Biblical Studies

2006-11-29

The We-Passages in Acts: a Roman Audience Interpretation

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

by Neil Godfrey

I have had an unfinished draft of an essay on the we-passages in Acts sitting in my computer now for more than a year surely. Several attempts to return to it have led me to baulk at the size of the task I had taken on, with biblical studies not really being easy to justify as my number one priority in life. But now with this new blog thingy I think I have a way to re-work that essay begging for completion, this time in nice easy bite-size installments. I’ll start copying and reworking it bit by bit in a series of posts to this blog. Eventually I trust this nifty piece of technology will enable me to see a series of posts in a folder which can finally come together then as a whole. And who knows, I may even have the added luck of criticism along the way from the odd passer-by to help me identify and remove a few of its warts.

Neil Godfrey
Australia

Technorati Tags:
acts, book+of+acts, we+passages,

Jesus (in Mark), Jesus (in Josephus) and Cassandra

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

by Neil Godfrey

As far as I am aware the observations linked here between the Jesus in Mark’s gospel and the Jesus in Josephus were first made by Theodore Weeden (author of ‘Mark: traditions in conflict’) in informal email discussio. I was excited to read a comment from someone somewhere recently (Michael Turton?) that Weeden is soon to publish a book about this. Can anyone tell me when to expect this and what it’s titled?

The only thought I can add is that the Josephan Jesus strikes me as a classic trope in the legendary-mythical Cassandra mold. Literary tradition depicted her as a demon possessed prophetess raving about the foredoomed destruction of Troy, and later of the King who conquered Troy and finally of herself, and whom all dismissed as mad.

Can anyone tell me more about Ted Weeden’s new book that I hear is coming out?

2006-11-28

Romans 1:2-6 – An anti-Marcionite Interpolation?

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

by Neil Godfrey

I’m undergoing a long process of bringing myself up to date with blogs and the web 2 world and part of that is trying to bring together one by one bits and pieces I have written notes on over the years. Here is another one, where I present a case for arguing that the whole of Romas 1:2-6 was an interpolation by an anti-Marcionite redactor.

Criteria I’ve used are taken from William O. Walker’s “Interpolation in the Pauline Letters” (2001).

Constructive criticism most welcome of course.

Neil Godfrey

Technorati Tags:
marcion, romans, rom.1.2-6, pauline+epistles

2006-11-27

Mark and Homer

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

by Neil Godfrey

One more catch-up link for this new trial blog: notes I made from Dennis MacDonald’s book on the Gospel of Mark and Homeric epics. One plan for the future would be to go have checkboxes against each comparison indicating which criteria are met, and to what extent. I’m not confident that all of my own comparisons would go very far — I’m sure some are way “out there” but hey, why not push an idea to its limits and see what happens? It would be interesting to checkbox each one against the criteria some time.

Book details

Neil Godfrey

Technorati Tags:
gospel+of+mark, homer, iliad, odyssey, literary+mimesis, intertextuality

2006-11-26

Comparing the Gospel of Peter with the Canonical Gospels

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

by Neil Godfrey

To write the earlier essays I found it helpful to prepare a table of comparisons between the Gospel of Peter and the canonical gospels. I’ve added the link here for convenience for myself and anyone else interested.

Retraction already?

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

by Neil Godfrey

Am I going mad? This looks like a retraction that my memory just told me I have not yet had time to write! When did I do this? Too busy, too busy….. Anyway, here ’tis.

Another view of the origin of the Gospel of Mark

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

by Neil Godfrey

Again about a year or so ago I woke in the middle of the night with “a brilliant revelation” that I had to work out on keyboard asap. I had been exploring the range of views in the scholarship on the date and theology of the Gospel of Peter and it occurred to me that the Gospel of Mark, with so many cryptic unexplained references and incidents, might very well be best explained as a response to the sort of gospel narrative that we find in the Gospel of Peter. I was not arguing that the Gospel of Peter as we have it pre-dates GMark, but if GPeter was setting down in ink a previously known oral gospel then many apparent anomalies in GMark are resolved.

Alas, I have since in my mind revised this idea, but have not yet had time to put down my retractions in any essay yet. I did once begin to do this and on re-reading my GPeter-GMark piece began to wonder again if my retraction would hold water. Anyway, for what it’s worth, I’ve attached a link to my original essay on a GPeter related trajectory of the GMark and other synoptics. It did at least provoke some kind comments and thoughtful responses when first released. I may write something opposite tomorrow, but will leave this idea stand for at least discussion and thought nonetheless.

The Gospel of Mark’s fictional characters

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

by Neil Godfrey

A year or so ago I wrote an essay discussing characterization in the gospel of Mark and attempted to show that the author paradoxically shows as little interest in the earthly person of Jesus as we find in Paul’s letters. A little thought about the way Mark depicts his characters demonstrates, I think, that he is working at a level as far removed from any interest in Jesus’ earthly history as was Paul. At the time I titled it a bit clumsily Notes on the fictive and parabolic character of Mark’s gospel.

Justin Martyr and the 2nd century gospel story

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

by Neil Godfrey

A little while ago while trying to trace the evidence for Christian origins one block in the scholarship that frustrated me was the lack of dedicated studies to what was known of the gospel narrative in the mid-second century. There was no lack of resources on the asserted “sayings of Jesus” and supposed “canonical gospel” allusions, but the only way I decided I would find out what a mid-second century Church Father actually knew or understood the gospel narrative about Jesus to have been was to make the time to prepare this table which I have titled Justin Martyr’s Gospel Narrative.

Gospel of Mark’s bookends

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

by Neil Godfrey

Have updated and webbed a table to help me keep track of some of the bracket points found in the Gospel of Mark. The opening and closing scenes contain numerous matching “bookends” that are either intended to guide the interpretation of the gospel and/or to help an original oral storyteller recall how the narrative is meant to go (see Shiner’s ‘Proclaiming the Gospel, 2003).

A Cyrenius-Cyrenian link between Josephus and Mark?

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

by Neil Godfrey

It is not hard to see curious shifting reflections between the lead characters in Josephus and the Gospel of Mark. Judas first, then Simon with James and Simon with John are Jewish rebel leaders and Alexander and Rufus are two Romans responsible for their executions (though John is apparently spared). In Mark we have Judas, Simon Peter, James and John as leaders and Alexander and Rufus named as identifiers of the one pressganged into the execution of their leader. (And the one executed in place of that leader was anciently believed by at least one form of Christianity, and by modern deconstructionists, the author of Mark himself being characteristically ambiguous, to be Simon himself.)

But is there another name also shiftingly reflected between Josephus and Mark that has not yet been remarked on?

“The sons of Judas of Galilee were now slain; I mean of that Judas who caused the people to revolt, when Cyrenius (Quirinius in Luke 2:2) came to take account of the estates of the Jews, as we have shown in a foregoing book. The names of those sons were James and Simon, whom Alexander commanded to be crucified.” (Josephus, Ant. 20.5.2, Whiston trans.) Continue reading “A Cyrenius-Cyrenian link between Josephus and Mark?”

2006-11-25

Paul’s reception in Italy and Rome: another Josephus link?

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

by Neil Godfrey

While it is commonplace to think of the Book of Acts as an unfinished work, appearing to end without a real narrative resolution (with Paul left a prisoner in Rome for “2 years” — no trial, no death, no release) , I keep wondering if the real problem is that we are missing something critical about the intent of the narrative. As one small facet of this question I have raised before the possibility that the author of Acts was emulating the conclusion of the Primary History of Israel which ends with the king of Judah a prisoner in Babylon (sometimes later used as a cypher for Rome) and the circumstances of his imprisonment.

Now on reading bits of Josephus again I wonder if another piece is falling into place, Continue reading “Paul’s reception in Italy and Rome: another Josephus link?”

2006-11-21

The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ? / Early Doherty. (Canadian Humanists, 1999). Review

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

by Neil Godfrey

I originally posted this elsewhere in 2000:

A New paradigm:

On page 125 of his book Doherty writes: “When any set of assumptions is firmly in place, the evidence is usually interpreted in accord with those assumptions. Yet it is clear that the New Testament epistles present the Christian reader and scholar with difficulties and anomalies at every turn. These have traditionally been ignored, glossed over, or subjected to unnatural interpretations and questionable reasoning in order to force them into the mold determined by the Gospels.

“What is needed is a new paradigm, a new set of assumptions by which to judge the epistles (as well as the other non-canonical documents…), one capable of resolving all those contradictions and uncertainties. That paradigm should be determined by what we can see in the epistles themselves and how we can relate their content to what we know of the spirit and conditions of the time.” This is how Doherty approaches not only the epistles but the gospels and noncanonical writings as well. Continue reading “The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ? / Early Doherty. (Canadian Humanists, 1999). Review”

2006-11-20

In Search of Ancient Israel

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

by Neil Godfrey

In 1992 Philip Davies published a monograph that began a heated controversy over the origins of the Bible and what light archaeology shed on this question. Davies criticized conventional biblical scholarship for lacking the rigour found in archaeological studies of sites without theological significance. He argued that the archaeological evidence suggested that the Bible was composed as late as the Persian era and that the stories of Abraham, the Exodus, David and Solomon were mythical inventions. I have begun to summarize the argument of Davies’ book, In Search of Ancient Israel.

Book details: Davies’ In search of ancient Israel (Sheffield, 1997)

Neil Godfrey

Technorati Tags:
bible+archaeology, biblical+archaeology, bible+archeology, biblical+archeology, ancient.israel, bible.history, bible,

Congratulations, Vridar, . . . I declare, Vridar, your own hard work translating Bruno Bauer will make a major difference in future studies of Bruno Bauer and the evolution of Hegel’s philosophy of religion.

-- Paul Trejo, - April 2023
"I want to say here that this site is so resourceful and highly on top of the most modern scholarship in the areas discussed here. . . I know of no other site which offers a wide range of topics related to careful critical analysis of historically and scripturally related issues."

-- Martin Lewadny, - March 2009
"Many thanks for this post, and for the quality of your blog."

— Philippe Wajdenbaum, – November 2018
"These reviews of yours are so bloody weird!"

— James Crossley, – April 2010
"I always enjoy reading Neil’s blog because I think that he is careful, thorough, intellectually fair, and honest."

— April DeConick, – November 2007
"By the way, my thanks to Neil for an ongoing superb job of exposing Jim’s review for what it is: a farcical and none too effective exercise in mythicism assassination, nothing to do with rational, let alone unbiased, scholarship. I’m also happy to see even Jim giving Neil credit where credit is due."

— Earl Doherty, June 2011
"Thanks much for this book review. I think it expands, and contributes to, the effort in honouring Thomas that we with Lukasz originally had in mind with this volume. Best, Emanuel"

-- Emanuel Pfoh - August 2020
"For an excellent example of generally high-quality scholarship by someone who isn’t a biblical studies professor, see Neil Godfrey’s work posted on the website vridar.org."

— Tom Dykstra, – JOCABS 2015
"Neil Godfrey and Tim Widowfield, who both write at Vridar . . . happen to be some of the most astute and well-read amateurs you can read on the internet on the subject of biblical historicity. I call them amateurs only for the reason that they don’t have, so far as I know, advanced degrees in the subject. But I have often been impressed with their grasp of logic and analysis of scholarship. I don’t always agree with them, but I respect their work."

— Richard Carrier, – March 2014
"I think you have a high quality blog that provides a positive public service by discussing academic topics within a wider audience."

— Russell Gmirkin, – October 2016
"Vridar is consistently thought-provoking, well-informed, and asking the right questions. There are intelligent, thoughtful comments and commenters regularly offering productive discussion. Books and publications are covered with a range of perspectives with attempts at fair and accurate representation of others’ arguments and content (where there are occasional and inevitable missteps on that I notice Neil making corrections and apologies where warranted, which wins points with me). Please carry on."

— Gregory Doudna, – January 2019
"Very good. This post is going straight to the March 2016 Biblical Studies Carnival."

—N.T. Wrong, – March 2016
"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!"

-- Timothy Bagley, - November 2024
"Note that I do not use the term ‘amateur’ pejoratively. . . . In fact, Godfrey is extremely well read and his librarian skills have brought many important academic works to my attention."

Raphael Lataster - August 2019
"Here I give an admittedly subjective short list, in random order, of useful, high level and regularly updated weblogs on the study of the Old Testament . . . ‘Vridar: Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science’ (http://vridar.org/) by Neil Godfrey"

-- Klaas Spronk, - Bibliotheca Orientalis LXXI, 3/4 (2014)
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.

-- Paul Trejo, M.A., - November 2022
Editor, An English Edition of Bruno Bauer’s 1843 Christianity Exposed
"Thanks for your very elaborate review! I realized that I hadn’t added your blog to our blogroll. This oversight has been corrected. Looking forward to more segments."

— Anthony Le Donne, – September 2009
"Neil, You’ve done a clean job in your posting on ‘Jesus the Healer’. It reflects well on you. Best, John"

— John Moles, September 2011 (personal email)
"Fantastic. I’m so glad you’re helping to spread these ideas!"

Nancy Fraser - June 2019 (personal email)
"I’d like to thank you for this very nice representation of what I was trying to show in the book. It’s always gratifying when a reader zeroes in on exactly those aspects I thought were most interesting and most central to my argument. Thank you for this careful and engaged reading of my work – much appreciated!"

— Eva Mroczek, – June 2017
"I still wonder at all the material you turn out for Vridar. The more I read your stuff (and I still do, of course), the more I realize how much we all owe you. Your voice is unique."

— Earl Doherty, November 2013 (personal email)
"I find your blog most interesting and appreciate your ongoing effort to keep to the evidence for the issues discussed!"

-- Thomas L. Thompson, - April 2020
"Neil, for what it is worth it is obvious to me that if you had earlier in life tracked into a graduate program at one of the world’s leading research universities you would be one of the world’s formidable ones. You are doing essentially the same quality now (apart from the philology and languages) except mostly sticking to commenting on others’ work as informed comment/discussion."

— Gregory Doudna, – January 2019
"Neil, this is actually rather useful. Good job."

— R. Joseph Hoffmann, – June 2014
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
"I’ve even been cited by atheists with approval (which I really don’t know how to take, so thanks, I think, but I’m not sure, Vrider (even though I feel like I need to take a shower now))."

-- Jim West, – September 2010
https://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=145080#p145080
Neil made a good synthesis of the work without being an “expert” of the field.

-- Enrico Tuccinardi, - October 2022
"I have found your website really valuable as an interpretive filter for Biblical scholarship, especially the origins of Christianity and historicity of Jesus issue. Your clarity of expression, fair comments and personal insights are much valued. I refer to your site frequently as yet more names and publications pop up requiring an academic critique and helpful recommendations for book purchases. So, please continue to delve deeply and share this intellectual sustenance with your grateful readers."

— Mary Booker, – February 2020 (personal email)
"Thanks for this detailed interaction! I’ll try to offer something more substantial than 'Thank you' in response at some point, but I didn’t want to wait . . . to express appreciation for your detailed interaction with what I’ve written!"

— James McGrath, – June 2009

Neil Godfrey on Jesus Mythicism and Historical Knowledge, Part 2: Certainty and Uncertainty in History: “For the record, it is worth posting here a quotation I used in Part 3 of this series of posts…” Nov 30, 01:34
Neil Godfrey on Jesus Mythicism and Historical Knowledge, Part 2: Certainty and Uncertainty in History: “Oh dear, I always find it amusing when Americans (they are mostly Americans) jump into false vacuous presumptions of DISinterpretation…” Nov 30, 01:26
Jacques on Jesus Mythicism and Historical Knowledge, Part 2: Certainty and Uncertainty in History: ““According to the materialist conception of history, the ultimately determining element in history is the production and reproduction of real…” Nov 30, 00:40
Neil Godfrey on Jesus Mythicism and Historical Knowledge, Part 2: Certainty and Uncertainty in History: “If I were asked to decide if A or B was true, and if a 1 was generated on each…” Nov 29, 23:22
Petr Jancar on Jesus Mythicism and Historical Knowledge, Part 2: Certainty and Uncertainty in History: “I can see that there is a misunderstanding between us already on a very basic level. I think that this…” Nov 29, 15:43
Neil Godfrey on Jesus Mythicism and Historical Knowledge, Part 4: Did Jesus Exist?: “If I misconstrued its relevance I would appreciate being informed where and how I have misconstrued it. I believe I…” Nov 29, 02:41
Neil Godfrey on Jesus Mythicism and Historical Knowledge, Part 4: Did Jesus Exist?: “In other words, prediction does not mean “we expect a man named Clement to exist and write a specific letter,”…” Nov 29, 02:35
Neil Godfrey on Jesus Mythicism and Historical Knowledge, Part 1: Historical Facts and Probability: “Do you know of any instances where historians fall back on that kind of language with respect to the events…” Nov 29, 02:23
LC on Jesus Mythicism and Historical Knowledge, Part 1: Historical Facts and Probability: “My point was that historians do use a spectrum of common language to indicate (with respect to the truth value…” Nov 29, 01:19

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: