Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
Insults and a failure to comprehend Awhile back our favorite historicist doctor posted a comment on his own blog: One can see a similar mythicist combination of insult and failure to comprehend those with whom they disagree at the blog Vridar. Seriously, it is as though I had never written anything about [Jan] Vansina and … Continue reading “Jan Vansina and the Criterion of Embarrassment”
In a recent post, Neil cited a paper by Dr. Alan Kirk called “Memory Theory and Jesus Research.” While Kirk does an adequate job of explaining the current state of play in memory theory, I couldn’t help but notice yet again some misunderstandings in the ways Memory Mavens remember German critical scholarship in general and … Continue reading “Alan Kirk: Misremembering Bultmann and Wrede”
PZ Myers is a biologist with a curiosity about how historians determine whether a person appearing in ancient records is considered historical or otherwise. He asks: How does one assess people and events that are contradictory, vague or preserved only in stories passed on by word of mouth? As for figures about whom we have … Continue reading “How do historians decide who was historical, who fictional?”
The horses are on the track In Daniel Gullotta’s “On Richard Carrier’s Doubts,” we see a phenomenon common in nearly every apologetic debate, but comparatively rare in print: namely, the Gish Gallop. It works better in a live, oral/aural environment, of course, because the wave of information washes over and stuns the opposition, while on … Continue reading “What’s the Matter with Biblical Scholarship? Part 3”
Scholar of religion Jonathan Bernier drops an interesting aside in his blog post, The Quest for the Historical Hiawatha: From what I understand, virtually all archaeologists and historians who study the matter agree that the Iroquois confederacy–the bringing together into political and religious union the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca peoples–was carried out as … Continue reading “The Quest for the Historical Hiawatha — & the historical-mythical Jesus debate”
In the last installment, we covered oral tradition. As I look over the post now, I see that I missed several opportunities to add the adjective, “rich.” Biblical scholars love to write the words “rich oral tradition.” How, you may ask, do they know such details about something based mostly on conjecture? Watch out! If you keep asking questions like … Continue reading “Bart Ehrman: Jesus Before the Gospels, Basic Element 4: Genre”
In the previous post, we looked at the basic element of form criticism. Bart Ehrman in Jesus Before the Gospels uses the findings of the form critics to explain a commonly held assumption in NT scholarship. Many, if not most, of today’s critical scholars believe the stories found in our canonical gospels survived orally over a … Continue reading “Bart Ehrman: Jesus Before the Gospels, Basic Element 3: Oral Tradition”
When magician Ricky Jay performs an amazing card trick, people will often ask, “How do you do that?” He always answers, “Very well, thank you.” Such masters of prestidigitation rarely, if ever, give away their secrets. Sometimes they take their arcane methods with them to the grave, leaving even their fellow conjurers to wonder for eternity, “How did … Continue reading “The Memory Mavens, Part 8: Chris Keith, Post-Criteria Scholar? (1)”
In foreign policy, the United States — especially in the last hundred years or so — has tried to have it both ways: assiduously following the Constitution and domestic law, as well as keeping within the dictates of international agreements, while at the same time aggressively maintaining an empire with far-reaching hegemony. In doing so, the … Continue reading “The Memory Mavens, Part 7: When Terms Matter”
To continue the theme of fundamental principles of historical reasoning this post selects points from Historical Evidence and Argument by David Henige (2005). They all come from the fourth chapter titled “Unraveling Gordian Knots”. Pyrrhonist scepticism To begin, notice what scepticism means to Henige. He explains: Skepticism takes many forms—I am concerned with pyrrhonist skepticism. In theory, and … Continue reading “The Positive Value of Scepticism — and Building a Negative Case — in Historical Enquiry”
One book I enjoyed reading this year was Tom Dykstra’s Mark, Canonizer of Paul. (The link is to an earlier post of mine on this title.) I see the book has been promoted on the Bible and Interpretation site, too. Tom Dykstra begins with a discussion of Mark’s sources and purpose referring to about half … Continue reading “How do we know the stories of Jesus were preserved by oral tradition before the Gospels?”
A muddle of mavens For several months now, I’ve been poring over works written by a contingent of New Testament scholars who I like to call the Memory Mavens. This group claims that “memory theory” offers new perspectives on Jesus traditions and provides new insights on how those traditions eventually found their way into the … Continue reading “The Memory Mavens, Part 1: A Brief Introduction to Memory Theory”
Maurice Casey continues: A number of Godfrey’s comments on himself when he was a member of the Worldwide Church of God are sufficiently similar to his comments on scholars as to give the impression that not only has he no clue about critical scholars, which is obvious from his many comments, but that he is … Continue reading “Casey’s Calumny Continued: Response Concluded”
Under the Grip I just noticed over on the Cakemix that Dr. McGrath is once again comparing Jesus mythicism to creationism. He writes: Mythicism says: universities are so much under the grip of Christianity that mythicism cannot get a fair hearing. As you know, the good doctor finds this idea laughable. Implicit in his short … Continue reading “Under the Grip of Christianity: New Testament Scholars and the Myth of Transparent Fiction”
