Mobile Ed: NT211 Introducing the Gospels and Acts: Their Background, Nature, and Purpose (6 hour course)
Overview
Study the key events of the Gospels and the book of Acts with prolific New Testament scholar Dr. Darrell L. Bock. Dr. Bock walks you through the pivotal events of history that shaped the social, religious, and political environment of Jesus and the early church. Find out why the religious leaders wanted Jesus crucified and how the resurrection demonstrated God’s approval of Jesus as Messiah. Discover how the early church remembered, shared, and recorded the events of Jesus’ life, and how those events became the catalyst for ministry in the book of Acts. Learn about the literary features of the gospel genre and why some “gospels” were not included in the New Testament.
Dr. Bock—an internationally recognized authority on theology and culture—developed this course for the Mobile Education platform so that you can read the Gospels and Acts with fresh eyes.
Upon successful completion you should be able to:
- Understand the effect of Hellenism on Second Temple Judaism
- Discuss the significance of the temple in Second Temple Judaism
- Summarize the ways in which Jesus created conflict with the religious leaders
- Compare and contrast the canonical Gospels with the “missing gospels”
- Explain the issues of authorship and date associated with each Gospel
- Describe the concept of resurrection in Judaism and the Graeco-Roman world
- Discuss the significance of the resurrection in each Gospel account and to the gospel message
- Summarize the key events in the life of the early church
Introduction
- Introducing the Speaker and the Course
Unit 1: Background to the New Testament
- Understanding Backgrounds
- The Nature of Judaism
- Alexander the Great
- Hellenization and First Maccabees
- Jewish Responses to Hellenism
- The Temple Story
- The Start of the Maccabean War
- The Impact of Hellenism and the War on Jewish Identity
- The Romans in the Holy Land
- Psalms of Solomon
- The Ministry of Jesus
- Forgiving Sins: The Healing of the Paralytic
- Messing with the Sabbath
- Challenging Tradition and Ritual Purity
- Claiming to Be King
- Cleansing the Temple
- The New Testament Collection
Unit 2: The Nature and Purpose of the Gospels
- Orality and Memory
- The Value of a Voice
- The Quality and Types of Orality
- Corporate and Individual Memory
- Examples of Memory
- The Gospel Genre
- The Dates of the Gospels
- The Authorship of Mark
- The Authorship of Luke
- The Authorship of Matthew
- The Authorship of John
- The Four Gospels
- Four Perspectives
- The Missing Gospels
- Gnosticism
- The Gospel of Thomas
- Background of the Gnostic Creation Story
- The Gnostic Creation Story
- Summary of the Missing Gospels
- Summary of the Nature and Purpose of the Gospels
Unit 3: Resurrection in the Gospel Accounts
- An Introduction to Resurrection
- Resurrection in Judaism and the Graeco-Roman World
- Jesus’ Predictions about His Resurrection
- Resurrection and the Old Testament
- Jesus at His Jewish Examination
- Resurrection in Mark’s Gospel
- Resurrection in Matthew’s Gospel
- Resurrection in Luke’s Gospel
- Resurrection in John’s Gospel
- The Credibility of the Resurrection
- The Significance of the Resurrection
Unit 4: The Early Church in Acts
- The Ascension of Jesus
- Pentecost: The Spirit and the Resurrection
- Pentecost: The Exaltation
- To the Gentiles
- Jew and Gentile Together: The Jerusalem Council
- Jew and Gentile Together: Ephesians 2
- Persecution and Martyrdom: Acts 4
- Persecution and Martyrdom: Stephen
- Persecution and Martyrdom: Paul
- The Gospel Message
- The Core Message of the Gospel
- The House Church
Conclusion
- Course Summary
- Title: NT211 Introducing the Gospels and Acts: Their Background, Nature, and Purpose
- Instructor: Darrell L. Bock
- Publisher: Lexham Press
- Publication Date: 2014
- Product Type: Logos Mobile Education
- Resource Type: Courseware, including transcripts, audio, and video resources
- Courses: 1
- Video Hours: 6
Dr. Darrell L. Bock, research professor of New Testament studies and professor of spiritual development and culture at Dallas Theological Seminary, serves as editor-at-large for Christianity Today, and is on the board of Chosen People Ministries and Wheaton College. From 2000 to 2001, Dr. Bock served as president of the Evangelical Theological Society.
He has earned international recognition as a Humboldt Scholar for his work in Luke-Acts, historical Jesus study, biblical theology, as well as with messianic Jewish ministries. He has published articles in the Los Angeles Times and The Dallas Morning News and is a well-known author of over 30 books. His publications include Studying the Historical Jesus: A Guide to Sources and Methods, Jesus according to Scripture, an NIV Application Commentary on Luke, Breaking the Da Vinci Code, and commentaries on Acts and Luke in the Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (BECNT) series.
Logos Mobile Education is a highly effective cross-platform learning environment that integrates world class teaching with the powerful study tools and theological libraries available in Logos Bible Software. Every course provides links to additional resources and suggested readings that supplement the lecture material at the end of every transcript segment.
This course comes with an Activities resource that functions as a type of “workbook” for the course. This resource includes learning activities such as: places for you to respond to reflection questions, exercises that will challenge and show you how deepen your understanding of this course by using specific Logos tools and resources, tutorial videos on different features of Logos Bible Software, and links to relevant Logos guides and tools. A link to open the Activities resource is conveniently placed at the end of every segment.
Reviews
17 ratings
Matt DeVore
7/17/2022
Phil Niebergall
1/10/2020
Kevin Bratcher
6/12/2018
Adrian Sobers
11/17/2017
Chris duMond
8/27/2016
MJ. Smith
7/31/2016
For an introductory course, Dr. Bock has made some excellent choices. Rather than trying to cover the entire topic, he selected a handful of topics to discuss in some detail, teaching approaches and skills to allow the student to explore further on their own. He injects humor into his lectures which insures the continued engagement of the student. I have two minor complaints. First, the course material was often on the defensive treating alternative popular views as a threat. While I also reject the alternatives, I prefer classes to focus on what is in the texts rather than what modern culture says about the text - brief defenses are certainly appropriate but I don't like defensiveness as the tone of the course. Second, in the final sessions on the thrust of the Gospel and the house church Dr. Bock was addressing issues of the centrality of forgiveness of sins vs. kingdom of God and of church structure where I could not follow what he was defending against. With the breadth of audience taking the courses, it is important to define issues in the presenter's theological tradition that may not be familiar to others. Overall, however, this course earns a very positive recommendation.
Matt Hamrick
7/29/2016
Got this courtesy of Faithlife for 2 months free to check out. I did not finish the last few segments because I was doing the course again for the Summer Session. That being said, I have completed the course now and highly recommend it for everyone. Bock presents the material in a very informative way. He covers the background material, the Gospels, the Resurrection, and the early church. He covers material outside the bible that is very good for learning the background and then being able to see things you could not see before in scripture.Gordon Jones
7/9/2016
Mikko Paavola
6/18/2016
A. J. Sill
6/2/2016
Excellent material that was presented in a concise and informative manner. Context does indeed matter. I learned so much and I look forward to purchasing additional resources as the budget allows to complete all of the reading assignments.
