Jesus and the Gospels Quotes

“Pharisees were the upstanding “conservative evangelical pastors” of their day, strongly convinced of the inerrancy of Scripture and its sufficiency for guidance in every area of life, if only it could be properly interpreted.69 Yet it is precisely such an environment in which a healthy perspective on the Bible can easily give way to legalism.”
― Craig L. Blomberg, Jesus and the Gospels

“ANCIENT MIDDLE EASTERN writers were not as bound by logical, linear thinking as modern Western ones are. The Gospels, like most documents of their day, would have been written to be read aloud.”
― Craig L. Blomberg, Jesus and the Gospels

“Whether as a historian or as a believer, the diligent student of this first-century Jew from Nazareth is confronted with a man who fits no conventional religious categories.1 It quickly becomes clear why the Gospel writers (most notably John) and Christians in the next several centuries came to the conviction that Jesus was the unique God-man who made salvation available for all, but who required a response from every person, on which his or her eternal destiny would hinge.”
― Craig L. Blomberg, Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey

“It is sometimes argued that Christians cannot be demon-possessed, only oppressed. However these are not terms that actually appear in Scripture, and, indeed, the expression often translated “demon possession” is merely the one Greek word daimonizō (literally, “to demonize”), which leaves unspecified the extent of the devil's power in such an individual. It is certainly true, though, that Scripture gives no grounds for the notion that a person, Christian or otherwise, can be influenced by the devil in the seven ways just noted apart from voluntarily yielding oneself to evil influences”
― Craig L. Blomberg, Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey

“early on in the Synoptics, only the demons grasp Jesus' full identity. Surprisingly to us, Jesus always rebukes these proclamations, but, in fact, this is spiritual warfare at work. One of the keys to gaining supernatural power over an opponent is to invoke his name (cf. Jesus' own strategy in Mark 5:9). “The recognition-formula is not a confession, but a defensive attempt to gain control of Jesus … [in hopes that] the use of the precise name of an individual or spirit would secure mastery over him.”
― Craig L. Blomberg, Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey

“Mary and Joseph, then, would have been the guests of family or friends, but their home would have been so overcrowded that the baby was placed in a feeding trough.”36 One apocryphal tradition even speaks of Jesus being born in a cave (Protevangelium of James 18-19).”
― Craig L. Blomberg, Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey

“Mary, too, has an angel come and promise her a miraculous conception (cf. also 3:23). Gabriel addresses her as “highly favored” (Gk. kecharitōmenē, lit. “having been given grace” or “having been treated graciously” in v. 28). The later Latin mistranslation of this verb by the expression “full of grace” (gratia plena) led to the traditional Roman Catholic conception of Mary as somehow uniquely meritorious or deserving of this honor.”
― Craig L. Blomberg, Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey

“John was born to a priestly family of impeccable credentials. With approximately eighteen thousand priests in first-century Israel, the opportunity that Zechariah received to minister in the Holy Place in the temple was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The angel's announcement identified the child to be born as special.”
― Craig L. Blomberg, Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey

“The people who were least expected to worship the Christ-child come to do so, while those who should have been awaiting him are threatened by his arrival.”
― Craig L. Blomberg, Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey

“The name of the child, “Jesus,” is a Greek translation of the Hebrew, “Joshua,”
― Craig L. Blomberg, Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey

“The famous Isa 7:14 prophecy of a virginal conception (Matt 1:23) is forward-looking, but the fact that the son was to be born in Ahaz's day (Isa 7:15-16) implies at least a provisional fulfillment in Isaiah's lifetime. Probably “virgin” (Hb. 'almah) meant simply “a young woman of marriageable age,” and the promised son was Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz (8:3). Yet in the larger context of Isaiah 7-9, the son to be born who will be called Immanuel (“God with us,” as in 7:14; 8:8) is also identified as “Mighty God” (9:6). The Septuagint later translated Isa 7:14 with a Greek word (parthenos) that more strictly referred to a woman who had never had sex.”
― Craig L. Blomberg, Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey

“love throughout John's Gospel and his Epistles is consistently defined in terms of obedience and keeping God's commands,”
― Craig L. Blomberg, Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey

“Can John be taken seriously as a historically trustworthy account of the life of Jesus in light of this combination of similarities and differences from the Synoptics? Most modern scholars have thought not.”
― Craig L. Blomberg, Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey

“Given that Luke's prologue (1:1-4) closely resembles other Greco-Roman prefaces in which a patron's name is mentioned, Theophilus is most likely a well-to-do Greek who funded Luke's writing project.”
― Craig L. Blomberg, Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey

“Mark was the person whose mother's home was one of the meeting places for the early church in Jerusalem (Acts 12:12), so the family may have been relatively well off.”
― Craig L. Blomberg, Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey

“The Gospels, like most documents of their day, would have been written to be read aloud.”
― Craig L. Blomberg, Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey

“The longer ending of Mark (16:9-20) is almost certainly not what Mark wrote. The two oldest and most reliable copies of the Gospel do not contain it (Codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus). The style is quite different from the rest of Mark's Gospel, and some of the theology is potentially both heretical and fatal (see v. 18)!”
― Craig L. Blomberg, Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey

“It was expected that men would marry, and it was assumed something was wrong if they didn't. Later rabbis often quoted the saying, “He who has no wife dwells without good, without help, without joy, without blessing, and without atonement” (Gen. Rab. 17.2)!”
― Craig L. Blomberg, Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey

“The second-century satirist Juvenal calculated that “musicians and popular athletes earn more in a day than the teacher does in a year (Sat. 7.175-177, 240-243).”
― Craig L. Blomberg, Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey

“The Jewish triple tithe—10 percent to priests and Levites, 10 percent for temple festivals, and 3 1/3 percent for the poor25—came on top of the sales taxes, customs, and annual tribute paid to the Roman government, much of which went to fund its vast military machine.”
― Craig L. Blomberg, Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey

“Pharisees were the upstanding “conservative evangelical pastors” of their day, strongly convinced of the inerrancy of Scripture and its sufficiency for guidance in every area of life, if only it could be properly interpreted.”
― Craig L. Blomberg, Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey

“Jesus' commission is not primarily about initial evangelism but about the lifelong process of bringing people to faith and nurturing them in the will of God.”
― Craig L. Blomberg, Jesus and the Gospels

“love God and do as you please.”
― Craig L. Blomberg, Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey

“but we dare never count on legislation or political parties to accomplish what only God's people functioning as the church can do. We must seek a completely pro-life agenda, trying to prevent abortion and to avoid endorsing sexual sin or glamorizing dysfunctional family life, but at the same time we must work for the best quality of life for those already born, including adequate health care for the poor, housing for the homeless, jobs for the unemployed, fair treatment for immigrants, and positive alternatives for those lured by a life of crime.”
― Craig L. Blomberg, Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey