Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
Jonathan Bernier noted in a recent post “the special pleading involved in rejecting a consensus position adopted by virtually every New Testament scholar (that Jesus existed) while accepting without reflection a consensus position [on the dates of the gospels] adopted by most but hardly all such scholars. If we are all mistaken on something so … Continue reading “Shooting Blanks at Mythicism – & Why That’s the Necessary Point”
I skip ahead to the fourth paper of the first day of the Memory and the Reception of Jesus in Early Christianity Conference (10th-11th June 2016, St Mary’s University): “The Reception of Jesus in the Gospel of John” by Helen Bond I will return in the next post to the third and the discussion following. … Continue reading “How the Gospel of John Uses and Completes the Gospel of Mark”
For all posts in this series: Roger Parvus: A Simonian Origin for Christianity One problem with accepting Mark as a Simonian/Pauline allegory (see the previous post) is the role it gives to John the Baptist. As it stands canonical Mark seems intent on presenting John as the foreshadower of Jesus. His preaching of repentance foreshadows the … Continue reading “A Simonian Origin for Christianity, Part 17: Mark and Proto-Mark”
Once again we see evidence of the ad hoc nature of arguments built upon the assumption of the historicity of Jesus. After a closer look at Romans 1:3-4 in Ehrman’s case for the earliest Christians thinking of Jesus as a “mere man” who only became a Son of God at his resurrection, I had to try … Continue reading “Another Flip Flop Argument: Ehrman again on early Low Christology”
Recently Bart Ehrman debated Michael Bird the question of how Jesus became God. Just as he had written in his book How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee Erhman argued that the earliest devotees of Jesus viewed him as a normal man, a human messiah, who had been exalted to become God’s … Continue reading “Is Ehrman’s Pre-Pauline Quotation an Anti-Marcionite Interpolation?”
Scot McKnight is an American New Testament scholar, historian of early Christianity, theologian, speaker, author and blogger who has written widely on the historical Jesus, early Christianity, the emerging church and missional church movements, spiritual formation and Christian living. He is currently Professor of New Testament at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary in Lombard, IL. McKnight is … Continue reading “We are not historians; we are Christians — (“I know what you mean, but don’t say it like that!”)”
Recently an interesting collation of observations on thematic and literary similarities between New Testament narratives and wider Greek literature was posted by commenter John MacDonald. I’ve set his points out again here (with only slight editing) for those interested. (John’s more complete comment can be read here.) Some of the parallels are actually less to … Continue reading “New Testament in the Greek Literary Matrix”
When magician Ricky Jay performs an amazing card trick, people will often ask, “How do you do that?” He always answers, “Very well, thank you.” Such masters of prestidigitation rarely, if ever, give away their secrets. Sometimes they take their arcane methods with them to the grave, leaving even their fellow conjurers to wonder for eternity, “How did … Continue reading “The Memory Mavens, Part 8: Chris Keith, Post-Criteria Scholar? (1)”
Let me be transparent from the outset: the authors of the Gospels did not imitate Vergil’s Latin epic. . . . [Rather] the Evangelist was aware of the Aeneid and shaped his book to rival it. The affinities between Luke and Vergil thus pertain to genre or, better, to narrative structure and development, not to imitations … Continue reading “Acts and Virgil’s Aeneid: comparison and influence”
Recently, David Ashton commented here on Vridar: May I annoy our totalitarian mythicists even further by suggesting that Paul, also a real person, experienced a reparative hallucination, precisely because of a pre-crucifixion hostility to Jesus and his activists, although he may not have engaged Jesus in debate or observed him directly in person. Jacob Aron … Continue reading “Did Paul See a Fireball on the Road to Damascus?”
Happily for at least a couple of scholars* Matthew Baldwin has posted on his blog eschata an argument that Richard Carrier’s case against the historicity of Jesus is flawed at its very foundations. His post is A Short Note on Carrier’s “Minimal Historicism”. I would be happily surprised, however, if I ever see a scholar … Continue reading “Problems Accepting Carrier’s Argument”
I recently completed Michael J. Kok’s exploration of why the Gospel of Mark came to be associated with the apostle Peter and included in our canon despite appearing at first glance to be little more than a synopsis of the other gospels and little used by the early church according to the extant records, and … Continue reading “Why Is the Gospel of Mark in the New Testament?”
Professor Stevan Davies has re-published his book Jesus the Healer under a new and probably more appropriate title, Spirit Possession and the Origins of Christianity, a new introduction on the pentecostal origins of the Christian movement (including an account for comparative purposes of the origins of modern pentecostalism since 1906) and added a couple of … Continue reading “Evidence for a Pre-Christian “Christianity”?”
The cakemix explodes Reacting to Dr. Richard Carrier’s recent article over at The Bible and Interpretation website, the beloved Doctor of Whoville, James McGrath has offered up yet another dog’s breakfast of red herrings and dead horses. (How’s that for a mixed-metaphor gumbo?) Carrier will likely respond fully to McGrath’s post, especially the headache-inducing section in … Continue reading “Comparing Paul’s Epistles to Augustine’s Letters”