Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
David Fitzgerald‘s essay, Ten Beautiful Lies About Jesus, that received an Honorable Mention in the 2010 Mythicist Prize contest has been expanded into a book, Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Showed Jesus Never Existed At All. The book is clearly a hit: Nailed continues to garner more fans and accolades, and generate cranky hate mail. … Continue reading “David Fitzgerald responds to Tim O’Neill’s review of Nailed”
First the caveats. I do not like a lot about both of the mainstream political parties in Australia. I believe both parties have enacted some legislation that has caused bitter damage to some peoples’ lives. But I do like a lot of people who strongly support or are even members of those political parties. The … Continue reading “What I don’t like about “liberal” Christianity”
6th August: expanded “the trial” comparison into “The face to face confrontation of secular and religious leaders“ Comparing other rabbinic midrash with the Gospels In my previous post I covered Galit Hasan-Rokem’s comparisons of some early Christian and rabbinic midrash. In this post I comment on Hasan-Rokem’s discussions of other tales in the midrash of … Continue reading “Messiahs, Midrash and Mythemes — more comparisons with the Gospels”
Corrected and updated — Neil Godfrey, 1:15 pm 30th July 2011 Comment by Steven Carr — 2011/07/29 It is interesting to see how mainstream scholars are edging towards mythicist ideas. http://nearemmaus.com/2011/07/28/the-future-of-historical-jesus-studies/ ‘The old idea that exalted epithets such as “Son of God” or “Son of the Most High” applied to Jesus reflect Greco-Roman thinking, rather … Continue reading “The Messiah in the Dead Sea Scrolls — how like the Gospel Messiah”
In response to Dr James McGrath’s post on Mythicism and Peer Review Earl Doherty wrote the following: Jim, you are a piece of work. I only wish that your mindless animosity toward the idea that, just possibly, the Christian record could represent something which two thousand years of hidebound and confessionally-driven tradition could never have … Continue reading “Mythicism and Peer Review”
A Jewish professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Galit Hasan-Rokem, has argued that the Gospels grew out of a Jewish folklore-midrashic tradition. The Gospels are not written as folklore so there are obvious differences. And midrash has a variety of applications, but in general it is a Jewish approach interpretations of the scriptures that … Continue reading “Birth and Death of the Messiah: Two Jewish Midrash Tales”
In my previous post I quoted John Taylor where he referenced chapter 5 of Dionysus: Myth and Cult by Walter Friedrich Otto. That chapter is titled “The God Who Comes”. It is about this distinctive characteristic of the god Dionysus — that, unlike other gods, he comes to mankind visibly, that is, “in the flesh”. … Continue reading “The God Who Comes”
I thought I had nailed the reason for Luke’s choice of Emmaus (Luke 24:23-35) as the destination of the two disciples after the crucifixion when I posted on The Origin and Meaning of the Emmaus Road Narrative in Luke. That explanation hinged on Codex Bezae containing the original word, Oulammaus, and that led to the … Continue reading “Another reason for the walk to Emmaus: looking for the wrong kind of deliverance”
I’ve been catching up (thanks Mary) with other blog posts addressing atheism, in particular the New Atheists and their strident criticism of religion, in particular those appearing in response to R. Joseph Hoffmann’s views and posts by Stephanie L. Fisher. One that has particularly caught my attention, along with its related comments, is The Irrationality … Continue reading “The need to challenge liberal religion as well as fundamentalism”
The introduction of Thomas L. Thompson’s and Thomas Verenna’s edited volume, Is This Not the Carpenter?A Question of Historicity has been published on The Bible and Interpretation. The first essential step in any historical inquiry This is a heartening introduction to the essential basics of valid historical methodology that has been very fudgy in the … Continue reading ““Is This Not the Carpenter? The Question of the Historicity of the Figure of Jesus”
Continuing from my previous post, this time I’m outlining Spong’s overview of the distinctive way the Gospel of Luke portrays Jesus. Bishop John Shelby Spong himself is renowned for his views on inclusiveness — that the Church should not discriminate against anyone for any role because of their gender or sexuality. In the Gospel of … Continue reading “Jesus the New Elijah, and the Gospel Being a Symbolic Tale According to a Scholarly View”
One might fault my previous post on the grounds that the problem Paul was addressing among the churches of the Galatians did not require him to address anything apart from the simple fact of the death and resurrection of Jesus. (Well, I at least faulted it for that reason.) This post attempts to demonstrate that … Continue reading “What Jesus Christ Meant to Paul and the Thessalonians”
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!”
Laziness is common among historians. When they find a continuous account of events for a certain period in an ‘ancient’ source, one that is not necessarily contemporaneous with the events , they readily adopt it. They limit their work to paraphrasing the source, or, if needed, to rationalisation. — Liverani, Myth and politics in ancient Near … Continue reading “Naivety and laziness in biblical historiography (Nehemiah case study 5)”