Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
What a hoot! Bart Ehrman is listed alongside Richard Carrier as an authority citing reasons to doubt the historical existence of Jesus! (For those not in the know, Ehrman has expressed deep loathing of Carrier and has written a book arguing that anyone who thinks Jesus did not exist is bonkers.) That’s in the Big … Continue reading “Jesus Lives and therefore Lived — If You Believe”
I was in the audience and I was irritated with Ehrman repeatedly interrupting Price during the latter parts of the debate. He also laughed at Price and dismissed him for not accepting Pauline authorship of Galatians. — Adam G Vigansky I am sure Adam Vigansky was not alone. I have read several similar comments. I … Continue reading “The Dark Side of the Bart Ehrman-Robert Price Debate”
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”
The second 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) is “The Reception of Jesus in Paul” by Christine Jacobi. In sum, to the best of my understanding (and there is considerable external noise in the video) here is Christine … Continue reading “The Reception of Jesus Tradition in Paul”
Scholar of religion Jonathan Bernier drops an interesting aside in his blog post, The Quest for the Historical Hiawatha: From what I understand, virtually all archaeologists and historians who study the matter agree that the Iroquois confederacy–the bringing together into political and religious union the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca peoples–was carried out as … Continue reading “The Quest for the Historical Hiawatha — & the historical-mythical Jesus debate”
Here’s a little comment I just left at another discussion forum. Thought it might be of interest to a few readers here. The question being addressed is, Did Jesus Baptise people? The passage under discussion is John 3.22-4.3 [22]After this Jesus and his disciples went into the land of Judea; there he remained with them and … Continue reading “Did Jesus Really Baptize — and If So, How?”
How do we determine the best way to interpret patterns and parallels between the Gospels and other literature? Here is one parallel that someone asks us to consider: Fishing for men. While at the Sea of Galilee, Jesus predicted that his followers would fish for men. “From now on you will catch men.” Luke 5:10 Titus’ followers … Continue reading “On Parallels”
I recently completed reading A Shift in Time: How Historical Documents Reveal the Surprising Truth About Jesus by Lena Einhorn. Lena Einhorn proposes a radical rethink of Christian origins and does so in a welcome methodical and understated manner. Far from being a sensationalist weaving of data into a mesmerizing filigree of yet another conspiracy or gnostic … Continue reading “Review: A Shift In Time, Lena Einhorn. A new hypothesis on the origin of the Jesus narrative.”
May 22nd, 2016, at the City of Athens Cultural Centre You may recall the book Jesus Mythicism: An Introduction by freelance journalist Minas Papageorgiou. The book was originally written for Greek readers and now there is a mythicist conference coming up soon in Greece. Some of the same names associated with the book also appear … Continue reading “Myth Conference 2016”
Part 2 of Professor McGrath’s discussion on historicity of Jesus is in podcast form. Disappointing in that it is mostly a mocking of mythicism by setting up a series of seriously oversimplified claims and outright straw-men. I was hoping for a more serious collation of arguments for historicity of Jesus. The strongest they came to … Continue reading “Part 2 of the case for the historicity of Jesus”
René Salm has been posting some interesting articles on his Mythicistpapers website lately. His most recent is Brodie, McGrath, and the increasing polarization of biblical studies—Pt. 2. James McGrath has prided himself on rarely taking a cutting edge stand but always remaining steadfast in the middle of controversial issues. He calls it The Radical Middle! I was once … Continue reading “The Polarization of Biblical Studies”
Let’s get this thing out of the way. Here are some of the “highlights” of Brant Pitre’s new book, The Case for Jesus, supporting some of my criticisms in the previous post. More may follow. (I’ve only covered chapter one in this post.) If Brant Pitre kept his book from the view of his academic … Continue reading “Highlights from Brant Pitre’s The Case for Jesus“
Surely you have taken leave of your senses, you men of Galatia! Who has cast this spell over you, before whose very eyes Jesus Christ has been exposed to view as nailed on a cross? — Galatians 3:1, Cassirer’s translation. Recent comments on Vridar prompted me to recheck what we know about this odd-sounding verse. … Continue reading “Crucifixion Portrayed Before the Very Eyes of Galatians”
Our good professor and Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University James McGrath continues to distort consistent rational argument beyond all recognition with his frenzied attacks on both biblical inerrantists (somehow McG manages not only to accuse them of “attacking the Bible“, “self-righteousness” and, yes, “defending sin“, but finds … Continue reading “The Good Professor on the Verge of Apoplexy”