Category: Biblical Studies

The biggie. Much work needs to be done on the children of this category. These need to be greatly reduced in number.

Should this category include the ancient history of Palestine-Judea, including second temple era and Bar Kochba rebellion and rise of rabbinic culture? If so, should Biblical Studies itself be renamed in some way?

2007-08-02

The subtext of Jesus’ family relationships — (2)

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Biblical Studies, New Testament
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When I wrote The subtext of Jesus’ family relationships — (1) I was looking at the Jesus who emerges from the gospels after they had achieved the status of being the definitive life of Jesus. The intention is to examine the psychology of the family relationships of Jesus. The idea was sparked by a much more accomplished psychological study in relation to Achilles and Socrates by Richard Holway. In that article I was intrigued by the what the subtext of the personal relationships implied for the values and/or experiences of those who saw these men as models of certain virtues. Achilles is semi-divine in the mythology, but whether mythological or literary, the characters are viewed as creations of the human mind and as such their actions are the products human psychological processes. Ditto for Jesus. For what it’s worth, I’m adding another scratch to the surface of this exploratory thoughts here, though by no means in the depth that Holway delved. Continue reading “The subtext of Jesus’ family relationships — (2)”

2007-07-30

From Cephas to Peter?

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Biblical Studies, New Testament
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Thanks to Josh asking if I thought Cephas and Peter were not the same, this is a fanciful think-aloud session, tossing Paul’s references and the Gospel of Mark around, to speculate how and why Cephas (Aramaic) may have been changed to Peter (Greek) . . . . Continue reading “From Cephas to Peter?”

Spong on Jesus’ historicity: Paul’s contacts

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Biblical Studies, New Testament
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I’ve responded to the first 3 of Spong’s stated reasons for believing Jesus was a historical character despite many of his analyses of the gospels leaving readers good cause to doubt this. They are listed in his new book, Jesus for the Non-Religious: Recovering the Divine at the Heart of the Human (2007).

  1. No “person setting out to create a mythical character would [ever] suggest that he hailed from the village of Nazareth . . . in Galilee”
  2. Jesus “clearly began his life as a disciple of John the Baptist”
  3. He was executed
  4. “Paul was in touch with those who knew the Jesus of history”

4. “Paul was in touch with those who knew the Jesus of history” (Spong, p. 210)

Response 1: To give this as a reason for believing in the historicity of Jesus is fallacious. It is another circular argument. Continue reading “Spong on Jesus’ historicity: Paul’s contacts”

2007-07-29

(revised) Spong on Jesus’ historicity: John the Baptist and the Crucifixion

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Biblical Studies, New Testament
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Spong in his new book, Jesus for the Non-Religious: Recovering the Divine at the Heart of the Human (2007), lists four reasons that he claims leave no doubt about the historicity of Jesus:

  1. No “person setting out to create a mythical character would [ever] suggest that he hailed from the village of Nazareth . . . in Galilee”
  2. Jesus “clearly began his life as a disciple of John the Baptist”
  3. He was executed
  4. “Paul was in touch with those who knew the Jesus of history”

An earlier post looked at #1, “the Nazareth Connection”. This post looks, much more briefly, at #2 and #3 together, because they both make the same fundamental error of logic. Continue reading “(revised) Spong on Jesus’ historicity: John the Baptist and the Crucifixion”

How Acts subverts Galatians

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Biblical Studies, New Testament
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There are two different stories, their differences well known, of the circumstances surrounding Paul’s conversion and the later Jerusalem Conference in the New Testament.

The Two Conversions

In the Book of Acts (9:1-30) we read that

  1. Paul was persecuting the church until —
  2. Paul was struck down by a divine call on his way to Damascus,
  3. that he was baptized in Damascus by a lowly disciple (Ananias),
  4. and after some time (“many days”) he fled to Jerusalem because of Jewish persecution,
  5. His contacts in Jerusalem were limited but only on first arriving
  6. until Barnabas acted as his Janus-like gateway by taking him to the apostles —
  7. who, we learn elsewhere in Acts, were led by Peter and James
  8. Brethren took him away to Caesarea and then to Tarsus to protect him from the Hellenists

In the Epistle to the Galatians (1:13-24) we read a different story.

  1. Paul used to persecute the church until —
  2. Paul says Christ revealed himself by revelation “in him”,
  3. that he then went to Arabia.
  4. Only after he had been in Arabia did he return to Damascus.
  5. After three years in Damascus he went to Jerusalem because he wanted to see Peter
  6. His contacts in Jerusalem remained limited — the Judean churches did not see Paul
  7. He met Peter (staying with him 15 days) and James only.
  8. Paul then returned to the regions of Syria and Cilicia.

One can conclude that the author of Acts did not know of the Galatians letter. But I think it more likely that the author of Acts composed a narrative polemic against the letter. Each of the differences can be accounted for as a polemical response to some point in the Galatians account. . . . Continue reading “How Acts subverts Galatians”

2007-07-28

Spong on Jesus’ historicity: The Nazareth connection

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Biblical Studies, New Testament
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I am not sure if Bishop John Shelby Spong believes in god (he speaks of a “god experience”, and of atheism as being defined as not believing in a “theistic definition of god”, which definition he also rejects) but he does believe in Jesus. This, according to his new book, Jesus for the Non-Religious: Recovering the Divine at the Heart of the Human (2007). After acknowledging, even arguing the case of, the many theological and mythical constructs that have built up a non-historical figure of Jesus as found in a surface reading of the New Testament, he laments that some go one step too far and reject belief in the historicity of Jesus altogether.

So in chapter 19 Spong devotes the equivalent of a full 4 pages out of a 315 page book to establish the reasons for believing Jesus was, nonetheless, an historical person. He gives 4 reasons that he believes establish this historicity:

  1. No “person setting out to create a mythical character would [ever] suggest that he hailed from the village of Nazareth . . . in Galilee”
  2. Jesus “clearly began his life as a disciple of John the Baptist”
  3. He was executed
  4. “Paul was in touch with those who knew the Jesus of history”

This post addresses Spong’s view that no mythical character like Jesus would have been assigned a hometown like Nazareth. (I have so many loose threads on this blog I am still meaning to put up on this blog that I’m reluctant to say I will address the other points of Spong here “soon”.) Continue reading “Spong on Jesus’ historicity: The Nazareth connection”

2007-07-17

Pilate and the Cosmic Order in Mark — 2

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by Neil Godfrey

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An earlier post here discussed thoughts arising out of the unlikely combo of Carrol’s “Existential Jesus” and Patella’s “Lord of the Cosmos.” One set of responses was too lengthy to be carried out in the tiny comment boxes so am extending the discussion here. Continue reading “Pilate and the Cosmic Order in Mark — 2”

2007-07-16

Dennis MacDonald’s ‘Turn’ to reply to critics of his Mark-Homer work

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Ancient Literature, Biblical Scholars, Biblical Studies, New Testament
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I have been absent from web discussions for some time now and may be the last one to notice Dennis MacDonald’s reply to critics of “mimesis criticism” — his work arguing that the Gospel of Mark is as much an imitation and transvaluation of Homeric characters as it is of those from the Jewish scriptures.

It is well worth reading. Not least his concluding pages suggesting a more subtle reason for many of the objections raised against his work.

If anyone else apart from me is also late to this reply, check it out at DRM’s website — look for the article there titled My Turn.

(I’ve discussed aspects of MacDonald’s work elsewhere on this blog some time back.)

2007-07-11

Gentle Jesus meek and mild or Macho-Man Jesus?

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Biblical Studies, Ethics & Human Nature, New Testament, Religion and Atheism
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If Islam is “quivering with male sexual insecurity” should the same verdict be handed down on the “macho-Jesus” type of Christianity? Continue reading “Gentle Jesus meek and mild or Macho-Man Jesus?”

2007-07-09

Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Chapter 18c

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by Neil Godfrey

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Testimony and Its Reception (pp 490-493) Continue reading “Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Chapter 18c”

2007-07-08

Rationalist Hitchens vs Eyewitness Bauckham

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Biblical Studies, Religion and Atheism
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Any encounter with Christopher Hitchens’ talent with words is always a richly rewarding experience. And while reading his newly published “God is Not Great” I was at times painfully reminded of my failure at this point to have completed my review of the last chapter of Bauckham’s Eyewitness book on this blog. (I really will complete that soon, promise.) Not that I have any reason to think Hitchens has read Bauckham, but some of Hitchens’ plainest observations about religion and reason reminded me by contrast of the convoluted nonsense twisted through the keyboard of Bauckham as he attempts to justify branches of medieval and ancient scholarship against post-Enlightenment rationalism.

Eyewitnesses of a Medieval Miracle! Continue reading “Rationalist Hitchens vs Eyewitness Bauckham”

2007-06-26

The problem of understanding anonymous texts (e.g. gospels)

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Biblical Studies, Historical Methods and Historiography, Religion and Atheism
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There’s an interesting passage in Steve Fuller’s Kuhn vs. Popper: The Struggle for the Soul of Science that strikes me as having a most cogent critique of those who assert that the most honest and true way to read the gospels is to simply take them at face value:

Even if ideas and arguments should be evaluated independently of their origins, we must still first learn about their origins, in order to ensure the evaluation is indeed independent of them. The only thing worse than accepting or rejecting an idea because we know about its originator is doing so because we know nothing of the originator. Ignorance may appear in two positive guises. Both are due to the surface clarity of relatively contemporary texts, which effectively discourages any probing of their sources: on the one hand, we may read our own assumptions into the textual interstices; on the other, we may unwittingly take on board the text’s assumptions. In short, either our minds colonise theirs or theirs ours. In both cases, the distinction between the positions of interpreter and interpreting is dissolved, and hence a necessary condition for critical distance is lost.

pp. 71-72 (italics, Fuller’s; bold, mine)

Substitute for “relatively contemporary texts” the canonical gospels and read a commentary about texts, in this case the gospels and Acts or the Epistles, that present a “surface clarity”. Such a “surface clarity” — especially in a case when we know nothing of the origin of those texts — presents a huge problem for any interpreter. This is contrary to many who would see ignorance of authorship and provenance as irrelevant and who believe that the plain meaning of the text compels belief in the truly fair-minded.

So what is Fuller’s point and what relevance can this have for our reading of the gospels? Continue reading “The problem of understanding anonymous texts (e.g. gospels)”

2007-06-06

Mark’s Parable of Easter Sunday

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by Neil Godfrey

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Mark’s gospel concludes with a scene that contains several bizarre elements that defy logical explanation. One of these is his narrative of the women bringing spices to anoint Jesus’ body but wondering as they go: Duh, has anyone worked out a plan for how we are going to get through the door of the tomb? (Mark 16:3)

The story, as told, does not make narrative sense. Yes, one can imagine a whole array of factors to make it work, but then it becomes the story of whoever is doing that imagining, and it is no longer Mark’s story as he has given it to us.

But the story, as told, does make profound and cogent sense as a parable or allegory. It recalls two stories in the early chapters of the gospel: Continue reading “Mark’s Parable of Easter Sunday”

Making more sense of Jesus . . .

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by Neil Godfrey

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One can argue that the author took historical traditions and sayings and edited them to give them a theological spin, but this is to make two assumptions when it is much simpler to make but one: that the author created the stories and sayings as theological parables.

Just as the healing of the paralytic is told in the shadow of the death and resurrection of Jesus (both laid in dug-out places, both rise and go through a massive block that prevents others from entering), so the withered hand miracle is also told as a reverberation of the withered growth in the parable of the sower (Mark 4:6) and the withering of the fig tree to mark the end of Jesus.

Thus the story and words of Jesus make sense when and only when they are read as an allegory. To read the story as a literal healing is to ruin the story and to disconnect the sayings of Jesus from the story. Continue reading “Making more sense of Jesus . . .”