3. The Wisdom of Jesus

About this Lecture

Lecture

In this module, we investigate the substance of Jesus teaching, focusing in particular on (i) evidence of the evangelists’ regard for Jesus as teacher from the structure of the Synoptic Gospels (ii) the lack of reference to Jesus’ teaching, outside the Gospels, in the Pauline Epistles and elsewhere in the New Testament (iii) Jesus’ as a challenging teacher, as evidenced by the antitheses and his teaching on divorce (iv) Jesus’ teachings that are unexpected and elusive, such as in the story of ‘Paying the Imperial Taxes to Caesar’ (v) the ambiguity of Jesus’ teachings as evidenced by oddities in his parables, and what this reveals about the Gospel writers’ understanding of Jesus as teacher.

Course

In this course Dr James Carleton Paget (University of Cambridge) examines the identities associated with the person of Jesus. In the first module, we introduce the person of Jesus by providing some historical background, and assessing the nature of the documents containing accounts of Jesus. After that we look at Jesus’ authority, with special reference to precedent and the relationship between Jesus’ identity and his authority. In the third module, we examine the wisdom of Jesus by investigating the substance of his teaching. Then we discuss the idea of Jesus as a liberator - both a political liberator and liberator from evil, before moving on to examine Jesus as the Son of God. Finally, we take a look at Jesus’ uniqueness, in terms of his teaching, the hypostatic union, divine revelation and salvation.

Lecturer

James Carleton Paget is a lecturer in New Testament Studies at the University of Cambridge. His research interests are research interests in Jewish-Christian relations in antiquity, ancient Jewish Christianity, inter-testamental Judaism and the history of ancient biblical interpretation. His publications include Jews, Christians and Jewish Christians in Antiquity (2010) and The Epistle of Barnabas: Outlook and Background (1994)