Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
Part 1: A Sea Change Ultimately, the problem with identifying the genre of the synoptic gospels as Hellenistic biographies or Graeco-Roman histories is that these terms are insufficient to describe their form, genesis, and purpose. Published in 1989 by SCM Press, Studying the Synoptic Gospels remains one of the best resources for learning about the … Continue reading “The Genre of the Gospels: How the Consensus Changed (Part 1)”
I received an email a few weeks ago [4 Jan. edit: make that a few months ago], in which the sender asked some questions that deserve an extended response. If and when I have the time, I will add more to this post, but I at least would like to start with a broad outline … Continue reading “How Did Scholars View the Gospels During the “First Quest”? (Part 1)”
Theological Explanation of the Gospels Die theologische Erklärung der Evangelien by Bruno Bauer 1852 Foreword When I appeared with my critique of evangelical history twelve years ago, two years prior, a fortunate and thorough effort had initiated a turning point in research, placing the question that Christian theology had struggled with in an … Continue reading “BRUNO BAUER: Theological Explanation of the Gospels – Foreword”
If you are looking for a serious, easy-to-read and up-to-date study of the question of how the gospels came to be written, what sources their authors used, what their authors were trying to achieve, and for the most part is delivered in conversational style, then you will have found it in Rhetoric and the Synoptic … Continue reading “A Brilliant New Book on Gospel Origins”
Seven years ago in an online forum I discovered that another person, Ben Smith, had come to a conclusion that I had till then only been toying with. Ben had delved into the question more thoroughly than I had and encapsulated his findings as follows: What genre do the gospels belong to? I think that … Continue reading “To What Shall We Compare the Gospels? — a review of Writing with Scripture, part 3”
This post continues my series on Nanine Charbonenel’s Jésus-Christ, Sublime Figure De Papier but this time I will begin with a personal experience. I posted about it a couple of years ago under the title The Faith Trick. The experience was the realization that the power by which I was “transformed into a new person” … Continue reading “The Secret of the Power Behind the Gospel Narrative (Charbonnel Continued)”
We discuss here the second of three parts of the chapter about “scriptural fulfillments” in Nanine Charbonnel’s Jésus-Christ, Sublime Figure de Papier . . . . . . The Jewish Scriptures spoke of times that were supposed to be fulfilled in coming days and in the text of the New Testament we read of those … Continue reading “How the Gospels Became History”
This post follows on from A Midrashic Hypothesis for the Gospels . We are going through Jésus-Christ, Sublime Figure de Papier by Nanine Charbonnel. All posts so far are archived at Charbonnel: Jesus Christ sublime figure de papier. Nanine Charbonnel [NC] at this point begins to study how the fictive figure of Jesus in the … Continue reading “How Jewish Gospels Became Christian Gospels”
If we are serious about the idea of expanding our horizons with interdisciplinary studies, even those of ancient theatre, there is much that is thought-provoking here. From time to time I encounter the idea that the Gospel of Mark was in some way related to dramatic performance or Greek tragedy. Mary Ann Beavis brings much … Continue reading “The Gospel of Mark as a Dramatic Performance”
Chapter 11 of How the Gospels Became History again makes for fascinating reading as M. David Litwa explores in some depth the idea of the scapegoat in Greek myth as one part of the cultural and mythical context in which the gospels were written. The technical (Greek) term is pharmakos [link is to a brief … Continue reading “Review, part 11. Comparing the Lives and Deaths of Aesop and Jesus (Litwa: How the Gospels Became History)”
We arrive now at a point where I am beginning to find more agreement with, and renewed interest in, M. David Litwa’s thesis in How the Gospels Became History. Having dismissed Dennis MacDonald’s proposal that the gospels (in particular Gospel of Mark) were created intertextually with not only various Jewish books but also Greco-Roman ones … Continue reading “Review, part 3b (The Thesis) : How the Gospels Became History / Litwa”
M. David Litwa opens chapter 2, “A Theory of Comparisons”, of How the Gospels Became History: Jesus and Mediterranean Myths, with the following epigraph: The issue of difference has been all but forgotten. —Jonathan Z. Smith It is all too easy to overlook differences, agreed. I seem to recall drawing questionable conclusions about the world’s … Continue reading “Review, part 3a (Homer and the Gospels) : How the Gospels Became History / Litwa”
I know some readers find it difficult to accept that our canonical gospels and Acts were seriously influenced by the epics of Homer, the Iliad and Odyssey. Here is something (two things, actually) to think about. We think of “history” as a genre of literature that is meant to convey the idea of facts, truth, … Continue reading “Once More — Homer, History and the Gospels-Acts”
Continuing from part 1b … M. David Litwa’s opening chapter of How the Gospels Became History is an overview of ancient history-writing looked like, including its frequent allowance of myth, and how the canonical gospels fit in with this type of literature. So far we have been moving slowly as we take note of what ancient … Continue reading “Review, pt 1c: How the Gospels Became History / Litwa (Looking like history?)”