Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Other criticisms: I had quite a few “WTF?" reactions while reading through OHJ. One such moment was when I read his rationale for “Best Case” odds for the Prior Probability, built on the reference class of individuals in the Rank-Raglan class. After identifying Jesus as one of fifteen members ...

Not sure, though, why he decided an English translation of the gist of Marcion's Gospel and Pauline books was better than attempting to reconstruct the Greek text ... Presenting a Greek text would imply knowledge of the Greek text and would, for at least 90% of the material, tend to be even more mi...

It occurs to me that the curious phrase of Galatians, ' before whose eyes Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified ' , could be seen as a reference by way of contrast. 1 Corinthians and the whole 'we preach Christ crucified' thing also works better when his execution isn't public knowledge. Of int...

Taken as an a priori consideration, your implication a might well have some force; without having read any of the relevant texts, I might well make the same assessment in advance. But I have arrived at my line of thinking exegetically, based on the texts attesting to this messianic activity. But of...

There are not really any good books on the subject, which will not also lead you down useless tangents. It's an interesting subject partly because of the inadequacy of existing work. Recently I found some value going through Burton Mack's A Myth of Innocence with a pencil. Still one of the landmarks...

And by putting it this way, it becomes more apparent why simply saying something like "the abyss" would have been sufficient as an answer to the question of place. Because it is an answer to the question of place , and it has the level of specificity required of such an answer. Have read ...

Hopefully this helps put what I am suggesting into some perspective. It's an interesting analogy, and it helps making a case for the plausibility of the perspective/scenario. In a nutshell, I think that the best mythicist option starts with a revelation that the Christ (the messiah) has already com...

In the quote, "this complex" simply refers back the phrase, "such a complex of traditions as we have in the gospels and their sources." "In my first books on Jesus, I argued that the gospel Jesus is an entirely mythical expansion of the Jesus of the early epistles. The summa...

On the whole question of general plausibility or background probability or expected-ness (or whatever you want to call it), IMO, this yet again underscores the urgent need for a relatively-comprehensive catalog of non-historical figures (in general, IMO, from any and every era), which then permits a...

In summary, Tertullian puts Jesus' birth in 2 BC (twice), the start of his ministry in 28 AD (twice), and his death in 29 BC (twice). The 26 AD date (mentioned once) could be; 1. a mistake by Tertullian 2. a scribal error (XII as a mistake for XV) 3. an alternative date for the start of Jesus' mini...