Speaker 1: Okay, we're live. How does William Ramsey Welcome to William
Speaker 1: Ramsey Investigates on today's show. I have a returning guest,
Speaker 1: Professor Darryl L.
Speaker 2: Boch.
Speaker 1: We talked back in July twenty second, twenty twenty one
Speaker 1: about a book he just published recently titled Cultural Intelligence,
Speaker 1: Living for God in a Diverse, pluralistic World. But today
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about a book, a second edition
Speaker 1: that he published in twenty seventeen titled Jesus according to Scripture,
Speaker 1: Restoring the Portrait from the Gospels, very detailed scholarly inquiry
Speaker 1: into kind of early church and how the Gospels were
Speaker 1: put together. But doctor Bach has earned recognition as a
Speaker 1: Humboldt Scholar from Tubajin University in Germany and is the
Speaker 1: author of over forty books, including well regarded commentaries on
Speaker 1: Luke and Axe and studies of the historical Jesus, and
Speaker 1: work in cultural engagement. As host of the Seminary's Table podcasts,
Speaker 1: he was President of the Evangelical Theological Society from two
Speaker 1: thousand to two thousand and one, writes for the Christianity
Speaker 1: Today's Places and Space series, and serves on the boards
Speaker 1: of Wheaton College, Chosen People Ministries, the Institute for Global Engagement,
Speaker 1: and Christians in Public Service. His articles appear in leading publications.
Speaker 1: He's often an expert on the media in New Testament issues,
Speaker 1: and doctor Bock has been a New York Times bestselling
Speaker 1: author and non fiction and is Elder emeritus at Trinity
Speaker 1: Fellowship Church in Dallas. And you can see kind of
Speaker 1: a list of his books that I included in my
Speaker 1: earlier interview with him in July. So I suggest people
Speaker 1: go back and listen to again. That book is Cultural Intelligence,
Speaker 1: but this one is Jesus according to Scripture, restoring the
Speaker 1: portrait from the Gospel. So doctor Darryl L.
Speaker 2: Bacher, there I am in good day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, good day to you. Thanks for returning, and for
Speaker 1: people who may not have caught the earlier interview that
Speaker 1: we did, can you talk all about culture Intelligence and
Speaker 1: also what led you conduct to write or re edit
Speaker 1: this book Jesus according.
Speaker 2: To script Yeah. Well, cultural Intelligence is a short theology
Speaker 2: of cultural engagement, and it really makes the argument that
Speaker 2: considered biblically, the way we have gone about cultural engagement
Speaker 2: in the church is not properly biblically aligned. As a result,
Speaker 2: we're doing as much damage as we are good in
Speaker 2: the effort. And so it's an attempt to explain why
Speaker 2: that is and to really correct a misdirection that we have,
Speaker 2: particularly with regard to the tone of the way we
Speaker 2: engage in the way in which we look at issues.
Speaker 2: And so that book is about a year old, and
Speaker 2: it's been out and I've literally been speaking around the
Speaker 2: country on it in the last year. Jesus according to
Speaker 2: Scripture was originally a bigger book, I believe it or not,
Speaker 2: in that when we did the second edition, we split
Speaker 2: it into two parts. Jesus according to Scripture, which works
Speaker 2: through every gospel passage in all four Gospels in detail,
Speaker 2: with an event, even if it's reed, being examined in
Speaker 2: its gospel context each time it appears. And then the
Speaker 2: second book is called Jesus God Man, which puts everything
Speaker 2: that's in the Gospels together in one place and kind
Speaker 2: of does a short here's the theological emphasies that come
Speaker 2: out of the gospels when you work with them altogether.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to do two things. I'm trying, on the
Speaker 2: one hand, to show what is consistent across the gospels,
Speaker 2: and yet at the same time show is what is
Speaker 2: distinct within them at the same time, because normally what
Speaker 2: people do when they read the Gospels, particular, if they're
Speaker 2: reading the same event between the gospels, they make what
Speaker 2: I call gospels stew. They bring out the pot, they
Speaker 2: pour a little bit of Matthew, a little bit of Mark,
Speaker 2: and a little bit of Luke in its stir fry
Speaker 2: and deliver. And part of the point that I'm trying
Speaker 2: to make is that each story has its emphasis, and
Speaker 2: appreciating that emphasis means that what the way Luke may
Speaker 2: do it and the way Matthew or Mark may do
Speaker 2: it may be different enough to appreciate what those differences
Speaker 2: are at the same time. Now, in saying that, I'm
Speaker 2: not saying the difference is something that's in contradiction. But
Speaker 2: they actually compliment one another in their portraits, and they
Speaker 2: help to fill out who Jesus is. So I like
Speaker 2: to make the analogy it's like listening to Jesus in
Speaker 2: quadrophonic sound. Each speaker is doing its own thing with Jesus,
Speaker 2: and the mixture also works. So that's that's the point
Speaker 2: of the approach of the book.
Speaker 1: Right, And some people believe that if they're not telling
Speaker 1: the same story. They're contradicting each other. So you see
Speaker 1: that alternate kind of view of the early Gospels in
Speaker 1: your introduction, I mean you actually talk about the four
Speaker 1: corners of the Earth kind of like the four Gospels.
Speaker 1: Can you describe to people what the Synoptic Gospels are,
Speaker 1: how John is different, and where they're where they think
Speaker 1: they came from.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, the Synoptic Gospels. Synoptic is actually made up
Speaker 2: of two Greek words, one of which we recognize, the
Speaker 2: word optic. I mean you go to an optometrist to
Speaker 2: get your eyes looked at. So the word soon means together.
Speaker 2: So these are gospels that can be seen together. They
Speaker 2: fit together because they overlap so much. That's Matthew, Mark
Speaker 2: and Luke. Matthew Mark and Luke are the Synoptic Gospels.
Speaker 2: And when people say Synoptic Gospels, it's a shorthand for
Speaker 2: not having go on and say, well, I'm talking about
Speaker 2: Matthew Mark and Luke. John is viewed on its own.
Speaker 2: And part of this has to do with the way
Speaker 2: at least it's the argument of the book is that
Speaker 2: the Synoptic Gospels tend to tell the story of Jesus
Speaker 2: from the Earth up They start with categories that we're
Speaker 2: mostly used to, with the virgin birth being a little
Speaker 2: bit of an exception, telling you something unusual is going on,
Speaker 2: and then you watch it dawn on people who Jesus is.
Speaker 2: Because the challenge of Jesus, of course, is these most
Speaker 2: unique human being who's ever walked the earth. He is
Speaker 2: one in a gazillion, and a gazillion's a big number.
Speaker 2: My point is is that no one combines divinity and
Speaker 2: humanity and this person like Jesus did, and so that
Speaker 2: makes him completely exceptional in one sense. One of the
Speaker 2: challenges of the church is how to communicate that to
Speaker 2: somebody that Jesus is a human being different than the
Speaker 2: human being has ever walked the earth. And then the
Speaker 2: second John does it either way around. John just says
Speaker 2: the synopsis from the Earth up, John is from Heaven down.
Speaker 2: So John opens in the beginning was the Word, and
Speaker 2: the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Speaker 2: This is CNN. I mean from the very first verse,
Speaker 2: you know what John's thesis point is and where he's
Speaker 2: taking you. He doesn't develop it or hide it. It's
Speaker 2: right there up front. And the other point of the
Speaker 2: book is to argue that the Church is used to
Speaker 2: the second version of the Jesus story, the John version
Speaker 2: of Jesus story. We like John because John does all
Speaker 2: our heavy lifting for us. But most people who come
Speaker 2: to Jesus, in fact, everyone who comes to Jesus comes
Speaker 2: to Jesus through the first means of the synoptics. We
Speaker 2: all have to have who Jesus is explained to us
Speaker 2: and his uniqueness explained us. No one is born gets
Speaker 2: the swat of life and goes when when when Jesus
Speaker 2: is the sac of person, the ontological trinity, When when
Speaker 2: no one starts off with that understanding of Jesus, they
Speaker 2: have to have someone explain the uniqueness of Jesus to them.
Speaker 2: And part of the premise of the book is to
Speaker 2: argue the church needs to learn how to retell the
Speaker 2: story of Jesus in that first form, in that earth
Speaker 2: up form, which actually connects with what people need when
Speaker 2: they hear about Jesus. And we tend to do it
Speaker 2: in that second form, in the Johanna in form. And
Speaker 2: when we do that, we are asking, actually asking people
Speaker 2: to leap over tall theological buildings in a single bound.
Speaker 2: And so that's probably not the best way to think
Speaker 2: about how to present Jesus, right.
Speaker 1: And I mean you go into detail about the origins,
Speaker 1: the orality, and the written stuff. You mentioned the name
Speaker 1: I'd never heard of, poppy Us. Can you kind of
Speaker 1: talk about how the genesis of the Gospels took place?
Speaker 2: Yeah, the news section in the second edition is about
Speaker 2: all that. It's the stuff that people never think about
Speaker 2: in asking how do we get the Gospels? Now? The
Speaker 2: reason we don't tend not to think about it, if
Speaker 2: we're conservative Christians is is that we tend to just
Speaker 2: put it all under the idea of well, God inspired
Speaker 2: the Word, so God is responsible for the production of
Speaker 2: the Gospels. But there actually was a social, historical, cultural
Speaker 2: environment in which the Gospels were nurtured, and we take
Speaker 2: a pretty close look at that. So I'm looking at
Speaker 2: things what I call minding the gap. There's a gap
Speaker 2: between the time the events took place and the time
Speaker 2: they were recorded in the Gospel about thirty to sixty
Speaker 2: years thirty years generally speaking for the Synoptics, sixty years
Speaker 2: for the Gospel of John. And then what skeptics do
Speaker 2: as they say, look, we've got this sixty year gap
Speaker 2: in which nothing's written down the stories are circulating orally,
Speaker 2: they can be played with and what you end up
Speaker 2: with is not necessarily what you had at the beginning,
Speaker 2: And so they exploit that gap. This is why I
Speaker 2: call it minding the gap. And so we go through
Speaker 2: a great detailed explanation of how orality worked, thinking about
Speaker 2: issues tied to memory and the way memory has been studied,
Speaker 2: acknowledging the fact that in most cases, when we have memory,
Speaker 2: particularly from long ago, memory can leak. So how do
Speaker 2: you deal with that. The way you remember things twenty
Speaker 2: or thirty years down the road isn't necessarily the way
Speaker 2: you would have remembered it at the time. That kind
Speaker 2: of thing, This has been studied, and we go through
Speaker 2: those studies and wrestle with those questions, and we talk
Speaker 2: about things like the Apostolic oversight of the Gospels and
Speaker 2: the way the tradition was handled orally, the fact that
Speaker 2: Jews had experience with handling oral things when they wanted
Speaker 2: to preserve memory, that kind of thing, and we go
Speaker 2: through that space. So how does Papiis check in? Well,
Speaker 2: he checks in because he tells us certain things about
Speaker 2: the origins of the Gospel. Perhaps the most important thing
Speaker 2: that he tells us is that Mark was very closely
Speaker 2: tied to Peter. And because Mark is generally regarded by
Speaker 2: scholars as the first Gospel written, the quality of the
Speaker 2: tradition that we see encapsulated in Mark becomes very important
Speaker 2: for thinking through the historical roots of the gospels and
Speaker 2: where they come from. And Papius is very clear that
Speaker 2: Mark wrote down his gospel having heard Peter's preaching, which
Speaker 2: is important and so and it suggests the Apostolic roots
Speaker 2: of the gospel tradition. Two of the Gospels are attributed
Speaker 2: primarily to people who are Apostolic figures, Matthew and John.
Speaker 2: Mark has this close relationship with Peter and is very
Speaker 2: very aware of the early church tradition because he hung
Speaker 2: out with all of them. So it's a very very
Speaker 2: important set of features that we're talking about. And another
Speaker 2: thing about the tradition that's important is the tradition stays honest.
Speaker 2: And here's what I mean. For example, with the Gospel
Speaker 2: of Mark. In the tradition, there's a very tight association
Speaker 2: with Peter, and skeptics will like to argue that we
Speaker 2: really don't know who the authors of the gospels are.
Speaker 2: They just attributed names to them. That would raise their stature.
Speaker 2: But if that's the case, the Gospel of Mark should
Speaker 2: be called the Gospel of Peter. But it isn't. I mean,
Speaker 2: if you had a choice between raising the statue of
Speaker 2: a gospel whose authorship you supposedly don't know, and you
Speaker 2: had a choice between attributing that gospel to Mark, about
Speaker 2: whom we know now almost next to nothing besides the
Speaker 2: fact that he wrote this gospel, we know where he
Speaker 2: is from and that's about it. Or Peter, you know,
Speaker 2: who kind of was one of the big boys in
Speaker 2: the twelve the fault. This should have been called the
Speaker 2: Gospel of Peter, but it wasn't. It was called the
Speaker 2: Gospel of Mark because the tradition was careful about attributing
Speaker 2: the authorship to whom the authorship belonged. And so that's
Speaker 2: a very very important idea as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, at the very beginning, so you see that, and
Speaker 1: you mentioned that Luken prologue too, So all these things
Speaker 1: are being verified. But the oral it's interesting that they
Speaker 1: called the gospels the memoirs before they became the.
Speaker 2: Gospels, that's right.
Speaker 1: So they're talking like about these things as their memories,
Speaker 1: the first memories, and that you're right in that tradition,
Speaker 1: the Rabbinic tradition that came after, or even the kind
Speaker 1: of Jewish tradition. The oral history and you talk about
Speaker 1: the historiographical context of even the Greeks too, all were
Speaker 1: very orally focused. Memory and stuff like that was much
Speaker 1: different back then.
Speaker 2: Than Yeah, you have to remember that. I mean, we've
Speaker 2: been through at least two major technological innovation since the
Speaker 2: time of the first century. The first was the creation
Speaker 2: of the book. Well, actually I make it three. Yeah.
Speaker 2: First of all, you have papyrus and the way you
Speaker 2: wrote things down. I like to tease people that a
Speaker 2: second century Bible church didn't operate the way the Bible
Speaker 2: Church works today because no one was carrying a New
Speaker 2: Testament in their back pocket. In the second century. It
Speaker 2: was all done by scrolls and it was recorded, and
Speaker 2: that represented the first shift from oral culture to a
Speaker 2: written culture. And the belief of the ancients was you
Speaker 2: were much better hearing the testimony of a live witness
Speaker 2: orally than you were reading something written down. That's an
Speaker 2: important idea. In fact, one of the reasons why the
Speaker 2: Gospels take so long to be written is you still
Speaker 2: had live witnesses to the events, and you didn't start
Speaker 2: recording your gospel until people who had the direct experience
Speaker 2: began to die off because youral culture couldn't apply anymore.
Speaker 2: And so there's that element of what's going on as well.
Speaker 2: So all this is important in setting the background. The
Speaker 2: Second Revolution, of course, was the book next to the pyrus,
Speaker 2: next to the scroll, and then the Third Revolution is
Speaker 2: of course our digital age today with ebooks and that
Speaker 2: kind of thing. Well, every one of those subsequent revolutions
Speaker 2: is designed to I'm going to point a word here,
Speaker 2: or somewhat point a word of context, fossilize a text, Okay.
Speaker 2: The moment you put it on a scroll or put
Speaker 2: it in a book or digitize it, the text becomes frozen, okay.
Speaker 2: Orality allows you to tell a story, develop it, elaborate
Speaker 2: on it, etc. And it was the normal way people
Speaker 2: passed on information in the ancient world because books were
Speaker 2: not at all that common.
Speaker 1: So I like it.
Speaker 2: Whenever I lecture on this, I begin in the beginning
Speaker 2: there was orality. You know that there weren't books. In
Speaker 2: the beginning, there were no books or very few, and
Speaker 2: it was very expensive to do. So all of this
Speaker 2: indicates some of the cultural dynamics that are work, that
Speaker 2: are responsible production of our.
Speaker 1: Gospels, right, I mean, And you can even use Christ
Speaker 1: as an example of a very good memory, and you
Speaker 1: actually say he probably repeated some of his stories in
Speaker 1: different places, so his own memory was retelling these stories
Speaker 1: and then passing through almost kind of seating that environment. Yeah.
Speaker 2: One of the things that we do in the book
Speaker 2: is to walk people through thinking through this orality thing,
Speaker 2: because the impression is you have the event and then
Speaker 2: thirty to sixty years later they wrote it down. Well, no,
Speaker 2: that isn't what's going on at all. These stories are
Speaker 2: being repeated in churches, they're being told and retold, etc.
Speaker 2: When I lecture on this, I tell the story of
Speaker 2: how my grandkids, before they could ever read or write,
Speaker 2: were big Star Wars fans, and they watched Star Wars
Speaker 2: over and over and over again. They heard the story
Speaker 2: over and over and over again. When my kids were little,
Speaker 2: I used to read Bible stories to them and they
Speaker 2: would hear the story over and over and over again
Speaker 2: because they liked the story and they like to have
Speaker 2: the story read to them at night. So when I
Speaker 2: was a dad reading the story, I would say, sometimes
Speaker 2: have fun because you know, reading the same story over
Speaker 2: and over and over again, it's a parent is not
Speaker 2: exactly an exercise in thrilling joy and stimulation. You know,
Speaker 2: you're doing it because you love your kids. And I
Speaker 2: would sometimes change the story to see if they were
Speaker 2: with me. Well, the moment I did that, I got
Speaker 2: a very consistent reaction, Daddy, that's not how the story goes.
Speaker 2: And it wasn't said Daddy, that's not how the story goes.
Speaker 2: It was always often said, with some emotion, Daddy, that's
Speaker 2: not how the story goes. And then they would even
Speaker 2: take the next step and tell me how it goes,
Speaker 2: you know, because they had heard it so much. So
Speaker 2: this idea of the way a reality functions, the repetition
Speaker 2: of the stories, the repeating of what goes on, the
Speaker 2: fact that you had multiple witnesses to these events who
Speaker 2: were feeding into the tradition. All those things are at
Speaker 2: work that make the tradition different than the simple impression
Speaker 2: that you get, Oh, there was an event that happened
Speaker 2: and someone sat down and remembered it thirty or sixty
Speaker 2: years later.
Speaker 1: Right, And now you make an interesting point. I think
Speaker 1: it's in chapter three too, that the model of the
Speaker 1: relationship between Christ and his disciples was formal, so they're
Speaker 1: drinking in all that knowledge too, and I think it
Speaker 1: was the scholar ger Hertzen said it was like a collegium,
Speaker 1: or could have been a collegium. So they're intentionally listening,
Speaker 1: like in a form or something like that classical knowledge,
Speaker 1: so they're remembering and that gets passed on.
Speaker 2: One of the reasons you have the twelve is because
Speaker 2: they are supposed to be instructed in what this instruction
Speaker 2: about the kingdom is supposed to be about. And so
Speaker 2: the whole point of the exercising part was that they
Speaker 2: were to oversee this tradition that eventually came out of it,
Speaker 2: which is why when Judas gets replaced in the first
Speaker 2: chapter of Acts, you have someone who's been with us
Speaker 2: from the very beginning. You're looking for someone who really
Speaker 2: knows the whole story, who has, if I can put
Speaker 2: it in sociological terms, who has institutional knowledge about what
Speaker 2: it is that Jesus taught and in that context then
Speaker 2: reassure about what's going on. And so the part of
Speaker 2: the role of being an apostle was to be instructed
Speaker 2: in this teaching and to have been with Jesus for
Speaker 2: three years. There are two points I like to make
Speaker 2: about this. First is to remember that we actually don't
Speaker 2: have anything directly written to us by Jesus himself, so
Speaker 2: everything's mediated that we receive. That's the first point. And
Speaker 2: I actually was in a forum at the University of
Speaker 2: Michigan with a professor talking about this historiographically with graduate students,
Speaker 2: in which he was making this point, we don't have
Speaker 2: anything directed from Jesus. How can we be sure that
Speaker 2: what we have about Jesus is actually reflective of him?
Speaker 2: It's a good question, it's a fair question. And so
Speaker 2: so I turned to the to the to the seminar
Speaker 2: discussion we were having. It just happened. He happened to
Speaker 2: have twelve students in the room, and so I said,
Speaker 2: you have these twelve students, most of them are taking
Speaker 2: doctoral courses. They're going to be with you for three years.
Speaker 2: Do you think after those three years being with you
Speaker 2: in class after class they can talk about what you
Speaker 2: taught And just left the question there for them to ponder, So,
Speaker 2: you know, So that's that's the scenario that we're talking
Speaker 2: about people who are deeply, not just casually acquainted with Jesus,
Speaker 2: the people who are deeply immersed in what it was
Speaker 2: he was doing and saying.
Speaker 1: Right, following him around, being with him daily. There's all
Speaker 1: the sastratories through the gospels.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this wasn't This wasn't a nine to ten nine
Speaker 2: o'clock to ten twenty five class on a Tuesday Thursday.
Speaker 2: You know, this was this was life immersion that we're
Speaker 2: talking about.
Speaker 1: And I think it's important too, because, at least in
Speaker 1: my life, you just hear all of these criticisms and
Speaker 1: context that these gospels came up out of nowhere, and
Speaker 1: this book really refutes those over and over again with
Speaker 1: so many examples of morality collegium. So it's really a
Speaker 1: fantastic introduction. And then you kind of move through and
Speaker 1: start talking. You've talked a little bit on the intro
Speaker 1: about the gospels, but can you kind of just go
Speaker 1: in in deeper before you kind of get into the
Speaker 1: text of the gospels.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Sure. The main thing to realize is this earth
Speaker 2: up versus heaven down picture that I'm trying to use,
Speaker 2: and what you see in the Synoptic Gospels. You watch
Speaker 2: it dawn on people who Jesus is, you know, so
Speaker 2: he calms the winds and the waves. And how does
Speaker 2: that passage close, Well, it closes by saying this who's
Speaker 2: able to command the winds and the waves and they obey?
Speaker 2: And I like to talk a lot about, at least
Speaker 2: when I speak on this orally, I talk about what
Speaker 2: are called cultural scripts. Cultural scripts are things that are
Speaker 2: built into the understanding of the text because the person
Speaker 2: writing and the person reading share the culture. So, for example,
Speaker 2: I'll give an example of a modern cultural script that
Speaker 2: cowboys are going up to the frozen tundra to meet
Speaker 2: the cheeseheads, to beat the cheeseheads. Okay, Now if I
Speaker 2: ask thk you what that sentence is about, and you're
Speaker 2: culturally aware, okay, then you will go. You just talked
Speaker 2: to me about American football. The Dallas Cowboys went up
Speaker 2: to Wisconsin to meet the Green Bay Packers, And I
Speaker 2: know all that from that sentence, and yet the word
Speaker 2: American football is nowhere in that sentence. Okay, So how
Speaker 2: do you know that's about American football? You know that's
Speaker 2: about American football because you're triangulating cultural clues, cultural scripts
Speaker 2: that are embedded in the text that send that signal
Speaker 2: to you. And so you're able in shorthand to say
Speaker 2: what I summarized in about three or four sentences in
Speaker 2: one sentence because of the cultural scripts that are embedded
Speaker 2: in it in your understanding of them. Now, if I
Speaker 2: gave that sentence to someone learning English in Saudi Arabia
Speaker 2: and said, here's a perfectly good in English sentence and
Speaker 2: here's a dictionary. Tell me what this sentence means, they
Speaker 2: would have no clue, okay, unless they had some acquaintance
Speaker 2: with American culture that I would look up all the
Speaker 2: words and all the meanings and go, how in the
Speaker 2: world does that sentence fit together? What in the world
Speaker 2: is that? That's a bunch of gobblybook, you know, you know.
Speaker 2: An example of the reverse experience would be Ian Botham
Speaker 2: march to the crease to defend the ashes on behalf
Speaker 2: of the Queen. Okay, that's a perfectly wonderful sentence about cricket.
Speaker 2: The test match is at between Australia and England is
Speaker 2: called the ashes. Ian Botham was the captain of the
Speaker 2: English cricket team when I was doing doctoral work in Scotland.
Speaker 2: That kind of thing, again, perfectly good English sentence, but
Speaker 2: you have no clue what it is if you don't
Speaker 2: share the culture and thus can recognize the cultural scripts
Speaker 2: that are embedded within it. And my argument is the
Speaker 2: Gospels work with cultural scripts, and if you don't understand
Speaker 2: what's embedded in what's being said, you're going to miss
Speaker 2: some of what's being said. So let's go back to
Speaker 2: the example that I use. He's able to calm the
Speaker 2: winds and the waves and they obey it. Well, the
Speaker 2: cultural script in there is God's in control of the creation. Okay,
Speaker 2: this wasn't a case of a miracle. This wasn't a
Speaker 2: case of Jesus praying to God and asking the winds
Speaker 2: to stop. This wasn't a case of Moses tapping a
Speaker 2: rock with an object and asking God to do, you know,
Speaker 2: to bring water from the rock. That is what's going
Speaker 2: Jesus speaks directly to the creation, and the creation responds,
Speaker 2: and so that triggers the question about who Jesus is.
Speaker 2: In another Gampo cultural script is the healing of the paralytic. Okay,
Speaker 2: they dropped the guy who wants to walk in front
Speaker 2: of him. Jesus doesn't deal with his walking initially, he
Speaker 2: deals with his spiritual condition. He says, your sins are forgiven.
Speaker 2: Now that's interesting because in one sense it's easy to
Speaker 2: say your sins of forgiven. William, I could look at
Speaker 2: you and say, you know, you look like a wonderful guy,
Speaker 2: but I'm really worried about what your soul's like. So
Speaker 2: I'm going to declare your sins forgiven. Now. Do you
Speaker 2: feel any better after I say that to you? No,
Speaker 2: because I don't have that authority. Okay, it's a nice
Speaker 2: thing to say, but it doesn't do anything for you.
Speaker 2: So Jesus says, Jesus says, your sins are forgiven. The
Speaker 2: paralytics sitting there going, well, that isn't why I crash
Speaker 2: this party, that's not why I'm here. I want to walk. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: the theologians in the room get what's going on. They
Speaker 2: get the script that's being evoked, because they go, no
Speaker 2: one can forgive sins but God alone. And so the
Speaker 2: gospel writers tell us the cultural script that's being evoked
Speaker 2: by what it is that Jesus is doing. And then
Speaker 2: what does Jesus say. What's easier to say your sins
Speaker 2: are forgiven? Or get up and walk? Which is actually
Speaker 2: a trick question because in one sense it's easier to
Speaker 2: say your sins are forgiven because you can't see it. Okay,
Speaker 2: no one's seen forgiveness of sins. Okay, it isn't a
Speaker 2: part of the material world in the way that we
Speaker 2: think about it. Okay. But if I say to a
Speaker 2: paralytic get up and walk, it's showtime. Something's got to happen.
Speaker 2: So what Jesus does is then he turns the guy
Speaker 2: and he says, in order that you might know that
Speaker 2: the son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins,
Speaker 2: I say to you, get up and walk. He links
Speaker 2: something that you can't see to something that you can
Speaker 2: see to show his authority to do something that only
Speaker 2: God has the authority to do because of the cultural
Speaker 2: script in the passage, and all of a sudden, the
Speaker 2: full force of what Jesus is doing comes forward. And
Speaker 2: these are little bricks in the chrystological wall to indicate
Speaker 2: to you the portrait of who Jesus is. And that's
Speaker 2: what that's how the Gospels work in many of their passages.
Speaker 2: In many cases, they don't talk about who Jesus is.
Speaker 2: They show who Jesus is, and they show who Jesus
Speaker 2: is through these cultural scripts that are the commentary on
Speaker 2: what is going on.
Speaker 1: Right, and so those cultural scripts are the history of
Speaker 1: Judaism and kind of the culture leading the.
Speaker 2: World, the worldview and the understanding that they have in
Speaker 2: the world, which that which is being accepted and played
Speaker 2: upon as Jesus is acting because he's he's you know,
Speaker 2: he's revealing actions and reflecting a theology that exists that's
Speaker 2: coming out of Judaism, right, fascinating.
Speaker 1: So you see that kind of revelation on the Synoptic
Speaker 1: Gospel slowly to the end. The inversion is John, what
Speaker 1: other kind of elements do you I mean you start off,
Speaker 1: do you want to go forward and tosk start in the
Speaker 1: context of your book like the birth of Jesus Jesus
Speaker 1: according to the Synoptists, or.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what we did in the book. What we did
Speaker 2: in the book is to go through. Now, we did
Speaker 2: something that the Gospels don't do. If I were if
Speaker 2: I were to read the book today, I'd still have
Speaker 2: this choice, and that would be I could simply go
Speaker 2: through the gospels and sequence one after another and tell
Speaker 2: the stories, and I could have I could have structured
Speaker 2: it that way. So here, here's Mark, here's Matthew here's Mark,
Speaker 2: here's Luke, and here's Joan, and just go through the
Speaker 2: stories and sequence. And I could rearrange all the units
Speaker 2: that I have in the book and just do it
Speaker 2: in the sequence that they come in in each gospel.
Speaker 2: I could have done it that way. Instead, what I
Speaker 2: did was to take the structure of what's called a synopsis.
Speaker 2: A synopsis, and a synopsis is not making chronological judgments.
Speaker 2: It's just making literary sequential judgments about how the three
Speaker 2: gospels synoptic gospels relate to each other. And I went through.
Speaker 2: I went through the gospels in that sequence. So we
Speaker 2: started with the empacy material juxtaposed, you know, the sequencing
Speaker 2: that's likely between what's going on in Mark and what's
Speaker 2: going on in Luke. Then we went to Jesus's ministry
Speaker 2: and John the Baptist, and then the Galilean section and
Speaker 2: the journey to Jerusalem, and went through those in supposed
Speaker 2: potential sequences for what's going on based on the literary
Speaker 2: structure of the various gospels. Then finally we come to Jerusalem.
Speaker 2: We structured the Passion week accordingly et cetera, and we met,
Speaker 2: we meshed Matthew, Mark and Luke together, but always in
Speaker 2: a way. If the two gospels had a different placement
Speaker 2: for a story or told it in a slightly different way,
Speaker 2: that contribution of a particular gospel would be highlighted at
Speaker 2: least in one of those retellings. So I'm doing a
Speaker 2: lot of stuff all at once, is the point here.
Speaker 2: And the book in some ways isn't designed to be
Speaker 2: so much a book that you read through in sequence,
Speaker 2: although you can do that as a resource that you
Speaker 2: use depending on where you are in the Gospels and
Speaker 2: what you want to know about it.
Speaker 1: Right, So then you can see those little variations in
Speaker 1: each sequence you have, and.
Speaker 2: We've play a great deal of attention to those variations.
Speaker 2: We spend a lot of time thinking through why did
Speaker 2: Matthew say it this way and Mark say it that way?
Speaker 2: That kind of thing, and to really detail that out.
Speaker 1: Do you have, like any specific examples of those variances
Speaker 1: in the synoptics that come to mind that you find
Speaker 1: the most interesting?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, okay, so let's do one that's pretty famous
Speaker 2: when you have Jesus healing the centurion slave. Okay, in
Speaker 2: Matthew the centurion in Jesus have a direct conversation with
Speaker 2: each other. In Luke, the centurion in Jesus never talked
Speaker 2: to each other face to face. It's all done through emissaries.
Speaker 2: How the world does that work? Okay? I mean that's
Speaker 2: that's two very different portraits of what's going on. Well,
Speaker 2: there's a cultural script embedded in that text, which is
Speaker 2: that if I send someone in my name to represent
Speaker 2: me what's called a shaliah, then even though they're speaking,
Speaker 2: it's as good as my speaking. Okay, I'm being represented
Speaker 2: by them, much like the way we would say a
Speaker 2: press secretary represents the White House. Okay. So what you
Speaker 2: get in Matthew and Matthew tends to do this. He
Speaker 2: tends to simplify his stories and in some cases compact them.
Speaker 2: And so in this more compact version, Matthew is simply
Speaker 2: interested in the fact that the centurion in Jesus had
Speaker 2: a exchange of ideas, okay, and he leaves the emissaries
Speaker 2: out okay. In the Luke And version. One of the
Speaker 2: important themes in Luke Ax is how how God has
Speaker 2: brought you in gentile together, and so we have we
Speaker 2: have Jewish emissaries representing a gentile soldier. So that's an
Speaker 2: important detail to put together, and in putting that detail together,
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, Luke's able to make an additional
Speaker 2: point besides what happened within the event, Oh, Jesus held
Speaker 2: healed the centurion son, and the centurion had a faith
Speaker 2: that was really unprecedented in Israel for the way he trusted,
Speaker 2: for how Jesus did this to and look at how
Speaker 2: Jews and Gentiles can get along, okay, And he can
Speaker 2: put that next to next to the portrait. So that's
Speaker 2: an example of a difference in which each author is doing,
Speaker 2: is trying to bring something to the portrait that the
Speaker 2: other author might not have noted.
Speaker 1: Was there anything in your research when the Synoptic or
Speaker 1: even the Gospels were made that they knew of the
Speaker 1: other stories? Did you ever get that? I didn't understand.
Speaker 1: But what I mean by that question is Matthew, Mark
Speaker 1: and Luke. Do you think that those variations are because
Speaker 1: they saw this story and Mark and Luke made it different,
Speaker 1: Like my understanding of Luke is a little bit more
Speaker 1: of a personal account of the Lord than maybe the
Speaker 1: other ones were. Christ is interacting with people in more ways.
Speaker 1: Do you think those variations are intentional? Does that make sense?
Speaker 2: Well? The variations maybe just strictly a function of personality.
Speaker 2: But having said that, if you're asking generally speaking in
Speaker 2: New Testament, let's us get discussed. And it's been in
Speaker 2: and the history of this discussion is long and complex,
Speaker 2: but today most scholars think that Mark is the first
Speaker 2: Gospel that was written, and that Matthew and Luke knew Mark. Okay,
Speaker 2: then after that the discussion begins. Now, there is an
Speaker 2: older form of this that sees Matthew's being the first
Speaker 2: gospel and Mark coming at the end later on in
Speaker 2: one way or another. But my own view is is
Speaker 2: that Mark's likely to be the first gospel. Just look
Speaker 2: at the infancy material between Jesus, between Matthew and Luke,
Speaker 2: and there's very little overlap between those two. So it's
Speaker 2: hard for me to believe that if Luke knew Matthew,
Speaker 2: he wouldn't have had more of the Mathean infancy content
Speaker 2: in his own infancy story, okay, because you either have
Speaker 2: to believe that he knew it and made a choice
Speaker 2: not to mention any of that other fact that Jesus
Speaker 2: was born in Bethlehem and to totally ignore that, or
Speaker 2: they wrote their stories separate from one another and they
Speaker 2: don't know each other, okay. And then what that does
Speaker 2: then is that there are about two hundred and twenty
Speaker 2: five verses of Jesus's teaching that lap uniquely between Matthew
Speaker 2: and Luke, okay o. Those of that material, a quarter
Speaker 2: of it's almost verbatim, a quarter another significant percentage is
Speaker 2: paraphrastically agreed, and then there's a small percentage of it
Speaker 2: where there's enough difference that people wonder whether that's part
Speaker 2: of the collection that Luke and Matthew shared. And so
Speaker 2: this shared teaching and it's mostly teaching. This shared teaching
Speaker 2: has been called by scholars ques for the German word
Speaker 2: quella for source. It's a teaching anthology that was circulating
Speaker 2: through the church, either in written form or in oral form.
Speaker 2: We don't know which, maybe even a mix because of
Speaker 2: the variations that we do see. And so most people
Speaker 2: think that Matthew wrote aware of Mark and Q, and
Speaker 2: Luke wrote with an awareness of Mark and Q. And
Speaker 2: then Matthew had his own set of information that he
Speaker 2: uniquely had. Of course, as an apostle he could do that,
Speaker 2: and Luke had a set of information that he uniquely had.
Speaker 2: As a result, of his research, and thus you get
Speaker 2: the differences between those three gospels with all them knowing Mark. Now,
Speaker 2: those who believe that Matthew be came first have a
Speaker 2: different way of putting that together. But I think that
Speaker 2: the more likely scenario is Mark was the first gospel,
Speaker 2: and we're dealing with with the tradition structures in the
Speaker 2: way I've just described.
Speaker 1: Really fascinating, I mean, it is It is remarkable that
Speaker 1: all that information was was being still bandied about. And
Speaker 1: I think there was a kind of a an issue
Speaker 1: as to why Paul's letters don't reflect so much of
Speaker 1: the God, Like why didn't he reference the gospels in detail?
Speaker 1: Can you talk about that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's because he doesn't reference to the
Speaker 2: gospel teaching gospels in detail. On fact, he only alludes clearly.
Speaker 2: He alludes clearly to an understanding that he knows what
Speaker 2: Jesus taught on divorce. In one Corinthians seven we have
Speaker 2: some indication of him being aware of Jesus's ethical teachings
Speaker 2: and some of the ethical sections of his epistles, particularly
Speaker 2: the latter part of Romans, But generally Paul didn't go
Speaker 2: around citing Jesus. Now part of The reason is because
Speaker 2: some of the issues that are being raised with regard
Speaker 2: to church practice and that kind of thing weren't issues
Speaker 2: that Jesus directly addressed. So that's part of the reason
Speaker 2: why you don't see so much of Paul in there.
Speaker 2: What you do see is an emphasis on forgiveness of
Speaker 2: sins and the provision of the spirit as the driving
Speaker 2: force in faith for a person who responds to the Gospel.
Speaker 2: That overlaps with the themes of the Gospels and the themes
Speaker 2: of Jesus's teaching. But Paul doesn't go about citing Jesus.
Speaker 2: Does He do it in part because because you know,
Speaker 2: he wasn't He wasn't a disciple in that sense. He
Speaker 2: wasn't one of the Twelve. He didn't hang around with
Speaker 2: Jesus in his ministry, et cetera. So everything that he
Speaker 2: knows about Jesus he is absorbed after the fact. That's
Speaker 2: another element of what's going on between them. He's very
Speaker 2: aware of the theology that Jesus is teaching, but he
Speaker 2: tends not to cite Jesus as an authority because the issue,
Speaker 2: in one sense, once you get past the work of Jesus,
Speaker 2: is the message of Jesus, you know about what he
Speaker 2: has to say about God and salvation and man and
Speaker 2: that kind of thing, and so I think you get
Speaker 2: some of that going on as well. So that's a
Speaker 2: whole series of reasons for why we don't get Jesus
Speaker 2: cited directly by Paul.
Speaker 1: And that may be why the Pauline letters are so
Speaker 1: potent in a way, because he's take he's the next
Speaker 1: step beyond the apostles and of really early churches that
Speaker 1: I mean, even though he was in there, but his
Speaker 1: view is a much different kind of like you said,
Speaker 1: much different the.
Speaker 2: Old Well, he's at theologian putting the package together and
Speaker 2: explaining to someone and he has the benefit, which is
Speaker 2: something that we don't see in Jesus. This is another
Speaker 2: reason why the Gospels are a challenge for people to read,
Speaker 2: is that Paul's able to look back I call the
Speaker 2: New Testament Epistles the NFL section of the Gossip of
Speaker 2: the New Testament. Upon further review, okay, Paul's able to
Speaker 2: look back on the totality of jesus ministry, on the
Speaker 2: reality of resurrection and ascension and says, here's what God
Speaker 2: was doing when Jesus in the midst of that he
Speaker 2: could talk about what was coming and what was ahead,
Speaker 2: but no one had experienced it yet, So you've got
Speaker 2: that difference in what's going on. So the epistles are
Speaker 2: kind of an upon for the review section of the
Speaker 2: New Testament. By the way, John's Gospel, to a certain extent,
Speaker 2: is the same thing John's Gospel. Not only he's written
Speaker 2: from heaven down, but it is done with a reflection
Speaker 2: of the totality of Jesus ministry, very much in John's head,
Speaker 2: because you have a choice. When I tell a story
Speaker 2: about what someone has done in the past, I can
Speaker 2: tell it from the standpoint of this is how his
Speaker 2: experience while it was happening, with all the gaps in
Speaker 2: our knowledge that that represents, or I can tell it
Speaker 2: in light of the whole of what I know eventually happened.
Speaker 2: The synoptics are more of the first, and the John
Speaker 2: is more of the second. So John is upon the
Speaker 2: upon further review gospel, okay, just like the epistles are
Speaker 2: upon further ofview. Theology of the of the New Testament
Speaker 2: period of the Jesus ministry.
Speaker 1: Right, it is remarkable, and John is a little It
Speaker 1: is not only different stands alone. But I think some
Speaker 1: of the ideas of I've remember correctly like he integrated
Speaker 1: almost kind of a some people have likened it to
Speaker 1: kind of like a Greek philosophy kind of of you
Speaker 1: do you hold that opinion? Or why is he so
Speaker 1: different than the other three?
Speaker 2: Well, because he's more direct, He's he's communicating very directly
Speaker 2: and from the very beginning what he's doing. And he's
Speaker 2: doing that with an awareness of what is all, what
Speaker 2: is all about, what's wrapped up theologically fully in what's
Speaker 2: going on. He's less concerned to tell the story about
Speaker 2: how it dawns on people. Okay, He's more concerned to
Speaker 2: tell the story this is what they should see.
Speaker 1: Right, Professor, great conversation, really fascinating, and really I really
Speaker 1: enjoyed reading the book, particularly the intro. I got a
Speaker 1: lot of pieces of history put together for me. Do
Speaker 1: you have anything you'd like to add or anything I
Speaker 1: missed before we wrap up the discussion.
Speaker 2: Well, just enjoy reading the Gospels, and the better the
Speaker 2: more you understand how the Gospels work, and the more
Speaker 2: you keep your eyes on those cultural scripts which the
Speaker 2: book is working to point out as you move through
Speaker 2: the passages. The better you'll make sense out of what's
Speaker 2: going on the gospels. And this is the bonus, the
Speaker 2: more you will see how the gospels and the epistles
Speaker 2: actually fit together. Okay, because a lot of people say,
Speaker 2: I get the epistles, but I'm not sure I understand
Speaker 2: quite how the gospels work because the Gospels, the bulk
Speaker 2: of the Gospels, do it more inductively, and the epistles
Speaker 2: deliver the deductive results. And so we're so comfortable with
Speaker 2: the deductive results we sometimes miss how do we get there?
Speaker 2: If you understand how the gospels work, you can connect
Speaker 2: those dots. Gotcha?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Great? And also you wanted to emphasize our earlier
Speaker 1: discussion in your most recent book, Cultural Intelligence, Living for
Speaker 1: God in a diverse, pluralistic World. So I'll put the
Speaker 1: link to that most recent book in the show notes.
Speaker 1: And also people can go check out that discussion we
Speaker 1: had back in July, but also link to this book,
Speaker 1: really great book, Jesus according to Scripture, Restoring the Portrait
Speaker 1: from the Gospels, published twenty seventeen, second edition by doctor
Speaker 1: Darryl L. Boxel. Doctor Buck, thank you so much for.
Speaker 2: Your time, my pleasure.
Speaker 1: As always, God bless take care right Stay there, Stay there,
Speaker 1: mm hmm