Jesus’ Personal Bible: The Greatest Archaeological Discovery Ever - 2019 Lecture by Dr. Frank Spina

In my 46th and final year as a Professor of Old Testament at Seattle Pacific University, I presented my “last lecture.”  Though the title was sensationalized—“Discovering Jesus’ Personal Bible: The Greatest Archaeological Discovery Ever”—it was apt.  This is because we have had Jesus’ Bible all along.  It did not have to be discovered.  This Bible was the Jewish Bible, the Bible of the Synagogue, or the Hebrew Bible.  It is the Bible that Christians would later refer to as the Old Testament.  But this is the only Bible Jesus read, quoted, thought was authoritative, and believed was a testimony to himself.  Jesus never knew about a New Testament.  For that matter, neither did the authors of the New Testament!  For all of them were trying to demonstrate that what God was doing in and through Jesus was consonant with the Scriptures, that is, Jesus’ personal Bible.