Search Results for: oral tradition

Ancient vs. Modern Biographies: Didn’t Bultmann Know the Difference?

While reading Michael Licona’s recent book, Why Are There Differences in the Gospels?, I came upon this little nugget. [Richard] Burridge and [Graham] Gould say Bultmann was correct in asserting that the Gospels do not look anything like modern biography. What Bultmann neglected to observe, however, is that neither do any other ancient biographies. Differing … Continue reading “Ancient vs. Modern Biographies: Didn’t Bultmann Know the Difference?”

Comparing the Rome’s and Israel’s Foundation Stories, Aeneas and Abraham

Weinfeld compared the Abrahamic promises that prompted his emigration from Mesopotamia to Canaan with the similar destiny prophesied for the legendary Trojan hero Aeneas at the outset of his travels: much as the descendants of Aeneas would someday found Rome (Homer, Iliad 20.307; Virgil, Aeneid 3.97-98), so Abraham’s descendants would become a great nation and … Continue reading “Comparing the Rome’s and Israel’s Foundation Stories, Aeneas and Abraham”

I Like Paul’s Christianity a Little Better, Now — Out from the Shadows of Augustine and Luther

Ever since the early 1960s biblical scholars and even psychologists have been told something very critical about the apostle Paul’s teachings that had the potential to spare the mental sufferings of so many Western Christians. Paul did not teach that one had to go through self-loathing or guilt-torment in order in order to be saved … Continue reading “I Like Paul’s Christianity a Little Better, Now — Out from the Shadows of Augustine and Luther”

How Does One Date the Old Testament Writings?

I have been posting insights from Russell Gmirkin’s Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible (archived here) in which he argues that both many core and peripheral features of the text of the Hebrew Bible bear closer similarities to Classical Greek writings and practices than to what we find in ancient Mesopotamian and Levantine culture. … Continue reading “How Does One Date the Old Testament Writings?”

Early Christianity Looked Like a Philosophical School

Continuing from the previous post on Stanley K. Stowers’ chapter, “Does Pauline Christianity Resemble a Hellenistic Philosophy?” . . . To pre-empt predictable objections Stowers begins with three riders: His comparison study does not make claims about origins; he is not arguing that Christianity began as a Hellenistic philosophy. Comparison or similarity does not mean … Continue reading “Early Christianity Looked Like a Philosophical School”

Earliest Christianity Did Not Look Like a Religion

I have long been intrigued by the second century “church father” Justin Martyr identifying himself as a philosopher, not a “priest” or elder or bishop or other ecclesiastical type of title. He left it on record that he came to Christianity after surveying a range of other philosophies, not religions. Other posts addressing publications by Stanley … Continue reading “Earliest Christianity Did Not Look Like a Religion”

3 Common and 1 Surprising Reason for Paul’s Silence on the Historical Jesus

I recently drew upon a chapter by William O. Walker, Jr. in Some Surprises From the Apostle Paul to argue for the likelihood of interpolations in Paul’s letters: Why Many Interpolations in Paul’s Letters are Very Likely. But that was only one late chapter in Walker’s book. Explanation 4 below is another “surprise” he writes about: Paul on … Continue reading “3 Common and 1 Surprising Reason for Paul’s Silence on the Historical Jesus”

How Philo-Semitic British Israelism Morphed into Anti-Semitic White Supremacism / Christian Identity

In a former life I was mixed up with British Israelism (the belief that the Anglo-Saxon races are the “lost ten tribes of Israel”) so recently I was interested to find a new research paper by J. M. Berger using British Israelism as a case study in how an innocuous if eccentric belief system was … Continue reading “How Philo-Semitic British Israelism Morphed into Anti-Semitic White Supremacism / Christian Identity”

Destroyer of the Gods

A steady stream of my RSS notices over recent weeks and months have alerted me to interest in a new book by Larry Hurtado, Destroyer of the Gods: Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World. The title is dramatic enough. Search the term “destroyer of the gods” on Google’s Image search to see the dramatic scenarios … Continue reading “Destroyer of the Gods”

The Problem of Forgery in the Bible: 10 Myths to Justify False Authorship

Is it really a problem if a book in the Bible claims to be written by someone who was clearly not the author? Did ancient authors work by different rules and ideas about copyright from anything we think appropriate today? Might not a lowly scribe in fact be acting in a praiseworthy manner (by ancient standards) … Continue reading “The Problem of Forgery in the Bible: 10 Myths to Justify False Authorship”

On Not Reading the Bible Too Seriously — As Its Authors Intended

My reflections on reading the story of Abraham setting out to sacrifice Isaac as a children’s story brought to mind a more mature understanding of the Bible’s narratives discussed by in The Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel by Thomas L. Thompson. (The same book is published under the title The Bible in history … Continue reading “On Not Reading the Bible Too Seriously — As Its Authors Intended”

Bible’s Priests and Prophets – With Touches of Greek

Is it possible that the Bible’s account of priests and prophets contains hints of borrowing from the Greek world? Not that those Hellenistic features mean we have to jettison entirely sources and influences closer to the Levant. Let’s look at another section of Russell Gmirkin’s Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible (2016).   Previous posts: Plato and … Continue reading “Bible’s Priests and Prophets – With Touches of Greek”

How Bible Contradictions Began

Even ancient scribes had problems with some of the laws that were decreed from the mouth of the Almighty himself. Take the commandment against idolatry thundered from Mount Sinai: You are not to make yourself a carved-image or any figure that is in the heavens above, that is on the earth beneath, that is in the … Continue reading “How Bible Contradictions Began”

The Bifurcation of the Semitic Myth and Post-WW2 Antisemitism

[After the 1967 June War] [t]his was what the Arab had become. From a faintly outlined stereotype as a camel-riding nomad to an accepted caricature as the embodiment of incompetence and easy defeat: that was all the scope given the Arab.  Yet after the 1973 war the Arab appeared everywhere as some-thing more menacing. Cartoons … Continue reading “The Bifurcation of the Semitic Myth and Post-WW2 Antisemitism”