Dr. David Trobisch:
Sunday Morning Lectures
Sunday 9:15-10:15 (Central Time)
When David is in town, he has a standing invitation to deliver a lecture on Sunday morning from 9:15 to 10:15 at the Community Christian Church of Springfield. If you want to be alerted by email, send a note to david.trobisch@gmail.com.
Lecture Series:
Christian Writings of the Second Century
- March 7, 2013:
First Apology (Justin Martyr)
- March 3, 2013:
The Gospel of Truth (Valentinus)
- March 17+24+31, 2013:
Jesus of Nazareth in Jewish Sources (Mishnah and Talmud)
These texts are so provocative that the Jewish community self-censored them in their own editions. Caught your interest?
Click here for full text of: Robert Travers Herford, Christianity in Talmud and Midrash (1903).
What can we learn from the Gospel According to John about the historical Jesus?
2013/02/10 (via video link from Germany)
The editors of the gospel do not tell us when they put the book together. But they do indicate that the Beloved Disciple. who they declare to be John by the title they give the book, has died. They also tell us that they used a manuscript written by John and prepared it for publication (John 21:24). So how accurate is the information about Jesus? As we have seen, the Beloved Disciple was rather critical about the way the Gospel According to Luke presented certain events in Jesus' life. Who then is correct?
The Monologues of Jesus in the Gospel According to John
2013/02/03 (via live video link from Germany)
Several times the story of Jesus is interrupted by lengthy monologues of Jesus that are only loosely connected to the context. The editors of this gospel, however, give us their opinion on where they come from and who authored them. The longest of those sections are chapters 14 - 17, the so-called "farewell speeches" of Jesus. What is their historical value?
The Gospel According to John as Commentary
2012/11/25; 12/9; 12/16; 12/23; 1/6;
The Gospel According to John, as any reader will quickly realize, does not retell the story from beginning to end. Instead, the gospel often presents details missing from the other gospels, sometimes supporting their accounts and sometimes correcting them. And the editor of John, who left a note to the readers at the end of the gospel, insists that the information is based on the sworn testimony of an eyewitness. The series of talks will take this invitation seriously and read John on the background of Luke and his colleagues in order to open up the voice of the Fourth Gospel.
Marcion's Gospel (Oct/Nov 2012)
A good website with concise articles about Marcion's Antihesis and the sources for the reconstructed text of the Gospel: CLICK HERE
www.gnosis.org/library/marcionsection.htm
I used the information from the website to reconstruct Marcion's Gospel using the NRSV English translation (without chapter and verse numbers of the New Testament): CLICK HERE
If Luke's Gospel is an edited version of Marcion, the editorial work can be documented. I placed Marcion in the left column. In the right column you will see additions and rearrangements in Luke's Gospel. CLICK HERE.
Suggested Reading
- John Knox, Marcion and the New Testament: An Essay in the Early History of the Canon (1942).
- R. Joseph Hoffmann, Marcion, on the Restitution of Christianity: An Essay on the Development of Radical Paulinist Theology in the Second Century (1982).
- Sebastian Moll, The Arch-Heretic Marcion (2010).
- Klinghardt, M., The Marcionite Gospel and the Synoptic Problem: A New Suggestion, NT 50 (2008), 1-27. Link to full text in PDF
Appreciating the Differences: Four Gospels (Aug / Sept 2012)
Resources for Q
Many scholars insist that the oldest source about Jesus is a lost book "Q" that still can be reconstructed from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.
The Critical Text of Q
Contents of Q