Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

It may be futile to reply to the secret alias charge of "involuntary psychosis" for currently thinking that Secret Mark is a modern fake, but I'll note that I am interested in canonical and non-canonical gospels (e.g. the Hebrew one mentioned by Epiphanius as being in Tiberias), and in NT text criti...

a) "Smith's Columbia University colleague, Theodore [sic, should be Theodor] Gaster (1906-1992), once offered me this characterization: "Morton Smith is like a little boy whose goal in life is to write curse words all over the altar, and then get caught." Al Baumgarten, Elias Bickerman as a Historia...

Aren't collections sometimes useful?

I don't personally prefer an all-or-nothing evaluation of these scholars. Though Neusner's books include more errors and repetition than usual or welcome, he presented (in some publications and lectures) some interesting ideas. I haven't read Tal Ilan's dissertation-book, but I have found her Lexico...

Yes, I also heard that Prof. Lieberman died of natural causes on a plane. J. of the American Oriental Society is a fine journal, imo. Jerusalem Talmud and Babylonian Talmud include somewhat different dialects of Aramaic. Yes, different editions of the Yerushalmi are tricky to compare. I recall that ...

Tigchelaar: https://www.academia.edu/27765763/Gleanings_from_the_Caves_Really_On_the_likelihood_of_Dead_Sea_Scrolls_forgeries_in_The_Sch%C3%B8yen_Collection https://www.academia.edu/27658971/Post-2002_Dead_Sea_Scrolls_Fishy_Fragments_or_Forgeries https://www.academia.edu/24299569/A_Provisional_List_...

Paper drafts by Eibert Tigchelaar and Kipp Davis (separately) and comments (though they aren't showing at the moment) on academia.com give some reasons to question authenticity (ancientness) of some of the newly-sold fragments.

"The House of Peleg in the Dead Sea Scrolls," Richard T. White, A Tribute to Geza Vermes (Sheffield, 1990) 67-98 proposed that the House of Peleg was the Heliopolis temple, disapproved in the scrolls. Jodi Magness has proposed recently that some (not all) sacrifices were performed at Qumran, similar...

"...Origen wasn't writing 'Against' anyone..." Origen wrote against Celsus, at the request of Ambrose. From my article "Celsus of Pergamum...": "...if was only _after_ Ambrose moved to Nicomedia in Bithynia in Asia that he wrote to Origen that Celsus' book was a threat to the faith of his Christian ...

I don't suppose that ancient Hasidim were an organized group that had offshoots. I think Menahem became an Essene and that his beliefs and practices made him unacceptable to Pharisees, no longer a tradent of oral Torah. Before Menahem the Essene was Judah the Essene. Some scholars have suggested tha...