Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
Among biblical scholars today are those who quite rightly are concerned with the ideology and values that are implicitly exprestext the sed in what otherwise seem to be works of objective fact and analysis. One such problematic theme that has often been expressed in publications about Christian origins is the portrayal of Christianity in terms that … Continue reading “How Ideology Creates a Historical Jesus”
This post is an overview of chapter 4 of Jesus in an Age of Neoliberalism by James Crossley and is part of the series reviewing this book. Crossley’s stated purpose of this chapter is to show that a dominant feature of the quest for the historical Jesus — Jesus as Great Man — works in … Continue reading “Jesus and the “Great Men” View of History”
This post advances another reason to think that the author of the Gospel of Mark depicted the final days of Jesus as a metaphor for the fall of Jerusalem. If so, it follows that the resurrection of Jesus symbolized the emergence of a new “body of Christ” and “Temple of God” in the “ekklesia” or … Continue reading “Jesus’ Crucifixion As Symbol of Destruction of Temple and Judgment on the Jews”
Passages that for modern fundamentalist readers refer doctrinally to Jesus’ death and some imaginary “end time” in some indefinite future: Luke 12:49-53 49 I came to cast fire upon the earth; and what do I desire, if it is already kindled? 50 But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I … Continue reading “Constructing Jesus and the Gospels: Apocalyptic Prophecy”
. Continuing the series on Thomas Brodie’s Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus: Memoir of a Discovery, archived here. . Brodie is analysing John Meier’s work, A Marginal Jew, as representative of the best that has been produced by notable scholars on the historical Jesus. Having begun by identifying the two key problems of … Continue reading “Making of a Mythicist — ch 17 . . . Did Jesus Model Himself on Elijah?”
Anthony Le Donne has written a book that I find is both chock-full of many fascinating nuggets in the Gospel narratives and riddled with startling revelations (if only discerned between the lines) about the foundations of “Gospel Narrative Origins” studies, The Historiographical Jesus: Memory, Typology, and the Son of David. (This post does not address … Continue reading “How Can We Know If the Jesus Narratives Are Memories Or Inventions? (Revised)”
. A recent book by Jacob Licht, Storytelling in the Bible (Jerusalem, 1978), proposes that the “historical aspect” and the “storytelling” aspect of biblical narrative be thought of as entirely discrete functions that can be neatly peeled apart for inspection — apparently, like the different colored strands of electrical wiring. This facile separation of the … Continue reading “Why the Gospels Are Historical Fiction”
It seems the topic of the day is Amanda Witmer’s article in The Bible and Interpretation, Jesus, the Gospels and History. It covers many points I have addressed often enough here, and that others have addressed at length, so I will refer only in brief to some of these arguments in my little contribution to … Continue reading “Amanda Witmer on “Jesus, the Gospels and Historicity””
Nearly everything I learned in high school about early Roman emperor-worship was wrong. Luckily before I die I’ve since read The Son of God in the Roman World by Michael Peppard and I can now go to my grave with one more misconception eradicated from my mind. I had once been taught that the people … Continue reading “Jesus as Counter-Emperor in the Gospel of Mark”
This post presents a snippet from The Son of God in the Roman World: Divine Sonship in Its Social and Political Context by Michael Peppard. There is much more in this book that deserves closer attention and that will probably be given in the coming year. Till then, I think some of us may be … Continue reading “Jesus and the Dove — how a Roman audience may have read the Gospel of Mark”
“He is unlike any man you have ever seen . . .” If you’ve ever watched the original Planet of the Apes, you no doubt remember the scene in which the Tribunal of the National Academy questions Charlton Heston (Taylor, aka “Bright Eyes”). None of Taylor’s explanations make any sense to the tribunal, of course. … Continue reading “Historical Reconstruction or a “Mad House”?”
Let’s conclude this series on John Dominic Crossan’s new book, The Power of Parable. Last time we looked at the Gospels of Matthew and Mark; this time Luke-Acts and John. Crossan argues that the Gospels are not histories or biographies of Jesus but are fictional parables and Jesus is their central character. Now Crossan does … Continue reading “Gospels as Parables ABOUT Jesus, part 4 of 4 (John Dominic Crossan)”
I am splitting a single review I have written of John Dominic Crossan’s new book into two posts. This is the first. His book, The Power of Parable: How Fiction By Jesus Became Fiction About Jesus, reminds me of John Shelby Spong’s Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Bible with Jewish Eyes . . .. Both … Continue reading “Crossan’s proofs that Jesus did exist”
Continued from the previous post . . . . We have a problem Chris Keith explains that the serious problem for the criteria approach to historical Jesus studies is that the assumptions about the “nature of the gospel tradition” upon which those criteria (and form-criticism itself) were built upon “have now been shown to be … Continue reading “Criteria’s Demise and the Black Hole of Historical Jesus Studies: Concluding Chapter 1 of Jesus, Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity”