Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

I'm wondering if there could be some kind of agreement, or some kind of approach to making a rigorous statement on what it means to say "The Gospel Jesus" did not exist. What do you see as the motivation for this question? Alternatively, why is it the right question to ask? I don’t put st...

The insight of such a heroically anti-historical project is that Luke-Acts is the canonical synthesis itself. The post-Justin and post-Marcion canonical/catholic edit of the NT, which in all essentials became the 27-book NT, only makes sense in systematic coordination with both Luke and Acts. That w...

Someone wrote the Letter to Flora and it wasn’t Epiphanius.

I wonder if it's not so subtle. Maybe it was simply addressed to Theophilus of Antioch. Perhaps in concert with and for the greater advancement of his recent well-regarded work refuting Marcion? It's fun to speculate. The “Theophilus” part seems deliberately vague. As with so many biblical names, w...

The following are vague questions, perhaps under-considered in the always speculative study of Christian origins. If you know of good studies I’d be grateful. 1) Patronage . Did the 4-Gospel Book have wealthy and politically well-connected patrons? Is the address to κράτιστε Θεόφιλε in Luke 1:1 (and...

I suspect Peter is right that it was originally a Hellenistic Jewish work. Its author was a long-winded, flat-footed book worm, with a sophomoric understanding of the themes and style of the OT. For unwashed pagans, it was a convenient digest of stories and homiletic topics from the LXX. Then a 2nd ...

Michael W. Holmes, student of Metzger and conservative bloke, has an insightful comment about the rhetorical characteristics and tropes of 1 Clement— In 58.2 the readers are asked to “accept our advice” (Greek, symboule ), indicating that the document was intended as a “symbouletic” (or “deliberativ...

The echo I noted in the previous post reminds me of an earlier thread. Those who insist that 1 Clement is a first century text need to explain its troubled relationship with canonical Romans. Romans 1:26-32 ...God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unn...

Let's define 1 Clement more clearly and from my perspective then. It's the Christian document, not the Jewish document or the glosses. Defined this way, and if someone agreed with me, no, 1 Clement does not imply that Jesus was a descendant of Jacob. Ah, I see what you're saying. It's the Christian...

The fallacy of ‘NT Scholars’ is that they take Irenaeus’ canon as a non-negotiable starting point, while at the same time they blatantly distort his witness to an essentially UNITARY Gospel tradition. There is only ONE GOSPEL for Irenaeus, just as for Tatian, Justin, and Marcion. It was revealed by ...