Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
This is the history and experience of Palestinians from a Palestinian view. This is, for many Westerners, the side of the story they have never heard. It is heartening to read the latest poll figures showing that most Americans do not agree that Israel should be building settlements in the West Bank and that the … Continue reading “The Weizmann Plan to “Transfer” the Palestinians”
Continuing a series of responses to Dunn’s response to Price’s chapter on Jesus mythicism. (See Historical Jesus: Five Views for all related posts.) It is quite “interesting” to regularly run across remarks in web-land about how “spot on” Dunn’s criticism of Price’s chapter is, and how so many “fully agree with everything Dunn says.” I … Continue reading “Dunn on Price (5)”
Continuing from the previous post . . . . Two of three ways Greek gods visited earthlings Jean-Pierre Vernant in Mortals and Immortals: Collected Essays (1991) notes three forms in which gods appeared when they visited earth. But dammit, Dixon cites only two of these: They simply come “to” the mortal to give that mortal … Continue reading “The baptism, the dove and the transfiguration . . . continued”
I’ve seen many positive responses to The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, but my own feeling after reading the book was disappointment at the lack of archaeological evidence they cited for their main theme: the Great Reformation of … Continue reading “Josiah’s reforms: Where is the archaeological evidence?”
This continues my previous post, which was slightly misleadingly titled Why Christianity Spread So Rapidly . . .. It is for most part a distillation of Gregory J. Riley’s chapter, “Mimesis of Classical Ideals in the Second Christian Century”, found in Mimesis and Intertextuality edited by Dennis MacDonald. A related post is my discussion of … Continue reading “Christianity won over paganism by epitomizing pagan ideals”
Why did the number of Christians go from zero in the year zero to become the numerical majority of persons in the Roman world by about the year 350? How does one account for its dramatic success? Many Christians themselves like to answer that question by appealing to the way Christian martyrdoms inspired the admiration … Continue reading “Why Christianity spread so rapidly to become the main religion of the Roman empire”
Okay, I’m sure there will be a few differences if I stop to think seriously about it, but I have just read the introduction in Benjamin Jowett’s Critias by Plato in which are cited the reasons Plato’s lies have managed to convince so many people of the historical truth of the myth of Atlantis. And … Continue reading “Gospel myth – Atlantis myth: Two “Noble Lies””
There’s a comment by humanist Dwight Jones in response to Hoffmann’s post titled Did Jesus Exist? Yes and No that begins As a Humanist I view Christ as one too, a philosopher who was instructing our species Jones’ and Hoffmann’s concept of humanism is too effete, elitist, esoteric and impractical for my taste, but that … Continue reading “How Jesus has been re-imaged through the ages to fit different historical needs”
Anyone who is familiar with Earl Doherty’s site will probably find this post superfluous. The mysterious origin of R. Joseph Hoffmann’s views of Doherty Dr Jeffrey Gibson is on record as saying he has no intention of reading any of Doherty’s books but that did not prevent him from pulling out a critical line from … Continue reading “How and Why Scholars Fail to Rebut Earl Doherty”
There was an interesting article in the Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament in 2007 by Lukas Niesiolowski-Spano (LN-S) of Warsaw University titled “Primeval History in the Persian Period?” (SJOT, Vol.21, no. 12, 106-126, 2007). The paper was first presented at the Seminar of Historical Methodology in Groningen, The Netherlands, 2004. The Genesis creation stories … Continue reading “Genesis myths inspired by Plato?”
The evidence historians use to assert that Jesus’ crucifixion is a historical fact does not match the evidence for the death of Socrates. Normal guidelines for secular historians that are used in their approach to sources are very rarely followed by biblical (in particular historical Jesus and early Christianity) historians. Paula Fredriksen, in her Jesus … Continue reading “Evidence for the UNhistorical “fact” of Jesus’ death”
It is commonly said that the miraculous events in the Gospels concerning Jesus do not diminish the historicity of Jesus or his story because ancient historians and biographers also regularly narrated tales of the miraculous in connection with famous people we know for a fact to have been historical. This is a misleading claim. The … Continue reading “Another instance of dishonest handling of evidence in Historical Jesus studies?”
Historical Jesus (HJ) scholars have boasted that they use the same sorts of methods as scholarly historians of other (nonbiblical) subjects, but this is a misleading claim. When it comes to the basics of the nature of “facts” and “evidence” this claim is simply not true. Historical Jesus scholars use a completely different standard to … Continue reading “Historical Facts and the very UNfactual Jesus: contrasting nonbiblical history with ‘historical Jesus’ studies”
Little details, such as Matthew turning a Pharisee’s statement in Mark into a question, and Luke adding the little word “some” to Mark’s account, on closer inspection turn out not to be haphazard variations, but evidence that the gospel authors were more focused on creative story telling than passing on “traditions”. The example of this … Continue reading “Why Matthew and Luke changed details of Mark’s sabbath dispute”