"C.E." is an abbreviation for "The Common Era." "B.C." (before Christ) and "A.D." (anno domini, which is Latin for "in the year of our Lord") divided time by the birth of "The Christ," which as we shall shortly see is a religious title given to Jesus. Since non-Christians do not share these theological beliefs about Jesus, some were offended by dividing all of human history and time by the events central to one, but not all, of the major world religions. The less theologically charged "Common Era" and "Before the Common Era" have been adopted primarily for this reason. Practically "C.E." refers to the same period as the older "A.D." and "B.C.E." refers to the same period as the former "B.C."
[1]Antiquities 18.5.2.
[2]Antiquities 20.9.1.
Josephus devoted a paragraph to Jesus. However, there are in this paragraph some statements which have been influenced by Christian religious/theological beliefs about Jesus. These have been indicated in italics in the following quote. "At this time there appeared Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one should call him a man. For he was a doer of startling deeds, a teacher of people who receive the truth with pleasure. And he gained a following both among many Jews and among many of Greek origin. He was the Messiah. And when Pilate, because of an accusation made by the leading men among us, condemned him to the cross, those who had loved him previously did not cease to do so. For he appeared to them on the third day, living again, just as the divine prophets had spoken of these and countless other wondrous thins about him. And up until this very day the tribe of Christians, named after him, has not died out (Josephus, Antiquities 8.3.3)."
One can see this root meaning in the word "evangelist." Many today think of the word "evangelist" as a television "evangelist", but the word "evangelist" itself etymologically comes from a Greek prefix "eu-" (when words were carved in stone, it was extremely difficult to make the rounded base of the letter "u" and this letter eventually came the "v" which was a lot easier to carve in stone) and a Greek word "angelos." The prefix "eu-" means "good" and one sees it in words like "eugenics" -- literally "good genes" -- and "euthanasia" -- literally "good death." The Greek word "angelos" is obvious: one can easily see the English word "angel" in it. An "angel" initially was a messanger. "Evangelos" was a "good messanger;" "evangelium" was a "good message" or "good news."
A "canon" is just a list of those works a particular church believes or accepts to be revealed. For more on canons, visit Charles T. Davis's tutorial on The History of the Jewish and Christian Canons.
Formerly it was believed that Matthew's gospel was written first. Nearly all contemporary scholars are convinced that Mark's gospel is the earliest, although a small handful today still hold out for a "Matthean primacy." All four gospels were written in Greek, although some have maintained that there may have been an Aramaic version of Matthew, now lost, which would have been earlier than the Greek text that we have today. Jesus, of course, spoke Aramaic. That the four gospels are written in Greek means that our earliest documents of Jesus's words already involve a "translation."
"Moby Dick" is an allegory. Some read it as one big "fish" story. Others point out that the characters, e.g. Ahab and Ismael, are figures in the Hebrew Scriptures, and read the story biblically -- human (Ahab's) struggle against God (the whale), who has inflicted evil (the loss of Ahab's leg).
A "disciple" is technically a pupil or student. It has come to refer to the followers of Jesus. "Apostle" literally means "one who is sent forth" and usually in Christianity one refers to the special twelve disciples who were chosen or called by Jesus, instructed by him during his lifetime, and "sent forth" after his death (Mark 3:13-19)
Today in our age of progress, we tend to think of what is new as being improved and "better than" what is old. The term "Hebrew Scriptures" is now used to refer to what formerly was called the "Old" Testament. The term avoids any type of value judgment that somehow by being "Old," this part of the Bible is "not as good as" the New Testament.
The "Suffering Servant" is a figure who appears in the book of Isaiah. The suffering servant is the faithful Jew who is loyal to Yahweh inspite of suffering, particularly the suffering experienced when the Jews were slaves in Babylon. At the time of Jesus, the suffering servant was an ideal figure who was to suffer and rededicate the people to Yahweh
We have a hint of how these Essenes lived from some of the descriptions of John the Baptist, who was appeared "in the desert" (Mark 1:4) and was active "in the desert" (Luke 7:24). John the Baptist was not dressed in fancy clothes (Luke 7:25) -- Mark 1:6 states the his clothes were made of camel's hair with a leather belt -- and he fasted and drank no wine (Luke 7:33). Mark 1:6 says that John the Baptist ate locusts and wild honey.
"Synoptic" etymologically comes from the Greek prefix "syn-" or "sym-" and means "with" in the sense of "together with," "similar" or "like." You see this prefix in "sympathy" (feeling with) and "symmetry" (similar lines, shapes). "Optic" is obvious: it refers to the eye, seeing and vision. "Syn- optic" means to see from the same eye, that is from a similar point of view. Of course, Matthew, Mark, and Luke saw from the same point of view -- Matthew and Luke had Mark's gospel in front of them as they wrote. Some passages might even strike the contemporary student as plagarism.
The following are from the "Gospel of Thomas" and reveal the "laudry list" nature of what "Q" would have been like: "(31) Jesus said, `No prophet is accepted in his own village; no physician heals those who know him.' (32) Jesus said, `A city being built on a high mountain and fortified cannot fall, nor can it be hidden.'...(34) Jesus said, `If a blind man leads a blind man, they will both fall into a pit." You can find out more about the Gospel of Thomas here.
Mark is actually the "John Mark," mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles (Ac 12:12) as a disciple from Jerusalem. He worked with St. Paul (Ac. 12:25; and 13:5,13) and with St. Peter (1 P 5:13). Because of his close association with St. Peter, Mark's Gospel has been read as reflecting the eyewitness accounts of St. Peter.
Matthew was one of the apostles (Mt. 9:9; 10:3). He wrote his Gospel for Christians who had been Jewish. His gospel is written in Greek, but there may have been an earlier Aramaic (a form of Hebrew) version of his gospel. If there was an Aramaic version, it is now lost.
Luke was a physician (Col 4:14) before he became a Christian. He was a companion of St. Paul on Paul's second (Ac 16:10f) and third (Ac 20:5f) missionary journeys. His Gospel has been read as reflecting the authority of St. Paul. Luke was also the author of the Acts of the Apostles.
John is the apostle John who is described as "the beloved disciple" (See John 21:202-5, and the introduction to John's Gospel in the Jerusalem Bible, p.143-144).
Tacitus, Annals 15.44.2-8: "Christus, from whom the name had its origins, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate, and a deadly superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out, not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but also in the city, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world meet and become popular."
Daniel is perhaps best known as "Daniel in the lion's den," but he is also known for his dreams and his ability to interpret dreams.
Raymond Brown, a Catholic priest who has served on the Pontifical Biblical Commission, has suggested that one must ask the following question: who was God for a first century Jew? The answer, of course, is Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The next question is: for a first century Jew, did Yahweh have any children? The answer of course is "no." Brown suggests, based on the Biblical evidence, that if Jesus knew anything, he knew he was not Yahweh's son. This is an example of "low Christology."
The passover meal is a meal which celebrates "Passover." In the book of Exodus, Moses leads the Jews out of Egypt, but this takes place only after a number of plague are inflicted on the Egyptians, the last of which is the death of the oldest male child of each Egyptian family by the "angel of death" (See Exodus 11 and 12). The Jews were to kill a lamb and use its blood to mark their doors so that the angel of death would "passover" their houses. Of course, one would not let a good lamb just rot, so they cooked and ate the lamb. When the Egyptians decided to let the Jews go, the Jews quickly gathered their belongings and left. Because haste was primary, they baked unleaven bread because they did not want to waste any time waiting for the bread to rise.
Today, when Jews celebrate the Passover, they have a meal during which they eat lamb and unleaven bread, and they retell the events of the exodus, but not as "boring" history. They believe that by retelling and re-enacting these events, these events are happening to them right now: "This is the night," they say, when they are led from captivity in Egypt. This is most significant: the Jews by remembering and re-enacting a meal when Yahweh was present to them, believe that these events are now happening and that Yahweh is now present with them.
The word "conventional" is used in the sense of "literary convention." For example, in the Canterbury Tales, the pilgrimage to Canterbury is a literary convention: the trip is simply a means for Chaucer, the author, to tie together and unite a series of disparate short stories, i.e. the Miller's tale, the Friar's tale, etc. Similarly for Mark, Jesus's one journey to Jerusalem is a literary convention: a way for the author to tie together the materials (sayings of Jesus and narratives about him) together. The one journey is not history.