Q 9:6

Last night's class dealt with:
--religious/philosophical trends of first century Judaism
--the Pseudopigrapha, OT and NT Apocrypha, Dead Sea Scrolls and their importance and use in biblical studies
--different schools of thought and belief of those in Israel during the first century.
--the manner in which Jesus challenged and reinterpreted traditional Jewish teachings, and the contextualization of the Gospel.

"Let's pray and then we'll take the quiz, and then do interesting things."

"You see the same kinds of connections in twenty-first century America.  Oh - I'm not supposed to get into parallels yet!"

[A student begins a question:] "I was noticing in one of your footnotes--"
[Blomberg, interrupting] "Yes!  Yes!"

[Referencing the student who asked the question above]
"I didn't pay him to ask that question... although he's hoping that I did..."

"I was hoping for that segue at some point during the night."

[Adjusting a slide]
"Ehhh... Come to daddy..."

"We'll deal with that when we come to Matthew 1-2, when we have Christmas in October."

[Student doesn't enunciate "Jewish sects" very clearly in his question]
"Last week's point proven."

"If you'd like to reference an encyclopedia article, or three..."

"...Which was found in Hippo.  Yes, that's the name of a town, not the animal.  Spelled the same way."

"...Which was from a site - you guessed it - called the Nag Hammadi."

"So... keep your apocrypha separate."

"We've lost our amoeba [what he called the diagram on a particular slide]... but... see if this reminds you of the New Testament Jesus or not!"

"There are all kinds of things for show and tell tonight!"

[Reading sayings from the Gospel of Thomas]
"'He who finds the meaning of these things will not see death' - That's an incentive to investigate!"

[Gospel of Thomas]
"Read it sometime... when you're bored with truth."

"Hmmmm... I expected a better reaction.  Can you all see the screen?"

"The Essenes tried to out-Pharisee the Pharisees!"

"I keep whetting your appetite for what is coming closer."

"If Wright is right..."

[Turning to a slide with a clipart depicting Jesus and a sheep]
"And his answer, as the playful lamb tugs at Jesus' robe..."

[A note on the slide referenced above]
"I'm a little sheepish about the clipart."

"For those of you brave enough to share your first century testimony..."

"And if you're really charismatic, you can start a cult!"

[After one student shares which philosophical school of thought he would adhere to, were he in the first century - Gnosticism]
"Good, good... For the purpose of our discussion, of course!"

"Make a list and see if this next new device works...[the cord of the pen for the screen is tangled in the phone cord]... Story of my life... [a minute later, after attempting to untangle the cords, they are even more tangled]... Carrying on!"

"Well, there's one thing this screen does not do... improve my writing."

"I will punctuate the slides with different points... some of them logical."

"Jerusalem is the navel of the universe, as the Jews called it... we might say the center of the Earth."

"Rome is watching.  Rome is always watching.  [Quieter] They're always watching."

[Looking at a photo of the cave where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found]
"As far as we know, Jews did not have any repelling equipment."

"Ah, they didn't have night time lighting.  They did have the moon!"

"Sorry, I didn't remember to bring the popcorn!"

"You might say this was the original Jerry Jenkins and Tim LeHaye!"

"Some years, I weed this on the first reek."

"I don't know if it's alliterated in the original language."

[As class has yet to wrap up at 9:20 PM]
"No one's going immediately to a late dinner, are they?"