How Late Can a Gospel Be?

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?”


Date of Ascension of Isaiah (3: M.A. Knibb)

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)”


The Date of the Ascension of Isaiah (1: R. H. Charles)

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)”


The occult art of constructing the historical Jesus

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”


How Joseph was piously invented to be the “father” of 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”


Where Did John the Baptist’s Parents Come From? Reading the Gospels “with Jewish Eyes”

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””


Embarrassing failure of the criterion of embarrassment

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”


More Puns in the Gospel of Mark: People and Places

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”


Biblical Studies: Surely the Softest of Options!

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!”


Jesus Christ: Maybe BOTH names are titular? (Dunn on Price, again, too)

Christ, meaning Messiah, is, of course, not a proper name but a title, like King or High Priest. Yet Paul’s letters use Christ as if it is a proper name for Jesus. Dunn writes in response to Price (The Historical Jesus: Five Views) what is well known to all scholars: As often noted, the fact … Continue reading “Jesus Christ: Maybe BOTH names are titular? (Dunn on Price, again, too)”


Historical Jesus: two vacuous responses from Dunn on Price

Just two points from James D. G. Dunn’s response to Robert M. Price’s chapter, “Jesus at the Vanishing Point”, in The Historical Jesus: Five Views are addressed here. Maybe will address more over time in other posts. Dunn’s responses are lazy and insulting dismissals of Price’s arguments, not rebuttals based on logic or evidence, as … Continue reading “Historical Jesus: two vacuous responses from Dunn on Price”


More nonsense from biblical archaeologists: turning a Taliban text into a proclamation of human rights and dignity!

Two archaeologists, one Israeli (Israel Finkelstein) and one American (Neil Asher Silberman), have bizarrely managed to repackage a Taliban-like ancient biblical legal code into a modern enlightened expression of human rights, human liberation and social equality. Presumably this is done in order to preserve some (mythical) legitimacy for traditional claims among certain Jewish quarters that … Continue reading “More nonsense from biblical archaeologists: turning a Taliban text into a proclamation of human rights and dignity!”


Seed of David, born of woman, and mythicism

I have been recently addressing some common misconceptions about mythicist arguments. Another one is that “mythicism” places strained interpretations on passages that refer to Jesus as “the seed of David” and as being “born of a woman.” This post does not explore all the ins and outs of the arguments, but briefly points to what … Continue reading “Seed of David, born of woman, and mythicism”


How Philo might have understood Christ in the NT epistles

Philo was a Jewish philosopher in Egypt who died around 50 ce. Much of his literary work was an attempt to explain Jewish beliefs in the language of Greek (or Hellenistic) philosophers. Curiously (for us at least) he spoke of “a second God” who was a manifestation of “the High God”. This second God was … Continue reading “How Philo might have understood Christ in the NT epistles”