Jesus the Messiah: A Survey of the Life of Christ

290 Pages·1996·8.284 MB·English

by  Robert H. Stein

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InterVarsity PrDowners Grove, Illinois

A SURVEY OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST
RobertH. Stein
InterVarsity Press
Downers Grove, Illinois
Leicester, England
To my grandchildren—
Timothy, Benjamin, Elianna, Taylor, Christopher, Lydia—
with the prayer that they will come
to love and serve the Jesus of this book
InterVarsity Press
P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, Illinois 60515, U.S.A.
38 De Montfort Street, Leicester LEl 7GP, England
® 1996 by Robert H. Stein
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of InterVarsity Press.
InterVarsity Pr«s·, U.S.A., is the book-publishing division of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship·, a student movement active on
campus at hundreds of universities, colleges and schools of nursing in the United States of America, and a member movement of the
International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. For information about local and regional activities, write Public Relations Dept.,
InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, 6400 Schroeder Rd., P.O. Box 7895, Madison, WJ 53707-7895.
Inter-Varsity Press, England, is the publishing division of the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship (formerly the Inter­
Varsity Fellowship), a student movement linking Christian Unions in universities and colleges throughout the United Kingdom and
the Republic of Ireland, and a member movement of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. For information about
local and national activities in Great Britain write to UCCF, 38 De Montfort Street, Leicester LEl 7GP.
Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989 by the Divi­
sion of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission. All rights
reserved.
Cover illustration: Scala/Art Resource, NY. Masaccio. Tribute Money. Brancacci Chapel, S. Maria del Carmine, Florence,
Italy.
UK ISBN 0-85111-750-3
USA ISBN 0-8308-1884-7
Printed in the United States of America @
Library of Congress Cataloging־in־Publication Data
Stein, Robert H., 1935-
Jesus the Messiah: a survey of the life of Christ/Robert H.
Stein.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
ISBN 0-8308-1884-7 (alk. paper)
1. Jesus Christ—Biography. 1. Title.
BT301.2.S687 1996
232.9'01—dc20
[B] 96-32172
CIP
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Ubrary.
18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3
11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 99 98 97
__
Abbreviations_________________________________________ 9
Preface ----------------------------------------------------------------------- _10
Introduction---------------------------------------------------------------- _11
_
Part One: Key Issues in Studying the Life of Christ_____ 15
1 Where You Start Determines Where You Finish:
_
The Role of Presuppositions in Studying the Life of Jesus________ 17
2 Where Can We Go?
_
Sources for Studying the Life of Jesus_______________________ 25
3 When Did All This Take Place?
_
The Problem of Chronology_____________________________ 51
_
Part Two: The Life of Christ__________________________ 61
4 Conceived by the Holy Spirit, Born of the Virgin Mary:
_
How It All Started____________________________________ 63
5 What Was the Boy Jesus Really Like?
_
The Silent Years______________________________________ 81
6 The Baptism of Jesus:
The Anointing of the Anointed___________________________ .90
7 The Temptation of Jesus:
The Battle Begun, the Path Decided_______________________ 102
8 The Call of the Disciples:
You Shall Be My Witnesses_____________________________ 112
9 The Message of Jesus:
״The Kingdom of God Has Come to You"__________________ 123
10 The Person of Jesus:
״Who Then Is This, That Even the Wind & the Sea Obey Him?" 141
11 The Events of Caesarea Philippi:
The Turning Point____________________________________ 156
12 The Transfiguration:
A Glimpse of the Future________________________ 167
13 The Triumphal Entry:
Israel's King Enters Jerusalem___________________ 177
14 The Cleansing of the Temple:
God's House—a Den of Thieves__________________ 185
15 The Last Supper:
Jesus Looks to the Future________________________ 197
16 Gethsemane, Betrayal & Arrest:
God's Will, Human Treachery & Governmental Evil _ 214
17 The Trial:
The Condemning of the Innocent__________________ 224
18 Suffered Under Pontius Pilate, Dead & Buried:
Despised & Rejected, a Man of Suffering___________ 241
19 The Resurrection:
"Why Do You Look for the Living Among the Dead?" _ 259
Index of Subjects______________________________ 279
Index of References___________________________ 282
Abbreviations
Ado. Marc. Tertullian, Against Marcion
Ant. Josephus, The Antiquities of the ]eu>s
ANT The Apocryphal New Testament, edited by J. K. Elliott
b. indicates tractates from the Babylonian Talmud
BT Babylonian Talmud
CD Damascus Document
C1L Corpus inscriptionum latinarum
Eccl. Hist. Eusebius, The Ecclesiastical History
GT Gospel of Thomas
IDB Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible
)· indicates tractates from the Jerusalem Talmud
L material unique to the Gospel of Luke
Loeb Loeb Classical Library
M material unique to the Gospel of Matthew
m· indicates tractates from the Mishna
PT Palestinian Talmud
Q material found in Matthew and Luke but not in Mark
1QH Thanksgiving Hymns of the Dead Sea Scrolls found in Cave 1
1QM War Scroll of the Dead Sea Scrolls found in Cave 1
1QS Manual of Discipline (or Rule of the Community) of the Dead Sea
Scrolls found in Cave 1
4Q372 Fragment 372 of Cave 4 of the Dead Sea Scrolls
War Josephus, The History of the Jewish War
Wisdom Wisdom of Solomon (in the Apocrypha)
Preface
The present work seeks to introduce readers to the life of Christ. After
each chapter is a list of references that can be investigated as desired. Due
to the particular audience targeted by the present book, only works in
English have been included.
The present work has been written without footnotes, for the problem
of adequately footnoting a life of Christ and doing extensive work in the
secondary literature is so great that one wonders if such a work could
ever be written. The two large volumes The Death of the Messiah by Ray­
mond E. Brown illustrate how an entire life of Jesus written in such a
manner would be an impossible task in any one lifetime.
Translations of primary material, unless specifically stated, are from
the following works: biblical quotations (New Revised Standard Version),
rabbinic quotations (Babylonian Talmud [Soncino] and Mishna [Herbert
Danby]), Josephus (Loeb Classical Library), second-century pagan writers
and the early church fathers (Loeb Classical Library), the Tosefta (Joseph
Neusner), Gospel of Thomas (Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum), the Infancy Gospel
of Thomas and the Gospel of the Nazareans (The Apocryphal New Testament, edited
by J. K. Elliott [1993]).
I would like to express my appreciation to the people who were instru­
mental in my writing: my teaching assistants, Scott W. Johnson and
Timothy J. Johnson, for their extensive checking of all the references and
bibliographic data, as well as their stylistic suggestions; my colleague Dr.
Thomas Schreiner, who was kind enough to read an early edition of the
manuscript and make valuable suggestions; Gloria Metz, the faculty sec­
retary, who once again provided her expertise to one of my writing
projects; and my wife, Joan, who likewise read the manuscript, made
many helpful suggestions and encouraged me throughout the project.