Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Adam, I'm sure a conservative will just argue that: A) The "Mark" of Acts 15:37-40 wrote the gospel attributed to "Mark." B) That after this split "Mark" was "rehabilitated" while acting as an "interpreter" for Peter in Rome. C) Paul worked with gen...

We have to read the entire passage 10:1-22 as a unit, which makes the reference to Ἰσραὴλ κατὰ σάρκα intelligible. I don't think the author intended to say either that Israel sacrifices to demons, or that pagans sacrifice to demons. The target of the citation of Deuteronomy 32:17 is the possible ba...

Did not the Priests partake of a partial of the offerings they present to the flames of the Alter? Yes, they did... in accordance with Hebrew law. There were no sacrifices to idols. All idols were rejected by Jewish law. The contrast is between the table of God and the table of demons. Indeed by re...

If we omit any explicit reference to Gentiles, it really sounds like Paul is saying that Israel-according-to-the-flesh sacrifices to demons. No, it doesn't. First κατα σαρκα is often added to make specific Paul is dealing with physical relations, see Rom 1:3 & 6:9. V.18 connects Israel to the a...

Now [the state of the forum?] is worse than ever. The "Christianity" we knew in the past I doubt can ever recover from what has been done to it by recent history. Alvin Toffler is probably doing a jig in his grave, his theory of "future shock" (desperate defensive wagon circling...

I merely came looking for some data I may have posted here that I need, but didn't find. have you tried the archives https://bcharchive.org/ ? Yo Andrew! Thanks for the suggestion. I was looking for stuff that could have been on any one of three fora, so I couldn't be sure of the location. But I'll...

Oops! I blame old age ... Not old age, Dave. Just think of Bertie Russell or Noam Chomsky. It's pure senility... ...like when Windows crashes on me then I restart & Windows hits me with a  r o u n d   of goddamnmuthrforking   u p d a t e s, so I totally forget whatever it was I was doing when t...

Damascus was on the edge of Arabia! The Roman province of Arabia Petraea was centered on the town of Bosra. Around 20 BCE Zenodorus sold a parcel of his land (Auranitis) to the Arabs despite Rome having confiscated it. This Hauran was the birthplace of the Roman emperor Philip the Arab. An earlier A...

Driving by and noticing a thread on the denarius... I thought some people would like to know that the denarius/tax story (Mk 12:15) was certainly apocryphal. The denarius (pdf) was not in circulation in Palestine in the first century. There is no hope for someone in Jerusalem to casually have a dena...

Jerome is a tradent of Christian culture. Looking at his early discussion in the commentary of the evangelists, we see a re-packaging of Papias and little to suggest tenable sources. I haven't found the particular reference regarding Mt 2:23, but your secondary source indicates Jerome in contact wit...