Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
Continuing my notes from Tyson’s Marcion and Luke-Acts: A Defining Struggle . . . . Tertullian’s entire fourth book attacking Marcion is a comparison of Marcion’s gospel with canonical Luke. Marcion’s opponents never accused Marcion of adding to the Gospel of Luke, but only of omitting sections and changing the wording in places. Knox compared … Continue reading “Marcion’s Gospel, its character and contents”
Following is an attempt to explain the mixed messages given the role of Peter in the post-resurrection narratives of the canonical gospels. It argues that Peter first met the resurrected Jesus, as per 1 Corinthians 15:5, some time after the writing of the gospels of Mark and Matthew but just prior to Luke’s gospel — … Continue reading “When did Peter first see the resurrected Jesus?”
Spong in his new book, Jesus for the Non-Religious: Recovering the Divine at the Heart of the Human (2007), lists four reasons that he claims leave no doubt about the historicity of Jesus: No “person setting out to create a mythical character would [ever] suggest that he hailed from the village of Nazareth . . … Continue reading “(revised) Spong on Jesus’ historicity: John the Baptist and the Crucifixion”
I am not sure if Bishop John Shelby Spong believes in god (he speaks of a “god experience”, and of atheism as being defined as not believing in a “theistic definition of god”, which definition he also rejects) but he does believe in Jesus. This, according to his new book, Jesus for the Non-Religious: Recovering … Continue reading “Spong on Jesus’ historicity: The Nazareth connection”
16. Papias on John A second (hitherto unknown) inner circle In this chapter Bauckham argues that the author of the Gospel of John was John the Elder, and that it was this John who was the Beloved Disciple (BD). He begins by comparing the Synoptic “sources” with John’s. He reminds us that it was Peter, … Continue reading “Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Chapter 16”
(forgive tardy responses to some comments on earlier entries — will get there soon) A Comparison with Luke-Acts Bauckham continues to search for ways to treat the Gospel of John’s witness motif as something other than a metaphor: He interprets the reference to “from the beginning” in Luke’s Prologue to eyewitnesses being “with Jesus” from … Continue reading “Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Chapter 15b”
8. Anonymous Persons in Mark’s Passion Narrative I enjoyed Backham’s opening paragraph. Until reading this I had not had opportunity to discover some of the more detailed reasons scholars have wondered if the Passion Narrative pre-existed independently before being incorporated into Mark’s gospel. It is logical to conclude that if an author writes the bulk … Continue reading “Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Chapter 8”
Revised last paragraph about an hour after first posting this. In my previous post I commented that the Gospel of Mark is the least “petrine” of the gospels doctrinally. I have since turned to chapter 7 to find I must clear my mind of that presumption and reassess Mark’s extent of “petrine-ness” and read with … Continue reading “Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Chapter 7”
Symbolic Status & Authoritative Status Having passed over any need to argue that the Twelve really were an entity selected by Jesus B proceeds to explain the symbolic and prophetic significance of this group, symbolic of the hope of restoration of an idealized Israel, and prophetic of what God was doing through Jesus.
3. Names in the Gospel Traditions In this chapter Bauckham discusses the names in the Gospels apart from those of the Twelve and of the public figures, proposing that they were eyewitnesses of the “traditions” to which their names are attached and that they continued to live as authoritative living witnesses to guarantee the veracity … Continue reading “Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Chapter 3”
Chapter 2: Papias on the Eyewitnesses Bauckham begins with a discussion of Papias apparently to verify the historicity of his eyewitness model: — That eyewitnesses of Jesus provided a living source and confirmation of the oral reports circulating about Jesus; and that the earliest written accounts of Jesus (Papias’s book, and therefore plausibly the gospels, … Continue reading “Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Chapter 2a”
For those like me who end up going in circles trying to follow the studies of the Gospel of Mark by authors with theological interests, reading a literary criticism of GMark by a trained and renowned literary critic, Frank Kermode, will be a refreshingly stabilizing experience. Kermode himself writes of this failure of biblical (implying … Continue reading “Interpreting Mark like any other work of literature”