From Michael Kruger's excellent piece - The Far Less Sensational Truth about Jesus’ ‘Wife’.When it comes to these sorts of questions I like to remind my students of a simple—-but often overlooked—-fact: of all the gospels in early Christianity, only Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are dated to the first century. Sure, there are minority attempts to put books like the Gospel of Thomas in the first century—-but such attempts have not been well received by biblical scholars. Thus, if we really want to know what Jesus was like, our best bet is to rely on books that were at least written during the time period when eyewitnesses were still alive. And only four gospels meet that standard.
We have already seen that God reveals himself in the Bible as judge, prosecuting attorney and defence lawyer. The final image of God from the court of law is that of God as the legislator or law give. The most well known scripture on this is Isaiah 33:12, which declares “For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king; it is he who will save us”. God is the legislator, the one who sets forth the law. This is not the place for a full treatment of this area. But suffice to say that God’s law is a revelation of God himself. And this law goes beyond “moral laws” set out in the Bible. His law includes his general standards and norms with respect to the cosmos as a whole. God has put in physical and spiritual laws for the functioning of the universe. These laws are for our good and for His great glory.
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