Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
Critique of the Gospel History of the Synoptics by Bruno Bauer Volume 2 —o0o— 173 Section Six. The Instruction of the Twelve. Matthew 9:35-11:1. ———– § 43. The Election and Sending Out of the Twelve. Matthew 9:35-10:5. 1. The Occasion. Among the many unpleasant tasks that the critic must undertake in this final battle … Continue reading “§ 43. The Election and Sending Out of the Twelve”
Continuing the series on Nanine Charbonnel’s Jésus-Christ, sublime figure de paper . . . . –o– John the Baptist Maybe I’m just naturally resistant to new ideas but I found myself having some difficulty with Nanine Charbonnel’s [NC] opening stage of her discussion about John the Baptist. (Recall we have been looking at plausibility of gospel … Continue reading “The Symbolic Characters in the Gospels #2: John the Baptist and the Twelve Disciples”
This is from pages 67 to 76 of Constructing Jesus (2010) by Dale C. Allison. Allison begins with the evidence for the twelve. 1 Corinthians 15:5 is the earliest reference we think we have to the twelve. The letter is usually dated to the mid-50s, twenty or twenty-five years after the usually accepted date of … Continue reading “The Twelve: Dale Allison’s argument for their historical reality”
Dale C. Allison in his recent book, Constructing Jesus, believes that we can learn, or at least “confirm”, what Jesus taught about the “end of the age” by looking at the careers of the Twelve Disciples/Apostles. He begins by discussing various opinions about whether or not Jesus really did call twelve disciples at all, and … Continue reading “Why Jesus chose the Twelve: Dale Allison’s exegesis”
Let’s make this my last post for a little while on Maurice Casey’s ad hominem stained book on the historical Jesus (Jesus of Nazareth) that will surely long stand alone as a truly independent tribute to the Huckleberry Finn criterion for historical authenticity. (robertb will heave a sigh of relief.) This post looks at the … Continue reading “The Twelve Disciples: New Insights from Emeritus Professor Maurice Casey”
Almost as fundamental to the Christian narrative as the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is surely the calling, election and sending forth of the twelve disciples to preach the gospel. But of all the evangelists to which our canonical gospels have been attributed, only one unequivocally delivers this message. Only the author (or … Continue reading “The Twelve Apostles had to be a very late invention, surely”
This post is nothing more than a bit of idle trivia per se. But maybe Kakadu Dreamtime wisdom somewhere says “Clever bower bird can find something among trivia to relocate so it has power to attract a mate.” The data comes primarily (not exclusively) from two sources: The Gospel of Mark as Midrash on Earlier … Continue reading “The Twelve Disciples: their names, name-meanings, associations, etc”
The three rejects — Paul Paul in his letter to the Galatians equates the namesakes of the three leading apostles in Mark (Cephas/Peter?, James and John) as holding an unimpressive rank in his eyes (Gal. 2:6), and who became the leaders of the hypocrites at Antioch (Gal. 2:13), and were thus cursed teachers of “another … Continue reading “Tracing the evolution of the Twelve Apostles from monkey rejects to angelic pillars.”
The Gospel of Mark contains a story about the call of Levi, a tax collector, to follow Jesus as one of his disciples, but then mystifies readers by not listing this person in the ranks of the famous Twelve. The reason this omission is so mystifying is that the call of Levi is described in … Continue reading “The Call of Levi not to be one of the Twelve”
(updated 3:20 pm) I’ve posted repeatedly reasons for believing the Gospel of Mark was an attack on that school of Christianity that claimed to trace its roots to the Twelve Apostles, and this post is a continuation of that theme although with a couple of new explorations into the interpretation of the gospel. I’ve relied … Continue reading “The Twelve Apostles Among the Old Wineskins?”
I discussed the reference in Paul’s epistles to the Twelve in my more detailed discussion on the Bauckham review, but am also adding what Paul informs us about the Twelve and the apostles here in slightly more depth. If I find on further reading Bauckham that addresses anything I have placed here then I may … Continue reading “The Twelve: Paul vs Richard Bauckham”
Updated about 2 hours after first posted: An alternative proposal for the origin of the lists of the Twelve names — yup, it’s another hypothesis, but a hypothesis that does not require hypothesizing a whole lot of imaginary sources and that does not leave a whole lot of unanswered questions about the rest of our … Continue reading “The Twelve: Acts & Gospels vs Richard Bauckham”
Richard Bauckham writes in “Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: the Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony” that the Twelve had been companions with Jesus from the beginning of his ministry and were chosen to be an authoritative body to act as eyewitness guarantors of the preservation and transmission of message of his life and resurrection. This is a … Continue reading “The Twelve: Justin Martyr vs Richard Bauckham”
A question arose on a discussion board about whether Peter really knew Jesus given Paul’s stance towards Peter. If somone knew X knew Jesus then how could someone really take issue with X? It’s a good question and I don’t think the thoughts it triggered in me really do it justice: