Jesus Before Christianity, Chapter Two Albert Nolan points out a few historical items that I think I knew, but I never played connect the dots. Israel historically felt that whenever they were conquered it was because they had sinned and God was allowing them to be punished until they figured it out, repented, then God would let them free themselves. In Jesus' time they were under Roman occupation and the common thought would follow the same pattern. Clearly they were being punished for sins, and as a nation they needed to repent.

John the Baptist prophesized that unless the nation repented, they would fall. We know that historically Israel did fall, but I'm not going to say that they were sinners and that they deserved it. The desire for a prophet to come and tell the people how to save themselves was common. They were willing to follow anyone and they were willing to find prophets where there were none, or listen to people claiming to be a prophet without making sure that the "prophet" was truly from God.

Nolan points out that the gospels are not biographies of Jesus of Nazareth. They were writen to show Jesus' relevance to people who lived outside of Palestine after Jesus' death. Other thinkers in this area have wondered if the Gospels aren't meant for our time, but they are all we have and we have to read them to find out how Jesus applies to us today in the 21st Century.  ¶ 8:40 AM