This opening lecture shows how history is and is not helpful in learning about Jesus and why a comparative literary analysis of the Gospels is at once a more responsible and satisfying way to engage this fascinating yet illusive person.
Virtually everything we know about Jesus comes from Christian sources. This lecture takes up the starting point for engaging Jesus: the distinctive Christian understanding of the resurrection.
This lecture introduces the complex 1st-century mixture from which Jesus and the Gospels arose, including Mediterranean culture, Greek ideals and realities, Roman governance, and the religion of Israel.
This lecture provides a context for approaching the distinctive character of the Christian Gospels through a survey of stories told about other significant figures in Greco-Roman and Jewish cultures.
The Gospels are compositions from the communal memory of the earliest Christian movement. This lecture sketches the first stages of that movement and the social settings within which Jesus was remembered.
Over a period of some 40 years, the memory of Jesus was shaped by the continuing experience of believers in communities. We consider the basic patterns of memory found in the oral tradition.
The writings of Gospels represented a real shift in the understanding of "good news." The answer to the question "Why compose Gospels?" leads to a consideration of the nature of the Gospels.
Three of the canonical Gospels are alike and different in striking and puzzling ways. This lecture exposes what is known as the synoptic problem and offers solutions, including a discussion of the hypothetical source of sayings known as "Q."
This lecture deals with the literary aspects of Mark, particularly the creation of dramatic tension, the apocalyptic outlook of the Gospel, and the ironic way the evangelist turns apocalyptic.
This lecture examines the powerful and paradoxical Jesus created by Mark. For humans, it is a mystery that both attracts and repels.
The drama of discipleship in Mark's narrative instructs readers concerning their allegiance to Jesus. Readers are to imitate him, not his first followers.
Mark has prepared his readers for Jesus' suffering and death by a series of prophetic statements, but the importance of Jesus' death—and the way he died—is shown by the amount of attention Mark gives to Jesus' last days.
Matthew's concern with proving that Jesus is the Messiah spoken of by the prophets is shown by the genealogy with which his Gospel opens, his infancy account, and his use of explicit scriptural citations.
Matthew's Gospel not only shows that Jesus' life fulfills messianic expectations as expressed in Torah, but also shows Jesus as the definitive interpreter and very personification of Torah.
Matthew's careful redaction of Mark's use of "Teacher" and "Lord" shows that Jesus is understood as the risen Lord who teaches the church. No other Gospel gives such explicit attention to the instruction of the church as such.
The Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles form a single literary composition in two volumes that can properly be called "Luke's Gospel."
In Luke's Gospel, Jesus is presented as a prophet, delivering a radical message of reversal of human norms in the name of God's visitation.
This lecture examines Luke's portrayal of Jesus' call for a real conversion, along with the distinctive passion account that shifts blame toward Jewish leaders and away from ordinary Jewish people.
Jesus' followers prove themselves to be prophetic and radical successors, including extending Jesus' understanding of God's people by an even more radical inclusion: accepting the Gentiles into the people without circumcision and the obligation to observe the Law.
Asking about the relationship between the Synoptics and the very different Gospel of John leads to the consideration of John's style, structure, and symbolism, and the discovery of something far more complex than the simple and straightforward account of an eyewitness.
John's powerful portrait of Jesus combines a constant insistence on his full humanity, while also portraying him as the revelation of God.
John's Gospel has sometimes been considered the most anti-Semitic New Testament composition. This lecture considers the complex ways it engages the world of Judaism.
In John's Gospel, the most extensive teaching of his followers takes place after the close of Jesus' public ministry. John portrays Jesus' death and resurrection in terms of the "hour" of his "being lifted up" and "glorified."
This lecture sketches the historical process of canonization in early Christianity, touches on some of the implications of the distinction between canonical and apocryphal, and provides an overview of the apocryphal Gospels.
The Protevangelium of James is an excellent example of how apocryphal Gospels sought to fill the gaps in the story of Jesus and is the source of many of the artistic conventions connected to the figures of Joseph and Mary.
The Infancy Gospel of Thomas illustrates how, in some Christian circles, convictions concerning the divinity of Christ tended to obscure his full humanity.
Here Dr. Johnson examines what is known about the narratives ascribed to followers of Jesus who also remained faithful to the Jewish heritage of Torah observance.
This lecture looks at a Gospel mentioned in ancient canonical lists; nothing more was known about it until the late 19th century with the discovery of a single manuscript containing a portion of it.
This lecture introduces Gnosticism and discusses two of the "Gospels" that were known before the discovery of the Gnostic library at Nag Hammadi, the Gospel of Bartholomew and the Pistis Sophia.
Even more than the Gospel of Peter, the Coptic composition discovered at Nag Hammadi in 1947 has generated interest and controversy, especially concerning the figure of the historical Jesus.
This lecture looks at two compositions from the Gnostic library at Nag Hammadi, one showing Jesus in dialogue with some of his followers and the other containing a commotion-causing portrayal of Jesus and Mary.
One of the most impressive and original compositions in the Nag Hammadi library is a composition identified in antiquity as The Gospel of Truth, a theological reflection on the meaning of Jesus.
This lecture examines another "Gospel" that bears little resemblance to the narrative versions found in the New Testament, a strange and beautiful set of reflections on the life of the Gnostic Christian.
This lecture addresses some of the implications of the Gospels, wonders at the mysterious figure who inspired them, and marvels at the movement that encompassed so many impressions of him.
This final lecture takes up some of the ways Jesus continues to excite the imagination, both through the work of historians, theologians, and artists, and through the liturgical reading, art, and music of Christians at worship.
Because Matthew uses Mark's Gospel in constructing his own version of the good news, it is possible to deduce with considerable confidence his own interests, which point to a context of competition and conversation with Pharisaic Judaism.