Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
This is a continuation of my earlier post on the Nazarenes. As with that earlier post, this is primarily preparation to for adding articles to my vridar.info site. Maybe I was just unlucky, but it was not easy for me to find an online translation of the relevant passage by Epiphanius, Panarion 29. So hopefully … Continue reading “Earliest Nazarenes: Evidence of Epiphanius”
René Salm discusses Nazareth and Nazarenes, James and Paul, Christianity and Buddhism, and Ventures Old and New René Salm is best known for his publication The Myth of Nazareth: the Invented Town of Jesus that reviews the state of the archaeological evidence for the existence of Nazareth at the supposed time of Jesus. I first … Continue reading “Interview with René Salm”
Interview with Earl Doherty — 2011/04/02 Sifting a historical Paul from a nonhistorical Jesus — 2011/04/04 A James McGrath–Earl Doherty exchange — 2011/04/05 Earl Doherty’s antidotes for a James McGrath menu — 2011/04/23 Continuing Earl Doherty’s antidotes . . . #7 – #12 — 2011/04/24 Earl Doherty’s concluding responses to James McGrath’s menu of answers for … Continue reading “Earl Doherty’s posts“
Professor of History and Literature of Early Christianity at Georg-August-University Göttingen, and director of the Institute of Early Christian Studies, Dr Gerd Lüdemann, concludes an essay published in 2010 with this sentence: In short, Paul cannot be considered a reliable witness to either the teachings, the life, or the historical existence of Jesus. (“Paul as … Continue reading “Paul as a Witness to the Historical Jesus: Gerd Ludemann”
Marcion was one of the favourite heretics of the second century that “proto-orthodox” Church Fathers like Justin, Irenaeus and Tertullian loved to hate. His “heresy” posed a serious rival to other forms of Christianity, claiming followers from Syria and across Asia Minor (the main base) through to Italy and North Africa. The distinctive marks of … Continue reading “Marcion’s rules for “Mutilating” the Gospel of Luke”
Would it not be wonderful if our Gospels were all signed and dated so there could be no debates about who wrote them or when? The hermeneutic of charity would rule and only the hypersceptical and “minimalists” would entertain any doubts. Well, there is one gospel that is signed, addressed and dated. It was written … Continue reading “How Late Can a Gospel Be?”
This post looks at M. A. Knibb’s discussion of the date of the Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah. It is taken from The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (v.2) edited by James H. Charlesworth, published 1985. I will skip here Knibb’s discussion of the various component parts that are generally thought to have been stitched together to … Continue reading “Date of Ascension of Isaiah (3: M.A. Knibb)”
Earl Doherty discusses the Ascension of Isaiah’s relevance for his case that some early Christians thought of the Christ’s activity occurring entirely in a non-earthly realm. So the date of the document is significant. I had hoped to include with the following notes from R. H. Charles some discussions on dating found in more recent … Continue reading “The Date of the Ascension of Isaiah (1: R. H. Charles)”
While I was a believer I was fascinated by speculations that someone well-read in the Bible might conjure up by linking verses together in a way that no-one seemed to have thought of before. For example, someone might “prove” that Jesus was a well-to-do middle-class businessman by noting that he seemed to have a particular … Continue reading “The occult art of constructing the historical Jesus”
This post continues from the previous one about John the Baptist’s parents. It’s a sharing of my reading of John Shelby Spong’s Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Bible with Jewish Eyes . . .. I covered in that earlier post the rationale for searching the Old Testament scriptures for an understanding of the Gospel author’s … Continue reading “How Joseph was piously invented to be the “father” of Jesus”
The names of the parents of both Jesus and John the Baptist were arguably created from the imaginations of the Gospel authors working on Old Testament passages for inspiration. The names were fabricated because of the theological messages they conveyed. There is no evidence to indicate that they were handed down from historical memory. This … Continue reading “Where Did John the Baptist’s Parents Come From? Reading the Gospels “with Jewish Eyes””
So I hear from commenters that a new foray into demolishing mythicism has been launched by James McGrath with yet one more account of the “criterion of embarrassment”. The curious — yet tedious — thing about this is that while McGrath in particular has faulted mythicists for (supposedly) failing to engage with the scholarship on … Continue reading “Embarrassing failure of the criterion of embarrassment”
This post will be a companion piece to my earlier The Twelve Disciples: their names, name-meanings, associations, etc. That post was based on the thoughts of Dale and Patricia Miller, Robert M. Price and Albert Ehrman. This post draws on both the scholarship and imagination of Paul Nadim Tarazi in his book on Paul and … Continue reading “More Puns in the Gospel of Mark: People and Places”
Jesus was born in Israel, into an observant Jewish family. . . . His father was Joseph, called after a major patriarch who ruled over Egypt under the Pharaoh. Jesus’ mother was Miriam, whom we call Mary, so she was called after Moses’ sister. Jesus’ own name, Iesous in our Greek Gospels, is the Greek … Continue reading “Biblical Studies: Surely the Softest of Options!”