Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
Continued from Response (2): the Bethlehem-Nazareth fallacies . (iii) he was baptised by John This is another of those awkward elements. Mark and Luke tell a story about Jesus going with other people to be cleansed of their sins by being baptised by John. But this story clearly caused problems for early Christians, as it … Continue reading “Response 3: that Jesus’ baptism implies historicity”
Continued from Responding to standard arguments for Jesus’ historicity (1) . . (ii) he was from Nazareth . . . . Not only is the fact that he was from Nazareth a feature of all versions of the stories but Nazareth itself appears, with Jesus being scorned and rejected there. This was clearly a problem … Continue reading “Response (2): the Bethlehem-Nazareth fallacies”
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)”
They’re coming thick and fast now. Having just been hit with the discovery of Jesus’ house in Nazareth, or maybe his neighbour’s, we now have another Israeli archaeologist telling the media that a text on a pottery shard dated — and located — in King David’s jurisdiction, testifies to a Bible-like text that is unique … Continue reading “A (Near) Bible Text Discovered in the Ancient Kingdom of David?”
A popular book cited by lay readers and scholars alike as presenting “a case for the historical reliability of the synoptic Jesus tradition” is The Jesus Legend by Eddy and Boyd. Richard Bauckham calls it “one of the most important books on methodological issues in the study of Jesus and the Gospels to have appeared … Continue reading “Taking Eddy and Boyd seriously (1)”
Of all the debates and controversies surrounding the Gospel of Mark, the one I find the most teasing is its absence from the record when it was supposed to be present. No explicit clues till the mid-second century There is no explicit hint that it was known to anyone until around 140 c.e. when Justin … Continue reading “The Missing Testimony of the Earliest Gospel”
Of the authors of Deuteronomy Bernard M. Levinson writes . . . their concern was to implement their own agenda: to reflect a major transformation of all spheres of Judaean life — cultically, politically, theologically, judicially, ethically, and economically. The authors of Deuteronomy had a radically new vision of the religious and public polity and … Continue reading “Tactics of Religious Innovation: Deuteronomy and Gospels”
Revised 6 Dec to add more on “denying originality” in Mark The canonical gospel titles, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, are not original. They are much later attributions of authorship. But why did the original authors not declare their identities? A year or more ago “N.T. Wrong” suggested here that I read Deuteronomy and the … Continue reading “An Explanation for the Gospels being Anonymous”
When discussing the evidence for the historical Jesus in Honest to Jesus Robert Funk writes What do we know about this shadowy figure who is depicted in snapshots in more than twenty gospels and gospel fragments that have survived from antiquity? The short answer is that we don’t know a great deal. But there are … Continue reading ““Most critical scholars” confusing plot setting and character constructs with historical fact”
Mark, the earliest of our canonical gospels, does not simply omit the details about Jesus before his baptism, but indirectly informs readers that nothing like the birth and boyhood stories we read in the gospels of Matthew and Luke could possibly have happened. Mark is clear: Jesus was a nobody until the day he was … Continue reading “When a nobody Jesus became spirit possessed”
A wisdom-pearl in Dennett’s Darwin’s Dangerous Idea reminded me of a host of gossamer arguments regularly touted by fundamenatists (not only Christian or religious fundamentalists, either). I advise my philosophy students to develop hypersensitivity for rhetorical questions in philosophy. They paper over whatever cracks there are in the arguments. (p. 178) Rhetorical questions used to … Continue reading “Cracked argument, rhetorical questions and women witnesses at the tomb”
Eddy and Boyd in a classic case of special pleading argue for the reality of demon-possession today: We do not wish to dispute that some, if not the majority, of these reports [of “demonization”] may be explained in naturalistic terms. But what justification is there for assuming that all such reports of the supernatural can … Continue reading “Surely not ALL reports of alien adbuctions, haunted houses and miracles are erroneous?”
Luke opened his gospel with a solid reassurance to Theophilus: Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word; it seemed good … Continue reading “How Luke possibly increased the doubts of Theophilus”
Updated 8th June with postscript Dr James McGrath has an interesting take on Joseph of Arimathea in that he interprets his first appearance in the gospel record as one of the many Jews who were responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus — and his burial. Only in subsequent gospel narratives is his character evolved into … Continue reading “Joseph of Arimathea – recasting a faithless collaborator as a disciple of Jesus”