Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
A New York Times commentary piece titled: American Jews who Reject Zionism . . . So they still exist! Last I read about them was in Chaim Potok’s novel, The Chosen. Excerpt: Until Theodore Herzl created the modern Zionist movement early in the 20th century, the biblical injunction to return to Israel was widely understood … Continue reading “Jewish return to Palestine is a relic akin to animal sacrifice”
Comparing Modern and Biblical “Histories” The idea of history as a scholarly attempt to explain “what really happened in the past” is a relatively young European invention. The “first modern historian” is said to be Edward Gibbon (his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was published 1770’s-1780’s); the acknowledged founder of … Continue reading “The Bible’s “Historical” Writings: Histories or Historical Novels or . . .?”
“The narrative of the Fourth Gospel is a synthesis of two distinct stories — the cosmological tale and the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth — into one coherent narrative.” (Jo-Ann A. Brant, Divine Birth and Apparent Parents: The Plot of the Fourth Gospel, in Ancient Fiction and Early Christian Narrative.) The following notes, … Continue reading “Novelistic plot and motifs in the Gospel of John”
The following notes are taken from pages 74-76 of Mary Ann Tolbert’s Sowing the Gospel: Mark’s World in Literary-Historical Perspective (1989). A wonderful collection of ancient novels can be found in Reardon’s Collected Ancient Greek Novels (1989). Chariton, Xenophon of Ephesus, Achilles Tatius, Longus and others make fascinating reading as they bring us closer to … Continue reading “Ancient Novels and the Gospels”
Previous installments: How and Why the Gospel of Mark Used Scripture — a review of Writing with Scripture, part 1 Creating New Stories from Scripture — a review of Writing with Scripture, part 2 To What Shall We Compare the Gospels? — a review of Writing with Scripture, part 3 Nathanael Vette (NV) is demonstrating … Continue reading “Creating Pseudo-History (and Comedy) from Scripture — a review of Writing with Scripture, part 4”
The focus of my response will center on Carrier’s claim that a pre-Christian angel named Jesus existed, his understanding of Jesus as a non-human and celestial figure within the Pauline corpus, his argument that Paul understood Jesus to be crucified by demons and not by earthly forces, his claim that James, the brother of the … Continue reading “Gullotta’s Misleading Portrayal of Carrier’s Argument (Gospels Myth or Remembered History? – Part 1)”
Genre can be a highly fluid concept. In studies of Gospels I’ve noticed that discussions of genre sometimes overlap with intertextuality. Moreover, we may conclude that an ancient narrative belongs to the genre “history”, but once we learn what “history” could mean to the ancients we quickly move into discussions about the place of fictional … Continue reading “Genre of Gospels, Acts and OT Primary History: INDEX“
Until recently I have had little interest in arguments that our apparently earliest written gospel, the Gospel of Mark, was composed as an attempt to teach the ideas of Paul as found in his letters. After reading Mark, Canonizer of Paul by Tom Dykstra I am now more sympathetic to the possibility that the author of this gospel … Continue reading “Mark, Canonizer of Paul”
Genre can be a highly fluid concept. In studies of Gospels I’ve noticed that discussions of genre sometimes overlap with intertextuality. Moreover, we may conclude that an ancient narrative belongs to the genre “history”, but once we learn what “history” could mean to the ancients we quickly move into discussions about the place of fictional … Continue reading “Genre of Gospels, Acts and OT Primary History: INDEX”
Some New Testament scholars have difficulty with the term “midrash”. Goulder stopped using it because of this, though his student Spong has not followed his lead here. I continue to use the term as generally as Spong does because Jewish scholars themselves, especially a number who are specialists in midrashic and Jewish literary studies, use … Continue reading “Why Gospel Fiction was Written as Gospel Truth — a plausible explanation”
This continues the previous post on Jesus: An Historian’s Review of the Gospels by Michael Grant. Why two posts on this? Since some New Testament scholars point to Michael Grant as evidence that academics outside biblical studies employ the same methods and reach the same conclusions about the historicity of Jesus as they do, won’t … Continue reading “The Historical Jesus and the Demise of History, 3b: How One Popular Historian Follows Jesus to Historiographical Perdition (Part 2)”
Continuing from Historical Method versus Jesus Research: Chapter 2 of Jesus, Criteria and the Demise of Authenticity. . . . Jens Schröter reminds us of flaws with the criteria approach to find the historical Jesus. They encapsulate what I have covered in my posts on Chris Keith’s chapter one: Criteria were designed as a tool … Continue reading “Take Two: Chapter 2 of Jesus, Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity”
* Mythicist Claim Three: The Gospels Are Interpretive Paraphrases of the OT . COVERED IN THIS POST: The Gospels constructed out of scriptural midrash Jesus’ passion modelled on a traditional Jewish story The Gospel of the Old Testament according to Robert Price The Gospel Jesus as a new Moses A Jesus miracle modelled on Elijah … Continue reading “24. Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism – Part 24”
This is a first on Vridar. I am repeating a post. The following I originally published 4th November 2011 under the title, Bart Ehrman’s Failed Attempt to Address Mythicism. But given that the hot topic of the moment is Bart Ehrman’s more dedicated attempt to discredit mythicism I beg for understanding and forgiveness. . In … Continue reading “Bart Ehrman’s First Attempt to Grapple with Mythicism”