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Yeshua in Context >> Ascension of Yeshua

REVIEW: Anthony Le Donne's Historical Jesus

March 22nd, 2012 | Add a Comment

Historical Jesus: What can we know and how can we know it?, Anthony Le Donne, Eerdmans, 2011. This short and very readable volume is valuable but flawed. The reason I say that: great information on historical "knowing" and application to historical Jesus studies, but poor application to the Jesus story once Le Donne turns his attention to it. First, the part I think is good. When it comes to historical knowledge, how we know history, Le Donne explains in layman terms why modernism overreached. Modernism was too optimistic in some ways and too skeptical in others. It assumed we could find "the facts, just the facts" and view history objectively, in a one to one correspondence. All knowledge, even memory, is interpretation, says Le Donne, in what I deem to be a ... Read entire article >>

Filed under: Ascension of Yeshua , Book Reviews , Gospels as History , Hebrew Bible as Testimony

Explaining the Paraclete Passages

July 13th, 2011 | 2 Comments

The Paraclete. The Counselor. The Advocate. The Comforter. "If I do not go away," said Yeshua, "the Counselor will not come to you." Who is the Paraclete? You think it's as easy as saying, "The Spirit." Not so fast. There is more to it. Raymond Brown, in Appendix V in Volume II of his exceptional commentary (The Gospel According to John (XII-XXI), The Anchor Yale Bible, original edition 1970) discusses the five Paraclete passages in the larger context of the fourth gospel and the themes of Yeshua going away (being lifted up -- on a cross, from the tomb, to the throne). The Paraclete theme in John has bearing on our view of the Spirit, the Presence of Yeshua (as Brown says it, "the presence of the absent Jesus"), and ... Read entire article >>

Filed under: Applying the Gospels , Ascension of Yeshua , Community in Yeshua , Discipleship - Formation , Preachable Points