Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
Now seems an appropriate time to say something significant about Brodie’s arguments. I quote here sections from his now infamous book that The Irish Times reported as “caused quite a stir and some considerable upset”, Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus. (I don’t know. From what I hear from the likes of lots of … Continue reading “Thomas L. Brodie: Two Core Problems with Historical Jesus Arguments”
There is something rotten in the state of historical Jesus studies. Ideology has long trumped inconvenient questioning. Postmodernist flim-flam has recently trumped any hope of sound methodology. Some on that side of New Testament studies have curiously accused me of being “a fact fundamentalist” or an antiquated positivist or one who has unrealistic demands for … Continue reading “The Historical Jesus and the Demise of History, 1: What Has History To Do With The Facts?”
While catching up with other blogs I came across this comment in a post by Ian at Irreducable Complexity that jolted me. It was written by Sabio Lantz who has sometimes left a comment here: He wrote here: I actually enjoy Neil Godfrey’s writings sometimes — but it is usually beyond my pay grade – … Continue reading “Ouch! It’s True!”
R. (Rabbi?) Joseph Hoffmann’s “semi-sincere New Year’s resolution for 2013 is to be nicer to the mythicists”. I’m touched. He explains the reason for his semi-sincere change of heart. It is not the ghetto-dwelling buggers‘ fault for carrying diseased ideas. The fault lies with his fellow scholars who have fed them “stammering indecision, deconstruction, conspiracy-theories, … Continue reading “The Gospels Assure Us (Relatively) That the Hoffmann Jesus Is True”
This post is a continuation of a protracted series on the views of Philippe Wajdenbaum whose doctoral thesis, arguing that a good many of the Biblical stories and laws were inspired by Greek literature, has been published as Argonauts of the Desert: Structural Analysis of the Hebrew Bible. Several of the more recent posts have … Continue reading “New Understandings of the Old Testament: Jacques Cazeaux”
Richard Carrier has posted a review of Thomas L. Brodie’s Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus: Memoir of a Discovery. It is here on the freethought blog. I will be posting more of my own thoughts on the book in future posts here. While I agree with much of Carrier’s assessment I do hold … Continue reading “Carrier on Brodie and Rene Salm, at SBL, on Nazareth, Pious Fraud, James McGrath and others”
The influences of Mesopotamian creation stories in Genesis are clear. But how those stories came to be re-written for the Bible is less clear. Russell E. Gmirkin sets out two possibilities in Berossus and Genesis, Manetho and Exodus: Hellenistic Histories and the Date of the Pentateuch: The traditional Documentary Hypothesis view: Around 1400 BCE the … Continue reading “The Genesis Creation Story and its Third Century Hellenistic Source?”
Thomas L. Brodie has an epilogue in his latest book, Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus, in which he responds to Bart Ehrman’s purported attempt to address the arguments of mythicists, Did Jesus Exist? (I say “purported” because although Ehrman has vehemently denied the charge, he has never, to my knowledge, addressed the actual … Continue reading “Thomas Brodie’s Review of Bart Ehrman’s Did Jesus Exist?”
This post recapitulates earlier posts on the Documentary Hypothesis and introduces Philippe Wajdenbaum’s case for comparing the Bible with Classical Greek literature and finding the biblical author’s (sic) sources of inspiration there. Late last year I wrote Who Wrote the Bible? Rise of the Documentary Hypothesis. That post outlined the milestones towards the DH as … Continue reading “Collapse of the Documentary Hypothesis (1) & Comparing the Bible with Classical Greek Literature”
At Ed Jones’ urging, a few of months ago I purchased Essays on the Sermon on the Mount, a collection of papers by Hans Dieter Betz. While reading chapter 4, “A Jewish-Christian Cultic Didache in Matt. 6:1-18: Reflections and Questions on the Historical Jesus” (p. 55), I was alerted to Norman Perrin’s Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus. … Continue reading “Hans Dieter Betz and Norman Perrin: The Sermon on the Mount and the Historical Jesus”
Some like it in the pot, nine days old Over the past several weeks, real life got in the way of blogging. I’ll spare you the boring details, but suffice it to say writing Java and Ruby all day turns my brain into so much porridge. Speaking of porridge, that reminds me of a story. … Continue reading “Blogging Again: Some Thoughts on Methodology”
This post will open by taking us back thirty or forty years to a scenario in Old Testament scholarship that is remarkably similar to a debate taking place right now among New Testament scholars. I am currently reviewing a book, Jesus, Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity, that spotlights the flaws of the traditional approaches … Continue reading “Did a Single Author Write Genesis – II Kings? (Demise of the Documentary Hypothesis?)”
The new addition to my bookshelf and I are going to get along just fine. I feel like I’ve found a long-lost friend, someone who has published exactly the point I have been making on this blog for so long now, only this new friend was saying it long before it ever crossed my mind. … Continue reading “Quest for History: Rule One — from Brodie’s Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus”
Let’s imagine that oral traditions among today’s bedouin Arabs may be able to guide us in understanding how oral traditions worked in the days when the Bible stories were being originally told. — But don’t misunderstand. The Bible stories, even if they were originally sourced from pre-literate oral tales, have been artfully constructed to convey … Continue reading “What Makes a Good Bible Story?”