Search Results for: oral tradition

What Christians Said About Jesus Before the New Testament Canon …. a post for Paul George

Another post I promised a commenter, this time Paul George. The point here is to clarify the grounds upon which Nodet and Taylor claimed that our canonical gospels are not the best place to start in order to understand Christian origins. The evidence they cited for this claim came from the Christian writings we have … Continue reading “What Christians Said About Jesus Before the New Testament Canon …. a post for Paul George”

Word Crime: War Breaks Out Among Israel Studies Scholars

A recent Haaretz article discusses controversy over a special issue of the Israel Studies journal that criticizes terms such as occupation and genocide used to refer to Israel vis à vis the Palestinians, as well as references to the Israel Lobby and claims that criticism of Zionism is not to be equated with anti-Semitism: Maltz, … Continue reading “Word Crime: War Breaks Out Among Israel Studies Scholars”

Can We Find History Beneath the Literary Trappings?

We have seen that the hypothesis that the Jesus of the gospels was in some way modeled on the story of another Jesus, Jesus son of Ananias, does have scholarly cachet and is by no means considered a fatuous instance of “parallelomania”. Jesus son of Ananias is a figure we find in Josephus’s account of … Continue reading “Can We Find History Beneath the Literary Trappings?”

Religion as an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

H/T Internet Monk: Scrupulosity: Where OCD Meets Religion, Faith, and Belief By OCD Center of Los Angeles Many people mistakenly think of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) solely as a condition in which people wash their hands excessively or check door locks repeatedly.  There are actually many sub-types of OCD.  In this ongoing series, Kevin Foss, … Continue reading “Religion as an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder”

Revising the Series “A Simonian Origin for Christianity”, Part 3

The previous post concluded with . . . at a minimum, the Saturnilians are addressing the same kind of issues we see in addressed in Paul’s letters. At a maximum, . . . 1 Corinthians could be providing us with a window . . . on the Saturnilian church sometime between 70 and 135 CE. … Continue reading “Revising the Series “A Simonian Origin for Christianity”, Part 3”

Horbury Argued Similarly: Jewish Messianic Ideas Explain Christianity

For most scholars, Boyarin’s thinking is a complete paradigm shift and in many ways something that “just isn’t done.”74 74   Horbury, Jewish Messianism, argued similarly to Boyarín yet not as forcefully. Those quotes are from Benjamin Reynolds, page 29 of his essay “The Gospel of John’s Christology as Evidence for Early Jewish Messianic Expectations: Challenges … Continue reading “Horbury Argued Similarly: Jewish Messianic Ideas Explain Christianity”

How the Gospel of Mark Retrofitted Jesus into a Pre-Existing Christ Idea

The background to the following post is The Gospel of John as  a form of Jewish Messianism? (Part 2). It presumes some awareness of how in some Jewish quarters Daniel 7’s Son of Man was being interpreted in a way that led to controversial Jewish texts like the Similitudes of Enoch and the Gospel of … Continue reading “How the Gospel of Mark Retrofitted Jesus into a Pre-Existing Christ Idea”

Luke-Acts as form of history-writing (Luke-Acts Explained . . . Part 2)

Continuing from Luke-Acts Explained as a form of “Ideal Jewish History” (Part 1) The reasons Luke-Acts has been considered a form of ancient history writing: Like other ancient historiography the work begins with a prologue announcing its superiority over what has gone before; Steve Mason notes that unlike the preceding gospels Luke-Acts, as a two volume … Continue reading “Luke-Acts as form of history-writing (Luke-Acts Explained . . . Part 2)”

Luke-Acts Explained as a form of “Ideal Jewish History” (Part 1)

TL;DR The author of Luke-Acts was following an ideal that Josephus had presented as a superior feature of Jewish historical writings: that history learned from revelation (e.g. works of Moses) was superior to the uncertain and often disputed historical inquiries of the Greeks. I think Steve Mason has nailed Luke-Acts. I think, as a specialist … Continue reading “Luke-Acts Explained as a form of “Ideal Jewish History” (Part 1)”

Why the Rabbis (and Gospel Authors, too) Wrote Fiction as “True History”

Chaim Milikowsky gives his answer to the question in the title, or at least he answers the question with respect to rabbinical literature. I have added the connection to our canonical four gospels, and I could with equal justice add Acts of the Apostles. I read CM’s answer in Ancient Fiction: The Matrix of Early … Continue reading “Why the Rabbis (and Gospel Authors, too) Wrote Fiction as “True History””

Ancient History, a “Funny Kind of History”

It is in the end not very surprising that university students of history, with some knowledge of the sources for, say, Tudor England or Louis XIV’s France, find ancient history a ‘funny kind of history’. The unavoidable reliance on the poems of Horace for Augustan ideology, or in the same way on the Eumenides of … Continue reading “Ancient History, a “Funny Kind of History””

Two Views on the Lord’s Supper: Authentic or Inconceivable

I Corinthians 11: 23 For I received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which he was betrayed took bread; 24 and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, This is my body, which is for you: this do in remembrance of me. 25 In like … Continue reading “Two Views on the Lord’s Supper: Authentic or Inconceivable”

Why a Saviour Had to Suffer and Die? Martyrdom Beliefs in Pre-Christian Times

The next time I hear someone say that no-one would make up a saviour who suffers and dies I will be able to point them to the table in this post. I think we can conclude that a suffering and dying messiah is exactly what we should expect to emerge from a world where all … Continue reading “Why a Saviour Had to Suffer and Die? Martyrdom Beliefs in Pre-Christian Times”

Addressing S. Gathercole’s Case for Jesus’ “Humanity” continued: Misrepresentations (#4)

A frequent line of argument by scholars and others attempting to “prove” the historicity of a Jesus behind the gospel narratives is to focus on biblical passages pointing to the “humanity” of Jesus, and sometimes his geographical and temporal location. It often appears that such people assume that a figure who is human and said … Continue reading “Addressing S. Gathercole’s Case for Jesus’ “Humanity” continued: Misrepresentations (#4)”