Explore the words of Jesus through the context of His conversations with other Jews. From the role of ancient rabbis and rabbinic literature to portrayals of Jesus in the Talmud, Dr. Instone-Brewer reveals how Jesus’ teachings were influenced by His Jewish life. We see Jesus attending the Jewish festivals, interacting with the Jewish leaders and laypeople and teaching them about the Father that He came from, was representing, and was going back to.

Contents:

Introduction

• Introducing the Speaker and the Course

Unit 1: The Rabbis

• Diversity in Judaism
• Evidence for Jewish Life
• The Nature of Oral Texts
• The Schools of Hillel and Shammai
• Preserving and Editing the Tradition
• Significance of the Rabbinic Traditions
• Who Were the Rabbis?
• Unification after 70 CE
• Fragmented Judaism in the First Century
• The Influence of the Rabbis in New Testament Times

Unit 2: Rabbinic Literature

• What Is Rabbinic Literature?
• The Collections
• Navigating Halakic Material
• The Rabbis of Rabbinic Literature
• Dating the Rabbinic Materials
• An Example: What Can Be Carried on the Sabbath
• Key Scholars of the Tradition

Unit 3: Jesus in the Talmud

• Printing and Censorship
• The Printed Talmud
• Censored Passages
• Censored Arrest Warrant
• Dating the Talmudic Tradition about Jesus
• Analyzing Textual Clues
• Digging into the Trial Traditions
• Correcting the Historical Core
• The Origin of the Tradition

Unit 4: Jesus’ Halakic Teaching

• Comparing the Teaching of Jesus and the Rabbis
• Disciples of Jesus the Rabbi
• The Disciple Copies the Master
• Traits of Nonacademic Disciples
• Jesus’ Halakic Teaching on Clean and Unclean
• Jesus’ Public and Private Teaching
• Parallels between Jesus and Yohanan ben Zakkai
• Jesus on Corban
• Jesus in Translation
• Jesus’ Halakah
• Conclusion: Jesus and Halakah

Unit 5: Jesus’ Commandments

• The Law and Layers of Tradition
• The Fence around the Law
• Jesus’ Two Commandments
• The Yoke of the Kingdom
• The Yoke of Commandments and the Early Church
• Laws That Jesus Kept
• “But I Tell You …”
• Jesus and the Sabbath
• Laws That Jesus Rejected
• Fulfilling the Law

Unit 6: Jesus’ Haggadic Teaching

• First-Century Sermons
• Jesus’ Sermon at Nazareth
• Identifying the Links in Jesus’ Sermon
• Parables
• Rabbinic Parable about Legalism
• A Parable Jesus Heard
• Moral or Spiritual Sayings
• Sayings in Mishnah Avot

Unit 7: Jesus’ Jewish Prayers

• The Value of Studying Prayers
• Prayer in Judaism
• The Oldest Amidah
• The Text of the Amidah
• The Amidah in Temple Worship
• New Testament Allusions to the Amidah
• The “Blessing” for the Heretics
• The Shorter Abstract of the Amidah
• The Lord’s Prayer
• God as Father
• Daily Bread
• Demanding Forgiveness
• Tempting and Testing
• Forever and Ever

Unit 8: Sin and Salvation

• Is Sin Important?
• The Idea of Sin in the Gospels
• John’s Baptism
• Day of Atonement
• The Unforgivable Sin
• Being Brought to Repentance
• Forgiving Others
• Jesus’ Teaching on Hell
• Three Groups at Judgment
• Hell according to the Qumran Group
• Jesus’ Distinctive Teaching on Hell
• Jesus’ Two Ways

Unit 9: Jesus’ Miracles & Exorcisms

• Healings and Miracles in the Ancient World
• Miracles and Gullibility
• Jewish Miracle Workers
• Contrasts with Jesus’ Healings
• Feeding Thousands
• First-Century Jewish Etiquette
• Tithing Bread
• Exorcisms in Jewish Literature
• Exorcisms of Jesus
• Exorcisms by Others
• Exorcisms after the New Testament

Unit 10: Jesus’ Festival Visits

• Festivals in First-Century Judaism
• Jesus’ First Festival
• Jesus at the Festival of Tabernacles
• Water and Light at Tabernacles
• Palm Sunday
• Did Jesus Keep Passover?
• The Timing of Passover in the Gospels
• Evidence for Two Passovers
• Jesus’ Passover Meal

Conclusion

• Summary of the Course

Join Dr. David deSilva as he describes important cultural concepts from the first century and shows how these concepts shed light on the New Testament. Learn why the author of 1 Peter spoke to the shame Christians were experiencing, and what cultural norms they had to fight against as they sought to follow Christ. Discover how grace and gratitude were viewed differently than they are today. Learn what purity meant for Jews, how patronage and reciprocity impacted everyday decisions, how families and households operated, and more. Dr. deSilva pulls from a variety of sources to explain these concepts and uses the books of Hebrews and 1 Peter to illustrate them.

This course will give you a better understanding of the environment early Christians were in as they broke the rules of society for the sake of the gospel.

Contents:

Introduction

• Introducing the Speaker and the Course

Unit 1: Honor and Shame

• Introduction to Culture
• Honor, Shame, and Social Control
• Honor and Shame in Complex Cultures
• Competing for Honor

Unit 2: Honor and Shame: 1 Peter

• The Experience of Shame
• Consider the Source
• Who’s on Trial Here?
• Reinterpreting Experiences of Shame (Part 1)
• Reinterpreting Experiences of Shame (Part 2)
• Defending Your Honor
• Using a Historical Background Collection
• Honored in God’s Sight
• The Social Matrix of Perseverance
• Embodying 1 Peter

Unit 3: Patronage and Reciprocity

• Patrons, Clients, and Brokers
• The Social Context of Grace
• Running a Louw-Nida Search on Charis
• Graceful Giving
• Graceful Receiving and Expression of Gratitude
• An Example from the Life of Jesus

Unit 4: Patronage and Reciprocity: Hebrews

• God as Patron
• Jesus as Patron and Mediator
• The Letter to the Hebrews and Its Audience
• Summons to Grateful Response
• Warnings against Ingratitude (Part 1)
• Warnings against Ingratitude (Part 2)
• Cultural Awareness and Solving Theological Problems

Unit 5: Family and Household

• Establishing Kinship
• Kinship Ethics
• The Household of the Classical World
• Women in the Household
• Studying Sirach on the Silent Wife
• Children
• Analyzing Parentage and Honor (John 8:31–41)
• Slaves
• Reconfiguring Kinship
• Searching for the Cultural Concept of Kinship

Unit 6: Family and Household: 1 Peter

• New Birth into a New Family
• Ethical Implications of the New Birth
• Advice for Christians in Natural Households: Wives
• Advice for Christians in Natural Households: Husbands
• Advice for Christians in Natural Households: Slaves

Unit 7: Purity and Pollution

• Basic Concepts
• Clean, Unclean, Common, and Holy
• Early Judaism’s Purity Maps (Part 1)
• Investigating Herod's Temple
• Early Judaism’s Purity Maps (Part 2)
• What Makes Purity Codes Meaningful?
• Levels of Concern for Purity

Unit 8: Purity and Pollution: Hebrews

• Purity Regulations in a Pauline Church
• Purity and New Group Boundaries
• Rewriting Maps of Sacred Space and Personnel
• Jesus’ Death as Consecration
• Reexamining Purity Lines Today
• Building a Sermon on Defilement (Mark 7:20–23)

Conclusion

• Authentic Hearing, Authentic Following

The parables of Jesus are colorful, startling, and often confusing. In this course, Dr. Dan Doriani explains this unique narrative type and walks you through proper interpretation of the parables, examining their images, themes, and applications for modern readers.

Contents:

Introduction

• Introducing the Speaker

Unit 1: The Purpose of Parables

• The Nature of Parables
• Searching for Parables in the New Testament with Search Fields
• A Modern-Day Parable
• How Parables Work
• The Development of Jesus’ Teaching
• Using a Custom Guide to View Translations of Parabolē

Unit 2: Parables Describing the Kingdom of God

• The Parable of the Sower: A Paradigm
• The Parable of the Sower: Its Meaning
• Opposition and Growth in the Kingdom of God
• Using the Bible Sense Lexicon to Find Different Referents of a Word
• The Value of the Kingdom of God
• Understanding Jesus’ Parables in Matthew 13

Unit 3: Parables about Life in the Kingdom of God

• Greatness in the Kingdom
• Studying the Kingdom with the Bible Word Study Guide
• Living in the Kingdom: Confrontation and Forgiveness
• Living in the Kingdom: Mercy
• Living in the Kingdom: Grace
• The Unfairness of Grace
• Jesus’ Gracious Call to the Kingdom

Unit 4: Parables of Confrontation

• Symbolic Acts and Words
• Taking Away the Kingdom of God

Unit 5: Parables of Instruction about the Future

• The Destruction of the Temple
• The Return of Jesus
• Creating and Searching Custom Theological Collections

Unit 6: Parables of Discipleship

• Loving Your Neighbor
• Comparing Parable Accounts with Gospel Harmonies
• Becoming a “Neighbor”
• Jesus’ Role in the Parable of the Good Samaritan
• A Parable about Prayer
• Being Confident in Prayer
• Using Sympathetic Highlighting to Identify and Search Greek Forms
• Prayer and the Unjust Judge
• A Parable about Money
• Storing Up Riches on Earth
• Being Rich toward God
• A Parable about Two Monks
• Lessons from the Parable about Two Monks
• The Parable of the Unjust Steward
• A Proper Perspective on Money
• Using the Power Lookup Tool to Find Lexical Entries on “Mammon”
• Parables about Friendship and Association
• Invitation to the Kingdom of God
• Membership in the Kingdom of God
• The Cost of Discipleship
• Rejoicing When the Lost Are Found
• The Parable of the Lost Sons
• Using the Cited By Tool to Look Up Background Information
• The Welcoming Father and the Older Son
• Finding Ourselves in the Parable of the Lost Sons
• The Pharisee and the Tax Collector

Unit 7: Parables of Repentance

• The Power of Parables
• The Theme of Repentance in Luke’s Gospel
• Finding Different Greek Words Used for “Repent”
• Repent While There Is Time
• A Change of Heart

Conclusion

• Living Jesus’ Stories

In this course, Dr. Craig Evans explores various ancient sources that refer to Christ. He focuses on the evidence from extrabiblical sources, and looks at what they reveal about the life of Christ and how Jesus was perceived by early non-Christian witnesses. He examines references to Jesus in Roman, Jewish, and other writings, and looks at where Jesus’ name was invoked in both Christian and pagan charms and incantations.

Contents:

Introduction

• Introducing the Speaker and the Course

Unit 1: The Witness of Roman Writers

• Tacitus and Suetonius
• Pliny the Younger
• Celsus and Lucian
• Using Clippings to Document Ancient Non-Christian Witnesses to Christ
• Mara bar Serapion

Unit 2: The Witness of Jewish Writers

• Josephus’ Jewish Antiquities
• Using Timelines in Logos to Find Events in Jesus’ Life
• Translations of Josephus and Rabbinic Literature
• The Qur’an and Other Writings
• Building and Searching a Collection of Ancient Non-Christian Witnesses to Christ

Unit 3: Invocations of the Name of Jesus

• The Greek Magical Papyrus
• Silver Phylactery from Beirut
• Magic Bowls
• Curse Tablets and Lamellae
• The “Jesus Cup”

Conclusion

• Relevance of These Witnesses