Sabbath School Lesson Podcast

The New Testament does not speculate about Jesus. It simply presents Him as the divine Son of God. Nor does it answer the numerous concerns about Jesus' being and person that would occupy succeeding generations. Yet, in all the discussions and arguments, there was a rock-bottom acceptance of the centrality of Scripture and the basic identity of Jesus Christ. But the so-called Age of Enlightenment (of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries) would change all that. No longer would Scripture constitute the foundation of discourse about Jesus. Instead, new methods and criteria being applied to the study of other ancient documents also would be applied to the Bible. With everything now subject to rational analysis and criticism, supernaturalism, a foundational presupposition of biblical faith, was rejected. The traditional biblical view of a human race steeped in sin and needing Divine rescue was replaced by humanism, an optimistic belief in human capacity and progress. The change of outlook was so radical and