Revision to My New Testament Paper

Even early church writers contested the validity of what Luther referred to as an “epistle of straw”, even denigrating it as a leftover from Judaic writers. Even recent commentary writer Sophie Laws referred to “the epistle of James is an oddity. It lacks almost all of what might be thought to be the distinctive marks of Christian faith and practice.” The Luther casts further doubt on the authenticity of this epistle.

In this paper, there will be research on the Gospel of Matthew from Daniel Harrington’s commentary “The Gospel of Matthew”, This paper will explain the teachings of the “6 Antithesis” in chapter 5 verses 21-48, and the main point on “Jesus came not to abolish but to “fulfill” the Law and Prophets (Harrington 90).” This paper will also have Daniel Harrington interpretations of the writing of the gospel of Matthew. I believe that Jesus had a reason for his teachings and how he went forward to preach them to the congregation.

The foundation of the Christian faith is cradled within truth of the virgin birth, life, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. As diverse as the world-wide Christian culture is, the truth in the birth and life of Jesus stands without border and language limitations. Just as each individual life story can be adapted to be relevant for a variety of audiences, the birth story of the Messiah was also. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke are an example of the well-rounded and diverse narration of the birth story of Jesus—Matthew’s narration spoke to the history of the Jewish people and Luke presented to the citizen of Rome.

These five great discourses illustrate that Matthew has constructed his Gospel around Jesus as the perfect teacher. This greatest of all teachers communicates his message through these five discourses, a repetition in the New Testament of the law of Judaism- the five great books of

It is possible to write on the life of Jesus from the information gathered from the bible. I will be dividing my essay into three parts. In the first part of the paper, I will talk about the nature of the gospels, John’s views vs. the Synoptic, discuss if the authors of the gospels are eyewitnesses and how they used written sources. Also I will talk about the Q source. Then I will elaborate on the topic of how Matthew and Luke were similar. Then I will continue on by discussing how the Old Testament uses Moses, Samuel and Elijah to interpret Jesus, and finally whether or not the Sermon on the Mount happened. In the second part of my paper, I will talk about Jesus’s birth and childhood, his miracles, his resurrection, and what Jesus did to cure people, spirits and how they are interpreted to the prophet, magician and the mad man compared to Saul and Elijah. The final part of the paper I will talk about what Jesus talked about as regards to the Kingdom of God vs. the Kingdom of the Romans and what he intended by speaking of the end of the world. I will also speak of the reasons behind the Romans executing him. My sources for this paper will be the New Jerusalem Bible Readers edition as my primary source and lecture notes from Professor Trumbach.

The evidence that exists to prove the diversity of the early Christian community is the many other writings which have been discovered by historians from the same time period (Harris 2014). In addition, the writings reveal that each separate group of Christians from this era had their own understanding of what Jesus was teaching His followers. The “fifth gospel” of Thomas paints the picture of Jesus as a guide towards His disciples by enlightening them with the message that God’s Kingdom already rules, but many people would not believe him. The portrait that Thomas provokes is an example of the diversity of the early writers and several of his ideas are similar to Matthew, Mark, and Luke (Harris 2014).

It can be argued that the similarities and differences of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke can cause the reader to either see both of these accounts to complement one another with their different perspectives or that they contradict one another by certain events being mentioned in one birth narrative but not the other. Different aspects of both of these birth narratives such as the way Matthew and Luke treat Mary, the extent to which they use the Old Testament and the audience to whom they are writing to reveals the authors’ agenda as they allow their culture and own personal beliefs to influence what they write. These factors could be argued to have an effect on the historical authenticity of these texts as it could be possible that they could have caused the authors to twist the truth to fit in with their own beliefs.

In the Gospel of Matthew, the infancy narrative contributes a large sum of background information of Jesus that contributes to the development of Matthew’s Christology. In order to analyze how Matthew develops the Christology, we have to cut the infancy narrative into sections. This paper will discuss background information of the writing of this Gospel, literary elements of Jesus’ miraculous conception that reinforce his Jewishness, how Magi and literary devices help to understand Matthew’s Christology, what important biblical hero the infancy narrative parallels, and what foreshadowing is caused from this infancy narrative. Comparatively, the use of divine intervention in dreams to fulfill prophecy has been a key focus of the infancy narrative in order to create an unusual birth narrative and develop the unique Christology that Matthew envisioned specifically for the Jewish Messiah.

     Matthew next describes Jesus through his passionate and loving ministry. The many stories of his work among the people are evidence of who he was as a person. He was a teacher, preacher, and healer to everyone who knew of God’s righteousness. Jesus had strong faith in his Father, and it was important to him that others did as well. Jesus spoke of the proper way to live life in order to be granted eternal life. Some of the first teachings that Matthew mentions in his gospel are of Jesus’

comparing like he said that, “The striking similarity between the social position of Jesus in

Blomberg, Craig L. The New American Commentary: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture: Matthew. Tennessee: Broadman Press, 1992.

The books of Matthew and John though have many similarities, also have many differences due to the goals that they are trying to achieve and the importance of points/events they are trying to get across. The reason behind the initial portrayals of Jesus helps achieve the goals of each book; whereas Matthew’s book tries to ‘convince’ the educated readers and quarrelers (Pharisees), John’s book does not care much about reputation per se. For example, Jesus turns on the Jews who believe in him to generate a readers response to him as the definitive expression of God 's will or revelation as opposed to Matthew’s intentional readers response to God 's will as expressed in the Mosaic Law. While there are many qualities I could delve into regarding the difference in characters of Jesus, my essay in particular will look at what each book views is especially important with regard to Jesus and his intentions. Specifically, my main focus will be on the presentation of Jesus and reasons for doing so; setting in context what the book is basically about.

The two books of the Bible, Matthew and Mark are alike in many ways, they do tell some of the same stories. On the other hand, if one takes a closer look there are small changes to the stories that bring a whole new meaning to the way that the story is told. I will focus on the stories of Jesus walking on water and the transfiguration of Jesus. In this paper, I will review the changes that Matthew made to the Gospel according to Mark. I will also explain the reasons why he may have made those changes and to what purpose those changes served.

The structure of the Book of James begins as a letter and later vacillates between topics, at times appearing to be more of a sermon addressed to those in the congregation of Jewish Christians. Considered by some to be wisdom literature, James introduces and argues for several topics and themes. In James 2:16-26, the themes of faith, good works, and proper treatment of the poor. At times the structure of James resembles blocks of teaching and exhortation. Luther even accused the author of “throwing things together…. Chaotically.”8 Regardless of

The book of James has created disputations amongst its readers for years. Like almost all of the New Testament writings, contemporary readers have questions about it origin, composition, and content. Also like most New Testament writings, there are multiple hypotheses that have been presented to answer each of these enquiries. For example, many scholars have suggested that it is the least Christian amongst all of the New Testament writings due to the fact that it only references the name of Jesus twice. This a particular point that I feel needs to be addressed when trying to understand James, and it is a point I will answer further while also trying to present information regarding other possible questions an individual may have while reading