Zealot - The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

The Hebrew word translated here as “godly one” is
chasid
. It seems obvious to me that David’s reference to himself as “godly one” has more
     to do with his piety and devotion to God than it does with the deification of either
     David himself (which would have been unimaginable) or any future Davidic figure. Of
     course, Luke would have been using the Septuagint of Psalm 16:8–11, which translates
     the Hebrew
chasid
into the Greek
hosion
, meaning “holy one,” which, given the context and meaning of the psalm, should be
     seen as synonymous with “godly one.” It may be a huge stretch of the imagination to
     consider this psalm to be about the messiah, but it is ridiculous to interpret it
     as predicting Jesus’s death and resurrection.
    Stephen’s lengthy defense in the book of Acts is obviously Luke’s composition; it
     was written six decades after Stephen’s death. But it bears scrutiny, nonetheless,
     as Luke was himself a Diaspora Jew—a Greek-speaking Syrian convertfrom the city of Antioch—and his perception of who Jesus was would have aligned with
     Stephen’s.
    Among the more egregious errors in Stephen’s slipshod account of the biblical story:
     Stephen speaks of Abraham buying the tomb at Schechem for his grandson Jacob to be
     buried in, whereas the Bible says it was Jacob who bought the tomb at Schechem (Genesis
     33:19), though he himself was buried with Abraham in Hebron (Genesis 50:13). Stephen
     contends that Moses saw the burning bush on Mount Sinai, when in fact it appeared
     to him on Mount Horeb, which, despite some arguments to the contrary, was not the
     same place as Sinai (Exodus 3:1). He then goes on to state that an angel gave the
     law to Moses, when it was God himself who gave Moses the law. It is possible, of course,
     that Luke has been influenced by the Jubilean tradition, which claims that Moses was
     given the law by the “Angel of the Presence.” Jubilees 45.15–16 states, “and Israel
     blessed his sons before he died and told them everything that would befall them in
     the land of Egypt; and he made known to them what would come upon them in the last
     days, and blessed them and gave to Joseph two portions in the land. And he slept with
     his fathers, and he was buried in the double cave in the land of Canaan, near Abraham
     his father in the grave which he dug for himself in the double cave in the land of
     Hebron. And he gave all his books and the books of his fathers to Levi his son that
     he might preserve them and renew them for his children until this day.” Interestingly,
     Jubilees also suggests that the Torah was written down by Moses, which is the oldest
     witness to the tradition of Mosaic authorship for the Torah.
    For more on the significance of the phrase “the right hand of God,” see entry in David
     Noel Freedman et al.,
Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible
(Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2000). Per Freedman, the signet ring was worn on the royal
     right hand (Jeremiah 22:24); the elder son received the greater blessing via the right
     hand (Genesis 48:14, 17); the position of honor was at one’s right hand (Psalm 110:1);
     and the right hand of God performs acts of deliverance (Exodus 15:6), victory (Psalms
     20:6), and might (Isaiah 62:8). Thomas Aquinas’s remarks are from
Summa Theologica
, question 58.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: IF CHRIST HAS NOT BEEN RISEN
    There were, in actuality, two (though some say three) veils that divided the Holy
     of Holies from the rest of the Temple: an outer veil that hung at the entrance to
     the inner sanctuary, and an inner veil within the sanctuary itself that separated
     the
hekal
, or portal, from the smaller chamber within which the spirit of God dwelt. Which
     veil is meant by the gospels is irrelevant, since the story is legend, though it should
     be noted that only the outer veil would have been visible toanyone but the high priest. See Daniel Gurtner,
Torn Veil: Matthew’s Exposition of the Death of Jesus
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
    Although the historical evidence and the New Testament both clearly demonstrate that
     the followers of Jesus remained in Jerusalem after his crucifixion, it is interesting
     to note that the gospel of Matthew has the risen Jesus telling the disciples to meet
     him back in Galilee (Matthew 28:7).
    Oscar Cullman,
The State in the New Testament
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1956);
The Christology of the New Testament
(Philadelphia: Westminster Press,