Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
Trying to understand what is happening in the United States has led me to new areas of reading, including The Politics of Unreason: Right-Wing Extremism in America, 1790-1970 by Seymour Martin Lipset and Earl Raab. The opening paragraph of the Preface to that book: This particular analysis of right-wing extremism in America began to emerge … Continue reading “America’s Radical Right in Context (Lipset Revisited)”
This post derives from my reading of Some Hellenistic Elements in Primitive Christianity by Wilfred L. Knox (1942). For other posts on various aspects of a relationship between Heracles and Jesus see Heracles, A Fitting Substitute for Jesus Christ. Let’s once again imagine the canonical gospels in the thought-world of the ancient Greco-Roman world. … Continue reading “Jesus the Logos in Roman Stoic Philosophers’ Eyes”
Barrett next raises what he sees as “reflective problems for atheists“. (For Barrett’s meaning of the term “reflective beliefs” see the opening post in this series: Gods (An Anthropology of Religion Perspective) and its specific application to belief/nonbelief in God, Argument for God — part 1.) Barrett appears to be suggesting that an atheist must … Continue reading “Argument for God — part 3, final (arguments against atheism)”
This post is based on some of the citations in the early pages of Hercules-Christus, a 1947 article by Dutch Radical Critic Gustaaf Adolf van den Bergh van Eysinga, translated into German by Frans-Joris Fabri and posted on Hermann Detering’s RadikalKritik webpage. I have supplemented some of van Eysinga’s references in places. Other posts addressing … Continue reading “Hercules, a Fitting Substitute for Jesus Christ”
The Gospels of Matthew and Luke contain best-known birth narratives of Jesus but they have mystified many inquiring minds who wonder how they can be so totally different from each other. They are so different that many scholars cannot accept that Luke had ever read Matthew’s account: they had to be derived ultimately (and independently) … Continue reading “Where Did the Stories of Joseph and Mary Come From?”
Some Jesus mythicists, following Earl Doherty and Richard Carrier, have taken a special interest in the Ascension of Isaiah [Asc. Isa.], an early Christian text that has been used to support (not establish, as some critics have asserted) the argument that Jesus was in an early stage of tradition believed to have been crucified by … Continue reading “Ascension of Isaiah: Questions”
(updated 2 hours after first posting) This post is a distillation of the chapter “Why Ignatius Invented Judaism” by Daniel Boyarin in The Ways That Often Parted: Essays in Honor of Joel Marcus. It covers the same questions addressed by Roger Parvus (see sidebox) but with a different hypothesis. Roger Parvus posted a series on … Continue reading “How Ignatius Cut Christianity Off From its Jewish Roots”
Other Vridar posts discussing the gospels as parables: Making sense of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark Making more sense of Jesus . . . Art and Aramaic in the Gospel of Mark Jesus’ Journey Into Hell and Back — told symbolically in the Gospel of Mark? Was the Empty Tomb Story Originally Meant to … Continue reading “Gospel Parables and the “Birth” of the Messiah as a Personification of Israel”
Continuing with my discussion of Nanine Charbonnel’s Jésus-Christ, Sublime Figure de Papier . . . . An earlier post in this series, Jésus-Christ, Sublime Figure de Papier. Chap 3b. Creative Intertextuality, briefly touched on the ways stories in the Pentateuch came to be rewritten so that one mirrored another: e.g. Abraham and Sarah’s experience in … Continue reading “To Ask if Bible Events Actually Happened Guarantees the Bible Will Be Misunderstood”
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”
Continuing with Nanine Charbonnel’s Jésus-Christ, Sublime Figure de Papier . . . . . . We are not talking about a violent revolution but a revolution in the way the Jewish Scriptures were read, the one that launched Christianity itself, or at least Christianity as we know it to be grounded in belief in the … Continue reading “The Christian Revolution: The Threefold Fulfillment of Scripture”
Continuing my reading of part 2 of Nanine Charbonnel’s Jésus-Christ, Sublime Figure de Papier . . . . . . o . . Legend? Tale? Novel? — If these labels can be applied to any of the Old Testament works they fail when we attempt to relate them to the New Testament narratives. The impasse … Continue reading “Inadequacy of the Tools in the Search for the Historical Jesus”
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”
From an article by British diplomat Alastair Crooke, Israel in the Middle East — A Civilisational and Metaphysical War. Crooke essentially links the recent Trump “Deal of the Century” Peace Plan to the historical visions of both American “manifest destiny” and Israeli Zionism. * Mr President … you became the first world leader to recognize … Continue reading “Jewish Zionism . . . an Old Testament Project (for the USA, too)”