2007-03-04

Papias: theologian or historian?

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by Neil Godfrey

Richard Bauckham places critical importance on the way Papias expresses his preference for a “living voice” over “books”, and argues that here Papias is informing readers that he follows “best historical practice” according to standards of antiquity.

Thanks to my life-long habit of frequenting second hand bookstores I have just come across my old 1965 Penguin paperback of G. A. Williamson translation of Eusebius and notice a small print footnote on these words of Papias: Continue reading “Papias: theologian or historian?”


2007-03-03

Bauckham’s eyewitnesses vs Petersen’s narrator

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Is there any evidence in Mark’s narratives that the author is reporting the point of view of anyone other than his own? Is there any indication that he is relaying a third party’s “eyewitness” testimony?

Do we ever catch the author stepping outside his own perspective for a moment and finding himself reliant on the testimony of an “eyewitness” in the telling of a story? Continue reading “Bauckham’s eyewitnesses vs Petersen’s narrator”


Bauckham versus Elisha on Jairus’ daughter

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Have just put up another detailed comparison of Mark’s narrative of the raising of Jairus’s daughter with its literary antecedent in 2 Kings 4, the story of Elisha’s raising of the son of the Shunammite woman. Again, what is the more reasonable? To think that a person can be raised from the dead or to think that an author draws on a similar well-known story to describe a raising from the dead?


2007-03-02

Bauckham versus Elisha on the 5000

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

I have made all too passing references to a feature that deserves the most attention of all in any serious thought about Richard Bauckham’s eyewitness hypothesis — the alternative hypothesis, the literary-borrowing hypothesis. Continue reading “Bauckham versus Elisha on the 5000”