Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
It seems obvious to most scholars that our estimate of the age of a certain book . . . must be founded on information contained in the book itself and not on other information, and the estimate should certainly not be based on the existence of a historical background that may never have existed. The … Continue reading “Scientific and Unscientific Dating of the Gospels”
This post looks at the rise of the dominant scholarly hypothesis that the Old Testament came together through the efforts of various editors over time collating and editing a range of earlier sources. The structure and bulk of the contents of the post is taken from Philippe Wajdenbaum’s discussion of the Documentary Hypothesis. The complete … Continue reading “Who wrote the Bible? Rise of the Documentary Hypothesis”
This post continues with further introductory themes in Dr Philippe Wajdenbaum’s Argonauts of the Desert. The posts are archived here. How late was the Bible? And who really wrote it? It has become a truism that the Bible, or let’s be specific and acknowledge we are discussing the Old Testament or Jewish/Hebrew Bible, is a … Continue reading “Bible Origins — continuing Wajdenbaum’s thesis in Argonauts of the Desert”
In my previous post presenting a few comments by social anthropologist Philippe Wajdenbaum from his thesis Argonauts of the Desert I quoted his summary conclusion of a Claude Lévi-Straussian structural analysis of the Bible: The Bible is a Hebrew narrative tainted with theological and political philosophy and inspired by the writings of Plato, one that is embellished with … Continue reading “Anthropologist’s analysis of the Bible and of Biblical Studies as a variant of the Bible’s myth”
This is a continuation from my previous “little bio” post. An earlier version was accidentally published about half an hour before I had completed it. This is the completed version. It never occurred to me that the historical existence of Jesus could be questioned until I came across Earl Doherty’s website. Till then I had … Continue reading “Why and how I came to question the historicity of Jesus”
In Jesus Interrupted Bart Ehrman describes his first encounter with people who believed Jesus never existed. Some people from Sweden had emailed him to ask if it were true that he thought Jesus was a myth. Ehrman describes his reaction: I thought this was an odd question. (p. 140) Bart Ehrman then comes very close … Continue reading “Bart Ehrman’s failed attempt to address mythicism”
“This book is an essential guide to the life and thought of Jesus . . . “ That’s James H. Charlesworth’s opening line in the preface to The Historical Jesus: An Essential Guide, one title in Abingdon Press’s Essential Guide series. James H. Charlesworth is George L. Collord Professor of New Testament Language and Literature … Continue reading “Essential Guide to the Historical Jesus: Introduction (James H. Charlesworth)”
Géza Vermes is not a mythicist. He believes in the historical reality of Jesus to be found beneath the Gospels. But in the context of any mythicist debate what he writes in The Changing Faces of Jesus about the “myth” of Christ Jesus in Paul’s writings is noteworthy. It shouldn’t be. What he writes is … Continue reading “Paul’s “Mystical-Mythical” Christ the real — or rival? — foundation of Christianity”
9th post in the series by Roger Parvus. The complete series is archived here. In the letters of Peregrinus there are some passages that concern his gospel. If, as I have proposed, he was an Apellean Christian, we can expect to find here too some rough-edged and clumsy corrections by his proto-Catholic editor/interpolator. TO THE … Continue reading “[9] THE LETTERS SUPPOSEDLY WRITTEN BY IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH: 9th post in the series”
Can criteria used by New Testament scholars to uncover the historical Jesus (i.e., it is probably true if it is embarrassing, multiply attested, etc etc.) also be used on early ballads to see if we can know anything “probable” about the historical Robin Hood? Some people have “entertained reasonable doubts” about Robin Hood’s historicity, but at … Continue reading “How modern historians use myths as historical sources – or, Can Hobsbawm recover the historical Robin Hood?”
Updated 5 hours after posting to expand Schweitzer quote. The approach I like to take is one I learned from the way historians (certainly many of them at any rate) investigate other topics, whether in modern, medieval or ancient times. I have used the example of Alexander the Great before, so for convenience I use … Continue reading “Another way to study Christian origins”
Obviously the fact that people can speak about Jesus as if he had really existed does not mean that he really did exist. But what if historians (whose careers are in history faculties that have nothing to do with biblical studies) who write about the Roman empire mention Jesus as the founder of the Christian … Continue reading “Historians on Jesus”
James McGrath appears to have conceded the possibility that Earl Doherty may (perhaps only theoretically) be right when he wrote: Even if one granted that by “according to the Scriptures” Paul might have meant “according to what I have read in and derived from the Scriptures,” that would still not be incompatible with his understanding … Continue reading “Even IF “according to the Scriptures” meant “according to what we read in the Scriptures” . . . .”
Updated 4th August to clarify reference to Lewis John Eron’s definition of midrash. New Testament and Jewish studies scholars have often used the terms “midrash” or “midrashic” in connection with the Gospels, but some scholars object to applying the term to the Gospels. The difference is essentially between “purists” who want to restrict the term … Continue reading “Midrash and the Gospels 1: Some definitions and explanations”