The Jerusalem School of Synoptic Research is a consortium of Jewish and Christian scholars who are examining the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) within the context of the language, land, and culture in which Jesus lived. Their work confirms that Jesus was an organic part of the diverse social and religious landscape of Second Temple-period Jerusalem. He, like other Jewish sages of that time, taught in Hebrew and used specialized teaching methods to teach foundational Jewish theological concepts such as the kingdom of heaven, God’s abundant grace, loving God and loving one’s fellow man.

The Jerusalem School scholars believe Jesus’ words and deeds were first transmitted in Hebrew, and that, through careful linguistic and comparative study, much of this earlier stratum of the synoptic tradition can be recovered from the Greek texts of the synoptic gospels.

David Bivin is the current director of the Jerusalem School. A native of Oklahoma, he came to Israel in 1963 on a Rotary Foundation Fellowship for postgraduate studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was one of the late Dr. Robert Lindsey’s students and studied under professors David Flusser, Shmuel Safrai, and the late Yechezkel Kutscher. He is also editor and publisher of the Jerusalem Perspective, a quarterly magazine that reports on recent discoveries relating to the life and teaching of Jesus, featuring the work Jerusalem School scholars.

The Jerusalem School plans a number of ambitious publishing projects, including a series of academic volumes, an idiomatic translation of the Gospels and Acts with annotations highlighting the text’s Hebraic nuances, and the Jerusalem Synoptic Commentary, a detailed commentary of the synoptic gospels.

The Jerusalem School is supported by the International Synoptic Society. The society solicits funding for publication of the Jerusalem School’s research, facilitates informal discussion groups, and sponsors student research assistants. Annual membership in the Society begins at $100.

Restoration Foundation commends the great work that the Jerusalem School is doing to help restore to the church an understanding of the Jewishness of Jesus and the earliest church. For more information, write: