kingdom comes near near

  Jesus Preached the kingdom of God

• Jesus was walking

  • “fish for the people”
  • “At once they left” (Galileans independent)
  • v.21 “immediately they left”

• Jesus walked throughout the Galilee

  • Spread throughout Syria
  • Decapolis (Federation of 10 cities)
  • Jerusalem & Judea (reversal, they have to go back to Galilee)

Discussion Questions

1. Introduction: What did you find most eye-opening about the lectures on Matthew, and what do you want to further discuss or ask?

2. Why in Matthew 1, after the genealogies (that show Jesus as descendant of Jews), do we have Gentiles from another religion worshiping Jesus and Jewish leaders disturbed (2:1-3)? Why not the other way around?

   • Outsider/insider disparity
   • Power corrupts (social & political power) — fear of losing power
   • Link between Herod & all Jerusalem were disturbed

   • Threatened by new “King of the Jew”

   • City of Peace is disturbed because people know the balance of power is shifting

3. It is the pagan elite who now stand on the side of Jesus and act in keeping with biblical prophecies, while the elite of the holy people of Israel stand on the opposite side and begin a truly evil game against him.

   (Luz 27, on 2:1-7)

   What does this response mean for leaders then, for people of other religions, and for us today?

   • Pagan / heathen - “What was lost is now found” (referred to Zacchaeus not to the whole people)
     • God wants to bless the Magi
     • Focus on relation
   • Magi - naive, they knew only enough to seek Jesus
   • The pagan elite found a figure of power (Jesus) in their corner

4. Why does the birth of the prince of peace (“God with us” 1:23) cause violence from the outset (2:13 and 2:16-18)? How is it possible for peace to produce violence?

   • Because the people of the City of Peace has not come under the Prince of Peace. Being within Jerusalem does not bring peace, but under Jesus' authority.

5. What is the reason for Matthew’s preoccupation with Galilee and his unique introduction of Jesus in “Galilee of the Gentiles.” Discuss what this means in terms of margin-center dynamics (including light and darkness, prejudice and acceptance) in Jesus’ day and the kind of transformations it requires.

6. Regarding the question above, what specific old and new dynamics in the church cause tension between the older and younger generations?

   • How can the shepherds be more loving to the sheep, and the sheep to the shepherds?

   • Who are the insiders of the church and who are the outsiders? Since Jesus reversed the insiders and outsiders, what changes must we make in Christian circles?

Exploring chapter 3

Gospel

• In Paul’s writing the word “gospel” means the gospel message baout life, death, resurrection of Jesus
• Word in Greek euangelion
• Means “good news”
• Euangelizomai - Announcing the coming of YHWH to save his people (Isa 40:9; 52:7; Joel 2:32; Nah 1:15)

Why were they written?

1. Original eyewitnesses were dying. Urgency to preserve their knowledge of Jesus’ ministry
2. Communicate the gospel message to those who were not yet believers
3. To teach (didactic) those who followed Jesus
4. Geographical, to spread the eyewitness testimony further afield

Other gospels?

• Gospel of Thomas (collection of 114 sayings of Jesus)
• Gospel of Peter (bizarre material: Jesus comes out of the tomb after his resurrection)
• Gospel of Philip (Mary Magdalene)
• Gospel of Judas (Conversation between Judas and Jesus)
• Gospel of the Nazarenes
  • Gospel of the Ebionites
  • Gospel of the Hebrews (resembles Matthew)
• Secret Gospel of Mark (Brilliant hoax)

Issues for today

• Focus of the early Christians’ proclamation in light of today’s church life
• Cultural anachronistical

Historical chapter 12

Jesus the Galilean Jew

At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan under John’s supervision.
— Mark 1:9

Jewish Galilee

• Obscurity of Jesus’ Galilean background makes it plausible
• Criterion of dissimilarity:

  The criterion of dissimilarity is used in Biblical criticism to determine if a statement attributed to Jesus may be authentic. The criterion states that if a saying attributed to Jesus is different from the Jewish traditions of his time and also from the early Church that followed him, it is likely to come from the historical Jesus.

• Judean rabbis questions Galileans’ observance of the law made inventing that origin hurtful to Jesus moment in Judea

Life in Galilee

• 3/4 million
• Upper (Golan) and lower Galilee included culturally mixed urbanites

Jesus’ Galilean

• Nazareth (insignificant to invent)
• Ministered among Fishing Villages
• Capernaum, small town, unresponsive
• in “Q” denounced “Chorazin” & “Bethsaida” (renamed Julia after 30CE)
• Called the fishermen

Conclusion

• Jesus grew up in Nazareth and moved to Capernaum
• Galilean Jew was not a Cynic and not Pharisee
• Charismatic sage