This box: view • talk • edit According to the Canonical Gospels, the ministry of Jesus began when Jesus was around 30 years old, and lasted a period of 1–3 years. In the biblical narrative, Jesus' method of teaching involved parables, metaphor, allegory, sayings, proverbs, and a small number of direct sermons. This was the first coming of Jesus; as most Christian denominations believe in a Second Coming when Jesus will return to the earth to fulfill aspects of Messianic prophecy, such as the general Resurrection of the Dead, the Last Judgment of the dead and the living and the full establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth (also called the "Reign of God"), including the Messianic Age.
The start of Jesus' ministry
From Nazareth to Capernaum
See also: Mark 1Some time after having been baptized by John in the Jordan river and tempted by Satan in the Judean desert, Jesus is described as leaving his hometown, Nazareth. While Matthew doesn't explain why Jesus did this, both he and Mark mention that John the Baptist was arrested by Herod Antipas at this time. Luke gives a different circumstance, stating that Jesus left when the people of Nazareth rejected him. The texts don't recount what occurred between Jesus being tempted and John being arrested. France (1985) argues that it was the flight from Nazareth which resulted in Jesus carrying out a ministry based on itinerant preaching, which France sees as being quite different to the ministry which John the Baptist had carried out.
Curiously, the passage describing Jesus leaving Nazareth, both in Luke and Matthew, uses the spelling Nazara for Nazareth , which between them are the only places in the Bible that Nazareth is spelt this way. After leaving Nazareth, Jesus goes to Capernaum, a sizeable town on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee, located in the region that Jewish sources considered to be Naphtali, but near the region considered to be Zebulun.
Although the town is mentioned nowhere in the Old Testament, it does feature in all the Gospels, and is likely to have been a new town that arose at some point during Roman control of the region, see also Iudaea Province. Matthew is the only source that has Jesus actually living in the town, while the other Gospels only have him preaching and meeting disciples there. To explain this, those who view the Gospels as harmonious with each other, such as France, feel that the town was less a home and more a base of operations to which Jesus and his disciples would occasionally return. Gundry rejects this view, since to him dwelt unambiguously means that Jesus set up house in the town, and Gundry considers that this was a deliberate embellishment by Matthew to make it easier to find a prophecy to justify the move.
Matthew does not mention why Jesus moved, though historically the town was prosperous, mainly due to its location on a large lake (the Sea of Galilee) and simultaneously a location on the Via Maris, the Damascus to Egypt trade route. France feels that Jesus moved there as such a prosperous community offered more opportunities to preach, while Albright and Mann propose that Jesus moved there because he was already friends with his disciples prior to them becoming disciples, and he wanted to live with his friends, who lived in Capernaum. According to Matthew, when he spied certain fishermen in the region, Jesus recruited them as his disciples—Simon, John, Andrew, and James.
Capernaum as prophecy
Matthew justifies Jesus' move to Capernaum by claiming that it fulfilled a prophecy. The prophecy Matthew quotes is from Isaiah 9:1-2 : ...in the former time the Lord brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time He will make it glorious.... Matthew has considerably abridged it, turning it into little more than a geographic list of places. In Isaiah, the passage describes how Assyrian invaders are increasingly aggressive as they progress toward the sea, while Matthew has re-interpreted the description as a prophecy stating that Jesus would progress (without any hint of becoming more aggressive) toward Galilee.
While Matthew uses the Septuagint rendering of Isaiah, in the Masoretic text it refers to the region of the gentiles rather than Galilee of the nations , and it is likely that the presence of the word Galilee in the Septuagint is a translation error—the Hebrew word for region is galil which can easily be corrupted to Galilee . Gundry feels that instead of Isaiah referring to Assyrians progressing to the Mediterranean, Matthew is trying to rewrite the statement so that it refers to the Sea of Galilee. Schweitzer considers it odd that the phrase beyond the Jordan was not among those cut in Matthew, as it makes clear that the author of the passage is writing from east of the Jordan, and the geography does not work with the sea in question being the Sea of Galilee, which is on the Jordan, not beyond it.
The quote goes on to prophesy that after the dark period of Assyrian dominance, a light would shine, and Matthew words his quote to imply that Jesus would be this light. Carter, who has advanced the thesis that much of Matthew is intended to prophesy the imminent destruction of the Roman Empire, sees this quote as a deliberate allegory, with the Assyrians representing the then current domination of the region by Rome. The wording of this part of the quote isn't consistent with any single known ancient manuscript, but several parts of it match different versions of the Septuagint, and three versions in particular. It was long thought to be combined from differing versions, but it could also be taken from a now lost version of the Septuagint, although Matthew differs by placing the text in the past tense, to fit better with his narrative. Also, while the Septuagint states that a light would shine , Matthew states that it would dawn , an important difference that makes it refer to the appearance of a messiah, rather than the continuous behaviour of God.
Shedinger rejects the traditional view that this quote is merely a corruption of Isaiah, instead feeling that, in the original version of Matthew, the text was derived both from Isaiah 9:1-2 and Psalm 107:10 . Shedinger alleges that later translators didn't realise that there was a second reference to the Psalms, and so altered the verse to make it conform more to Isaiah.
Preaching, teaching, and healing
See also: Miracles of JesusMatthew identifies Jesus as preaching the same message that John the Baptist had delivered prior to Jesus being baptised by John, namely repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near , which Matthew refers to as the good news of the kingdom —a phrase from which the term gospel derives ( gospel is derived from the Old English for good news )—and then goes on to preach, teach, and heal, throughout Galilee. Matthew depicts him teaching in synagogues, unlike the other gospels, which neither make a clear distinction between teaching and preaching, nor connect Jesus so strongly to Pharisaic behaviour. Being permitted to speak in a synagogue is generally an indication that an individual was a respected figure, and could also speak Hebrew, and by placing Jesus in synagogues, Matthew implies that these attributes are ones applying to Jesus.
Matthew describes Jesus as carrying out healing in a far less metaphorical way than Mark describes it, specifically Matthew presents it as quite literal healing of all the sickness and disease . Matthew doesn't indicate, however, whether there is anything miraculous about that, or if it just indicates that Jesus had a good knowledge of medicine and herbology, a knowledge many religious people of the time were expected to hold, though many Christians, particularly fundamentalists, view it as miracle not purely medicine. This healing came to the attention of people in the nearby region, if Matthew is to be believed, and they brought their sick and ill people to him, specifically those who suffered Torment (severe pain), paralysis , seizure (referred to as epilepsy, since at that time epilepsy was a more general term than it is now), and demonic possession. In most ancient manuscripts this region is named as Syria, a Roman Province that covered a very large area, but one late manuscript names it as Synoria , making Matthew's claim more credible, as fame in a small region nearby is far more plausible for a new preacher to obtain than is fame across the whole of a huge province the size of half of Mesopotamia. At the time, in Judaism, disease was seen as an atonement for sin, and so healing was seen as forgiveness of sin , and was usually attributed to charismatic and devout priests and other religious leaders.
Teachings of Jesus Christ
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