2019-11-01

Revised Post: “Review, pt 1a: How the Gospels Became History / Litwa”

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

by Neil Godfrey

To anyone who has read the previous post . . . I have entirely rewritten the last part of that post. My original text was misleading. Now corrected.

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Neil Godfrey

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Latest posts by Neil Godfrey (see all)

A Beginning of Christianity — An Objection; and the Role of Asceticism - 2025-02-21 01:00:10 GMT+0000
A Beginning of Christianity? — A Closer Look in Antioch - 2025-02-20 11:35:52 GMT+0000
Which One Came First? “Gnostic” ideas or “Orthodox” Christianity? - 2025-02-18 09:25:20 GMT+0000

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"Neil, in my mature judgement (I am now an old man), this fine 4-part study is a brilliant reworking, an instructive restatement of Hayden White’s Metahistory (and his subsequent writings). Your critique of certain historiographic representations as imbedded in the case study of the “scientistic”, “empirical” Richard Carrier provides a solid starting point for the more honest “fictive” reading of the New Testament that you encourage. Your last paragraph is a very intelligent call to sensitive readers of these texts. I suspect a whole generation of biblical students has been educated without the insights provided by the incomparable White. Bravo!"

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— James McGrath, – June 2009
"Very good. This post is going straight to the March 2016 Biblical Studies Carnival."

—N.T. Wrong, – March 2016
https://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=145080#p145080
Neil made a good synthesis of the work without being an “expert” of the field.

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— Eva Mroczek, – June 2017
This is superb work, Neil, and reminds me of Albert Schweitzer’s work from a century ago. . . . .

I commend you for being the first to even TRY to translate Bruno Bauer’s brilliant Kritik der Evangelien und Geschichte ihres Ursprungs, which is now more than 150 years old.

. . . . .Thank you for your historic effort.

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Editor, An English Edition of Bruno Bauer’s 1843 Christianity Exposed
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— April DeConick, – November 2007
It is worth saying another word of appreciation here for Neil Godfrey's effort to make Bruno Bauer accessible in English.

-- Peter Kirby, - May 2023

Neil Godfrey on A Beginning of Christianity? — A Closer Look in Antioch: “I think you’ve let the horses run a little wild here 😉 — but yeh, some ideas can lead to…” Feb 21, 23:15
Neil Godfrey on A Beginning of Christianity — An Objection; and the Role of Asceticism: “But as for that point about oral tradition being unjustified — I do recall Thomas Brodie calling it out in…” Feb 21, 03:09
Neil Godfrey on A Beginning of Christianity — An Objection; and the Role of Asceticism: “Yes, I did read it and should refresh my memory of it by returning to my marked digital copy. I…” Feb 21, 02:52
Clarke W Owens on A Beginning of Christianity — An Objection; and the Role of Asceticism: “Robyn Faith Walsh, in The Origins of Early Christian Literature, argues that reliance on oral traditions and early communities is…” Feb 21, 02:28
RParvus on A Beginning of Christianity? — A Closer Look in Antioch: “Neil, I know I’ve been rightly accused of excess speculation, but sometimes I can’t help myself. I will blurt this…” Feb 20, 23:26
Neil Godfrey on A Beginning of Christianity? — A Closer Look in Antioch: “I don’t know that Justin was using a harmony of the gospels. He flat out contradicts the Gospels and Acts…” Feb 20, 21:23
Neil Godfrey on A Beginning of Christianity? — A Closer Look in Antioch: “I am relying on Justin Martyr where he says in his Dialogue with Trypho: These men call themselves Christians in…” Feb 20, 21:17
Neil Godfrey on A Beginning of Christianity? — A Closer Look in Antioch: “Probably. Some scholars do argue that point. But I think they all work with the gnostic-orthodoxy model on the assumption…” Feb 20, 21:14
Neil Godfrey on A Beginning of Christianity? — A Closer Look in Antioch: “I did sneak it in with “and that the figure of Paul may be related in some way to Saturninus…” Feb 20, 21:11

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