Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
Any encounter with Christopher Hitchens’ talent with words is always a richly rewarding experience. And while reading his newly published “God is Not Great” I was at times painfully reminded of my failure at this point to have completed my review of the last chapter of Bauckham’s Eyewitness book on this blog. (I really will … Continue reading “Rationalist Hitchens vs Eyewitness Bauckham”
ABC’s RN had the good sense to play a repeat of a Hindsight program on Anzac Day — a lecture by Robert Manne disussing the direct link between Gallipoli and the Armenian Genocide. It’s talks like these that remind me why I’m an internationalist, not a nationalist. No transcript or podcast of the talk, but … Continue reading “Gallipoli and the Armenian Genocide”
Elaine Pagel’s The Gnostic Paul cites the many gnostic interpretations of Paul’s letters. The point is well made that our interpretation of Paul is inherited from the founders of the orthodox church today. Yet this interpretation was not so universal in the second century. Irenaeus took issue with the gnostics for claiming to have secret … Continue reading “A gnostic mind game with Paul and Mark”
Appendix: Papias as Eusebius’s Source in Hist. Eccl. 3.24.5-13? At the end of chapter 16 Bauckham addresses the argument of Charles Hill that Eusebius paraphrased a section of Papias that discussed the gospels of John and Luke. Hill’s argument contradicts Bauckham’s by implication:
13. Eyewitness memory Richard Bauckham uses this chapter to relate modern studies in memory psychology “to gospel traditions in a systematic way”. RB acknowledges that others like Crossan have addressed memory studies before but B is attempting to apply them more specifically in a range of cases of eyewitness recall and as the sources of … Continue reading “Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Chapter 13”
We probably should envisage . . . We probably should envisage a carefully compiled and formulated collection of Jesus traditions, incorporating other important eyewitness testimony as well as that of the Twelve themselves, but authorized by the Twelve as the official body of witnesses. (p.299) This would surely be not too difficult to test. What … Continue reading “Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Chapter 12b”
11. Transmitting the Jesus Traditions In this and the next chapter Bauckham presents his case for the manner in which the Jesus traditions were transmitted by the eyewitnesses of Jesus, in particular by the Twelve as represented by Peter. He claims that:
The following notes are taken from pages 74-76 of Mary Ann Tolbert’s Sowing the Gospel: Mark’s World in Literary-Historical Perspective (1989). A wonderful collection of ancient novels can be found in Reardon’s Collected Ancient Greek Novels (1989). Chariton, Xenophon of Ephesus, Achilles Tatius, Longus and others make fascinating reading as they bring us closer to … Continue reading “Ancient Novels and the Gospels”
Updated about 2 hours after first posted: An alternative proposal for the origin of the lists of the Twelve names — yup, it’s another hypothesis, but a hypothesis that does not require hypothesizing a whole lot of imaginary sources and that does not leave a whole lot of unanswered questions about the rest of our … Continue reading “The Twelve: Acts & Gospels vs Richard Bauckham”
Notes from Mandell and Freedman contd: Intro One: Aims and methods Many historians consider the Primary History of Israel as both a theological document and a historical one, even if only sometimes one can barely glimpse a historical nugget behind the myth. Yet Herodotus’ Histories is read differently: It is seen as essentially a historic … Continue reading “Herodotus and Bible History: Mandell & Freedman contd”
As I continue to read Majella Franzmann’s Jesus in the Nag Hammadi Writings it is interesting to reflect how the distinctive themes of the gnostic texts overlap with themes of the strongest interest among scholars of the Gospel of Mark. Markan scholarship is signposted by such studies as Wrede’s The Messianic Secret and Weeden’s Mark: … Continue reading “Gospel of Mark and Gnostic Gospels compared. 1”