Image Details

Musee des Beaux-Arts, Pau, France/Giraudon/Bridgeman Art Library

Among friends. Jesus rebukes his friend Martha (at right) for continuing to do housework when she could be sitting with her sister Mary (left) and listening to his teachings (Luke 10:38), as shown in this pastel drawing by Frenchman Rene-Marie Castaing (1896–1944). Jesus’ close friendship with Mary, Martha and their brother Lazarus (whom he will later resurrect) is just one of many personal relationships that Jesus had with people living in and around Jerusalem. Author Smith suggests that these long-standing friendships, mentioned in the Synoptics as well as in John, provide circumstantial evidence that Jesus probably visited Jerusalem regularly over several years, as John alone records. In the Synoptics, Jesus visits Jerusalem only once as an adult, just before his death.