Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
Recently Bart Ehrman debated Michael Bird the question of how Jesus became God. Just as he had written in his book How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee Erhman argued that the earliest devotees of Jesus viewed him as a normal man, a human messiah, who had been exalted to become God’s … Continue reading “Is Ehrman’s Pre-Pauline Quotation an Anti-Marcionite Interpolation?”
Scot McKnight is an American New Testament scholar, historian of early Christianity, theologian, speaker, author and blogger who has written widely on the historical Jesus, early Christianity, the emerging church and missional church movements, spiritual formation and Christian living. He is currently Professor of New Testament at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary in Lombard, IL. McKnight is … Continue reading “We are not historians; we are Christians — (“I know what you mean, but don’t say it like that!”)”
Recently an interesting collation of observations on thematic and literary similarities between New Testament narratives and wider Greek literature was posted by commenter John MacDonald. I’ve set his points out again here (with only slight editing) for those interested. (John’s more complete comment can be read here.) Some of the parallels are actually less to … Continue reading “New Testament in the Greek Literary Matrix”
When magician Ricky Jay performs an amazing card trick, people will often ask, “How do you do that?” He always answers, “Very well, thank you.” Such masters of prestidigitation rarely, if ever, give away their secrets. Sometimes they take their arcane methods with them to the grave, leaving even their fellow conjurers to wonder for eternity, “How did … Continue reading “The Memory Mavens, Part 8: Chris Keith, Post-Criteria Scholar? (1)”
Let me be transparent from the outset: the authors of the Gospels did not imitate Vergil’s Latin epic. . . . [Rather] the Evangelist was aware of the Aeneid and shaped his book to rival it. The affinities between Luke and Vergil thus pertain to genre or, better, to narrative structure and development, not to imitations … Continue reading “Acts and Virgil’s Aeneid: comparison and influence”
Recently, David Ashton commented here on Vridar: May I annoy our totalitarian mythicists even further by suggesting that Paul, also a real person, experienced a reparative hallucination, precisely because of a pre-crucifixion hostility to Jesus and his activists, although he may not have engaged Jesus in debate or observed him directly in person. Jacob Aron … Continue reading “Did Paul See a Fireball on the Road to Damascus?”
Happily for at least a couple of scholars* Matthew Baldwin has posted on his blog eschata an argument that Richard Carrier’s case against the historicity of Jesus is flawed at its very foundations. His post is A Short Note on Carrier’s “Minimal Historicism”. I would be happily surprised, however, if I ever see a scholar … Continue reading “Problems Accepting Carrier’s Argument”
I recently completed Michael J. Kok’s exploration of why the Gospel of Mark came to be associated with the apostle Peter and included in our canon despite appearing at first glance to be little more than a synopsis of the other gospels and little used by the early church according to the extant records, and … Continue reading “Why Is the Gospel of Mark in the New Testament?”
Professor Stevan Davies has re-published his book Jesus the Healer under a new and probably more appropriate title, Spirit Possession and the Origins of Christianity, a new introduction on the pentecostal origins of the Christian movement (including an account for comparative purposes of the origins of modern pentecostalism since 1906) and added a couple of … Continue reading “Evidence for a Pre-Christian “Christianity”?”
The cakemix explodes Reacting to Dr. Richard Carrier’s recent article over at The Bible and Interpretation website, the beloved Doctor of Whoville, James McGrath has offered up yet another dog’s breakfast of red herrings and dead horses. (How’s that for a mixed-metaphor gumbo?) Carrier will likely respond fully to McGrath’s post, especially the headache-inducing section in … Continue reading “Comparing Paul’s Epistles to Augustine’s Letters”
Long distance runaround In several of Bart Ehrman’s books on the New Testament, he likens the transmission of traditions about Jesus’ words and deeds to the old telephone game, or as our friends in the Commonwealth call it, Chinese whispers (now often considered offensive). He refers to this model in his lectures, too, telling it roughly … Continue reading “Is Oral Tradition Like the Old Telephone Game?”
Maurice Casey (Jesus: Evidence and Argument Or Mythicist Myths?) critiques Thomas L. Thompson’s The Messiah Myth without giving his readers any idea of its stated purpose or overall argument. I suspect Casey himself did not know what it was about and could not explain its argument if he tried since he had made up his … Continue reading “Maurice Casey’s Mind “Boggles” Reading Thomas L. Thompson’s Messiah Myth“
Maurice has handed in a problematic essay assignment. Continuing from after school Monday . . . . . Come in Maurice. Sit down here and we’ll continue to go through your essay and hopefully you’ll understand what you need to do for your next effort. Show me the work I set you to complete last … Continue reading “Maurice the Pedant Learns Five More Lessons — Tuesday”
[Observant readers will recall that we tackled this subject once before in When Is Paul’s Silence Golden?] Ad hoc soup The standard historicist response to the question of Paul’s silence on the historical Jesus relies heavily on Freudian Kettle Logic — to wit, “(1) Paul did mention Jesus quite a bit; (2) We shouldn’t be surprised that Paul didn’t mention Jesus very … Continue reading “Casey: Taking Context out of Context”