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”
Professor James Crossley on his blog last month justly critiqued various criteria biblical scholars traditionally apply in their efforts to extract some form of historical Jesus from the gospels and finally concluded: So what can we say in (what is hopefully) a post-criteria world? To some degree, we are simply left with an old fashioned … Continue reading “Lost and Bereft: The Quest (not) for the historical Jesus — Crossley style”
Here is my response to the six point and 500 word Jesus Challenge issued by Ben Goren. I copy his specific challenge questions and respond in blue font beneath each one. 1. Start with a clear, concise, unambiguous definition of who Jesus was. Do the Gospels offer a good biography of him? Was he some random … Continue reading “Taking Up Ben Goren’s Jesus Challenge”
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”
‘Parable’ is an English version of the Greek word parabolē. According to Aristotle (Rhetoric, 2.20) parables were used by orators in inductive or indirect proof as a generally recognized means of demonstration and illustration. They are, according to him, of two kinds: true events taken from history, and the more easily invented example such as … Continue reading “What Is a Parable?”
Until recently I have had little interest in arguments that our apparently earliest written gospel, the Gospel of Mark, was composed as an attempt to teach the ideas of Paul as found in his letters. After reading Mark, Canonizer of Paul by Tom Dykstra I am now more sympathetic to the possibility that the author of this gospel … Continue reading “Mark, Canonizer of Paul”
Let me recap my take on “historical method” in the context of historical Jesus studies and the Christ Myth theory. A question about this was raised at an online video session today with Phil Robinson, Richard Carrier, Dave Fitzgerald, Raphael Lataster and me. It was in response to Maurice Casey’s chapter that he titled Historical … Continue reading “Historical Method and the Question of Christian Origins”
Maurice has handed in a problematic essay assignment. Continuing from after school Monday . . . . . Come in Maurice. Sit down here and we’ll continue to go through your essay and hopefully you’ll understand what you need to do for your next effort. Show me the work I set you to complete last … Continue reading “Maurice the Pedant Learns Five More Lessons — Tuesday”
I’ve decided to wrap up this series with this post. The book I have been discussing is online for anyone interested in following up the issues in more depth. In the future I may have time to discuss how the same points about Thucydides can be found to apply to other ancient historians like Tacitus, … Continue reading “How Ancient Historians Worked — Summary”
The plague of Athens is one of the most detailed, vivid and life-like accounts of any event from ancient times. The historian who penned it (Thucydides) assures all readers that he relied upon eyewitness reports and that he personally investigated what had happened in order to be sure of leaving a record that would be … Continue reading “How Ancient Historians Constructed Dramatic Fiction: Thucydides and the Plague”
This continues from my previous post on A.J. Woodman’s argument. There are good reasons for approaching the Book of Acts and other historical writings of the Bible from the perspective of the wider literary culture of their day. Thucydides, the Greek historian of the Peloponnesian War, is generally thought of as an outstanding exception among … Continue reading “Ancient Historians: Thucydides, historian of realism, not reality”
On this page are links to archives of posts treated in special depth. In Depth Archives The Kennedy Assassination, Interview: Billionaire Logic and the Death of JFK Historical Methods (with reference to the study of Christian Origins/Historicity of Jesus) Book of Revelation — Annotated List of Posts Nazareth Death and … Continue reading “ARCHIVES by TOPIC, Annotated (Updated 2 March 23)”
–o0o– All posts in this series are archived in the O’Neill-Fitzgerald Debate. –o0o– If Tim O’Neill (TO) is true to form he won’t let the fact that he insisted there is only one historian from antiquity who mentions anyone who might be considered a messianic claimant in the Jewish war of 66-73 CE dismay him. … Continue reading “O’Neill-Fitzgerald Debate, #6: Comparing Sources for Jesus and Hannibal”
One of the gold nuggets in Clarke Owens’ Son of Yahweh: The Gospels as Novels is its simple explanation of how how to distinguish between historical persons (e.g. Socrates, Thales, Alexander, etc) and fictive ones like (as we shall see) Jesus. I say it’s a “simple explanation” but maybe that’s because I am biased towards … Continue reading “Jesus Is Not “As Historical As Anyone Else in the Ancient World””