Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
Dr. McGrath has taken me to task for my last post on “Getting to the Root of the Criteria Problem.” Actually, he’s unhappy about several things. You can tell he’s upset, because he calls me a canard-repeatin’ mythicist. That’s like a Tea Party guy calling you an atheist-Muslim or a communist-Nazi. It’s so bad. I … Continue reading “Who’s “Rejecting Critical Inquiry”?”
Right for the wrong reasons A few years back I was on the phone with an acquaintance who is as far to the right politically as I am to the left. At the time the Democratic-led Senate was trying to push through the Affordable Care Act. So he asked me what I thought about the … Continue reading “The Parable of the Ropes — Getting to the Root of the Criteria Problem”
William Wrede’s The Messianic Secret Part 10: How Matthew and Luke changed Mark Five months have passed since my previous post on The Messianic Secret. In the interim, I have focused on material related to the genre of the gospels, which has consumed most of my attention. Recently, however, I’ve been simultaneously reading or re-reading several … Continue reading “Reading Wrede Again for the First Time (10)”
Many of us are aware of the arguments of Frank Zindler that the John the Baptist passage in Josephus is an interpolation, but we leave those aside here and look at what Rivka Nir of the Open University of Israel offers as reasons for doubting the genuineness of the John the Baptist passage in Antiquities. … Continue reading “So John the Baptist was interpolated into Josephus? One more argument for the forgery case”
Rikki Watts presents a very thorough argument in Isaiah’s New Exodus in Mark (1997) that the major themes, structure, and narrative details in the Gospel of Mark were drawn directly from the Book of Isaiah, and in particular from the last chapters of Isaiah that speak of a New Exodus for Israel from captivity to … Continue reading “The Gospel of Mark As a Fulfilment of Isaiah’s New Exodus”
Links to all posts in this series are collated at: Roger Parvus: Letters Supposedly Written by Ignatius This post continues from The (Apellean) Gospel of Peregrinus and concludes the series. TDOP = The Death of Peregrinus by Lucian. Harmon’s translation here. . In posts two through six I showed why Peregrinus should be regarded as … Continue reading “Final of “Letters Supposedly Written by Ignatius”: Tackling New Questions”
This post inaugurates what I hope will be a long-running, informative (albeit tongue-in-cheek) series. In it, we’ll attempt to shine some light on the inner workings of the New Testament scholar’s brain. There is no reason to doubt . . . New Testament scholars fall back on stock phrases when they’re pushing a weak argument, … Continue reading “How to Think and Write Like an NT Scholar: Part 1”
Hoffmann is continuing his “engagement” with mythicism. My initial thoughts on his latest post follow. Whatever else Paul was, he was the greatest revolutionary in history when it comes to the God-concept. His ideas were completely unhistorical and at odds with Jewish teaching: he finessed his disagreements into a cult that turned the vindictive God … Continue reading “Initial response to Hoffmann’s latest”
Taking a breather Since more than one person has asked me, I thought it might be best to pause in the middle of my series on Reading Wrede Again for the First Time and state the case clearly and correctly. Given the lack of scholarly comprehension surrounding the motif and Wrede’s analysis of it, I … Continue reading “What Is the Messianic Secret?”
A Gospel without Parables? We all know the standard line: the synoptic evangelists tell us that Jesus’ ministry heavily relied on parables, while the Fourth Gospel contains none. It’s a striking conundrum. However, for a long time now I’ve been considering the possibility that John is itself entirely a parable gospel. That is to say, … Continue reading “John’s Wedding at Cana — Chronicle or Parable?”
Matthias Klinghardt responded to Mark Goodacre’s 2002 book, The Case Against Q, with an article proposing a Marcionite solution to the Synoptic Problem: “The Marcionite Gospel and the Synoptic Problem: A New Suggestion” published in Novum Testamentum, 2008. For those of us who like to be reminded, here are the traditional theories on the Synoptic … Continue reading ““The Marcionite Gospel and the Synoptic Problem: A New Suggestion””
Here’s a little more on Bruno Bauer’s arguments on Gospel origins. (My recent post on Roland Boer’s discussion has put me on a little roll.) It’s a shame that more of Bauer’s works are not available at a reasonable cost in English. I take this as an indicator that scholarship in the English speaking world … Continue reading “Bruno Bauer (through Albert Schweitzer)”
This concludes my recent post on chapter 2 of Is This Not the Carpenter?, “The German Pestilence: Re-assessing Feuerbach, Strauss and Bauer” by Roland Boer. That earlier post was an overview of Roland Boer’s explanation for the emergence of radical biblical criticism in Germany in the early nineteenth century and surveyed the landmark roles of … Continue reading “Bruno Bauer and Today (“Is This Not the Carpenter?” — chapter 2)”
* Scholarly Reconstructions of the Historical Jesus . COVERED IN THIS POST: Consensus scholarly views of the historical Jesus The tyranny of the Gospels What Q does not tell us about an historical Jesus How New Testament scholarship operates Conflicting scholarly views about who and what Jesus was Finding Jesus in the Q prophets An … Continue reading “31. Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism – Part 31 (Scholarly Reconstructions of HJ)”