"Thinking Eternally, Acting Locally." - Neal AugustThursday, July 06, 2006
A Quick Thought
Apparently, Jesus never carried a Bible with him where he went. The Gospels never record Him having scrolls of the Old Testament, either in Hebrew or Greek. Why is that? Apparently, if He did have a set of Scriptures to carry with Him, the Gospel writers did not think it was very important to record it.
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2 comments:
Very true. The Gospels do record him using the scrolls while in the temple or synagogues, but not that he carried them around. I would say this could be for a few reasons:
1)growing up a Jewish boy, he would have been trained in the law from the time he was old enough to begin learning it. Much of it was truly hidden in his heart. This is evidenced by the fact that He often quoted the law and the prophets, even when He wasn't directly reading from the scroll.
2) He was after all God. From the time He was 12 years old He had been amazing the religious teachers and pharisees with His knowledge of the scriptures. He wrote the book, so it stands to reason that He still knew it word for word.....or should I make the pun Word for word???? Ok, yes, I know that was bad, but I just couldn't resist.
3) The last reason I can think of has already been stated in a different tense, and that is that perhaps He did have the scrolls with Him (either himself or one of the disciples carried them), and it just wasn't deemed necessary to put it in.....but I think this the least likely explanation.
Athosxc
I think those are pretty good answers, particularly the first.
1)I have always been very interested in the idea that Jesus had particularly favourite books of the Bible. His personal favourite books (meaning that He quotes them most often) are Deuteronomy, Psalms, Isaiah (particularly Deutero-Isaiah), and Daniel. He would have known the Hebrew (that's what He read in the synagogue and what He would have been expected to learn). He probably would have known the LXX because that would have been the most common translation amongst Diaspora Jews and Gentile God-fearers (like Roman centurions). He also would have picked up the common Aramaic translation that He would have most oftened used in every day discussion and reference. When He was being crucified He was reciting Psalms to Himself (and others) in Aramaic. The memorization of Scripture would have been part of rabbinic learning that Jesus would have been exposed to as a child and young adult. Whether He had the entire OT memorized we will have to wait and see. It is possible and if anyone could He could.
2) Well, He didn't write the books, but, being the Son of God, the God-Man, and, most importantly, the Word, as you so noted, He was in a unique relationship with the OT Scriptures.
3) Yes, I agree. It would be assumed that He had access to the Scriptures.
The Bible does not try to prove the existence of God. Why not? It is assumed as self-evident.
Similarly, the Scriptures were such an important part of all forms of Judaism and early Christianity that there ready access would have been assumed by the first readers of the Gospels.
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