Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
Continuing my reading of part 2 of Nanine Charbonnel’s Jésus-Christ, Sublime Figure de Papier . . . . . . . o . . . At the heart of Nanine Charbonnel’s thesis lies the question of how much we read in the gospels was written in a figurative sense and how much literal. Arthur Schopenhauer … Continue reading “A Midrashic Hypothesis for the Gospels”
I am beginning to suspect that Nanine Charbonnel’s book on the Christ Myth theory is really something quite different from any other argument for the Jesus of the gospels having been a figure crafted entirely out of “revelation”, especially “revelation” through the Jewish Scriptures. So far I have steadily worked my way through the first … Continue reading “Paul as a Midrashic Creation”
Let’s begin the third and final chapter in part 1 of Nanine Charbonnel’s Jésus-Christ, Sublime Figure de Papier. Part 2 of the book is titled The Gospels are Midrash. Some readers will be aware of my ambivalent feelings about calling the gospels midrash but let’s hear the meat of the argument, whatever labels are used. … Continue reading “Jésus-Christ, Sublime Figure de Papier. Chap 3a. Representing a Collective in a Single Individual”
For most scholars, Boyarin’s thinking is a complete paradigm shift and in many ways something that “just isn’t done.”74 74 Horbury, Jewish Messianism, argued similarly to Boyarín yet not as forcefully. Those quotes are from Benjamin Reynolds, page 29 of his essay “The Gospel of John’s Christology as Evidence for Early Jewish Messianic Expectations: Challenges … Continue reading “Horbury Argued Similarly: Jewish Messianic Ideas Explain Christianity”
Have recent posts here about two “son of man” sayings of Jesus missed their mark (claiming to be references to Daniel 7) if the term “son of man” was simply a common way for a speaker to refer to himself? Vermes argued that, in addition to being a normal term for “man”, the Aramaic bar … Continue reading “Is “Son of Man” in the Gospels a mere idiom for “I”, the speaker?”
The background to the following post is The Gospel of John as a form of Jewish Messianism? (Part 2). It presumes some awareness of how in some Jewish quarters Daniel 7’s Son of Man was being interpreted in a way that led to controversial Jewish texts like the Similitudes of Enoch and the Gospel of … Continue reading “How the Gospel of Mark Retrofitted Jesus into a Pre-Existing Christ Idea”
Philo’s Logos is neither just the Wisdom (Gk sophia; Heb okhmah) of the Bible, nor is it quite the Platonic logos, nor the divine Word (Heb davar), but a new synthesis of all of these. A response to the post Gospel of John as a Source for Jewish Messianism: This seems interesting. Though the opening … Continue reading ““Logos, a Jewish Word””
While writing a post relating the Logos, Word, of the Gospel of John’s Prologue to hitherto longstanding Jewish ideas I came across the following explanation of “the formal characteristics of Midrash as a mode of reading Scripture” that requires a separate post or full quotation. It is a portion of an article by Daniel Boyarin … Continue reading “The Prologue of the Gospel of John as Jewish Midrash”
To continue from the first part first part of this post: The Double Bind For the similar quandary on the question of Jesus as the Messiah in Pauline scholarship Reynolds directs readers to a section of Novenson’s Christ Among the Messiahs; coincidentally the section he cites has been set out in an earlier post here: … Continue reading “The Gospel of John as a form of Jewish Messianism? (Part 2)”
The consequences of this point are formidable. Philo was clearly writing for an audience of Jews devoted to the Bible. If for these, the Logos theology was a virtual commonplace (which is not to say that there were not enormous variations in detail, of course), the implication is that this way of thinking about God … Continue reading “Comparing Philo’s and the Gospel of John’s Logos (The Word)”
In the previous post we looked at ancient Jewish concepts of multiple messiahs, each with a distinctive role. There was Davidic messiah who for most of existence lives like a destitute vagabond or beggar, despised, rejected and unrecognized in the streets of “Rome”. Then there was a messiah from the tribe of Joseph who emerged as a … Continue reading “The Priestly Messiah and the Royal Messiah”
So Easter is here again and everybody is mourning the death of Tammuz and rejoicing in the new life to hatch from digested easter bunny eggs. But let’s be serious and respect the meaning of the season. Let’s talk about messiahs, especially suffering and dying ones. There’s much to write about but I’ll try to keep to just a … Continue reading “Suffering and Dying Messiahs: Typically Jewish Beliefs”
A welcome visitor to the blog has raised a question along with an answer by Bart Ehrman and I have promised to respond with my own thoughts. My first impression is that Ehrman’s response talks down to lay readers and protects them from the reality of the complexity of arguments and the debates among scholars. … Continue reading “The Question of whether Paul was the founder of Christianity: Responding to Bart Ehrman”
I expect this post will conclude my series challenging Richard Carrier’s arguments in On the Historicity of Jesus attempting to justify the common belief that early first century Judea was patchwork quilt of messianic movements. This belief has been challenged by specialist scholars* (see comment) especially since the 1990s but their work has still to … Continue reading “Questioning Carrier: Was the Book of Daniel Really a “Key Messianic Text”?”