9/21/10

New Testament Literature

Sheets' Lecture Notes

The literature of Judaism is very important to the study of the New Testament.
Whenever the NT mention the Scriptures, they're referring to the Old Testament,
because obviously the New Testament didn't exist. The Bible of the New Testament
writers was the Old Testament.

The books in the Catholic Bible (including the apocrypha) are very close to the ones
included in the Septuagint.
The Catholic canon was the accepted Bible of the church until the Reformation,
when the Protestants limited the canon.
Protestants didn't see the need for the apocrypha because they believed they
weren't on par with the rest of the Bible.

The Septuagint was not the same as the Hebrew Bible, it contained more psalms,
etc.

For most of history, people have only been able to read and learn the Scriptures at
church or a synagogue. They didn't have pocket Bibles, or even family Bibles.

The apocrypha means "hidden." The main question is how did we not know about
them for so long? Why are they just now coming out? The answer is that they were
hidden. They were included in Jewish writings for a long time, and they revered
them. But they came up at a different time, so they were included but not considered
to be at the same level as the rest of the books.

Pseudopigrapha and apocalyptic literature - the Jews had many books, not just
the Bible. Pseudopigrapha has the names of the wrong author attached to it. Most
pseudopigrapha books fall under the apocalyptic category. NT writers often quote
from them, especially Enoch. Very commonly read among the Jews, and not looked
down upon at all.

The Essenes believed that all of Judaism was corrupt (unlike the Pharisees, who just
thought the Sadduccees were corrupt). They believed the Messiah would come and
beat up the Romans and then the rest of the Jews. They were the only pure Jews
before God, and because he was going to destroy Jerusalem, they build communities
outside/around Jerusalem so that they could come in after he had destroyed the bad
guys. Qumran was one of the communities they lived in. They were very strict and
copied and stored lots of literature. When the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, they
destroyed the Essenes' communities too, leaving all their documents in caves.

Dead Sea Scrolls - important archaeological find coming from a group of Monastic
Jews called the Essenes. Many years after they were written, people discovered the
very well preserved manuscripts of the Essenes and realized it was by far the oldest
copy of the Old Testament. (Scholars had determined from other evidence that the
OT was too different from its relatively modern roots to be accurate, but the scrolls
proved that we actually have a really accurate copy). They were found in a cave that
was part of the community at Qumran.

Talmud - a group of statutes that keep the Jewish community from ever getting
close to breaking the law. For example, the law might say don't walk one mile on the
Sabbath, but the tradition would say that you couldn't walk half a mile. The Talmud
is composed of an earlier part of oral tradition, the Mishnah, and a later part, called
the Gemarah. The Mishnah gives insight into the way that Jews of the first century
thought, valuable in seeing Jesus' interaction with them in the Gospels.

Gentiles - Jews disagreed about how Gentiles could convert to Judaism. Proselytes
completely converted to Judaism, including the law and circumcision. God-fearers
converted to Judaism but not fully, worshiping on the Sabbath, praying and giving
alms, but not necessarily following food laws, etc.

Resurrection - not specifically referring to earthly resurrection, but to the end time
event. Very Christian idea, but also developed a lot in Judaism in the
intertestamental period. Some believed that the bodies were resurrected when the
Messiah came, but others didn't, which brings up the question about what they're
hoping for in the unearthly future.

Messiah - The Jews waited for Jesus for hundreds of years, but when he was in their
face they missed him. They were looking for the wrong thing. The Pharisees were
looking for 1) a great spiritual leader who would gather Israel and reign, and 2)
judgment to Israel's enemies. If Jesus had destroyed the Romans, they would've
fallen behind him en masse.

Hasidim - aka Pharisees (eventually). They lived according to the law and oral
traditions, but they were normal, working people. They're biggest issue was not to
defile the Sabbath, and that's why they always found problems with Jesus healing
and stuff on the Sabbath.

Macabees - aka Sadducees (eventually). Only ruled over the temple, and were
extremely wealthy because of it. They called the shots when it came to how Judaism
was practiced in the first century because they had the money and the power. They
mostly left Jesus alone because he didn't come to Jerusalem much. They do finally
get involved once he comes to Jerusalem, because they're scared of what Rome will
do to Jerusalem if Rome hears that there is a potential Messianic revolt.