Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
In the previous post I tried to explain my startled response when, many years ago, I first read the Gospel of Mark in a translation that muffled familiar associations with the other gospels. I recall being left with a feeling of some horror, of a Jesus who was certainly not a human-loveable Lukan figure welcoming … Continue reading “The Gospel of Mark’s Jesus as a Fearful – yet Merciful – God”
When I offered to post a comprehensive review of Writing With Scripture by Nathanael Vette the publisher sent me a copy and now I hope this first in a series of reviews will begin to do justice to all concerned and interested. I write primarily as a layman for interested lay readers. Who is Nathanael … Continue reading “How and Why the Gospel of Mark Used Scripture — a review of Writing with Scripture, part 1”
I cannot prove that the gospel narratives are deliberately set in the time of Pilate so that the death of Jesus occurs a generation of forty years before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE but I do think there are several reasons for suspecting that this setting was a conscious decision for theological reasons. … Continue reading “Why was the Gospel Narrative set around 30 CE?”
Free for all who are interested: Sage publishers have made one of their recently published articles open access: Méndez, H. (2020). “Did the Johannine Community Exist?” Journal for the Study of the New Testament, 42(3), 350–374. https://doi.org/10.1177/0142064X19890490 Speaking of devils, the same themes of false (literary) communities and false witnesses (Beloved Disciple) have been addressed … Continue reading “Once More: The Fictions of the Beloved Disciple and Johannine Community”
Continuing a discussion of M. David Litwa’s How the Gospels Became History: Jesus and Mediterranean Myths. . . . All Litwa review posts are archived here. This post covers chapters 7 and 8, “Magi and the Star” and “Child in Danger, Child of Wonder”. Even though I often disagree with Litwa’s interpretations and conclusions I do … Continue reading “Review, parts 7 and 8. Litwa on Birth and Childhood Stories of Jesus – Widespread Cultural Tropes Recycled as “History””
Highlighted citations are my additions to footnotes. 4 MacDonald, Dionysian Gospel, 28-29, 30-32. — John 1:1-5, 14, 16, 18 Bacchae 1-4 …. 5 MacDonald, Dionysian Gospel, 29. — John 1:6-8 Bacchae 10-12 6 MacDonald, Dionysian Gospel, 29-30. — John 1:9-12 Bacchae 26-30 7 MacDonald, Dionysian Gospel, 38-40. — John 1:19-51 ….. 8 MacDonald, Dionysian Gospel, … Continue reading “The First Edition of John as the Dionysian Gospel”
M. David Litwa opens chapter 2, “A Theory of Comparisons”, of How the Gospels Became History: Jesus and Mediterranean Myths, with the following epigraph: The issue of difference has been all but forgotten. —Jonathan Z. Smith It is all too easy to overlook differences, agreed. I seem to recall drawing questionable conclusions about the world’s … Continue reading “Review, part 3a (Homer and the Gospels) : How the Gospels Became History / Litwa”
I found the following slightly amusing: I was really struck by the article in Bible History Daily about how the story of Daphnis and Chloe echoes the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis. Here’s an excerpt: Written around 200 A.D. by the Greco-Roman author Longus, Daphnis and Chloe is a pagan pastoral romance that echoes the Biblical … Continue reading “Do Parallels Only Work in One Direction?”
In mid-March this year James McGrath alerted readers to a new post by Tim O’Neill of History for Atheists, Jesus Mythicism 4: Jesus as an Amalgam of Many Figures, commending it for its take down of “amalgam Jesus” theorists for supposedly uncritically and emotionally concocting excuses to disbelieve in a historical Jesus. O’Neill inferred in … Continue reading “Much More Fully Informed History for Atheists — A Scholarly Introduction to the Two Jesus Parallels”
Along with his contradictory rationalizations to (1) declare the parallels between Jesus son of Ananias and the gospels’ Jesus to be “hopelessly flimsy”, yet at the same time are real and strong enough to (2) point to real-world parallel historical, socio-political, religious and onomastic events and situations anyway, Tim O’Neill further adds a common sophistical … Continue reading “Even Better Informed History for Atheists: The Lincoln – Kennedy Parallels Fallacy”
Maybe it’s just me and the particular apologists I have encountered over the years, but I seem to have run into a claim that the authors of the canonical gospels found themselves moved to write about Jesus in a completely new literary genre that we call “the gospels”. The four gospels certainly are unlike other … Continue reading “A New Genre for the Gospels? It’s not so unusual. And Imitation and Intertextuality? A necessity!”
Genre can be a highly fluid concept. In studies of Gospels I’ve noticed that discussions of genre sometimes overlap with intertextuality. Moreover, we may conclude that an ancient narrative belongs to the genre “history”, but once we learn what “history” could mean to the ancients we quickly move into discussions about the place of fictional … Continue reading “Genre of Gospels, Acts and OT Primary History: INDEX“
Here is an annotated list of Vridar posts addressing Daniel Gullotta’s review of Richard Carrier’s On the Historicity of Jesus. Gullotta, Daniel N. 2017. “On Richard Carrier’s Doubts.” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 15 (2–3): 310–46. https://doi.org/10.1163/17455197-01502009. 1. Daniel Gullotta’s Review of Richard Carrier’s On the Historicity of Jesus (2017-12-13) My first-thoughts … Continue reading “Daniel Gullotta’s Review of Richard Carrier’s On the Historicity of Jesus“
A number of biblical scholars appear to be afflicted with something akin to the Red Scare or the Yellow Menace of the old Cold War days. They don’t need to know much about communism to know that it’s bad and evil and a threat to everything decent and that it appeals mostly to benighted minds in … Continue reading “Why do professional scholars blog this sort of vacuous nonsense?”