Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
Richard Carrier has posted a fascinating artticle on the pre-Christian Jewish concept of a dying Messiah and showing the nonsense so thoughtlessly repeated even by scholars the originality of Christianity’s idea that a messiah must die in order to offer saving atonement to his people. Richard’s post is beautifully lengthy exploring much detail from the … Continue reading “The Dying Messiah (refrain)”
Jewish scholars of midrash have recognized that “midrashic” techniques, methods of interpretation of texts in the Hebrew Bible, have been creatively woven into Christian Gospel narrative and teaching material as much as Jews worked creatively with midrash in their own literature. Jon D. Levenson Jon D. Levenson wrote The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved … Continue reading “Midrash and Gospels 3: What some Jewish scholars say (and continuing ‘Midrash Tales of the Messiah’)”
This continues from Part 1 where I began discussing what Richard Horsley has to say about popular messianic movements in Israel up to the time of Jesus in Bandits, Prophets & Messiahs. Previous posts addressed the concept of a future messiah among the literate elites. This post considers what Horsley has to say about the … Continue reading “Popular Messianic(?) and Bandit Movements Up To The Time Of Jesus and Beyond – Part 2”
This post surveys the evidence and questions the conclusions of Richard A. Horsley (with John S. Hanson) in Bandits, Prophets & Messiahs: Popular Movements in the Time of Jesus (1999) concerning messianic hopes and movements among the common people of Palestine up to the time of Jesus. It is some years since I first read … Continue reading “Popular Messianic Movements Up To The Time Of Jesus – Part 1”
The answer is, I think, no. In this post I quote a few sections from Professor Richard Horsley‘s work Bandits, Prophets & Messiahs: Popular Movements in the Time of Jesus. (Since there is currently a discussion under way at the Freeratio Discussion Board that relates to this question, and since this is a topic I … Continue reading “Did the Jews before Christ expect a national Messiah?”
Dale C. Allison in his recent book, Constructing Jesus, believes that we can learn, or at least “confirm”, what Jesus taught about the “end of the age” by looking at the careers of the Twelve Disciples/Apostles. He begins by discussing various opinions about whether or not Jesus really did call twelve disciples at all, and … Continue reading “Why Jesus chose the Twelve: Dale Allison’s exegesis”
It is standard practice to classify Jewish messianism as national, ethnic, political and material, and to mark Christian messianism as universal, cosmopolitan, ethical and spiritual. That Jewish anticipation of the messiah’s arrival was unusually keen in first century Palestine and constituted the mise en scène for the emergence of Christianity is a virtual axiom of … Continue reading “The Myth of a General Messianic Expectation in Jesus’ Time”
Philo does not mention the term “christos” (“messiah”). But he does use a lot of messianic terminology to describe how the Logos converts people, through an inner personal war against the flesh, into the divine image. The message reminds me of Troels Engberg-Pedersen’s more detailed discussion of Paul’s concept of the Stoic-Logos-like function of the … Continue reading “Philo’s Spiritual Messiah: allegorical and personal?”
The idea of a holy anointed one, a messiah that is, who liberated those captive to sin through his death, who represented the pious before God, who was subject even to the wrath of God for the sin of the people, such an idea was arguably a pre-packaged concept among some Jews long before Jesus … Continue reading “Old Testament Messiahs as the Raw Material for the New Testament Christ”
edited and added TLT quote Jan 26, 2010 @ 20:05 I think of myself as neither a “Jesus mythicist” nor a “Jesus historicist”, but as someone interested in exploring the origins of Christianity. Whether the evidence establishes a historical Jesus at its core, or an entity less tangible, then so be it. Nonetheless, I cannot … Continue reading “Responding to standard arguments for Jesus’ historicity (1)”
Continuing the series the evolution of the offering of Isaac into a Jesus story; earlier posts here. Levenson argues that much of the early christology derives from a midrashic combination of verses associated with Isaac, the beloved son of Abraham, the suffering servant in Isaiah who went, like Isaac, willingly to his slaughter, another miraculous … Continue reading “Jesus displaces Isaac: midrashic creation of the biblical Jesus . . . (Offering of Isaac . . . #6)”