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The signs of the end in Josephus and Mark

Josephus (War.6.5.3-4) lists 8 astounding signs sent by God to warn the Jews of their impending disaster:

Ancient Novels and the Gospels

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”

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"Neil, in my mature judgement (I am now an old man), this fine 4-part study is a brilliant reworking, an instructive restatement of Hayden White’s Metahistory (and his subsequent writings). Your critique of certain historiographic representations as imbedded in the case study of the “scientistic”, “empirical” Richard Carrier provides a solid starting point for the more honest “fictive” reading of the New Testament that you encourage. Your last paragraph is a very intelligent call to sensitive readers of these texts. I suspect a whole generation of biblical students has been educated without the insights provided by the incomparable White. Bravo!"

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— Gregory Doudna, – January 2019
This is superb work, Neil, and reminds me of Albert Schweitzer’s work from a century ago. . . . .

I commend you for being the first to even TRY to translate Bruno Bauer’s brilliant Kritik der Evangelien und Geschichte ihres Ursprungs, which is now more than 150 years old.

. . . . .Thank you for your historic effort.

-- Paul Trejo, M.A., - November 2022
Editor, An English Edition of Bruno Bauer’s 1843 Christianity Exposed
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"Neil Godfrey and Tim Widowfield, who both write at Vridar . . . happen to be some of the most astute and well-read amateurs you can read on the internet on the subject of biblical historicity. I call them amateurs only for the reason that they don’t have, so far as I know, advanced degrees in the subject. But I have often been impressed with their grasp of logic and analysis of scholarship. I don’t always agree with them, but I respect their work."

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— Earl Doherty, November 2013 (personal email)
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"Very good. This post is going straight to the March 2016 Biblical Studies Carnival."

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"Here I give an admittedly subjective short list, in random order, of useful, high level and regularly updated weblogs on the study of the Old Testament . . . ‘Vridar: Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science’ (http://vridar.org/) by Neil Godfrey"

-- Klaas Spronk, - Bibliotheca Orientalis LXXI, 3/4 (2014)
"For an excellent example of generally high-quality scholarship by someone who isn’t a biblical studies professor, see Neil Godfrey’s work posted on the website vridar.org."

— Tom Dykstra, – JOCABS 2015
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-- Thomas L. Thompson, - April 2020
It is worth saying another word of appreciation here for Neil Godfrey's effort to make Bruno Bauer accessible in English.

-- Peter Kirby, - May 2023
https://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=145080#p145080
Neil made a good synthesis of the work without being an “expert” of the field.

-- Enrico Tuccinardi, - October 2022

Neil Godfrey on That Second Question Frank Zindler Wanted to Ask Bart Ehrman: “Thanks for the update. I would like to know the name of the publisher Carrier is speaking about. But we…” Sep 7, 19:44
ABuddhist on That Second Question Frank Zindler Wanted to Ask Bart Ehrman: “He claims that his book, entittled, “The Obsolete Paradigm of a Historical Jesus”, was submitted for peer review and after…” Sep 7, 11:59
Neil Godfrey on Do the Dead Sea Scrolls Invalidate a Hellenistic Origin of the Hebrew Books of the Bible?: “Stefan Schorch also made an interesting observation that implies something akin to the “committee” model of authorship, though again he…” Sep 7, 08:11
Neil Godfrey on Do the Dead Sea Scrolls Invalidate a Hellenistic Origin of the Hebrew Books of the Bible?: “Here’s one proposal taken from the conclusion of chapter 1 in John J. Collins, The Invention of Judaism: Torah and…” Sep 7, 08:03
Neil Godfrey on Defending Russell Gmirkin’s Hellenistic Dating of the Old Testament – Part 6: “A starting point — check out the citations in the articles, too: Amzallag, Nissim. “The Identity of the Emissary of…” Sep 7, 01:20
Neil Godfrey on Do the Dead Sea Scrolls Invalidate a Hellenistic Origin of the Hebrew Books of the Bible?: “The notion of multiple sources going back to the biblical kingdoms of Judah and Israel, and others going back to…” Sep 7, 00:57
Neil Godfrey on That Second Question Frank Zindler Wanted to Ask Bart Ehrman: “Has he submitted his evidence to any relevant journal for publication yet? Or do we have to pay to eventually…” Sep 7, 00:45
Neil Godfrey on Defending Russell Gmirkin’s Hellenistic Dating of the Old Testament – Part 7: “I wish I could recall where I saw someone explain that had the Elephantine papyri been discovered earlier and the…” Sep 7, 00:43
Neil Godfrey on Defending Russell Gmirkin’s Hellenistic Dating of the Old Testament – Part 3: “In ancient times we have the “age of myth invention” in the Hellenistic era by Tanya Scheer — I posted…” Sep 7, 00:39

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The signs of the end in Josephus and Mark

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Ancient Novels and the Gospels

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