Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

In Mark the point where Jesus resembles to a thief is the following: For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many (10:45) The robbed is the demiurge: he receives the life of Jesus as ransom, conceding in exchange the souls of who received...

Matthew 24:43-47: But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up the parable of the thief should be examined more deeply than the simple idea of it being a bandit who steals ri...

Was Paul silent about the historical Jesus because that kind of information was top secret (only for insiders)? Usually, being the historical facts by definition simple mere brute facts, I don't see a particular reason to reserve the knowledge of them only for the insiders. Their knowledge is public...

2) The docetism of Ph 2:7 at least suggests a connection to the theology of texts such as the gospels of Peter, Philip, Judas, and Basilides, and other (sorry) "gnostic" texts, which contain docetic elements. Jean Magne, even before Detering, argued that the Hymn is a variant of the myth of the ken...

And your evidence that Mark was embarrased by the baptism is where on the page? my point is that the Baptism by John raises embarrassment and requires an apology for it. If there is not apology in Mark, the reason is why the reader knows already the apology for it from the later Gospels. The embarr...

Jesus has been on Earth for a while at the time of John's arrest, which is when the Galilee expedition is said to have begun if the Baptism is an interpolation in Mark (The reason is that the reader assumes already the apology neutralizing the embarrassment of the Baptism, an apology found only in ...

The reader who complains that there's anything unnatural or more than merely human in those verses shoulders the burden of proof to show that anything worthy of such complaint appears on the page. No such thing appears on the page; the complaint is thus without foundation usually the reaction is co...

I don't know where Jesus was immediately before coming to Galilee, but I am satisfied that Mark violates no canon of realism by depicting him as being outside of Galilee at the time of John's arrest. Jesus has other places to be. here I disagree also. Jesus descends from heaven. He doesn't come fro...

What would be unrealistic is for the four men to abandon their families, join his Twelve, go out on the road in pairs to preach, follow him to Jerusalem ... solely because Jesus asked them to follow him during a casual seaside stroll. No such commitment is on the page, however I agree with Neil her...

30. And I saw when He descended and made Himself like unto the angels of the air, and He was like one of them. 31. And He gave no password; for one was plundering and doing violence to another. CHAPTER 11 AFTER this I saw, and the angel who spoke with me, who conducted me, said unto me: "Understand...