Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Preface to the Second Edition Introduction Part I: Myth 1. Myth, Sentiment, and the Construction of Social Forms 2. The Politics of Myth 3. Competing Uses of the Future in the Present Part II: Ritual 4. Ritual, Rebellion, Resistance: Rethinking the Swazi Ncwala 5. Banquets and Brawls: Aspects of Ce...

First, any given social order is produced and maintained through stereotyped, familiar and reassuring acts of discourse and practice that re-presents the constituent categories of society and their hierarchic order as if these were something natural, necessary, traditional, normal, and/or divinely ...

Mark is solving a whole series of problems:

"this is my beloved son"
bringing judaic and greek beliefs together
giving hope (or is s/he?)
passion narrative
writing a story about why they believe what they do

On sources, is it not accepted that rituals are also sources? Gore Vidal in Julian describes what he thinks might have gone on in a mithraic ritual, where the conclusion of loads of stuff going on all night in a cave is bursting out at dawn to face the rising sun. All these various rituals are forms...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTEvleiIPhw This is a 15 minute amateur review of Dake, which is worth watching as it does explain how it works. It misses out a fun bit of Dake, that it has amazing pictures and diagrams about various biblical issues! He also misunderstands the lists. These are actua...

As a matter of interest, who here has experienced a proper pentecostal preacher, not those televangelists? How it works is the preacher will say they are going to preach on a bible verse or passage , and everyone will be expected to find that passage in their bibles. As the sermon continues,other Bi...

I suppose I am arguing it is all Mark's fault

My background is steeped in the thinking of apologists, pentecostal ones:-) They continually seek out references in the "Old Testament" to Jesus, because it backs up the gospel story. If you search sermons and books you will probably find every possible reference it is possible to create t...

I would argue the dating of Jesus is deliberate to match it to the time in the wilderness, ie 40 years before the fall of Jerusalem. This new sect saw the fall as the entry into the new Israel, it is a completely post 70 phenomenon. Paul was writing about a christ, and got grafted later together wit...

So Mark is attempting to solve a problem. He brings together loads of themes, deliberately chooses examples to illustrate the themes, and weaves a tale to explain what on earth happened. Others then expand on this.

It should be possible to track everything back to its origins.