Few could resist his gentle style and his device of praising his respondents and expressing his great fortune in benefiting from their instruction. “You are wise, sir,” he would say. “Blessed I am that I can learn so much from you.” Then he would push their comments to their logical undoing. He’d steer the line of thought with, “I wonder if you have considered . . .” or “Surely a man of your knowledge would agree that . . .” On a few occasions, we had heard the itinerant Greek Cynics who wandered through Sepphoris conduct discussions in similar fashion. Perhaps Jesus had borrowed their technique, but his method was much gentler. The old Nazarenes would find themselves tangled in their own web of poorly spun arguments and find that Jesus’ views were their only escape. I usually joined the debates, but I did not really care what these old wind-bags thought, so I directed most of my energy toward restraining myself from telling them how self-absorbed they were.
