Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
8. Anonymous Persons in Mark’s Passion Narrative I enjoyed Backham’s opening paragraph. Until reading this I had not had opportunity to discover some of the more detailed reasons scholars have wondered if the Passion Narrative pre-existed independently before being incorporated into Mark’s gospel. It is logical to conclude that if an author writes the bulk … Continue reading “Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Chapter 8”
Revised last paragraph about an hour after first posting this. In my previous post I commented that the Gospel of Mark is the least “petrine” of the gospels doctrinally. I have since turned to chapter 7 to find I must clear my mind of that presumption and reassess Mark’s extent of “petrine-ness” and read with … Continue reading “Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Chapter 7”
6. Eyewitnesses “from the Beginning” On page 114 Bauckham writes: If the Gospels embody eyewitness testimony, then some at least of the eyewitnesses must have been able to testify not just to particular episodes of particular sayings of Jesus but to the whole course of Jesus’ story. Broadly the four Gospels agree on this scope … Continue reading “Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Chapter 6”
Symbolic Status & Authoritative Status Having passed over any need to argue that the Twelve really were an entity selected by Jesus B proceeds to explain the symbolic and prophetic significance of this group, symbolic of the hope of restoration of an idealized Israel, and prophetic of what God was doing through Jesus.
5. The Twelve The role of named individuals in the formulation and transmission of traditions of Jesus’ words and deeds largely disappeared from the normal awareness of New Testament scholars as a result of the form-critical movement in Gospels scholarship in the early twentieth century. (p.93) Bauckham continues with Birger Gerhardsson’s dismissive tone of critics … Continue reading “Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Chapter 5a”
4. Palestinian Jewish Names This chapter “temporarily steps aside from our investigation of the eyewitnesses” to explore a topic that “will usefully inform” that study when resumed (p.67). Unfortunately Bauckham does not clarify with any precision his terms here or offer cogently supported rationales for accepting some names and rejecting others from the lists he … Continue reading “Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Chapter 4a”
3. Names in the Gospel Traditions In this chapter Bauckham discusses the names in the Gospels apart from those of the Twelve and of the public figures, proposing that they were eyewitnesses of the “traditions” to which their names are attached and that they continued to live as authoritative living witnesses to guarantee the veracity … Continue reading “Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Chapter 3”
Forgot to include what may possibly be allusions (or may not be) in the Pliny letter to the New Testament narratives: The Roman governor, like Pilate hearing the charges against Jesus, asked those brought before him “two or three times” of their guilt in order to give them a chance to free themselves. (Matt.27:11-14; Mark … Continue reading “New Testament allusions in Pliny correspondence with Trajan?”
I doubt it is possible to ever know the origins of Christianity. Another little intriguing “mystery” is the potential identification at some point of Simon of Cyrene and Simon Magus. Irenaeus informs readers that Simon Magus taught that he had appeared in Judea and appeared to suffer crucifixion. The Catholic Encyclopedia’s online article on Docetism: … Continue reading “Simon of Cyrene & Simon Magus — revised (24th jan 07)”
I originally posted this elsewhere in 2000: A New paradigm: On page 125 of his book Doherty writes: “When any set of assumptions is firmly in place, the evidence is usually interpreted in accord with those assumptions. Yet it is clear that the New Testament epistles present the Christian reader and scholar with difficulties and … Continue reading “The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ? / Early Doherty. (Canadian Humanists, 1999). Review”