Gospel Scholar Vincent Taylor once wrote, “It goes without saying that in any recreation of the past much has to be supplied by the imagination; but there is all the difference in the world between idle fancy and the historical imagination controlled by facts which have been patiently investigated.”+
168

The SpendaYearwithJesus story is the result of ten years of patient investigation.

If the details of the Gospel accounts are to be accounted for on first-century terms (and in light of pre-Pentecost realities), then economic, geographical, and relational implications may be played out in narrative form. SpendaYearwithJesus is exactly this sort of play–one which emerges out of the historical realities of the available details.

+ Vincent Tayler, The Formation of the Gospel Tradition (London: MacMillan, 1933), 168.

In Misquoting Jesus, Bart Ehrman offers an insightful summary of Jesus relationship to the Hebrew Scripture.

Christianity began, of course, with Jesus, who was himself a Jewish rabbi (teacher) who accepted the authority of the Torah, and possibly other sacred Jewish books, and taught his interpretation of those books to his disciples. Like other rabbis of his day, Jesus maintained that God’s will could be found in the sacred texts, especially the Law of Moses. He read these scriptures, studied these scriptures, interpreted these scriptures, adhered to these scriptures, and taught these scriptures. His followers were, from the beginning, Jews who placed a high premium on the books of their tradition.**

Ehrman provides a helpful starting point for thinking about Jesus’ experience. I agree that Jesus accepted the authority of the Torah and therefore adhered to and taught the material. I would nuance the term “studied” to avoid information-age assumptions. Jesus memorized and meditated on the text specifically, and in this way he “studied” it.

The story of the Hebrew Scriptures informed Jesus’ experience.

** Bart D. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus: The Story behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (Harper Collins, 2009).

John 6:59

Walking on water.

Not Sabbath eve.

Yet, in John’s re-telling, it is easy to assume two things. One, it is the next day, and two, that Jesus is teaching on the Sabbath.

Sacred traditions grow from common roots.

At one time, now-venerated places and people were passed by without even so much as a glance. They were common. They were unknown and unnoticed in a crowd.

From the humble seeds of place and people grow towering trees of tradition, often with many branches representing more key growth stages. It all started with a seed–an event involving a place that and a person who was so common as to go unnoticed.