Thanks for initiating this reading experience, and for sharing your very astute editorial perspective, Joel. A thoroughly enjoyable and enlightening read. I think I like Luke's telling of the gospel best. He seems so interested in people and obviously considered women's lives important which is pretty remarkable for the cultural and historical setting of the text.
BTW, a friend of mine refers to Jesus' overturning of the tables in the Temple as his "temple tantrum."
My ability to read on schedule was interrupted by eye surgery on Sept. 23. I had got a few chapters ahead, but will have to finish when things get clearer again. After seeing Joel's cartoon about Jesus teaching in 'parabolas,' I started looking for other conic sections. Jesus also spoke in 'hyperbolas' (You strain out a gnat and swallow a camel). I believe Jesus' defense of Mary's anointing in John 12 includes an 'elliptical' sentence. But seriously, today's readers might grasp the figures of speech more easily than Jesus' contemporaries, who seemed stuck on the literalness of the parables.
Reading through all four gospels in a disciplined manner has been a very good experience for me. I'm pretty familiar with them, but reading them this way gave me a lot of new insights. I think I'll try to do it every year.
Last week's readings included my favorite section in the entire Bible: John 1:1 - 14.
Yes, I remember that from my pre-Vatican II childhood. "The Last Gospel" as we called it was printed on the back flyleaf of my missal since it was the same for every Mass.
I didn't know that. That's very interesting; I have several close friends who have been urging me to convert to Catholicism (I'm an unhappy United Methodist).
Just finishing up Luke and realizing how much I'd never noticed, like all the detailed instructions Jesus gave his sales team of apostles.
It was especially interesting to me--as a Christian Scientist--to read how Jesus continually equated healing of disease with the Kingdom of God. And how the former would prove the latter can be accessed on earth.
John must have been the quiet one among the disciples. This can be seen in how he tells the story of Jesus' trial and Peter's betrayal. All the other Gospels mention what Peter did - clearly Peter had told the story on himself multiple times. But John tells it as an eyewitness, but apparently so unobtrusive that even Peter seems to have forgotten John was also there. [I recognize this, because as the quiet one in my family, my siblings have often forgotten that I was also present to witness an incident they remember vividly.]
I've been thinking about this very same thing, Joel. And John includes so many great stories not in the other gospels (woman at well, women caught in adultery, Lazarus). I'm thankful for each version of Jesus' earthly life that we have, and I find the additions, subtractions, and differences intriguing.
I enjoyed reading about Eusebius. I have a book on my shelf called A Harmony of the Gospels edited by Leonard Johnston, L.S.S., in which the gospels are printed in four columns to make it easier to see which events were covered by which evangelist and how they were presented. The book came out in 1962 and uses Ronald Knox's translation.
In my youth, Luke was always my favorite gospel because there were so many interesting details in it and it was more story-like. There's a tradition that Luke had access to the Virgin Mary and got some of his material (which doesn't appear in the other gospels) from her -- as well as some aspects of his portrayal of Jesus. It's not an official teaching, but it's certainly a possibility considering that in Acts Luke describes himself as the kind of guy who went around interviewing people in order to write a coherent narrative.
Thanks for initiating this reading experience, and for sharing your very astute editorial perspective, Joel. A thoroughly enjoyable and enlightening read. I think I like Luke's telling of the gospel best. He seems so interested in people and obviously considered women's lives important which is pretty remarkable for the cultural and historical setting of the text.
BTW, a friend of mine refers to Jesus' overturning of the tables in the Temple as his "temple tantrum."
I noticed that as well in Luke - he takes care to give credit to the women who were among the first disciples of Jesus.
My ability to read on schedule was interrupted by eye surgery on Sept. 23. I had got a few chapters ahead, but will have to finish when things get clearer again. After seeing Joel's cartoon about Jesus teaching in 'parabolas,' I started looking for other conic sections. Jesus also spoke in 'hyperbolas' (You strain out a gnat and swallow a camel). I believe Jesus' defense of Mary's anointing in John 12 includes an 'elliptical' sentence. But seriously, today's readers might grasp the figures of speech more easily than Jesus' contemporaries, who seemed stuck on the literalness of the parables.
I am sure these could be graphed to demonstrate Pascal's Theorem.
Reading through all four gospels in a disciplined manner has been a very good experience for me. I'm pretty familiar with them, but reading them this way gave me a lot of new insights. I think I'll try to do it every year.
Last week's readings included my favorite section in the entire Bible: John 1:1 - 14.
In the traditional Catholic Mass, this portion of the Gospel is read at the end of every Mass.
Yes, I remember that from my pre-Vatican II childhood. "The Last Gospel" as we called it was printed on the back flyleaf of my missal since it was the same for every Mass.
I didn't know that. That's very interesting; I have several close friends who have been urging me to convert to Catholicism (I'm an unhappy United Methodist).
Just finishing up Luke and realizing how much I'd never noticed, like all the detailed instructions Jesus gave his sales team of apostles.
It was especially interesting to me--as a Christian Scientist--to read how Jesus continually equated healing of disease with the Kingdom of God. And how the former would prove the latter can be accessed on earth.
Thank you so much for the information about Eusebius et al. So interesting!
John must have been the quiet one among the disciples. This can be seen in how he tells the story of Jesus' trial and Peter's betrayal. All the other Gospels mention what Peter did - clearly Peter had told the story on himself multiple times. But John tells it as an eyewitness, but apparently so unobtrusive that even Peter seems to have forgotten John was also there. [I recognize this, because as the quiet one in my family, my siblings have often forgotten that I was also present to witness an incident they remember vividly.]
I've been thinking about this very same thing, Joel. And John includes so many great stories not in the other gospels (woman at well, women caught in adultery, Lazarus). I'm thankful for each version of Jesus' earthly life that we have, and I find the additions, subtractions, and differences intriguing.
I enjoyed reading about Eusebius. I have a book on my shelf called A Harmony of the Gospels edited by Leonard Johnston, L.S.S., in which the gospels are printed in four columns to make it easier to see which events were covered by which evangelist and how they were presented. The book came out in 1962 and uses Ronald Knox's translation.
In my youth, Luke was always my favorite gospel because there were so many interesting details in it and it was more story-like. There's a tradition that Luke had access to the Virgin Mary and got some of his material (which doesn't appear in the other gospels) from her -- as well as some aspects of his portrayal of Jesus. It's not an official teaching, but it's certainly a possibility considering that in Acts Luke describes himself as the kind of guy who went around interviewing people in order to write a coherent narrative.