Yesterday I spoke on “Jesus’ Bold Messianic Claims” at a conference at Narkis Church in Jerusalem, Israel. You can watch the video below. My talk is about a half hour. (Note: The embedded video has now been fixed! – Sep. 1 2017)
I share some of the story about how I got interested in the Jewish context of Jesus, and why I find the work of this group of scholars so important and innovative.
In a nutshell, the religion professors I had in college were deeply skeptical about the reliability of the Gospels. Like many academics, they were convinced that the historical Jesus did not consider himself to be the Messiah. They assumed that this was something that the later church dreamed up on its own.
This group of scholars, who specialize in the language and Jewish context of the Gospels, found just the opposite. When they examined Jesus’ sayings about himself, he often made powerful claims to be the Messiah in a very sophisticated, subtle Jewish way. He would allude to key Messianic passages from the Scriptures, and point out how they were fulfilled in his life and ministry.
If you need some background for this talk, see the chapter called “Stringing Pearls” in Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus.
My final observation, about Isaiah 53 and its messianic imagery, was something I wrote about in this article: A Surprising Idea in Isaiah 53.
This talk expanded into several chapters in my upcoming book, Reading the Bible with Rabbi Jesus (Baker, Jan 2018). I go into much more detail there.
Please excuse the sniffles – I had a bad cold when I spoke.
William Davies says
Video would not stream, only received 15 second segments then pause. Perhaps launch on Youtube. Thanks, W.
Lois Tverberg says
I’m not the video owner, so I can only share a link.
I actually find Vimeo slow and difficult to watch too, but there are a few tricks to make it run better. Click on the blue “HD” on the player to turn off “high definition,” so that it doesn’t try to load the video at maximum resolution. Don’t try to view the video full screen. Also, turn off any ad blockers you may have running for the Vimeo site. I used to have the same problem with only seeing a few seconds of a video, but now it’s been working much better.
Lois Tverberg says
The video has been completely fixed!
If you find it loads or plays slowly, press on the gear button on the lower right and adjust the “Quality” downward. This will decrease the resolution slightly but make streaming work better when bandwidth is tight.