Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
For anyone who was too lazy or too busy or too technically challenged to listen to the discussion between David Fitzgerald and Daniel Gullotta on the historicity of Jesus here are my notes. Of course things said on the fly are not always what we would exactly say in more considered writing so I welcome … Continue reading “Highlights of the David Fitzgerald-Daniel Gullotta Discussion on Miami Valley Skeptics”
Table 1: Mythicists, Mythicist Sympathizers & Agnostics (and their Religious Backgrounds) As of 6th August 2020 only the colour coded table has been updated. The remainder of this page dates from some years earlier. The following updated table was originally posted at Who’s Who Among Mythicists and Mythicist Sympathizers/Agnostics and again at Maurice Casey’s Failure to … Continue reading “WHO’s WHO: Mythicists, Mythicist Agnostics & Historicists Who Call for Scholarly Debate (Updated 6th August 2020)”
Ananus [the high priest] . . . thought he had now a proper opportunity. Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others; and when he had … Continue reading “Why Historicist/Mythicist Arguments Often Fail — & a Test Case for a Better Way”
Was Paul persecuted for preaching a crucified messiah? In 1 Corinthians 1:23 we read that the message of “Christ crucified” was a “stumblingblock” or “offence” to the Jews. There is no explanation to inform us exactly why Jews were so offended by Paul preaching that a messiah had been crucified but that hasn’t prevented many readers from knowing the reason … Continue reading “Was Paul Really Persecuted for Preaching a Crucified Christ?”
William Wrede’s The Messianic Secret Part 10: How Matthew and Luke changed Mark Five months have passed since my previous post on The Messianic Secret. In the interim, I have focused on material related to the genre of the gospels, which has consumed most of my attention. Recently, however, I’ve been simultaneously reading or re-reading several … Continue reading “Reading Wrede Again for the First Time (10)”
Recently I was playing with the time capsule button of WordPress and managed to accidentally relocate an old July 2010 post to today. Since trying to undo and relocate events in time is forbidden by the Time Lords of the universe I quickly deleted it. But a few quick ones did see it and commented … Continue reading “Tom Verenna Debates James McGrath”
Part 3: K. L. Schmidt: Placing the Gospels When it comes to the form critics, NT scholars don’t know Schmidt. But to be fair, for a long time — all of the twentieth century in fact — they had a reasonable excuse. None of Karl Ludwig Schmidt’s works had been translated into English, and unless … Continue reading “The Genre of the Gospels: How the Consensus Changed (Part 3)”
Why would anybody make it up? (And other dead horses.) In a recent post over on Exploring our Matrix, James McGrath wrote: The depiction of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, in great distress and praying that the cup pass from him, is one that it is hard to imagine being invented by the later church, … Continue reading ““It Is Hard to Imagine” — How Scholars Invent History”
William Wrede’s The Messianic Secret Part 8: A Different Kind of Messiah? — An astonishingly persistent misconception This unit picks up after our mid-stream break in which we answered the question: “What Is the Messianic Secret?“ Restatement of purpose It is not my main purpose to argue for or against Wrede’s thesis. That isn’t why I’ve … Continue reading “Reading Wrede Again for the First Time (8)”
William Wrede’s The Messianic Secret Part 7: “The Self-Concealment of the Messiah” — The injunctions to keep the Messianic secret This unit continues Part 1, Section 2 (p. 34ff.) of Wrede’s The Messianic Secret (covering other features of the motif and the defense of a single coherent theory). Demons in retrospect Last time in Part 6 we finished up Wrede’s discussion … Continue reading “Reading Wrede Again for the First Time (7)”
AN ATTEMPT TO VIEW MARK’S PARABLES FROM THE INSIDE Samuel Sandmel, in his The Genius of Paul, made this observation: The parable of the sower in Mark (and in Matthew and Luke) is so presented in the Gospels as to have us believe that, clear as it was, the disciples did not understand it and … Continue reading “Mark’s Parables as Simonian Allegories”
In the previous post we saw how Matthew Novenson in Christ among the Messiahs showed that there were certain linguistic conventions in Jewish antiquity whereby a speaker or writer could refer meaningfully to the concept of a messiah by alluding to a small but significant group of scriptural texts. This post looks at the question … Continue reading “Christ among the Messiahs — Part 3a”
* A Crucified Messiah COVERED IN THIS POST: Jesus and David Koresh Was a crucified criminal believed to be the messiah? Ehrman’s “story” of a resurrection A story missing in Q and the epistles The actual picture in the epistles Did Jews invent a crucified messiah? Did Jews anticipate a suffering messiah? The sources and … Continue reading “22. Earl Doherty’s Response to Bart Ehrman’s Case Against Mythicism – Part 22”
What “Messiah” meant at the time of Paul and the earliest Christians Continuing with notes from Christ among the Messiahs: Christ Language in Paul and Messiah Language in Ancient Judaism by Matthew V. Novenson . The messianic idea We saw in Part 1 that interpreters of Paul have confidently concluded that whatever Paul meant by … Continue reading “Christ among the Messiahs — Part 2”