Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
Mostly straightforward but still some questions arise. Where does New Testament end and Church history and question of Christian origins, also certain roles of Marcion, begin? (Marcion’s argued influence on NT should be included here; also evidence of early readings found in Fathers like Tertullian.) Relevant manuscript discoveries and analysis belong here, including histories of their later copying.
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?”
Testimony and Its Reception (pp 490-493) Continue reading “Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Chapter 18c”
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”
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 . . .”
Jesus’ words often make contextual sense only if his acts to which his words refer are viewed as allegory. They make no sense, and open him to false charges, if his acts are read literally. Mark did appear to say that Jesus did not speak without his words being a parable.
But without a parable he did not speak to them (Mark 4:34)
Yet readers generally take his sayings at face value and his healings as literal events. What if we look at both as parables? That is, his healings are parables and his words explain them as parables. Otherwise, the reader falls into the trap of siding with the enemies of Jesus and seeing him as a lawbreaker, even if they excuse him, unlike his enemies. Continue reading “Making sense of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark”
“I think the whole story of Jesus is a parable, an allegory. If you insist on making it literal you destroy it.” — Vridar’s thoughts in Vardis Fisher’s Orphans in Gethsemane (Vol.1, For Passion, For Heaven)
Why does Mark leave readers hanging right through to the end of his gospel and never show the fulfilment of John’s proclamation that Jesus would baptize with the holy spirit?
I indeed baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the holy spirit (Mk.1.8)
Or is this another one of those “Markisms” where he sets up the reader (and characters in his gospel) to expect one thing while he really means the words in a different sense? Continue reading “Baptism: Another Markan trap? Or, The Gospel of Perfection”
Mark’s Greek according to John Carroll (The Existential Jesus):
(pics nicked from here. Two faces or one vase?)
This is how Mark’s Greek works — surface text vs subtext — according to John Carroll: Continue reading “John Carroll on the Existential Jesus (live this time) — (podcast/transcript)”
And one more — again a set of Rachel Kohn Spirit of Things interviews — this time discussions of the “real” gospel of Judas as recently made public, AND the novel! Why not! I haven’t had time to catch up with this program myself but I’m sure it will have much of interest — in both halves. Continue reading “Tales of the 2 Judas gospels”
Bauckham’s use of Paul Ricoeur
Bauckham pursues the fundamental role of testimony for history through reference to internationally renowned French philosopher Paul Ricoeur‘s “Memory, History, Forgetting” (2004). Before discussing this section of B’s final chapter I want to address a sentence of Ricoeur’s on which Bauckham places particularly heavy and repeated emphasis:
First, trust the word of others, then doubt if there are good reasons for doing so. (p.165, Memory) Continue reading “Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Chapter 18b”
Unlike Greek saviour-type heroes such as Achilles (and even Socrates), not once in the canonical gospels is Jesus shown to have had a healthy relationship with a normal loving woman, not even at birth. And is there a complementary dark significance to the absence of any hint of a relationship with his presumed stepfather, Joseph? What follows is my extrapolation of some thoughts brought to the surface by Richard Holway in his discussion of the mythology and psychology of Achilles and Socrates in his article Achilles, Socrates, and Democracy published in Political Theory, Vol. 22, No. 4. (Nov., 1994), pp.561-590. Continue reading “The subtext of Jesus’ family relationships — (1)”
The criterion of embarrassment is a “rule” commonly appealed to by scholars to argue that certain events must be historical because they were so well-known and undeniable that, although gospel authors were clearly embarrassed by them, they nevertheless could not avoid addressing them. One example is the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist. Why would gospel authors say that Jesus was baptized by his inferior unless it really happened? Surely it was not in the interests of presenting Jesus as the superior to John the Baptist to publicize such an event. The only explanation could be that the event was so well known that the authors had no choice but to report it and put the best spin on it that they could muster.
(This reasoning sounds so “self-evident” that it deserves to be kept in mind when reading the scholarly explanations for why Paul does NOT mention so much about Jesus for the reason that it was “so well known that there was no need to address it” — even if to do so would (a) support his position, or (b) require spin to get around how Jesus embarrassed Paul’s position.)
But there is a problem. One of those canonical gospels demonstrates not a single ounce or gram of embarrassment over Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist, nor any of the other episodes to which spin has to be plied by the other gospels to get around various “embarrassing but unavoidable historical facts.” The Gospel of Mark simply waltzes in and unashamedly offers us a point by point account of how John the Baptist baptized Jesus (his superior)! Continue reading “Mark, The Embarrassing Gospel”
Joseph of Arimathea is most commonly viewed as something of a partial redemption of the harsh conclusion of Mark, given that he is said to have had courage where courage failed the disciples; and Pilate is seen as almost an innocent bystander in some ways. But I’m playing with an interpretation here that suggests their roles in Mark’s narrative were not quite so untouched by Mark’s well-known penchant for savage irony. Continue reading “Is Mark mocking Joseph of Arimathea, and Pilate?”
This is a disorganized collage of thoughts stimulated partly by the unlikely combo of John Carroll’s The Existential Jesus and Michael Patella’s The Lord of the Cosmos. Continue reading “Pilate and the cosmic order in Mark”
For what it’s worth, I’m posting a few excerpts from a couple of nonbiblical historians, mainly for benefit of those following some of the posts and discussion re my Bauckham and Acts 27 (Paul’s sea voyage/shipwreck) reviews. The point is to compare nonbiblical historical methods, approach, critical analysis, with what we read in the Gospels and Acts. For those familiar with the Gospels and Acts I invite where possible any comparisons with the following methods we find among two prominent ancient historians: Continue reading “Ancient historians at work: Polybius, Herodotus (cf Gospels, Acts)”