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Summary
From NHK Learning Basics, “Reading the Core of Christianity. In the previous article, I discussed the three major monotheistic religions, the Old Testament and Abraham. This time, I will discuss the New Testament.
Structure of the New Testament
The New Testament consists of four parts: the four “Gospels,” the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles, and the Revelation.
The Gospels are documents that deal with the life of Jesus. The word “gospel” (euangelion) means “good news” in Greek, and it is the good news of the Savior’s coming into the world.
The Acts of the Apostles describes the activities of Jesus’ disciples after his death, who, in despair over his tragic death on the cross, once scattered and fled, but were reassembled after the event known as Jesus’ “resurrection” to preach his teachings. activities are described.
The Book of Letters is a collection of letters exchanged in the early church, many of which were written by the famous apostle Paul. The book of Revelation is about the so-called end of the world, the weekend.
Compared to the Old Testament, the Old Testament is by far the larger in volume, about 3:1. This is due to the fact that the New Testament is limited in time and region, while the Old Testament covers a period of 1,000 years and is geographically set in the Orient, including Egypt, Persia, and Assyria. It can be said that the New Testament focuses on the “event of Jesus Christ,” a matter limited both in time and geography.
Two Teachings of Jesus Christ
The contents of the New Testament can be divided into two main categories. When we speak of “the teachings of Jesus Christ,” there are two meanings: “the teachings that Jesus Christ preached” and “the teachings about Jesus Christ.
The “teachings of Jesus Christ” are the teachings that Jesus preached to people in an easy-to-understand manner, using various parables.
Teachings about Jesus Christ” refers to teachings that discuss Jesus, for example, that Jesus was not just a man, but that Jesus was a hair turned into a man. This was formed after Jesus’ death, and its relationship to the Old Testament is an important component. The disciples used the Old Testament as a guide in their understanding of who Jesus Christ was.
Incidentally, “Jesus Christ” is not a family name like “Taro Suzuki. Jesus is a proper noun, and Christ is a common noun meaning “Savior. Therefore, the saying “Jesus Christ” is actually a confession of one’s faith that “Jesus is the Christ. Non-Christians who are aware of this situation do not refer to Jesus as “Christ,” but as “Jesus of Nazareth,” with his place of origin.
Parable of the Good Samaritan
I will discuss one of the most famous “teachings of Jesus Christ” from the actual New Testament, the Parable of the Good Samaritan.
Jesus Christ taught using many parables. Jesus’ parables, which were taken from the familiar daily life, are not just easy-to-understand stories, but have the power to encourage listeners to think for themselves and evoke practical responses about how each of us should perceive and live our lives in relation to human beings, this world, and “God.
One of the most representative of such parables is the “Parable of the Good Samaritan” found in the 10th chapter of the “Gospel of Luke. The story begins when an expert on the law (people who believe that living by the various laws of the Old Testament word for word is of utmost importance) challenges Jesus with an argument.
The expert on the law first asks, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? To which Jesus directly answers, “What does the law say? How do you read it?” and returns the question in reverse. This is the approach Jesus often takes in disputes.
The expert in the Torah answers, “It says, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus admits that is the right answer. The expert on the law does not stop there, but asks Jesus, “Then who is my neighbor?
Jesus does not answer him head-on, but tells him a parable. This becomes what is called the “Parable of the Good Samaritan.
Jesus responds, “A certain man went from Jerusalem to Jericho. A certain man was on his way down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he was attacked by his pursuers. The pursuer stripped the man of his clothes, beat him, and left him half dead.” A priest happened to come down that way, and when he saw the man, he passed on the other side of the road. Likewise, a Levite came to the place, but when he saw the man, he passed on the other side of the road. But when the Samaritan, who was traveling, came near, he saw the man and felt compassion for him, approached him, poured oil and wine on his wounds, bandaged them, put him on his donkey, took him to an inn, and set him free. And the next day he took out two silver denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying. Please let this man go. If it costs more, I will pay it on the way back. The one who helped him,” Jesus said, “go and do the same.”
From “Who is my neighbor?” to “Be my neighbor
The law expert’s question, “Who is my neighbor?” was a mino attempt to establish the scope of the neighbor. Jesus, on the other hand, presents a very different attitude, that of “becoming a neighbor.” Instead of objectively defining the scope of what constitutes a neighbor, he suggests a more proactive way of becoming someone’s neighbor. It shows a shift from a static line to a dynamic approach.
The story is also the story of a traveler, both the one who was driven away and the Samaritan, whom they meet along the way. Therefore, the neighbor is not limited to a fixed relationship such as living next door to one’s own house.
People you meet on your journey happen to be looking for your help. In the journey of life, we become neighbors with people who happen to be looking for our help, even if they are not deeply involved in our goals of death or starvation. There are so many people who are physically close to us but are merely “scenery,” and it is safe to say that “neighbors” only begin to exist when we open our hearts and minds to someone and proactively engage with them.
This story becomes a story that symbolizes the central answer when we are asked what the Christian way of being is.
Parable of the Prodigal Son
The second of Jesus Christ’s teachings is the Parable of the Prodigal Son. This is also from the Gospel of Luke.
Jesus said, “And he said, ‘A certain man had two sons. And Jesus said, “A certain man had two sons. The younger one said to his father, “Father, give me a share of the property I am to receive. So the father divided the property between them. Within days, the younger son had converted it all into gold and traveled to a faraway land, where he indulged in debauchery and squandered it all. When he had spent all he had, a terrible famine broke out in the region, and he began to lack food to eat. So he sought shelter with a man who lived in the region, who sent him into the fields to work on the ears of pigs. He wanted to fill his stomach even by eating the locust beans that the pigs ate, but there was no one to give him food.
One of the key words in Christianity is “sin,” and this story is a clue to understanding what sin is.
The Greek word for sin is “hamartia,” which originally meant “off the mark. We cannot be fulfilled by aiming for such a place, but we inevitably end up aiming for that place. That is what sin is. The aforementioned behavior of the son is also a sin, and because of it, he is stuck. So the story continues as follows.
The son who had received his portion in life departed to a distant land, where he spent his wealth in debauchery. There is a great famine, and the prodigal son makes a living by taking care of pigs, which the Jews consider unclean. He was so hungry that he even wanted to eat pig feed.
He said, “My father has many hired hands who have plenty of food, but here I am about to starve to death. He came to himself. He decided that the place to return to was his father’s. He decided to say to his father, “I am going to starve to death here. He decided to say to his father: “Father, I am not even as heavenly as you are. Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Please make me one of your servants. And he said, “Please let me be one of your hired hands. However, when the father saw his son returning, he ran to him and embraced him. The father’s forgiveness preceded the son’s repentance.
The father dressed his returning son in his best clothes, put shoes on his feet, and gave him a grand feast. When the elder brother saw this, he complained to his father and scorned his younger brother who had squandered his wealth in debauchery. But his father chided him and said, “Son, you have always been with me. Son, you are always with me. All that is mine is yours. But your brother, who was dead, has come back to life. He was gone, and now he is found. Shouldn’t we be celebrating and rejoicing?”
The prodigal son comes to himself, leading to the act of returning to his father, whereupon, in a jittery change, the father finds his son, still far away, and runs to him, showing clear forgiveness, and the son realizes that his true resting place was with his father.
This father is not just a father, but is speaking of “God the Father” as a parable, and the compassion expressed here uses a verb (splankzonimai) derived from the Greek word for “guts” (splanknon), which means “to have one’s heart shaken so that one’s guts are shaken. The biblical compassion includes the meaning that the whole of humanity is moved by the plight of the other and wants to do something about it, and that God’s love is like that.
First, God (in this case, the Father) takes pity. By doing so, the heart of the one who has received love is stirred. This Mota ka Dali becomes a story of love emanating gratuitously from God’s side and of the person who receives it being shaken and transformed.
I AM”-the double meaning of Jesus’ answer.
Then I will discuss “Teachings about Jesus Christ”. In this section, I will discuss chapter 18 of the Gospel according to John. Compared to the other Gospels, the Gospel of John tends to emphasize the mystical character of Jesus.
When Jesus was with his disciples, Judas, a traitor, came to him.
Now Judas came there with a company of soldiers and servants sent by the chief priests and Pharisees, carrying torches, lamps, and weapons. But Jesus, knowing all that was about to happen to him, went forward and said to them, “Who are you looking for? They answered, “Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus said to them, “I am it. Judas, who had betrayed Jesus, stood with them. When Jesus said to them, “I am it,” they drew back and fell to the ground. Then he asked them again, “Whom are you looking for?” They said, “Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus answered, “Did not I not say that I was the one? If you are looking for me, let these men go.
The Greek word for “I am” here is ego aimi. The “ego” is the “I” and the “eimi” is the “be” verb. In English, it becomes “I am. In Japanese, “I am” needs to be translated into either “I am” or “I am,” but in Indo-European languages it means both.
Therefore, Jesus’ answer above has a double meaning, and it contains both the meaning of “I am” and “I am” that you are looking for.
This “I am” has an important Christian meaning, for when God appeared to Moses in the Old Testament and Moses asked, “Shall I tell the people that a God of what name has appeared to me?” God replied, “I am. God answered, “I am the One who says, ‘I am. In other words, this “I am” is the name of God. Thus, the people fell because Jesus disclosed in definitive words that I am a mystical being. At the same time, he declared that he was the one who spoke the name of God, which had been spoken since “Exodus. Struck by the power of his words, the people fell.
The Dynamic State of God
The “I AM” that God speaks of in Exodus is a very strange name. One company would be “God is present, living and working together with us. The other is that the “I AM” of “I AM” can be interpreted as presenting a more dynamic way of looking at God. The Hebrew for “I am that I will be” translates directly into English as “I will be that I will be,” which in Japanese would be “I am that I will be” and not “present tense” but “imperfect tense.
This is a very dynamic, so to speak, “de-self” way of being of God. By “deselfish,” we mean that God is moving out from his own existing way of being in a new way. God is always going beyond the ways of being captured by human beings, and disclosing them to us in a new way. Such a dynamic way of being of God is indicated in this name. This concept is similar to the idea of the Ten Ox Chart of Zen, as described in “Zen and Buddhabot: Artificial Incompetence.
Jesus walking with us in “On the Way to Emmaus.”
Another important part of the “Teachings about Jesus Marys and about” will be the episode of Jesus’ resurrection in “On the Way to Emmaus” in the “Gospel according to Luke.”
Immediately after Jesus’ death on the cross, two disciples of Jesus are walking from Jerusalem to a village called Emmaus, discussing various things about Jesus.
“By the way, just this day two of the disciples were on their way to a village called Emmaus, about *60 stadiaon or so from Jerusalem. They were discussing all these events. While they were discussing and debating, Jesus himself approached them and began to walk with them. But their eyes were shielded and they did not recognize Him. Jesus said to them, “Walk and talk. Jesus said to them, “What are you talking about as you walk? And the two men stopped with dark looks on their faces. And one of them, Cleopas, answered Jesus, “I was staying in Jerusalem. When Jesus said, “What do you mean?” the two men answered, “I mean Jesus the Nazarene. He was a prophet before God and the whole people, powerful in deed and word. And yet our chief priests and councilors delivered Him up to be put to death and crucified Him. We had hoped that He would be the one to liberate Israel. And it has been three days since that happened.
The two had believed that Jesus was the Messiah who would deliver the Jews from the pagans as prophesied in the Old Testament, but their hope was broken when he was unexpectedly crucified and killed.
However, they both go on to say that when they heard that Jesus’ tomb was empty, they did not know what had happened and were wrapped up in a foxhole.
“Then Jesus said, ‘Oh, you foolish ones! Oh, you foolish ones, whose minds are so dull that you cannot believe all that the prophets have said. He then explained what had been written about Him throughout the Bible, beginning with Moses and all the prophets.”
Jesus is actually saying that in the premise of the Old Testament, He is spoken of in various ways interspersed with His own. There, the Savior is spoken of not as a shining and powerful being, but as a suffering being who takes on the sins of the people.
Later in the evening, when the group entered the house where they were to stay for the night and ate, “Jesus took bread, sang a prayer of praise, broke it, and gave it to them. The breaking of this bread becomes a symbolic act. This coincides with the famous Last Supper in Leonardo da Vinci’s painting, in which Jesus broke the bread and gave it to his disciples when he ate with them.
When he broke the bread and gave it to them, “Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew it was Jesus, but they could not see him anymore. Here Jesus is not said to be gone, but the disciples realize that he is always with them, even though he is no longer visible.
Here, the resurrection of Christ is understood as an event that conclusively reveals to the disciples that Christ is not merely a southern limit, but a divine being, one who will continue to walk through life with them as a divine being.
This also means that the life of Jesus, in which he shared the joys and sufferings of various people, including prostitutes and tax collectors, and for which he was arrested and crucified, was not a failure, but was affirmed by God at the end of his life as a good thing.
In the next article, I will discuss the “Augustinian” Confession.
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