Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
In the last installment, we covered oral tradition. As I look over the post now, I see that I missed several opportunities to add the adjective, “rich.” Biblical scholars love to write the words “rich oral tradition.” How, you may ask, do they know such details about something based mostly on conjecture? Watch out! If you keep asking questions like … Continue reading “Bart Ehrman: Jesus Before the Gospels, Basic Element 4: Genre”
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”
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”
A few pebbles dropped (by Michael Bird, James McGrath, Anthony Le Donne and Brant Pitre) into the pond of bible studies blogs alerting me to a new book by Brant Pitre, Professor of Sacred Scripture at Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans. Brant Pitre recently joined The Jesus Blog as a regular contributor alongside James Crossley, Anthony Le Donne, Chris Keith, Christine … Continue reading “Scholars Doing Over Lay Readers with Apologetics”
Sometimes I discover the most curious things en route to learning something else. I can’t even remember why now, but for some reason, I recently stumbled upon the definition of pericope (peh-RIH-kuh-pee) at the Oxford Biblical Studies Online site. If you’ve read my posts on the Memory Mavens, you’re no doubt aware that I sometimes … Continue reading “What’s Wrong with the Word “Pericope”?”
Today’s text comes from Molière’s play, Le Médecin malgré lui (The Doctor in Spite of Himself). We join in as Sganarelle, a poor, drunken woodcutter, posing as an eccentric but brilliant physician, pretends to diagnose Lucinde, the daughter of a wealthy couple. Her parents, Géronte and Jacqueline, along with their servant, Lucas, watch and comment as Sganarelle bamboozles them with a stream of … Continue reading “The Memory Mavens, Part 8: Chris Keith, Post-Criteria Scholar? (2)”
When magician Ricky Jay performs an amazing card trick, people will often ask, “How do you do that?” He always answers, “Very well, thank you.” Such masters of prestidigitation rarely, if ever, give away their secrets. Sometimes they take their arcane methods with them to the grave, leaving even their fellow conjurers to wonder for eternity, “How did … Continue reading “The Memory Mavens, Part 8: Chris Keith, Post-Criteria Scholar? (1)”
The citations refer to the previous two interview posts. Miami is the first one with David Fitzgerald; Logicast is Daniel’s follow up podcast. The time references match the preceding time marker in each of the two posts. So [Logicast, 49:00] means that the source for my statement can be found by beginning to read from the … Continue reading “Framing the Historicist-Mythicist Debate: A Case Study”
I’d like to comment on one section of the inaugural lecture of Prof Chris Keith, Chair of the New Testament and Early Christianity at St Mary’s University College, Twickenham. Its title is ‘Social Memory Theory and the Gospels: Assessing the First Decade.’ Keith is a co-blogger of The Jesus Blog. Both Tim and I have … Continue reading “Does Social Memory Theory Advance Historical Jesus Studies?”
When I consulted my reading notes for the recent post on Case’s The Historicity of Jesus, I noticed a couple of things I had meant to comment on, but left out. In this post I seek to atone for my sins of omission. [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM2K7sV-K74]
A muddle of mavens For several months now, I’ve been poring over works written by a contingent of New Testament scholars who I like to call the Memory Mavens. This group claims that “memory theory” offers new perspectives on Jesus traditions and provides new insights on how those traditions eventually found their way into the … Continue reading “The Memory Mavens, Part 1: A Brief Introduction to Memory Theory”
Part 3: John Displaces and Rewrites the Cleansing of the Temple All four evangelists recount Jesus’ cleansing of the temple at Jerusalem. The Synoptics (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) place the event during the week before the crucifixion, while John sets it near the very start of Jesus’ ministry. In the ancient church, many, if not … Continue reading “How John Used Mark: Investigating the Methods of the Fourth Evangelist (Part 3)”
James McGrath has begun to review Richard Carrier’s On the Historicity of Jesus at the Bible and Interpretation site. The tone of his review makes a striking contrast to his “review” or Earl Doherty’s Jesus: Neither God Nor Man. McGrath explains that he will cover Carrier’s book in several posts. This opening assessment, Did Jesus Die in Outer … Continue reading “McGrath Reviews Carrier: Part 1, the Introduction”
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”