Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
No, not at all. My own interest in dating the gospels late has nothing to do with arguing for a mythical Jesus. I am not interested in arguing for a mythical Jesus as I have said many times in the past. My interest is in explaining the literature and evidence for Christian origins using the … Continue reading “Is it necessary for “mythicists” to date the gospels late?”
Would it not be wonderful if our Gospels were all signed and dated so there could be no debates about who wrote them or when? The hermeneutic of charity would rule and only the hypersceptical and “minimalists” would entertain any doubts. Well, there is one gospel that is signed, addressed and dated. It was written … Continue reading “How Late Can a Gospel Be?”
If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, but doesn’t quite quack like a duck, then maybe it is not a duck. Just because we see one or even a few features in the gospels that we recognize from historical or biographical writings, we cannot assume that the gospels are therefore history or … Continue reading “Historical Imitations and Reversals in Ancient Novels — and the Gospels?”
Dale Allison concludes his book Constructing Jesus with a discussion of the intent of the gospel authors. Did the gospel authors themselves think that they were writing real history or did they think they were writing metaphorical narratives, parables or allegories? Allison refers to Marcus Borg and others (e.g. Robert Gundry, John Dominic Crossan, Robert … Continue reading “How many stories in the gospels are “purely metaphorical”?”
Though most scholars of the gospels appear to regard the gospels as a form of ancient biographies of Jesus, there are a number who continue to doubt that “biography” really does describe their genre. One of these is Michael E. Vines, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Lees-McRae College, North Carolina, who wrote The Problem … Continue reading “The First Gospel was a Jewish Novel?”
Understanding the nature of a text is a significant factor in knowing how to interpret it and how to use it as historical evidence. Many scholars today, following Burridge, accept that the Gospel of Mark is a biography of the life of Jesus. The Gospel of Mark is widely considered to be the first written … Continue reading “Second thoughts on the Gospel of Mark as Biography”
In this post I outline the points of Burridge’s influential argument that the gospels belong to the genre of ancient biography. Richard A. Burridge has been central to the development of wide scholarly agreement that the Gospels are biographies (or technically βιος) with the publication of his doctoral thesis, What Are the Gospels? A Comparison … Continue reading “Are the Gospels Really Biographies? Outlining and Questioning Burridge”
If the Gospels were written as “biographies” of Jesus, or were meant to be read as “history”, does this mean that we can expect to find only factual details in them? Or if not entirely factual, must we give the benefit of the doubt that beneath a certain amount of exaggeration there must have been … Continue reading “Fiction in ancient biographies, histories and gospels”
Edited 13th November Maurice Casey argues that the author of the Gospel of Mark translated written Aramaic sources about Jesus as early as within ten years of the crucifixion. He expresses impatience with scholars such as those like John Dominic Crossan who “spend their whole lives in detailed examination of these primary texts” (p. 21) … Continue reading ““Make a Path”: Maurice Casey’s evidence of an Aramaic source for Mark’s Gospel, or Creative Fiction?”
Reading James Linville’s Israel in the Book of Kings (introduced in my previous post) I can’t help but notice resonances with the methodologies and assumptions largely taken for granted by New Testament scholars. The same issues of assumptions of historicity and lack of evidence bedevil (or at least did much more so in 1998 when … Continue reading “Gospels and Kings”
Thomas L. Brodie presents an argument that the Gospel of Mark was in its basic outline, plot and structure based on the Elijah-Elisha narrative in the Old Testament. I am not quite sure what to make of his case at times, but cannot deny its interest. I have no problem accepting that Mark used some … Continue reading “The Elijah-Elisha narrative as a model for the Gospel of Mark”
One of the more absorbing books I caught up with about a year ago is Understanding the Fourth Gospel (2nd ed) by John Ashton. (I had read somewhere that this is the book to read for anyone wanting to understand what could be understood about this gospel. It obviously had something of interest for me … Continue reading “Starting a New Religion with The Gospel of John”
“We cannot name any historian whom . . . Luke has taken as a model” (Dibelius, 1956, 183-185) Pervo cites Dibelius as one scholar unimpressed with claims that the speeches in Acts are necessarily attributable to historiographical intent. Certainly ancient historians crafted lengthy speeches for historical characters, and certainly the speeches in Acts are not … Continue reading “The literary genre of Acts. 3: Speeches”
There is not a lot to say about the use of chronological markers in Acts. There aren’t many.