Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
In the first post we cited ancient authors on the meaning of myth. Two more authors that M. David Litwa cites: A fable (mythos) is a fictitious story giving an image of truth . . . Aelius Theon, 1st C CE (Kennedy 2003. Progymnasmata) A myth aims at being a false tale, resembling a true … Continue reading “Review, pt 1b: How the Gospels Became History / Litwa”
We know that the gospels contain many stories that are based on Old Testament narratives. Jesus raising Jairus’s daughter is clearly developed on similar miracles by Elijah and Elisha; Jesus stilling the storm has rewoven core elements of the story of Jonah; the miraculous birth of Jesus finds its mirror opposites in the miraculous births … Continue reading “Meaning of Midrash (Are the Gospels Midrash?)”
Have recent posts here about two “son of man” sayings of Jesus missed their mark (claiming to be references to Daniel 7) if the term “son of man” was simply a common way for a speaker to refer to himself? Vermes argued that, in addition to being a normal term for “man”, the Aramaic bar … Continue reading “Is “Son of Man” in the Gospels a mere idiom for “I”, the speaker?”
The background to the following post is The Gospel of John as a form of Jewish Messianism? (Part 2). It presumes some awareness of how in some Jewish quarters Daniel 7’s Son of Man was being interpreted in a way that led to controversial Jewish texts like the Similitudes of Enoch and the Gospel of … Continue reading “How the Gospel of Mark Retrofitted Jesus into a Pre-Existing Christ Idea”
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)”
Tomas Hägg (The Art of Biography in Antiquity) rightly notes that the four canonical gospels give us “four distinctive, if overlapping literary representations of Jesus.” Yet comparatively little seems to have been written from a literary point of view to define by what means of characterization these four portraits emerge, and what the main characteristics … Continue reading “Jesus at Thirty: Four Canonical Portraits (Evolution of the Gospels as Biographies, 3)”
Is it possible that our canonical gospels, even the apparently pioneering Gospel of Mark, were really composed well into the second century? The possibility has been argued by a few and I don’t discount it. I often find myself suspecting it is true although very often for the sake of argument I will assume that at … Continue reading “Aesop, Guide to a Very Late Date for the Gospels?”
[Edit: When first published, this post credited Michael Bird instead of Michael Licona for this book. I can’t explain it, other than a total brain-fart, followed by the injudicious use of mass find-and-replace. My apologies to everyone. –Tim] We have to dig deep to find something nice to say about Michael R. Licona’s new book, Why … Continue reading “Michael Licona Asks, “Why Are There Differences in the Gospels?””
With the gospels in mind and thinking of them (for sake of argument) as biographical accounts of Jesus, how can we know if an ancient biography is about a genuinely historical person or if it is about a fictional character? Let’s leave aside for now the claims of postmodernists who argue that there is no essential difference … Continue reading “One Difference Between a “True” Biography and a Fictional (Gospel?) Biography”
I skip ahead to the fourth paper of the first day of the Memory and the Reception of Jesus in Early Christianity Conference (10th-11th June 2016, St Mary’s University): “The Reception of Jesus in the Gospel of John” by Helen Bond I will return in the next post to the third and the discussion following. … Continue reading “How the Gospel of John Uses and Completes the Gospel of Mark”
In our last post, we discussed the genre of the gospels. We saw that Bart Ehrman, at least for this book (Jesus Before the Gospels), chooses to gloss over the issue of genre, and simply assumes that the gospels contain memories of the historical Jesus. Of course, he concedes that those memories may be distorted. … Continue reading “Bart Ehrman: Jesus Before the Gospels, Basic Element 5: Memory Distortion”
In the previous post, we looked at the basic element of form criticism. Bart Ehrman in Jesus Before the Gospels uses the findings of the form critics to explain a commonly held assumption in NT scholarship. Many, if not most, of today’s critical scholars believe the stories found in our canonical gospels survived orally over a … Continue reading “Bart Ehrman: Jesus Before the Gospels, Basic Element 3: Oral Tradition”
In my previous post, I discussed the basic element of Bart Ehrman’s understanding of Maurice Halbwachs, the founder of the study of collective memory. This time, I’d like to focus on his remarks concerning Formgeschichte (form criticism) as it applies to the New Testament in general and memory theory in particular. Basic Element 2: Form Criticism [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8lT1o0sDwI] … Continue reading “Bart Ehrman: Jesus Before the Gospels, Basic Element 2: Form Criticism”
Nearly a year ago, while reading Bart Ehrman’s blog, I became aware that he was writing a book on memory. That news gave me no joy. My sense of unease, if not distress, did not diminish even when he said he had spent practically all of his spare time for two years reading up on the subject, … Continue reading “Bart Ehrman: Jesus Before the Gospels, Basic Element 1: Maurice Halbwachs”