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.
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.]
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.
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.
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.]
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.