Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
This post is the final in my series discussing Nina Livesey’s The Letters of Paul in Their Roman Literary Context: Reassessing Apostolic Authorship. Nina Livesey (NL) sees the letters of Paul being composed and published in a philosophical school setting in Rome in the second century CE. There were many schools of this type in … Continue reading “Paul’s Letters as Products of Marcion’s School”
Continuing reading Nina Livesey’s [NL] The Letters of Paul in their Roman Literary Context, we now come to the question of the stark differences between the Paul of the letters against the Paul of the Acts of the Apostles. In Acts Paul is submissive to the Jerusalem authorities and sympathetic to law-keepers; in the letters … Continue reading “The Fiction of Paul and the Church Communities”
Continuing from: New Book Questioning Authenticity of Paul’s Letters Nina Livesey’s The Letters of Paul in their Roman Literary Context –o0o– This book argues that these seven letters* are … pseudonymous, literary, and fictional, letters-in-form-only. Their likely origin is Marcion’s mid-second-century speculative/philosophical school in Rome, the site and timeframe of our earliest evidence of a collection … Continue reading “Challenging the Authenticity of Paul’s Letters”
My title refers to the anonymous texts in both the Old and New Testaments and why among those anonymous works we encounter numerous contradictions, even within the same works. I came across one of the clearest explanations to this question in David’s Secret Demons by Baruch Halpern. Halpern explains why “Near Eastern” writing is so … Continue reading “Why Bible Authors Wrote Anonymously and with Contradictions”
Continuing from https://vridar.org/2023/10/01/a-dialog-with-chatgpt-on-christian-origins/ Me: What, if anything, changes, if we introduce the need for independent corroboration? ChatGPT: The requirement for independent corroboration significantly tightens the standards for historical verification. If historians strictly demand independent sources to corroborate each event or claim, it can add more confidence to their conclusions but also presents challenges: Higher Confidence … Continue reading “Continuing Dialog with ChatGPT — historical methods”
While recently attempting to relate the views of the anthropologist Harvey Whitehouse to what we know of Christian origins, I decided to turn to an obliging dialog partner for assistance — ChatGPT. For background you might want to skim through what I wrote about Whitehouse’s models at https://vridar.org/2020/06/20/modes-of-religiosity/ Me: Given Harvey Whitehouse’s description of the … Continue reading “A Dialog with ChatGPT on Christian Origins”
I have often tried to point out how historians as a rule have very different standards and methods for verifying past events from those we too often find among Bible scholars writing about Christian origins and Jesus himself. Two statements of “non-biblical” historians I have quoted in the past epitomize the divide between the two … Continue reading “Not All Historians Are Equal”
318 VII. The Time of Marcus Aurelius. We come to a conclusion and say farewell to the Caesars who ruled the world alongside the gradual rise of Christianity. They all contributed to the formation of the new faith and, in their individuality, depicted with expressive force a feature of the image in which the dissatisfied … Continue reading “BRUNO BAUER: Christ and the Caesars – VII. The Time of Marcus Aurelius”
126 III. Nero’s and Seneca’s downfall. 1. The Cosmopolitan on the Throne. Nero was no longer a Roman national patriot in that exclusive sense in which the ancient Roman, in pride of his blood, claimed the privilege of superiority over the peoples of the earth. Virgil had expressed this sense of nationalism once more in … Continue reading “BRUNO BAUER: Christ and the Caesars – III. Nero’s and Seneca’s Downfall”
263 9. Auferstehung und Himmelfahrt. 9. Resurrection and Ascension. 263 Nur bis zu dem Punkte, wo der Engel den Frauen, die am Morgen nach dem Sabbath mit ihren Specereien sich nach dem Grabe begeben hatten, die Auferstehung des Herrn meldet und ihnen den Auftrag gibt, sie sollten den Jüngern die Nachricht bringen, daß ihnen der … Continue reading “Ch 9 – Resurrection and Ascension”
I have added a new page in the right column under Archives By Topic to allow easy access to the complete list of recent posts on Revelation presenting Thomas Witulski’s second century date for the work. The page also includes all other posts that have discussed Revelation from various perspectives. But since we’re here right … Continue reading “List of Vridar Posts on the Book of Revelation”
Annotated list of Vridar posts on the Book of Revelation Bruce Malina and Revelation as an Astral prophecy Born of a woman in heaven: cosmic origin of the Messiah 2011-06-05 Discussing Professor Bruce J. Malina’s book On The Genre And Message Of Revelation: Star Visions and Sky Journeys He sets out a case for the … Continue reading “Book of Revelation — Annotated List of Posts“
All posts reviewing Nathanael Vette’s Writing With Scripture are archived at Vette : Writing With Scripture With thanks to T&T Clark who forwarded me a review copy. I have come to a turning point in my reading and review of Nathanael Vette’s Writing With Scripture. I first learned of the book on the Biblical Criticism … Continue reading “Clarification of the Thesis — a review of Writing with Scripture, part 8”
All posts reviewing Nathanael Vette’s Writing With Scripture are archived at Vette : Writing With Scripture With thanks to T&T Clark who forwarded me a review copy. I was fascinated by Nathanael Vette’s (NV) discussion of the highly probable influence of the story of Esther on the Gospel of Mark‘s account of the death of … Continue reading “How Queen Esther Influenced the Fate of John the Baptist — a review of Writing with Scripture, part 7”