Jesus

Flusser's book is one of my favorites of all time. It is a great read. It really digs in deep to the culture and the meaning behing much of Jesus' life and life in the first century. If you like Brad Young, Marvin Wilson, David Bivin or others like them, you will truly like this book.

Overall Flusser offered many ideas that I thought were well founded, such as John the Baptist at one time being a part of the Essene community. Other parts I had a tough time agreeing with. When speaking of John the Baptist again, Flusser commented that John never accepted Jesus' eschatological claim because their time tables were different. I see how he can deduce that John might question Jesus' claims because of the Scriptures in Matt. 11:2-6 and Luke 7:18-23, but I do not see anywhere in the Scriptures conclusive evidence to suggest John, never coming to a understanding of Jesus' eschatological stance. Another struggle I had with the book was its strong acceptance of Luke and Matthew, while it seemed to denounce John because it is not historical enough and Mark because of the literary techniques he uses. I am certainly not a scholar who has studied these texts for almost fifty years, but it is my ignorance to want to believe that if John tells us Jesus had a ministry that lasted about three years, then Jesus really had a ministry that lasted about three years. After taking a step back and looking at the angle from which Flusser is coming at, I realize he is not attacking John's message. Some of the really good things that can be learned from this book come from his section on love. What Jesus does and Flusser points out is that our relationship with God has a lot to do with how we treat those around us. As stated by Flusser "In those circles where, the new Jewish sensitivity was then especially well developed, love one's neighbor was regarded as a precondition to reconciliation with God". One would not know by reading through the text how much of an emphasis there was in the first century on humanism and the categories of sinner and righteous. The creation of the categories is what led to the concept of humanism. "Because of the difficulty of knowing how far God's love and mercy extended, many concluded that one ought to show love and mercy toward all, both righteous and wicked. In this they would be imitating God himself" Another section that appealed to me was the chapter on the Law. I've grown up with the thought that Jesus did break Jewish customs. In fact I have even heard it preached that he did. Jesus was coming to do a "new thing" so that gave him right to do whatever he saw fit. This has always bothered me. To me, a statement like that would indicate that God's laws were never any good. It was very relieving to find out that my suspicions were correct. Jesus did in fact keep the Jewish laws; all he broke were the man made customs. When Flusser states that even if you were to have eaten an animal forbidden by Moses this does not make your body ritually impure, seems troublesome. Leviticus 11 goes through all the animals that are clean and unclean. Verse 44 specifically states that you will be made unclean if you eat any creature that moves about on the ground. So with that reference I am curious what source Flusser i