Bloomberg, CL Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Study.
Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1997.
Blomberg, a professor of New Testament at Denver Seminary in Colorado, is also the author of Interpreting the Parables and The Historical Reliability and of several articles in renowned magazines (for example, “The Seventy-four Scholars: Who Does the Jesus Seminar Really Speak For? In Christian Research Journal. In the text being analyzed, he analyzes the historical reliability of the gospels, scoring it with the theology of Jesus. An evaluation of the five parts of the book shows that anyone who wishes to seriously study the gospels and their figure central, Jesus of Nazareth, you should familiarize yourself with the history of the time and the work of scholars engaged in New Testament research.
In the first part, Blomberg analyzes the historical background to study the gospels. Realistically, it begins with an overview of the intertestamental period (the last quarter of the 5th century BC to the 1st century AD) highlighting the contributions of the Jewish Antiquities and the Jewish War of Josephus, and other writings such as the apocrypha and pseudoepigraphs. Blomberg’s compelling argument is that key developments such as Jews under Persian rule (CA. 424-331 BC), Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic period (331-167 BC), Greek rule under Alexander ( 331-323 BC), Egyptian rule under the Ptolemies (323-198 BC), Syrian rule under the Seleucids (198-167 BC), the Maccabean revolt and the Hasmonean dynasty (167063 BC), the Roman period (63 BC to the New Testament era), must be studied to correctly interpret the situation of the Jews in the time of Jesus. In the religious sphere, Jews were exposed to beliefs such as Hellenistic religion, traditional mythology, philosophies such as Stoicism, Epicureanism, Cynicism and Neo-Pythagoreanism, mystery religions, Gnosticism and the cult of the emperor. The general description of the socioeconomic context helps us to better read the Gospels.
The second part is a relevant study of various critical or analytical tools used by scholars to help them understand how the Gospels appeared in their current form. These include lower or textual criticism and higher criticism, which in turn is divided into two broad disciplines: historical criticism and literary criticism. His discussion of structuralism, poststructuralism, narrative, source, form, wording, and canonical critiques is impressive. When critically analyzed, it can be concluded after the survey that there is a legitimate place for the historical, theological, and literary study of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. One can miss the dimensions of texts and misinterpret them if they are not studied together.
The canonical gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) are introduced in the third chapter. Among the topics discussed in each book are the structure, theology, and other distinctive themes, circumstances, or purposes of writing and citations. A careful study of the first three gospels or synoptics (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) reveals a fundamental difference from John. The baptism of Jesus, the Transfiguration, the parables, the Lord’s Supper, to name a few, are central to the Synoptics that are absent in John. Furthermore, there are also some important theological differences. Although the background and meaning of the logos have been continually debated, only John refers to Jesus as ‘the Word’ (Greek, logos). Blomberg’s study of the gospels is impressive. In his discussion of the Sermon on the Mount, for example, he observes that there are about thirty-six approaches to interpreting its fundamental message and clearly summarizes eight, including traditional Catholic, Lutheran, Anabaptist, ancient liberal and post-millennial, interim ethical, existentialist, classical. . dispensational and kingdom theology. His assessment is that while each has an element of truth, the latter seemed to have grasped the correct approach very completely.
Blomberg examines the life of Christ in Part Four paying close attention to his birth, childhood, early and later ministries, additional teachings of Jesus in Matthew, Luke, and John, passion, crucifixion, and resurrection. He clearly presents the tendency to emphasize the sayings of Jesus in the Jesus Seminar, which is credibly criticized. Therefore, a credit to Blomberg is his conscious desire to maintain the balance between history and theology.
He successfully attempts a historical and theological synthesis while discussing the historical reliability of the gospels and the theology of Jesus in part five. It reasonably discusses textual criticism, authorship and date, intent and genre, authenticity criteria, and specific external evidence. The contributions of archeology, non-Christian workers, post New Testament Christian writers, and the testimony of the rest of the New Testament cannot be underestimated. A careful study of Blomberg’s last chapter on the theology of Jesus is necessary to understand his actions, use, and response to various Christological titles, most notably Son of Man, Son of God, Lord, and Messiah. Other important strengths include your top questions that help focus your reading. These review questions help the reader think about the contemporary relevance of the New Testament writings. The many illustrations are easy to use. The theological perspective is evangelical, but other positions are often noted, and suggestions for further reading include literature of different faiths. Section titles make it easy to track the structure of the text.
One weakness could be that Blomberg does not analyze in depth the contribution of Paul’s understanding of the redemptive death of Christ, which he cited. Despite the foregoing, Blomberg rightly points out that while the key themes of Paul’s theology may appear superficially different from Jesus’ own thinking, they also suggest stronger lines of continuity.
I highly recommend this relevant book to students of theology, lay people who wish to deepen their biblical roots, and pastors and scholars seeking a current summary of the state of a wide swath of scholarship in the Gospels.