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What Jesus Read - His Dependence And Independence
What Jesus Read His Dependence And Independence Author:Thomas Walker WHAT JESUS READ PREFACE THE purpose of this little book is to present in a handy form as clear an answer, as present know ledge will allow one to give, to three questions about Jesus which are constantly occurring nowadays to the inquiring minds among both Jews and Christians, namely, What had Jesus read What did he owe to his ancestral religion... more » In what respects did he make departures from the best Judaism of his day The answer to the first question will be found in Chapter I, in which an effort is made to fill in a gap in the life of Jesus by means of well-grounded suggestions with regard to the facilities for reading which were very probably afforded him by the larger synagogues at Capernaum. The second question is answered in Chapter II in a very careful rsum6 of the teaching of Judaism during his period, and is based largely on an earlier work of the author The Teaching of Jesus and the Jewish Teaching of his Age . For all the quotations from literature and the references which are held to justify the very positive statements in that chapter the reader is referred with confidence to this earlier work. The third question is frankly faced in Chapter III, where the author again relies on his larger book. It is hoped that this smaller work will be of service to two classes of readers first, to such as Q 10 PREFACE may desire to know the results of recent research, but who have no time or perhaps aptitude for plodding through hundreds of pages of closely arrayed evidence and second, to such as may, after going through the evidence for themselves, desire to have the results by them for ready refer ence and disentangled from the necessary heap of references which a large pioneer work must neces sarily contain. The author humbly prays not only that his work may make Jesus better known, but also that it may serve in some small way to bring the more liberally disposed of the Jewish church and the more liberally disposed of the Christian church to see more clearly, where their point of contact with one another really lies, and where is their real point of departure from one another. Nothing but good can come from sincere efforts on both sides to define the position to one another and as what each thinks of Jesus will probably be determinative, these three essays on Jesus are sent forth as a contribution to that clarification of the issue, which must precede ultimate reconciliation of ideals and of the means to their realisation. FOREST GATE, LONDON. 1924. CONTENTS PREFACE 9 CHAPTER I. THE READING OF JESUS 13 II. THE DEPENDENCE OF JESUS .... 22 III. THE INDEPENDENCE OF JESUS 59 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER I 99 INDEX 123 11 WHAT JESUS READ CHAPTER I THE READING OF JESUS THE knowledge of books may come to one either directly or indirectly. They may be known either through ones own reading of them, or through ones contact with people who had read them for themselves. It is possible even to live for so long in a circle of people within which certain books of outstanding importance have been read, that, without having ourselves read this literature, we may yet be quite capable of talking intelligently their ideas, and if we have at all a good memory, of learning some well-known perhaps, ere this, stock quotations from them. Similarly we may get into the habit of using very readily and correctly a great many of their characteristic phrases. Some of Jesus very evident knowledge of literature can be accounted for in this way, and his own relation to the teaching of such literature may be held to be all the more direct, because he had learned of it by finding it deeply imbedded in the mind of some circle or circles of people with whom he was on terms of the closest intimacy...« less