Читать книгу Encounters with Jesus - Ben Witherington - Страница 4

The Gospels are episodic accounts of the life of Jesus, by which I mean they are necessarily very selective in their presentation of Jesus’ life and work. We could have deduced this easily enough from the remark at the end of the Fourth Gospel which states “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written” (John 21:25). This book is not an attempt to tell or imagine more stories from the life of Jesus (on which see my The Gospel of Jesus), but rather to fill in some of the gaps in the stories that we do have in the canonical Gospels. In particular, this book is an attempt to let those whom Jesus touched, healed, helped, tell their own stories while drawing on the Gospel accounts verbatim.

Let me be clear that what is going on here is historical reconstruction, not flights of fancy, or the turning of Jesus’ life into pulp fiction. Based on what can be known about the context in which these events happened (the historical, social, archaeological, religious contexts), I have sought to give a dramatic presentation of what it might have been like to talk with those Jesus touched, and get their reaction to the miracles and happenings that changed their lives. I am not attempting to add to, or subtract from, what we have in the Scriptures, but rather to creatively present a broader canvas, a wider framework in which to better understand the Scriptural texts. Yes, this involves some creativity, but not creativity for its own sake. If this helps these stories come to light in fresh ways, I am content. I have generally quoted the Gospels from the NIV with small variations where I thought they made mistakes. I thank Stan Gundry and Zondervan for permission to use the old NIV in this little novella. The Scriptures portions are in italics, but without including verses in the text so you will read these narratives as they were originally heard—as continuous stories.

One more thing. I have chosen to use a few more original forms of various of the important names in these stories, so you can get a feel for how these people were originally named and called in Jesus’ own day. Here’s a short list:

Jesus=Yeshua=Joshua

Mary=Miriam

James=Jacob

Lazarus=Eliezar

God=G-d (Jews avoided saying God’s name due to reverence)

A few place names as well are modified to be more like the original for example Migdal is the town of Mary Magdalene, so she’s really Miriam of Migdal.

Christmas 2019