Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
Recently I was curious enough to learn what today’s Muslim teachings about the “end times” were to pick up and read two books: Apocalypse in Islam (2011) by Jean-Pierre Filiu (translated by M. B. DeBevoise) Holiest Wars: Islamic Mahdis, Their Jihads, and Osama bin Laden (2005) by Timothy R. Furnish. Filiu’s work is by far to be … Continue reading “Jesus in the Muslim Apocalypse”
I recently completed reading A Shift in Time: How Historical Documents Reveal the Surprising Truth About Jesus by Lena Einhorn. Lena Einhorn proposes a radical rethink of Christian origins and does so in a welcome methodical and understated manner. Far from being a sensationalist weaving of data into a mesmerizing filigree of yet another conspiracy or gnostic … Continue reading “Review: A Shift In Time, Lena Einhorn. A new hypothesis on the origin of the Jesus narrative.”
I trust I have set out Professor McGrath’s proofs for the historical existence of Jesus fairly and accurately in my previous post. Since the Professor has declined to engage in discussion with me I wonder if any interested readers would like to raise the following questions with him and alert us here of his responses. … Continue reading “Questions for Professor McGrath re Those Proofs”
For anyone who was too lazy or too busy or too technically challenged to listen to the discussion between David Fitzgerald and Daniel Gullotta on the historicity of Jesus here are my notes. Of course things said on the fly are not always what we would exactly say in more considered writing so I welcome … Continue reading “Highlights of the David Fitzgerald-Daniel Gullotta Discussion on Miami Valley Skeptics”
Until recently I have had little interest in arguments that our apparently earliest written gospel, the Gospel of Mark, was composed as an attempt to teach the ideas of Paul as found in his letters. After reading Mark, Canonizer of Paul by Tom Dykstra I am now more sympathetic to the possibility that the author of this gospel … Continue reading “Mark, Canonizer of Paul”
Dazed and confused As you no doubt recall, scholars frequently divide the quest for the historical Jesus into phases or periods. The first period, following Albert Schweitzer‘s analysis, began with Hermann Samuel Reimarus and ended with William Wrede and Schweitzer himself. Conventional wisdom holds that the quest took a breather at that point, with scholars … Continue reading “What Do They Mean by “No Quest”?”
. This post continues my discussion of the Vision of Isaiah. It will briefly consider some additional aspects of that writing that make it an attractive candidate as the source Simon/Paul’s gospel. . An Assembly of Prophets The Vision of Isaiah gives a significant role not just to Isaiah himself but also to a group … Continue reading “A Simonian Origin for Christianity, Part 9: The Source of Simon/Paul’s Gospel (conclusion)”
Before continuing with the second part of my previous post I’ll post here something unexpected that I read last night. Daniel Boyarin is Taubman Professor of Talmudic Culture and rhetoric at the University of California whose views on Christian origins are not unanimously welcomed by Christian theologians. I don’t know at this stage what to … Continue reading “So some Jews did expect a suffering Messiah?”
This post was to conclude my series on Crossan’s new book, The Power of Parable, but since it is taking longer to complete than I anticipated I’ll post here only on Crossan’s treatment of the Gospels of Mark and Matthew. Luke-Acts and John can wait. The Parable Gospel According to Mark According to Crossan the … Continue reading “Gospels as Parables ABOUT Jesus: Crossan, part 3 of 4”
Crossan would never say the gospels are “only” parables about Jesus. He would say something like: “The gospels are parables about Jesus and that’s what makes them so shockingly subversive and provocatively challenging for us today. They humble our prejudicial absolutes. They remind us that Jesus can never be fully trapped by our human imagination. … Continue reading “The Gospels Are “Only Parables” ABOUT Jesus: Crossan (Part 2 of 3)”
R. (Rabbi?) Joseph Hoffmann’s “semi-sincere New Year’s resolution for 2013 is to be nicer to the mythicists”. I’m touched. He explains the reason for his semi-sincere change of heart. It is not the ghetto-dwelling buggers‘ fault for carrying diseased ideas. The fault lies with his fellow scholars who have fed them “stammering indecision, deconstruction, conspiracy-theories, … Continue reading “The Gospels Assure Us (Relatively) That the Hoffmann Jesus Is True”
AN ATTEMPT TO VIEW MARK’S PARABLES FROM THE INSIDE Samuel Sandmel, in his The Genius of Paul, made this observation: The parable of the sower in Mark (and in Matthew and Luke) is so presented in the Gospels as to have us believe that, clear as it was, the disciples did not understand it and … Continue reading “Mark’s Parables as Simonian Allegories”
Emanuel Pfoh‘s chapter in ‘Is This Not the Carpenter?’ raises the questions that I think get to the very heart of what the “historicist-mythicist” divide over Christian origins is really all about. It’s a favourite of mine, and once again like another favourite that I’ll mention again in this post, comes from an anthropological perspective. … Continue reading “Why Historical Knowledge of Jesus Is Impossible: ‘Is This Not the Carpenter?’ chapter 5”
Much New Testament scholarship has come to think that Paul did not believe Jesus was the Messiah in any sense that his contemporary Jews would have understood the word Messiah. Many Pauline scholars have concluded that for the bulk of Paul’s 270 references to Christ (Greek for Messiah) the word meant little more than a … Continue reading “Christ among the Messiahs — Part 5”