March 1, 8, 15, 22, 29

6:45-8:15 p.m. in the Dunham Room

For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

2 Peter 1:16

Have you ever been troubled by the discrepancy between what the Gospels say and what many commentators tell us they actually mean? Can thinking people of faith trust what the Gospels tell us without checking our brains at the door?

The answer is an emphatic Yes! We invite you to join us during Lent for a “rediscovery” of the Good News. As our guide we will use the book Jesus and the Eyewitnesses by noted Anglican biblical scholar Richard Bauckham, winner of the 2009 Michael Ramsey Prize for Theological Writing. Bauckham leads us with clarity and expertise through the various theories about the Gospels, finally bringing us back to the original eyewitnesses of Jesus and their careful reporting of what they saw, heard, and experienced. Many people today have the notion that the Gospels are unreliable. But Bauckham argues that we have every reason to discard the “gratuitous skepticism” that colors how many of us view Scripture. We can trust what the eyewitnesses tell us.

Bauckham’s book is both a serious work of scholarship and a good detective story. He masterfully puts the clues together to solve basic puzzles -- such as who wrote the Gospels and why -- and those lingering mysteries no one ever satisfactorily explains, such as why John’s Gospel is so different from the others. Along the way, he provides fascinating lessons about non-theological topics such as names in the Bible, oral traditions in societies, and memory and how it works.

This course will meet for five weeks as part of St. Michael’s Table on Thursday evenings, from 6:45-8:15 p.m. Participants will be asked to commit to attending the sessions and to doing the weekly readings and preparation. But we believe it will be well worth the effort. We found this book to be nothing less than a gift to our faith, and we hope it will be one to yours as well.

Please contact the office or any of us to sign up for the course, or for more information. Financial assistance is available for help in purchasing the book if you need it.

To see and hear Bauckham talk about his book, go to www.youtube.com/watch?v=292NTf1cCNw

Clark Anderson, Jean Smith, Zachary Roesemann