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Elder Russell M. Nelson was set apart as the seventeenth president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on 14 January 2018 \u2014 which means that this past Saturday marked his fifth anniversary as the leader of the Church.\u00a0 Here are some interesting retrospectives on his tenure in office:<\/p>\n
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- \u201cA Look at President Russell M. Nelson\u2019s 5-Year Prophetic Ministry: Leadership, revelation and invitations from the 17th Prophet and President of the Church of Jesus Christ, set apart on January 14, 2018\u201d<\/a><\/li>\n
- \u201c15 Experiences of People Who Followed President Nelson\u2019s Invitations: Latter-day Saints share experiences of following invitations to focus on the temple, take charge of their testimonies and more\u201d<\/a><\/li>\n
- \u201cFirst five years: Memorable quotes and teachings from President Russell M. Nelson: His ministry has helped the world through a global pandemic, natural disasters and racial unrest by focusing all on Christ\u201d<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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![\"President](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2019\/08\/Russell_M._Nelson.png\")
<\/a>Russell M. Nelson (1924- )\u00a0 A member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (1984-2018) and, since January 2018, president of the Church
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
In honor of the focus of this year\u2019s \u201cCome, Follow Me\u201d lessons on the New Testament, I\u2019ve pulled down a book that I\u2019ve had on my shelf for several years but haven\u2019t yet read:\u00a0 Craig S. Keener, The Historical Jesus of the Gospels<\/em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2009).\u00a0 It\u2019s quite large \u2014 xxxiii + 831 pages \u2014 and I guess I\u2019ve been intimidated by its sheer bulk.\u00a0 But I\u2019m going to read it through over the next weeks, a little bit each day.\u00a0 Here, in fact, are some passages from the Introduction that I marked earlier today.\u00a0 Professor Keener is a believing Evangelical (with a Ph.D. in New Testament studies from Duke), but he doesn\u2019t appear to be an inerrantist.\u00a0 Not, anyway, in the rigid sense that I\u2019ve sometimes encountered.\u00a0 Here, for example, he\u2019s talking about differences between the Gospels:<\/p>\n
To take one graphic example, whereas Mark (reflecting his Palestinian tradition) reports supplicants digging through a roof to reach Jesus, in Luke they tear off the roof tiles \u2014 an image more understandable to Luke\u2019s northern Mediterranean audience.\u00a0 I think it is fair to surmise that those who protest the theological impossibility of such differences have never taken time to honestly and closely compare parallel texts in the Gospels.<\/p>\n
For the sake of space, I will not seek to demonstrate such points that are self-evident in the Gospels themselves and barely ever in dispute among biblical scholars.\u00a0 Rather, I will argue instead that such adaptations appear within the acceptable bounds of ancient biography, historiography, and oral tradition.\u00a0 Yet I also wish to emphasize that the Gospels, like comparable ancient works, contain such adaptations in contrast to<\/em> a novelistic, wholesale creation of events.\u00a0 Because works with historical interest and focused on recent events were expected to report genuine events, but had some flexibility in how they reported them, my focus is largely on events and patterns of teaching rather than on details.\u00a0 The clear evidence for historical tradition in the Gospels (not least being the conspicuous dependence of Luke and Matthew on sources) rules out assigning them to genre category of novel, and thus invites us to explore the ways they used historical tradition where we can test this use.\u00a0 (xxxii-xxxiii)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The assumption, I guess, is that Luke, who was not only a physician but a Gentile who was not an eyewitness of the ministry of Jesus, was unfamiliar with Palestinian (and specifically Galilean) architecture.\u00a0 So, hearing the story of the lowering of the paralytic through the roof of a small dwelling, he pictured what he personally knew, assuming that the house in the story would have looked like the houses with which he was familiar.<\/p>\n
Moving on, I might or might not concur with his comment about the passages in Mark and John below, but I myself have never really seen the point of scriptural inerrancy.\u00a0 I do, though, care about essential historical accuracy, which is not exactly the same thing:<\/p>\n
One need not argue that the entire text of the Gospels as we have them is accurate; most scholars, in fact (including most conservative ones), will agree with most of [Bart] Ehrman\u2019s major textual decisions (e.g., the inauthenticity of Mk 16:9-20 or Jn 7:53-8:11).\u00a0 Observing that most scholars have not been driven to agnosticism by these textual issues, one scholar suggests that Ehrman\u2019s agnostic response to them reflects his rigidly conservative background; if the text is either<\/em> completely right or completely wrong, Ehrman\u2019s skepticism is a logical conclusion.\u00a0 Most biblical scholars do not insist on such a forced choice, just as most historians would not.\u00a0 (xxxiii)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Finally, Professor Keener says something about his own background, which I think is helpful for readers to know:<\/p>\n
Like all scholars (though I think not more<\/em> than most scholars), I write with my own presuppositions.\u00a0 For those who are interested in the question, I began my interest in questions about religion and, to a much lesser extent, biblical perspectives from a position of extreme (though not totally closed-minded) skepticism, as an atheist.\u00a0 As one who is now a Christian I approach the subject with a special interest I previously lacked, but an interest that I believe makes me more rather than less committed to investigating genuine historical information about Jesus.\u00a0 When I was an atheist I never imagined that my life would take this turn, but I harbor no regrets that it has.\u00a0 Even when I was an atheist I valued pursuing truth, regardless of where it might lead.\u00a0 (xxxv)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
- \u201c15 Experiences of People Who Followed President Nelson\u2019s Invitations: Latter-day Saints share experiences of following invitations to focus on the temple, take charge of their testimonies and more\u201d<\/a><\/li>\n