I took time out last night to follow up a comment left on Vridar and listen to Derek Lambert’s MythVision interview with Tim O’Neill, author of the blog History for Atheists. If one sets aside the revealing psychological portrait that emerges from the incidental comments O’Neill lets drop about himself throughout the interview and focuses … Continue reading “Bad History for Atheists (1) — Louis Feldman on Justin’s Trypho and “proving Jesus existed””
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Continuing from Part 1 and Part 2 . . . All the same notes apply re my modifications of some sections of the translation, additional notes and hyperlinks. 3. Tacitus and Josephus The information we get from Ehrman about Tacitus and the Testimonium Taciteum, which he highly values, on 2 (two!) pages of the book is … Continue reading “Prof. “Errorman” and the non-Christian sources — Part 3: Tacitus and Josephus”
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Continuing from Part 1. . . I have modified the translation in a few places to make it flow easier and to iron out some obscurities. The original German review is linked at the end of the post. All hyperlinks and notes in the “*see also” inset box are my additions, as also are the … Continue reading “Prof. “Errorman” and the non-Christian sources — Part 2: Pliny’s Letter”
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Free for all who are interested: Sage publishers have made one of their recently published articles open access: Méndez, H. (2020). “Did the Johannine Community Exist?” Journal for the Study of the New Testament, 42(3), 350–374. https://doi.org/10.1177/0142064X19890490 Speaking of devils, the same themes of false (literary) communities and false witnesses (Beloved Disciple) have been addressed … Continue reading “Once More: The Fictions of the Beloved Disciple and Johannine Community”
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I discuss here my reading of Chapter 5 of Raphael Lataster’s Questioning the Historicity of Jesus. Here he looks at the problematic nature of the gospels and extra-biblical sources for Jesus. Lataster discusses how historical Jesus scholars attempt to get around the problem that there are no primary sources for a historical Jesus. This absence … Continue reading “Review part 5: Questioning the Historicity of Jesus / Lataster (Case for Agnosticism – 2, Sources)”
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We return here to the question of the Testimonium Flavianum, the passage about Jesus found in our copies of Antiquities of the Jews by the first century Jewish historian Josephus. Not many years back Earl Doherty wrote for this blog: Trypho Finally, there is the question of what is meant by Trypho’s remark in Justin’s … Continue reading “Justin Martyr Answers a Second Century Jesus Christ Mythicist”
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What if the Testimonium Flavianum, the passage about Jesus and his followers, in Antiquities by Josephus was written in full (or maybe with the exception of no more than 3 words) by Josephus? I know that would raise many questions about the nature of the rest of our sources but let’s imagine the authenticity of … Continue reading “Imagine No Interpolations”
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Of special interest to many readers are questions over the authenticity of passages about Jesus and John the Baptist in Josephus’s Antiquities. We know the tell-tales signs that a passage has been inserted into Josephus’s Antiquities: It breaks the narrative flow of the surrounding passage; It contradicts what is known about information from other sources … Continue reading “Interpolations in Josephus’s Antiquities of the Jews“
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When did Peter first see the resurrected Jesus? 2007-09-16 The Emmaus road narrative features as a core part of 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 … Continue reading “Emmaus Road / Cleopas Posts“
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After Tim’s recent post Unclear Origins and Etymology of Kleopas and noticing readers’ interest related to the subject I thought some of us might be interested in a complete list of Vridar posts on the Emmaus Road narrative. Here they are, all 18 of them, annotated. When did Peter first see the resurrected Jesus? 2007-09-16 The Emmaus … Continue reading “18 Vridar Posts on the Gospel of Luke’s Emmaus Road / Cleopas Narrative”
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Earl Doherty, author the The Jesus Puzzle website, The Jesus Puzzle and Jesus Neither God Nor Man and other books, and contributor to The Journal of Higher Criticism, made his “public appearance” on a biblical scholars forum on Tuesday, the 9th of February, 1999: Crosstalk. In the light of some unfortunate mischaracterizations of the tone … Continue reading “The Day Earl Doherty (author of ‘The Jesus Puzzle’) Personally Entered the Global Forum”
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An email update this morning informs me that linguist Paul Hopper has uploaded to his academia.edu page another copy of his earlier paper, A Narrative Anomaly in Josephus: Jewish Antiquities xviii:631, that was published in 2014 in Linguisitics and Literary Studies. There is now a new link to the paper. The paper is a few … Continue reading “A Narrative Anomaly in Josephus”
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Josephus does, in Jewish Antiquities, have two passages on the emergence of Christianity and the persecution of its followers, involving Jewish jurisdiction, but both are suspected of being interpolations. (Efron 1987, p. 333) Warning: this post addresses a small section of a work by Jewish scholar, Joshua Efron, Studies on the Hasmonean Period, that was … Continue reading “6 More Reasons to Question Josephus’ “James the brother of Jesus” passage”
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The following is a write up from notes I took at the time of my first listening to the debate supplemented by a second listening earlier today. So there will be more detail than in with my summary of Ehrman’s opener. If anyone thinks I have been unfair to Ehrman then let me know and … Continue reading “Ehrman-Price Debate #2: Price’s Opening Address”
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