Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
When did Peter first see the resurrected Jesus? 2007-09-16 The Emmaus road narrative features as a core part of an attempt to explain the mixed messages given the role of Peter in the post-resurrection narratives of the canonical gospels. It argues that Peter first met the resurrected Jesus, as per 1 Corinthians 15:5, some time after … Continue reading “Emmaus Road / Cleopas Posts“
After Tim’s recent post Unclear Origins and Etymology of Kleopas and noticing readers’ interest related to the subject I thought some of us might be interested in a complete list of Vridar posts on the Emmaus Road narrative. Here they are, all 18 of them, annotated. When did Peter first see the resurrected Jesus? 2007-09-16 The Emmaus … Continue reading “18 Vridar Posts on the Gospel of Luke’s Emmaus Road / Cleopas Narrative”
Shelly Matthews questions the view that Luke-Acts was finalized as an early stage of a specifically anti-Marcionite program. I am one who has tended to see Luke-Acts as an initiator of a trajectory of proto-orthodoxy that can be traced through Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus and Tertullian and that stood in opposition to the “heresies” of … Continue reading “The Gospel of Luke in its Original Context; New Perspectives, part 3”
Continuing my posts on Shelly Matthews’ 2017 article. . . . I am one of those who have leaned favourably towards arguments that our canonical form of the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts were early to mid second century attempts to take on Marcionism. See my series on Joseph B. Tyson’s Marcion … Continue reading “Doubting that Luke-Acts was written to refute Marcion; New Perspectives, part 2”
Professor of New Testament Shelly Matthews has a different take on the Gospel of Luke. Different, that is, from one that I have for a long time generally embraced on this blog. I have written positively before about Shelly Matthew’s work and find myself doing so once more here. This time I am discussing her … Continue reading “New Perspective on the Gospel of Luke; part 1”
Dr McGrath posts a brief comment on the criterion of embarrassment at Is the Criterion of Embarrassment an Embarrassment? He makes the following statement that I believe strikes at the core of the methodological flaw in scholarly inquiries into the historical Jesus and Christian origins: As with a trial in a courtroom, the fact that … Continue reading “Is the Criterion of Embarrassment an Embarrassment?”
This post is best read in the context of the earlier posts on Clarke Owens’ Son of Yahweh: The Gospels as Novels, in particular Jesus Is Not “As Historical As Anyone Else in the Ancient World”. This post considers the different genres qualities (verbal categories, discourse types) between Gospels and historical writings and concludes the … Continue reading “Gospels As Historical Sources: How Literary Criticism Changes Everything”
Professor of History, David Hackett Fischer, has long been known for his book, Historians’ Fallacies, in which he amasses copious examples of fallacious historical analysis and argument committed (at least on occasion) even by otherwise highly reputable historians. Unfortunately, critical fallacies that he identifies as periodic blights on the work of his peers are standard … Continue reading “Theologians’ Miracle: Turning Fallacy into Proof”
I was introduced to the work of Shelly Matthews through the Acts Seminar Report. She is one of the Seminar Fellows. I have since read — and enjoyed very much — her historical study Perfect Martyr: The Stoning of Stephen and the Construction of Christian Identity. Shelly Matthews is one of the few theologians I … Continue reading “The Fiction of Stephen the First Martyr”
I very much doubt that it is possible to tell the gender of an author simply from reading the author’s works. (Surely there are too many times women authors have fooled reading publics with male pen-names and male authors of romance are also on record as having fooled even literary judges with female pseudonyms.) But … Continue reading “Women in Acts (An Acts Seminar Perspective)”
The Acts Seminar was a Westar Institute sequel to the Jesus Seminar. It met between March 2000 and March 2011. It was charged with the task to develop methods for determining the reliability of Acts and produce a comprehensive guide to Acts as history. (Acts and Christian Beginnings: The Acts Seminar Report, p. 1) The … Continue reading “Top Ten Findings of the Acts Seminar”