Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
Finally, it is worth pointing out that the NT as we have it, and especially the gospels, is entirely dependent on that branch of Jesus’ disciples, gathered around Peter (and Paul), which is centered on the kerygma of the resurrection. Acts has preserved a few traces of other groups: Apollos and the disciples at Ephesus, … Continue reading “The Gospels Not the Best Place to Look for the Origins of Christianity”
The previous post concluded thus: As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, my revised hypothesis basically adds only two things to Loisy’s scenario: (1) I would identify the above “Christian groups which believed themselves heirs of the Pauline tradition” as Saturnilians. (2) I would identify the above “mystery of salvation by mystic union … Continue reading “Revising the Series “A Simonian Origin for Christianity”, Part 4 / Conclusion – Historical Jesus?”
A Long-standing Tool While searching for other things, I stumbled upon this paragraph in a Wikipedia entry. The criterion of embarrassment is a long-standing tool of New Testament research. The phrase was used by John P. Meier in his book A Marginal Jew; he attributed it to Edward Schillebeeckx, who does not appear to have … Continue reading “The Criterion of Embarrassment: Origins and Emendations”
I begin by repeating Earl Doherty’s maiden post to Crosstalk. I have colour coded different discussion threads. Links below are to the archive.org site where Earl’s Jesus Puzzle website is as it existed at the time of the Crosstalk exchange. For the current site see http://www.jesuspuzzle.com/jesuspuzzle/index.htm I have decided to present this early conversation to allow … Continue reading “Earl Doherty’s First Day with Biblical Scholars on Crosstalk Forum”
Earl Doherty, author the The Jesus Puzzle website, The Jesus Puzzle and Jesus Neither God Nor Man and other books, and contributor to The Journal of Higher Criticism, made his “public appearance” on a biblical scholars forum on Tuesday, the 9th of February, 1999: Crosstalk. In the light of some unfortunate mischaracterizations of the tone … Continue reading “The Day Earl Doherty (author of ‘The Jesus Puzzle’) Personally Entered the Global Forum”
It is S.G.F. Brandon’s fault. At least he shares much of the blame. Way back in 1967, the year of the Six Day War and the release of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, his book Jesus and the Zealots was published. Ever since then it has been de rigueur for scholars to locate the … Continue reading ““Under Tiberius All Was Quiet” : Or — No, Jesus was not “one of many””
Not long ago PZ Myers responded positively to certain arguments in the post by Tim O’Neill, Jesus Mythicism 3: “No Contemporary References to Jesus”. PZ was not to know of the presumably inadvertent misrepresentations Tim O’Neill made of David Fitgerald’s arguments in that post. In a followup post by PZ, Tim reminded readers that he had, … Continue reading “Fake History for Atheists”
For an annotated list of previous posts in this series see the archived page: Daniel Gullotta’s Review of Richard Carrier’s On the Historicity of Jesus We finally arrive at the double-back-flip as Daniel Gullotta’s concluding word on his discussion of how wrong he believes it is to place Jesus in a Rank-Raglan scale. Even if … Continue reading “Gullotta, Carrier and the point of the Rank-Raglan classification (Or, Can Carrier’s RR reference class be justified?)”
This is not the first time we have seen Gullotta inexplicably fail to acknowledge that Carrier is prepared to concede for the sake of a fortiori argument the very position Gullotta is arguing. The focus of my response will center on Carrier’s claim that a pre-Christian angel named Jesus existed, his understanding of Jesus as … Continue reading “Gullotta’s review of Carrier’s On the Historicity of Jesus, point #4, “James, the brother of the Lord””
We know about the demons disturbing the peace in the Gospel of Mark, how they scream out when they see Jesus entering a synagogue or crossing a lake. But what if those fiends are but the tip of the iceberg and that in fact the gospel tells of a conflict between innumerable demonic beings behind … Continue reading “The First Gospel: History or Apocalyptic Drama?”
Josephus does, in Jewish Antiquities, have two passages on the emergence of Christianity and the persecution of its followers, involving Jewish jurisdiction, but both are suspected of being interpolations. (Efron 1987, p. 333) Warning: this post addresses a small section of a work by Jewish scholar, Joshua Efron, Studies on the Hasmonean Period, that was … Continue reading “6 More Reasons to Question Josephus’ “James the brother of Jesus” passage”
….. In surveying references to angels during this time, one of the most common features in the names of angels is the appearance of the element of ‘el’.53 This survey reveals that the most common angelic characters of this period were named Michael, Gabriel, Sariel/Uriel, and Raphael.54 In other words, a prosopographical analysis of the … Continue reading “Was the name “Jesus” too common to belong to a divinity or archangel?”
Some time ago I was attempting to think through the pros and cons surrounding the disputed claims over the significance and meaning of James being described as the brother of the Lord in Paul’s letter to Galatians. I set out the various factors in a discussion of Bayesian probability. But since Bayesian analysis is a … Continue reading “Thinking through the “James, the brother of the Lord” passage in Galatians 1:19″
While thumbing through Cristiano Grottanelli’s Kings and Prophets: Monarchic Power, Inspired Leadership, and Sacred Text in Biblical Narrative, I remember now why I snatched it up a couple of years ago. For some time now, I’ve been working on a simple thesis that would explain the silence regarding Jesus’ actual teaching in the epistles (of Paul, … Continue reading “Saul’s Folly: The King Can’t Be a Jack of All Trades”