Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
This continues my previous post, which was slightly misleadingly titled Why Christianity Spread So Rapidly . . .. It is for most part a distillation of Gregory J. Riley’s chapter, “Mimesis of Classical Ideals in the Second Christian Century”, found in Mimesis and Intertextuality edited by Dennis MacDonald. A related post is my discussion of … Continue reading “Christianity won over paganism by epitomizing pagan ideals”
Why did the number of Christians go from zero in the year zero to become the numerical majority of persons in the Roman world by about the year 350? How does one account for its dramatic success? Many Christians themselves like to answer that question by appealing to the way Christian martyrdoms inspired the admiration … Continue reading “Why Christianity spread so rapidly to become the main religion of the Roman empire”
In my previous post I presented Luke Timothy Johnson‘s case against to the opening arguments of Robert M. Price in The Historical Jesus: Five Views. Price gives reasons for suspecting there never was a historical Jesus. In this post I am giving both my own views and some of Price’s own “responses” to Johnson’s criticisms. … Continue reading “How Luke Timothy Johnson Stumbles Over the Mythical Jesus”
Albert Schweitzer argued against those who denied the historicity of Jesus, but he also had a few things to say about the way in which the debate between mythicists and historicists was conducted in his day. This post lists some of those thoughts that I believe are still relevant. His advice about what mythicists need … Continue reading “Schweitzer’s comments on the historical-mythical Jesus debate”
(revised 1.15 pm) Continuing notes from Pervo re the genre of Acts. Pervo compares the genre of Acts with the genre of the works of other ancient historians. Below I’ve summarized Pervo’s comments but have added much more by way of illustration from Price and Feldman. I have also just received a copy of Revealed … Continue reading “The literary genre of Acts. 4: Historian’s Models – comparing Josephus”
Following are the different criteria lists used by three authors who have studied literary borrowings within the gospels and Acts: Allison, Clark and MacDonald. Included are two extracts that discuss the ancient literary expectations and customs of authors borrowing from past masters. Names and titles are hyperlinked:
I have been absent from web discussions for some time now and may be the last one to notice Dennis MacDonald’s reply to critics of “mimesis criticism” — his work arguing that the Gospel of Mark is as much an imitation and transvaluation of Homeric characters as it is of those from the Jewish scriptures. … Continue reading “Dennis MacDonald’s ‘Turn’ to reply to critics of his Mark-Homer work”
I pulled out again my copy of “Mimesis and Intertextuality in Antiquity and Christianity” (ed. by Dennis R. MacDonald) thinking to write a layman’s review of its collection of contributions but got sidetracked (again) on re-reading Gregory J. Riley’s chapter, “Mimesis of Classical Ideals in the Second Century”. Some of Riley’s work totally rivets me … Continue reading “Jesus, the ideal Greek-Roman hero? (No embarrassment criterion here)”
One more catch-up link for this new trial blog: notes I made from Dennis MacDonald’s book on the Gospel of Mark and Homeric epics. One plan for the future would be to go have checkboxes against each comparison indicating which criteria are met, and to what extent. I’m not confident that all of my own … Continue reading “Mark and Homer”