Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
One of my earliest posts asked what Josephus might have said about the worth of the Gospels as history had he read them. In preparation for my final post on historical-critical methods with Stephen’s martyrdom as a case study I have come across (as another commenter also did) a chapter in Lies and Fiction in … Continue reading “Is Luke Among the Lying Historians?”
Yet Another Ehrman-Evans Debate In a recent Bart Ehrman blog post, he referred to a debate he had with Craig Evans on the reliability of the New Testament, which took place back in January of 2012. If you watch it (perhaps you already have) and you’re familiar with these guys, don’t expect to see or … Continue reading “History and Verisimilitude: “Real” vs. “Realistic””
The Acts Seminar was a Westar Institute sequel to the Jesus Seminar. It met between March 2000 and March 2011. It was charged with the task to develop methods for determining the reliability of Acts and produce a comprehensive guide to Acts as history. (Acts and Christian Beginnings: The Acts Seminar Report, p. 1) The … Continue reading “Top Ten Findings of the Acts Seminar”
Continuing the series on Thomas Brodie’s Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus: Memoir of a Discovery, archived here. (I am breaking up Brodie’s chapter 17 into a series of smaller posts, and adding more of my own commentary in the process. I hope I keep the distinction between my own thoughts and Brodie’s clear.) … Continue reading “Making of a Mythicist — ch 17 . . . Unreliable Criteria”
Continuing the series on Thomas Brodie’s Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus: Memoir of a Discovery, archived here. Chapter 16 PAUL: THE PENNY FINALLY DROPS The last post in this series concluded with If Brodie’s analyses are correct then it is clear that the epistles and Luke cannot be taken at face value in … Continue reading “Making of a Mythicist, Act 4, Scene 5 (How Paul Was Made)”
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)”
History is not rocket science. It is easy to explain to the general audience the evidence for the existence and career-outline and various assessments of the significance of Julius Caesar. Historical argument is as “easy” as presenting the “historical events/hypothesis” the sources upon which the above scenario is based the evidence for our understanding of … Continue reading “Mythicism and Arguments from Authority”
Chapter 14 THE SHIPPING FORECAST: DEEPS BELOW AND A STORM AHEAD . Chapter 14 of Thomas Brodie’s Memoir of a Discovery is probably one of the volume’s most significant and it is to be regretted that some of Brodie’s critics have so totally avoided its message. This chapter strikes at the heart of what most … Continue reading “Making of a Mythicist, Act 4, Scene 3 (Deeps Below, Storms Ahead)”
Chapter 13 The Quest for History: Rule One . The theme of chapter 13 in Thomas Brodie’s Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus: Memoir of a Discover syncs well with a recurring theme on this blog. I have posted on it repeatedly and alluded to it constantly. I even posted on the contents of … Continue reading “Making of a Mythicist, Act 4, Scene 2 (“What Is Rule One?”)”
Right for the wrong reasons A few years back I was on the phone with an acquaintance who is as far to the right politically as I am to the left. At the time the Democratic-led Senate was trying to push through the Affordable Care Act. So he asked me what I thought about the … Continue reading “The Parable of the Ropes — Getting to the Root of the Criteria Problem”
Anthony Le Donne has published works arguing for a new type of historical study, one that draws upon memory theory, to be applied to the Gospels. He and a number of scholarly supporters believe this new approach can open up a more valid way of approximating the historical Jesus behind the Gospels. In the opening … Continue reading “A dichotomy fallacy in historical Jesus studies”
William Wrede’s The Messianic Secret Part 10: How Matthew and Luke changed Mark Five months have passed since my previous post on The Messianic Secret. In the interim, I have focused on material related to the genre of the gospels, which has consumed most of my attention. Recently, however, I’ve been simultaneously reading or re-reading several … Continue reading “Reading Wrede Again for the First Time (10)”
Continuing Thomas Brodie’s Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus: Memoir of a Discovery Part III The Third Revolution: Literary Art, Including Form/Genre Becoming aware of how biblical writers redesigned their materials into a new work of art Chapter 8 . Dramatic happenings in the next room Old Testament studies were much more action-packed in … Continue reading “Making of a Mythicist, Act 3, Scene 1 (Too Strange!)”
Dominican priest Thomas Brodie has written an autobiographical narrative of how he came to the realization that the New Testament writings about Jesus, in particular the Gospels, do not derive from reports about the life and teachings of an historical person at all but are entirely sourced and re-created from other theological writings. The Jesus … Continue reading “The Making of a Mythicist, Act 1, Scene 1 (Thomas Brodie’s Odyssey)”