Continuing. . . . The Roman historian Tacitus (ca 56-117 C.E.) appears to combine several versions of the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt. Most significantly, In Tacitus, the characterization of Jewish monotheism as a counter-religion which is the inversion of Egyptian tradition and therefore totally derivative of, and dependent on, Egypt reaches its climax. (Assmann, … Continue reading “Moses and Exodus according to the Roman historian Tacitus”
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I recently completed Michael J. Kok’s exploration of why the Gospel of Mark came to be associated with the apostle Peter and included in our canon despite appearing at first glance to be little more than a synopsis of the other gospels and little used by the early church according to the extant records, and … Continue reading “Why Is the Gospel of Mark in the New Testament?”
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This is the second section of Part 5: Rituals and Remembrance. In the previous post, I tried to explain how modern Memory Mavens often read Maurice Halbwachs selectively. For example, Barry Schwartz (see Part 3) and Anthony Le Donne (see Part 5.1) inexplicably failed to read the earlier chapters of The Legendary Topography of the Gospels in … Continue reading “The Memory Mavens, Part 5: Rituals and Remembrance (2)”
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The reality of Palestine’s long history from the Bronze Age to the present has been lost behind the myths of the Bible. Think of Palestine’s past and images of Israel displacing the Canaanites from around 1200 BCE, establishing a united kingdom, even an empire, under King David and then his son Solomon slip easily into … Continue reading “The Rhythms of Palestine’s History”
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Raphael Lataster has been making his mark recently on The Conversation and The Washington Post along with the predictable response by James McGrath. Yours truly has also put in a cameo appearance now alongside these two rivals in The Humanist and on Valerie Tarico’s blog. The longer version of the interview on Valerie’s website: Savior? … Continue reading “Savior? Shaman? Myth? Ink Blot? — Views of Lataster, McGrath and Godfrey”
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Recently I posted Paul the persecutor? in which I suggested that Paul’s confession in his epistle to the Galatians to having persecuted the Church did not necessarily imply that he literally jailed, beat and killed Christians before his journey to Damascus. J. C. O’Neill would have thought I was far too soft. Those passages in which Paul … Continue reading “Paul the Persecutor: The Case for Interpolation”
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I have two reasons for spending so much of my free time on ancient history and Biblical studies. First, I have a genuine, lifelong curiosity about these subjects, but perhaps just as important (especially since 2001), I welcome the pleasant distraction from the awful present. With that background in mind, I reluctantly face the subject at … Continue reading “The Object of Torture”
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Richard Carrier addresses the question of the historicity of Jesus in On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt in the following order: First, he defines the points that will identify a historical Jesus and those that will be signs of a mythical one. Second, he set out 48 elements that make up all … Continue reading “Ten Elements of Christian Origin”
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Related pages: James McGrath’s review on Bible and Interpretation James McGrath’s discussion of review on ExploringOurMatrix After addressing the introduction to James McGrath’s initial post reviewing Richard Carrier’s On the Historicity of Jesus I now discuss his primary focus — the Ascension of Isaiah (Asc. Isa.I). I should be able to say that I will discuss McGrath’s treatment … Continue reading “McGrath Reviews Carrier: Part 2, Ascension of Isaiah“
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Recently we have seen on the web more instances of otherwise reputable New Testament scholars demonstrating their apparent inability to actually read with any serious attempt at comprehension or publicly discuss radical views that originate from unwashed outsiders. (The second case I will discuss here involves a quite unexpected and unexplained banning of comments from me … Continue reading “Bible Scholars’ Inability to Handle Mythicism: No Meek Messiah by Michael Paulkovich”
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John Drury, DD, in The Parables of the Gospels, explains why it is very doubtful that Jesus ever spoke the parable of the Good Samaritan. The evidence points towards the real author of this parable being the same person who was responsible for the work of Luke-Acts. For convenience we’ll call him as Luke. The parables of … Continue reading “The Origin of the Good Samaritan Parable and Other Lucan Favourites”
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The previous two posts in this series: Why Christianity Happened — Toward a Secular Approach to Christian Origins Why Christianity Happened – The Secular Approach, 2 The Necessity and Problem of Bias in Christian Origins Studies James Crossley (Why Christianity Happened: A Sociological Account of Christian Origins (26-50 CE)) examines the role of bias in … Continue reading “The Secular Approach to Christian Origins, #3 (Bias)”
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Table 1: Mythicists, Mythicist Sympathizers & Agnostics (and their Religious Backgrounds) As of 6th August 2020 only the colour coded table has been updated. The remainder of this page dates from some years earlier. The following updated table was originally posted at Who’s Who Among Mythicists and Mythicist Sympathizers/Agnostics and again at Maurice Casey’s Failure to … Continue reading “WHO’s WHO: Mythicists, Mythicist Agnostics & Historicists Who Call for Scholarly Debate (Updated 6th August 2020)”
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Continuing from Why Christianity Happened — Toward a Secular Approach to Christian Origins James Crossley seeks to explain what he calls the “puzzle” of the nearly complete failure of biblical scholars to apply “social-scientifically informed approaches” (p. 3) to the study of Christian origins between the 1920s and 1970s. Crossley is actually addressing two types of historical explanation: … Continue reading “Why Christianity Happened – The Secular Approach, 2”
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