Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
Gilad Atzmon recommends a number of books that address underlying causes of hostility against Jews. One is The Jewish Century by Yuri Slezkine. Of Slezkine’s theory of ethnic identity the Wikipedia article explains: Slezkine characterizes the Jews (alongside such groups as the Armenians, overseas Chinese, and Gypsies) as a Mercurian people “specializ[ing] exclusively in providing … Continue reading “Understanding the Reasons for Anti-Semitism”
This post covers the final chapter of Derek Murphy’s Jesus Potter Harry Christ. All chapter by chapter reviews are collated here and on the Jesus Mysteries discussion group. I will do one more overview review of the entire book, but that may not be on this blog, but on amazon or such. A special thanks … Continue reading “Jesus Potter Harry Christ, ch. 10: From Mystery to History . . . .”
Richard Carrier is well known for his advocacy of the use of the Bayes’ theorem in historical Jesus studies. (Find the link to Bayes’ Theorem for Beginners here or go direct to the pdf article here.) Carrier has enumerated its advantages, and I highlight the ones that are my own personal favourites (all quotations are … Continue reading “Bayes’ theorem and the Jesus mythicism-historicity conflict”
Continuing here my reviews of Jesus Potter Harry Christ by Derek Murphy. All reviews are archived here, and on the Jesus Mysteries discussion group. In this chapter Derek Murphy offers an explanation for how and why the original teachings of Christianity, and Paul in particular, were lost and replaced by the narrative we are familiar … Continue reading “Jesus Potter Harry Christ, ch. 9: “Stupid Galatians and Resurrection of the Flesh””
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”
James McGrath once “reviewed” a chapter by Robert M. Price in The Historical Jesus: Five Views. In my estimation at that time, one for which I was censured by several people, was that McGrath was being blatantly dishonest in his reading and presentation of Price’s chapter. McGrath has said on several occasions that mythicists should … Continue reading “Why Is McGrath Spending Time on Doherty’s Book?”
Professor of History and Literature of Early Christianity at Georg-August-University Göttingen, and director of the Institute of Early Christian Studies, Dr Gerd Lüdemann, concludes an essay published in 2010 with this sentence: In short, Paul cannot be considered a reliable witness to either the teachings, the life, or the historical existence of Jesus. (“Paul as … Continue reading “Paul as a Witness to the Historical Jesus: Gerd Ludemann”
Although it is easy to accept that Rowling crafted the literary character of Harry Potter after the figure of Jesus, shouldn’t it pique our interest that Jesus — a monumental figure in modern world religion generally believed to have been historical — has so much in common with the obviously fictional fantasy world and character … Continue reading “Jesus Potter Harry Christ: Reviewing Part One (chapter one)”
Richard C. Carrier in a chapter entitled “Bayes’s Theorem for Beginners: Formal Logic and Its Relevance to Historical Method”* conveniently lists seventeen “representative” criteria that have been developed by various scholars in an effort to determine the historicity, or what could be established as truly historical, about Jesus. Many of them are presumably taken from … Continue reading “How (not) to decide the historical facts about Jesus”
I asked Earl Doherty a few questions about his background and what led him to his Christ myth views; his understanding of the relationship between atheism and mythicism, and atheism in genera; influences leading to his own distinctive views and public/scholarly reactions to the mythicism, and towards him personally; his place in the history of … Continue reading “Interview with Earl Doherty”
I often find myself wishing some knowledgable scholars who write about “the historical Jesus” would take their Gospel sources more seriously. To take just one illustration, I don’t know if I have read any scholarly work addressing the baptism of Jesus that fails to make some reference to the “influence of John the Baptist on … Continue reading “Taking the Gospels seriously, part 2 (What John Baptist supposedly meant to Jesus)”
While one sometimes hears it said that the gospel message when first heard in the early Roman empire was “shocking” and “turned the world upside down”, it is in fact more correct to say that the gospel message was a product of its age. In the century or so leading up to the common era … Continue reading “Christianity and the “let’s turn the world upside down” bandwagon”
The classical Greek myths related to the founding of the colony of Cyrene in North Africa (Libya) are worth knowing about alongside the biblical narrative of the founding of Israel. This post is a presentation of my understanding of some of the ideas of Philippe Wajdenbaum found in a recent article in the Scandinavian Journal … Continue reading “Greek Myths Related to Tales of Abraham, Isaac, Moses and the Promised Land”
The concluding paragraph of the first chapter of Mandell’s and Freedman’s The Relationship Between Herodotus’ History and Primary History is worth framing. The principle it addresses would, if applied to New Testament studies, relegate to the scrap heap a good deal of scholarship investigating oral sources behind this or that detail in the Gospels. Since … Continue reading “When literary analysis trumps historical analysis”