GREAT PLAINS UNITED METHODIST ~ Greetings Wesleyan Live participants

Greetings Wesleyan Live participants The spring Wesleyan Live class: Was Jesus a zealot? The historical question and its significance today, will be taught by Dr. Robert Jewett. It will begin on Monday, March 3, at 7 p.m. It will continue for six consecutive Monday evenings. Please note the change in time and place. For those who can come to the classroom in Lincoln, it will be held at the Great Plains Conference office at 3333 Landmark Circle, 68504. The office is located a couple blocks north of Superior, on the east side of 33rd St. From this new venue we will be streaming the lectures and discussion as we have in the past. Online participants will be able to enter the discussion by sending your comments and questions to a new email address set up for this purpose — wesleyanlive@greatplainsumc.org. Emails received will be entered into the dialog. (In the future we will have full video participation for online participants.) A link has been set up for registration on the new conference website at www.greatplainsumc.org/wesleyanlive. The cost will be $40 for those in active employment, $20 for retirees and $10 for students. We anticipate that congregations across the conference will want to use the class for adult discussion groups. The cost will be $75 per group. Reza Aslan's book "Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth," has been popular with the general public over the last months. Dr. Jewett takes a view very different from the author, so we will have a lively discussion of ideas. Below is an outline for the class. I hope you will join us, in person or online, on March 3. Mel Luetchens, assistant to the president for church relations   Title of the series: Was Jesus a zealot? The historical question and its significance today Session 1 on March 3, 2014  The challenge of Reza Aslan's new book, "Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth" Session 2 on March 10, 2014 Jesus' new approach to the Kingdom of God as an alternative to zealous violence — then and now Session 3 on March 17, 2014 Paying taxes to Rome as a rejection of theocracy: Jesus' strategy for coexistence — then and now Session 4 on March 24, 2014 Divine impartiality and the love of enemies: replacing zealous campaigns of annihilation Session 5 on March 31, 2014 Cleansing the Gentile court of the temple: respecting God's concern for all the nations — then and now Session 6 on April 7, 2014 Moving beyond Aslan: yhe vurrent significance of Jesus' effort to prevent self-imposed disasters Description In his best-selling book, "Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth," Reza Aslan makes a case that Jesus favored violent revolution. In this series of Wesleyan Live, Robert Jewett evaluates the evidence in the gospels to show instead that Jesus sought to transform Israel so that it could avoid a revolt that would have disastrous consequences because the divine intervention expected by the zealots was illusory. Whereas the zealots shared with the Pharisees and Essenes the idea that the messianic banquet could be celebrated only after their revolutions or reforms had succeeded, Jesus announced that the banquet should be celebrated first and that the reconciliation of enemies sharing meals together would constitute the coming of the kingdom. Whereas the zealots believed that paying taxes to Caesar was idolatry, Jesus repudiated theocracy and encouraged the acceptance of "publicans" who worked for Rome. In contrast to Aslan's contention that the idea of loving enemies was invented by the later church, lecture 4 shows that a large number of sayings and episodes reveal that Jesus advocated love rather than the annihilation of opponents. While Aslan is correct in identifying the cleansing of the temple as the event that led to the crucifixion, he mistakes the implication of Jesus' citation from Isaiah that the temple should be "a house of prayer for all the nations," which was being violated by bringing manure into the Gentile court. Rather than threatening priestly Roman collaborators as Aslan suggests, this act aimed at restoring the temple as a place where Gentiles would be treated with respect as equals before God. The final lecture argues that Jesus should be viewed as an inspired realist rather than the deluded revolutionary that Aslan makes him out to have been. His courageous effort to convince Israel to avoid provoking a suicidal conflict has an abiding significance in our era of theocratic violence and weapons of mass destruction.

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