Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
In Jesus Interrupted Bart Ehrman describes his first encounter with people who believed Jesus never existed. Some people from Sweden had emailed him to ask if it were true that he thought Jesus was a myth. Ehrman describes his reaction: I thought this was an odd question. (p. 140) Bart Ehrman then comes very close … Continue reading “Bart Ehrman’s failed attempt to address mythicism”
Updated 5 hours after posting to expand Schweitzer quote. The approach I like to take is one I learned from the way historians (certainly many of them at any rate) investigate other topics, whether in modern, medieval or ancient times. I have used the example of Alexander the Great before, so for convenience I use … Continue reading “Another way to study Christian origins”
If you follow the “it is ignorant to say there is no evidence for the HJ” discussion on Debunking Christianity you have already read most of what I post here. John Loftus kicks things off with his OP in which he says: I want to put to rest the ignorant claim that “There is no … Continue reading “Who says, “There is no evidence for the historical Jesus” ?”
Added two concluding paragraphs 2 hours after original posting, along with typo corrections. In the first section of the Jesus Neither God Nor Man Earl Doherty had in part argued that the early Christian correspondence is silent on ethical teachings from Jesus, Jesus’ apocalyptic predictions and Jesus’ calling of apostles during an earthly ministry. In … Continue reading “Jesus’ life in eclipse: Reviewing chapter 6 of Doherty’s Jesus Neither God Nor Man”
Or more specifically, what was the state of play around five years ago when Research Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Theology at Liberty University, Gary R. Habermas, had a chapter published in The Resurrection of Jesus: John Dominic Crossan and N. T. Wright in Dialogue? Habermas outlines four broad positions … Continue reading “What do biblical scholars make of the resurrection?”
Sara Mandell and David Noel Freedman give us some valuable tips on how to read the pagan Greek work of “History” by Herodotus much of the biblical history of Israel (Genesis to 2 Kings) and the Gospels in their 1993 volume The Relationship Between Herodotus’ History and Primary History (Genesis to 2 Kings). Among several … Continue reading “How to Read the Gospels”
Let’s cut to the chase. If all you have are the gospels then what can you say about the historicity of Jesus? If all we have is a story that has no corroboration external to the narrative itself to attest to its historical status, then at the most basic level we have no way of … Continue reading “When all you have is a story what can you say about history?”
Following on here from my earlier post. As noted in my previous post, Matthew and Luke inform us directly that the miracles of Jesus were for the purpose of identifying Jesus as the Messiah in accordance with the prophecies in Isaiah. We may, if we wish, speculate that there really were a set of healings … Continue reading “Jesus was not a healer (2)”
Dale Allison concludes his book Constructing Jesus with a discussion of the intent of the gospel authors. Did the gospel authors themselves think that they were writing real history or did they think they were writing metaphorical narratives, parables or allegories? Allison refers to Marcus Borg and others (e.g. Robert Gundry, John Dominic Crossan, Robert … Continue reading “How many stories in the gospels are “purely metaphorical”?”
Understanding the nature of a text is a significant factor in knowing how to interpret it and how to use it as historical evidence. Many scholars today, following Burridge, accept that the Gospel of Mark is a biography of the life of Jesus. The Gospel of Mark is widely considered to be the first written … Continue reading “Second thoughts on the Gospel of Mark as Biography”
If the Old Testament books were not written before the Hellenistic era as a number of scholars have argued and as I have posted about for some years now, why would their authors have chosen a very favourable Persian empire as the narrative setting of the restoration of Judea after the Babylonian exile? We know … Continue reading “Why the Bible Gives Persia Such Good Press: a Hellenistic Perspective”
Having surveyed what the archaeological evidence tells us about religious practices of the Judeans in Elephantine (see the previous post) let’s now compare the evidence for Judah and Samaria in the same period. This time I am quoting only two sources, a chapter by Reinhard G. Kratz in A Companion to the Achaemenid Empire and … Continue reading “Judah and Samaria in Persian Times — the Evidence (and a way out of a quandary)”
This post continues a series I began with The Hebrew Bible – Composed only 300 years before Christ In my opening post setting out the initial grounds for thinking that the biblical literature was no older than 300 BCE I noted with only minimal explanation that the current mainstream view of the far greater antiquity … Continue reading “Most Ways of Dating the Old Testament Older than 300 BCE are Flawed”
I have often tried to point out how historians as a rule have very different standards and methods for verifying past events from those we too often find among Bible scholars writing about Christian origins and Jesus himself. Two statements of “non-biblical” historians I have quoted in the past epitomize the divide between the two … Continue reading “Not All Historians Are Equal”