Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Now at the feast the governor was accustomed to release for the people any one prisoner whom they wanted. At that time they were holding a notorious prisoner, called Barabbas. So when the people gathered together, Pilate said to them, “Whom do you want me to release for you? Barabbas, or Jesus who ...

2 Samuel 24 contains something very bizarre. Got was angry at Israel again, and he made King David order a census of military-age men, to see how big an army he could have. His general Joab found it an odd request, but he went and did it. Then David felt guilty and asked his seer Gad about it. Gad t...

Timeline: 1800 - 1720: Canaanites arrive in northern Egypt 1650: Hyksos take over (date uncertain) 1630 - 1600: Thera caldera eruption 1550: Hyksos expelled by Ahmose (Akh Moshe, "Brother of Moses"?) around 1500: Amenhotep I or Thutmose I start the New Kingdom's Levantine Empire, which ext...

(Me on G.S. Kirk's hero tropes) IMO Kirk's list is one of the most objective (thanks for posting it) I don't think Jesus would score particularly high by these criteria. Kirk, G.S. on Mythology - Atheism I scored the two Testaments with it. The Old Testament / Tanakh: 4. David vs. Goliath? The Devil...

Yes, his theory is that hero biographies were essentially charter myths for various rituals.

I don't find that to be very convincing, but that does not affect the validity of his comparison work. Likewise, Otto Rank's hero profile is independent of Freudianism.

Jesus Christ's close fit to this profile suggests to some that Lord Raglan deliberately skewed his profile to make JC score high. I find that very unlikely. Lord Raglan avoided discussing JC because he did not want to provoke a certain sort of controversy, and he found plenty of other legendary hero...

David Adams Leeming wrote Mythology: The Voyage of the Hero (1998), a study of legendary heroes, in which he found this pattern: Birth of the Hero Childhood Trial Withdrawal and Initiation (Rite of Passage) Trial and Quest Death and the Scapegoat The Descent to the Underworld Resurrection and Rebirt...

There are various other hero scales. G.S. Kirk has studied Greek mythology, and he finds these common tropes in it. Tricks, riddles, ingenious solutions to dilemmas: to disguise or unmask, catch a thief or adulterer, win a contest, delay pursuit, etc. Transformations of individuals into birds, trees...

I regard Lord Raglan's list as biased to increase parallels to Jesus. It does not include criteria such as luridly disfunctional family life (Oedipus Theseus Jason etc) which are frequently found in the accounts of clearly mythical heroes. Andrew Criddle I think you're right. There are a stack of o...

There's something that I found some years back, something that I forgot the source of. I've been unable to find it. It's the notion that many premodern societies' histories of themselves have these epochs: Gods and creation Heroes Ordinary people without sharp dividing lines between them. The hero e...