Search Results for: gospel genre

How Mythic Story Worlds Become Believable (Johnston: The Greek Mythic Story World)

This is the second of two articles by Professor of Religion Sarah Iles Johnston. (The first article was addressed in Why Certain Kinds of Myths Are So Easy to Believe) I have been led to Johnston’s articles and books (along with other works addressing related themes by classicists) as I was led down various detours … Continue reading “How Mythic Story Worlds Become Believable (Johnston: The Greek Mythic Story World)”

Why Certain Kinds of Myths Are So Easy to Believe

But what if you can’t turn off the TV because you don’t even think it’s there? What if the materials that train the mind to think in certain ways and to accept alternative realities are not understood by the audience — and perhaps not by the authors, either — to be fictions, at least in … Continue reading “Why Certain Kinds of Myths Are So Easy to Believe”

How Historiography Began, and What History Meant in the Greco-Roman World

Though we today see poetry, oratory and historiography as three separate genres, the ancients saw them as three different species of the same genus — rhetoric. All three types of activity aimed to elaborate certain data in such a way as to affect or persuade an audience or readership. — Woodman, p. 100 We often … Continue reading “How Historiography Began, and What History Meant in the Greco-Roman World”

Review part 9: Questioning the Historicity of Jesus / Lataster (Case for Mythicism – the Evidence)

The third part of Raphael Lataster’s Questioning the Historicity of Jesus is where he presents his case for mythicism, and since his case is essentially a review of Richard Carrier’s arguments in On the Historicity of Jesus, this post is a review of a review. Lataster has is differences from Carrier and several times points … Continue reading “Review part 9: Questioning the Historicity of Jesus / Lataster (Case for Mythicism – the Evidence)”

Vridar Housekeeping

I’m making some sort of progress towards some consistency in the blog’s categories and tags (well into the categories right now having reduced them from around 50 million to a tenth of a million; but have yet to start seriously on eliminating overlaps in the tags). Here are some questions that are bugging me at … Continue reading “Vridar Housekeeping”

Jésus-Christ, Sublime Figure de Papier. Chap 1a . . . — Something Untouchable about the Bible

After posting Jésus-Christ, Sublime Figure de Papier. Chap 1. Hermeneutical Impasse I regretted not addressing Nanine Charbonnel’s discussions of “modern” critics of the gospels such as David Strauss and Rudolf Bultmann and their significance for the standing of the gospels as historical documents today. One reason was that I found it difficult to be sure … Continue reading “Jésus-Christ, Sublime Figure de Papier. Chap 1a . . . — Something Untouchable about the Bible”

Alan Kirk: Misremembering Bultmann and Wrede

In a recent post, Neil cited a paper by Dr. Alan Kirk called “Memory Theory and Jesus Research.” While Kirk does an adequate job of explaining the current state of play in memory theory, I couldn’t help but notice yet again some misunderstandings in the ways Memory Mavens remember German critical scholarship in general and … Continue reading “Alan Kirk: Misremembering Bultmann and Wrede”

Memory Theory and the Historical Jesus

Bloomsbury publishers sent me an electronic copy of Memory and the Jesus Tradition, a collection of articles by Alan Kirk, for review and comment in response to my request. My first post on this book was Memory and the Pursuit of the Jesus Tradition. This post, my second, responds to chapter 10, “Memory Theory and … Continue reading “Memory Theory and the Historical Jesus”

Memory and the Pursuit of the Jesus Tradition

I have begun to read Alan Kirk’s Memory and the Jesus Tradition, a compilation of twelve of his essays published between 2001 and 2016, and have, as usual, found myself making slower progress than I expected. At so many points in just the first few chapters I have had to detour to endnotes and seek … Continue reading “Memory and the Pursuit of the Jesus Tradition”

Luke-Acts as form of history-writing (Luke-Acts Explained . . . Part 2)

Continuing from Luke-Acts Explained as a form of “Ideal Jewish History” (Part 1) The reasons Luke-Acts has been considered a form of ancient history writing: Like other ancient historiography the work begins with a prologue announcing its superiority over what has gone before; Steve Mason notes that unlike the preceding gospels Luke-Acts, as a two volume … Continue reading “Luke-Acts as form of history-writing (Luke-Acts Explained . . . Part 2)”

Luke-Acts Explained as a form of “Ideal Jewish History” (Part 1)

TL;DR The author of Luke-Acts was following an ideal that Josephus had presented as a superior feature of Jewish historical writings: that history learned from revelation (e.g. works of Moses) was superior to the uncertain and often disputed historical inquiries of the Greeks. I think Steve Mason has nailed Luke-Acts. I think, as a specialist … Continue reading “Luke-Acts Explained as a form of “Ideal Jewish History” (Part 1)”

A Better Way to Date a Biblical Text

Jonathan Bernier has posted “three basic means by which to date a biblical text” which I think are reasonably useful but can be improved upon. His focus is primarily on the New Testament chronology. Bernier calls his first tool “synchronization” and it’s pretty basic. If a text declares that the Temple of Jerusalem was destroyed … Continue reading “A Better Way to Date a Biblical Text”

Jesus’ Baptism in the Context of the Myth of Water, Flight and Wilderness

An important consequence follows. If a myth is made up of all its variants, structural analysis should take all of them into account. — Claude Lévi-Strauss (435) The structural analysis developed by Claude Lévi-Strauss invites one to compare the variants of a myth so as to define the rules that led to their transformation. . … Continue reading “Jesus’ Baptism in the Context of the Myth of Water, Flight and Wilderness”

The Day Earl Doherty (author of ‘The Jesus Puzzle’) Personally Entered the Global Forum

Earl Doherty, author the The Jesus Puzzle website, The Jesus Puzzle and Jesus Neither God Nor Man and other books, and contributor to The Journal of Higher Criticism, made his “public appearance” on a biblical scholars forum on Tuesday, the 9th of February, 1999: Crosstalk. In the light of some unfortunate mischaracterizations of the tone … Continue reading “The Day Earl Doherty (author of ‘The Jesus Puzzle’) Personally Entered the Global Forum”