Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
Let’s sit down and look at the score sheet. Richard Carrier kicked 11 “errors of fact” at the net of Bart Ehrman’s book Did Jesus Exist? Carrier says he could have kicked many more but that it was getting dark and the referee told him he had limited time. Since beginning to write this post … Continue reading “The Facts of the Matter: Carrier 9, Ehrman 1 (my review, part 2)”
Dr Bart Ehrman has written for the Huffington Post a quite a curious article attacking mythicism and advertising his new book which promises more of the same. It is a curious article because it leaves a reader who knows anything about mythicist arguments and historical Jesus scholarship with the impression that Ehrman knows very little … Continue reading “Bart Ehrman’s Huffing and Posting Against Mythicism”
Turning to a genuine work of scholarship in biblical studies, even one 80 years old, can be such relief after enduring time in search of a stimulating and challenging argument among so much contemporary theological debate with apologetics always lurking in the subtext. One theologian has scoffed at mythicism by glibly asserting that no-one would … Continue reading “Would the historical Jesus of Nazareth really have been named Jesus of Nazareth?”
William Wrede’s The Messianic Secret Part 4: Mark — “Some Preliminaries on the General Picture of the Messianic History of Jesus.” This unit covers Part 1, Section 1 of Wrede’s The Messianic Secret. Layers upon layers One of the things that struck me while reading this section is Wrede’s clarity of thinking, especially when it comes to … Continue reading “Reading Wrede Again for the First Time (4)”
In the next chapter of this series we read the view that John the Baptist was a key figure in sparking the movement that became Christianity. Couchoud takes the date for John from Josephus — that is, towards the end of Pilate’s office in 36 c.e. Couchoud believes strongly that there was a fervent expectation … Continue reading “John the Baptist and the Foundations of Christianity (Couchoud)”
The following post by David Fitzgerald is posted here with DF’s permission; the original is at freethoughtblogs.com. Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up? Is the “Jesus of History” any more real than the “Jesus of Faith”? (From the upcoming book, Jesus: Mything in Action, by David Fitzgerald) Christianity had a good, long run. But … Continue reading “Dave Fitzgerald sequel: Is the “Jesus of History” any more real than the “Jesus of Faith”?”
David Fitzgerald‘s essay, Ten Beautiful Lies About Jesus, that received an Honorable Mention in the 2010 Mythicist Prize contest has been expanded into a book, Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Showed Jesus Never Existed At All. The book is clearly a hit: Nailed continues to garner more fans and accolades, and generate cranky hate mail. … Continue reading “David Fitzgerald responds to Tim O’Neill’s review of Nailed”
Why, when different religions meet, does syncretism sometimes follow? What need does it fulfil? This was the question in the minds of Claude Orrieux and Édouard Will in Ioudaïsmos — Hellenismos; essai sur le judaïsme judéen a l’époque hellénistique, 1986, when they sought to understand the religious reactions of Judeans living in Judea when faced … Continue reading “Bible: composed as a reaction against Greek domination?”
I used to be always a little troubled or at least mystified by the way the author of the Gospel of Matthew found “a prophecy” for Herod’s “slaughter of the innocents” (all the infants two years old and under) in Bethlehem in hopes of killing off the one born to replace him as king of … Continue reading “Gospel Prophecy (and History) through Ancient Jewish Eyes: The Massacre of the Innocents”
Updated with NT passages for reference This follows my previous post that set me thinking along a related line. The verse for the day is Horsley’s sentence that I quoted there: It would thus appear that the supposedly standard Jewish ideas or expectations of the messiah are a flimsy foundation indeed from which to explain … Continue reading ““Son of David” as an anachronism (or metaphor?) in the Gospels, Paul and Acts?”
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?”
I regularly argue on this blog for an appreciation of the literary nature of the leading characters, episodes and narrative structures in the canonical gospels. So I am looking forward to reading and reviewing Derek Murphy’s Jesus Potter, Harry Christ. My initial response to reading the title was that this was a joke of some … Continue reading “Jesus Potter, Harry Christ”
Following on here from my earlier post. As noted in my previous post, Matthew and Luke inform us directly that the miracles of Jesus were for the purpose of identifying Jesus as the Messiah in accordance with the prophecies in Isaiah. We may, if we wish, speculate that there really were a set of healings … Continue reading “Jesus was not a healer (2)”
One New Testament scholar has written that Jesus’ real life was lived out just like a real Greek tragedy. Jesus’ travels, works and sayings, all his life, just happened to all follow a sequence and specific eventfulness that had all the appearance, to anyone who was observing, of working out just like a drama on … Continue reading “Bible: Story or History? Art or Real Life?”