Word: testament
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Resurrection is threatening to make the church a "fraud" and a "laughingstock." In the U.S., conservative Christians are outraged by a self-appointed supreme court of professors known as the Jesus Seminar, which meets twice a year to cast ballots on whether each of the Master's New Testament sayings is authentic or not. Sample conclusion: Jesus did say "Blessed are the poor" but not "Blessed are the meek" or "Blessed are the peacemakers," phrases that, the group contends, were added by the Gospel authors in an echo of Old Testament writings...
...search for the historical Jesus -- whether in the vivid imaginings of Hollywood scriptwriters or in the rarefied halls of academe -- rests on one fundamental issue: How reliable are the Gospels? Aside from a few brief references in other ancient documents, the New Testament is the only source of information concerning the most influential life that was ever lived. Scholars generally agree that the four Gospels were written within 40 to 70 years of Jesus' death on the Cross. In addition, existing copies of the New Testament are far older and more numerous than those of any other ancient body...
...Like other ancient authors, the Gospel writers did not set out to produce records that meet modern standards of precision. Furthermore, they were clearly saturated with faith in Christ and were not necessarily objective transmitters of his story. Says Anthony Harvey, canon of Westminster Abbey and a New Testament scholar: "The writer of a Gospel is not just an editor but a creative theological intelligence, telling the story in a particular way to make a particular point...
...labeled Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) were working from second- and thirdhand materials, passed along by word of mouth for some decades before being written down. Consequently, the Gospels cannot be taken as gospel; that is, they cannot in every instance be considered as describing actual events. "The New Testament is the testimony of believing people," says the liberal Catholic Theologian Edward Schillebeeckx of the Netherlands. "What they are saying is not history but expressions of their belief in Jesus as Christ...
...When Jesus said he was the "Son of God," he did not mean to be taken literally. New Testament language of this kind, as in referring to Jesus as the "Lamb" or "Word" of God, is metaphorical...