The Brotzman Lectures - Dirk Jongkind

The Brotzman Lectures are named for long-time Tyndale Theological Seminary Hebrew & Old Testament Professor, Ellis Brotzman. This annual lecture series aims to expose our students, faculty and alumni to excellent evangelical scholarship, addressing the most critical matters of theology and practice for the life of the church.

The Bible and the Words of Jesus

This year’s theme is “The Bible and the Words of Jesus”. Dirk will unpack this in three lectures:

1. The Words of Jesus Remembered

2. Instructing the Church

3. Reading the Written Gospels

Hear from Dirk himself to discover more about this event…

Schedule for April 5th

About Dirk Jongkind

Dirk Jongkind is probably best-known as editor of the Tyndale House Greek New Testament. However, before he ended up in the academy, Dirk worked in the horticultural sector (together with his wife Marion), growing tropical cut-flowers (Heliconia) in greenhouses in his native country, the Netherlands. He enjoyed this hands-on setting, yet decided to follow his life’s fascination with the history and text of the Bible. 

He is one of our beloved alumni, having completed a M.A. in Old Testament here at Tyndale Theological Seminary in 1999. He then moved to the United Kingdom for an M.Phil. in New Testament at Cambridge University, where he also completed a PhD in 2005. 

Working at Tyndale House, Dirk does research in the transmission of the text of the New Testament which has resulted in the Tyndale House Edition of the Greek New Testament (2017). Besides he maintains an interest in lexical and grammatical studies. He is an Associate Editor of the Tyndale Bulletin and serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal for the Study of the New Testament. Working at Tyndale House gives unique opportunities to contribute to the practice and vision of theological education in its many shapes and forms.

This year’s theme is “The Bible and the Words of Jesus”.

When we read through the whole of the New Testament in order, we move from the four gospels to the Acts of the Apostles, then read the letters from the apostles, and reach finally the book of Revelation. But this is not the chronological order in which these books were written. What happened in history was that Jesus taught for a number of years, died, rose, and went to heaven. Then the apostles started teaching about Jesus, they wrote letters, and at some point the life and the teaching of Jesus was written down in the gospels. When we listen to what the New Testament tells us about how it came into being, it will come alive in new and unexpected ways.

We’ll explore this topic is three lectures:

1. The Words of Jesus Remembered

2. Instructing the Church

3. Reading the Written Gospels

1. The Words of Jesus Remembered

When the apostles started preaching in Acts 2, they did not have the written gospels available to them. So what did they teach and preach about Jesus? How did they remember what he had said? And how did the life and the teaching of Jesus shape the apostolic teaching as we find in the letters they wrote? The answer to these questions has practical relevance to how we read the letters of the New Testament and how we teach and apply the words of Jesus. The Jesus of the gospels is the same Jesus we find in the letters.

2. Instructing the Church

We are so used to having a written New Testament that we may miss what it says about how the oral teaching became written word. This is especially relevant since the church had the written word of God already in the form of the Scriptures of the Old Testament. So what is changing now that the New Covenant has arrived and the Holy Spirit is sent? At what point did the church, or the apostles, decide that writing things down would be a good idea? Once we understand these questions, we will gain insight in how we are supposed to read the New Testament.

3. Reading the Written Gospels

Armed with the knowledge of how and why the gospels were written, we can understand now how they ended up being so similar but also so dissimilar. The transition from an orally taught gospel to a written one did not happen overnight. And one of the biggest problems in the textual history of the gospels, namely the story of the woman caught in adultery, may go back to exactly this transition from aural to written. History shows us that having written gospels is not without its own challenges, even though it offers us great opportunities to study them in depth. In this final lecture we will see how reading the gospels in the light of the rest of Scripture will help us to appreciate Jesus as the sole focus of the writings of the New Covenant.

1-Day Preachers & Leaders Conference

In partnership with Geloofstoerusting and TGC Nederlands, Dirk will be giving the same lectures in Dutch here at Tyndale Theological Seminary the following day, Saturday, 6 April. Click here for more information and to register.