Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

N.B. the imperial practice of seating statutes of reigning monarchs in the temples of greater gods, indeed at the right hand of the larger statue of that temple’s god. Esp. when the cult was taken to new levels with Hadrian. Right! I recently read some stuff by D. Clint Burnett. This idea of the ki...

If there are no Palestinian Jewish texts which show Greek ideas in the first century then M. David Litwa case is weakened. Litwa's book isn't about pre-Christian Jewish texts. He focuses on the NT texts. He just gives a brief overview of the scholarship on Hellenism in Palestine. I am not aware of ...

over in the odes they have no idea of that though cause there's not really a resurrection. instead here the cross sort of gets compared to the bond of marriage as found in the OT. i suspect they were applying the previous idea onto the cross here. a simple reading of the odes just has the messiah '...

I agree with you that the motive of mourning women is important and it's good that you pointed it out. But at the same time I think that the women in GMark 15 & 16 don't really fill that role. It's like the anointing. Somehow Jesus is a king and a prophet is expected to appear and anoint him in...

I asked does M. David Litwa demonstrate these Greek ideas are present in first century Palestinian Jewish texts? Which Palestinian Jewish texts do you have in mind? The Dead Sea Scrolls show signs of Hellenism. The imperial cult was already in Palestine by the first century so Palestinian Jews woul...

The first people who believed in a resurrected Jesus were Jews. I think that Paul’s description of Jesus as the “first fruits” of the general resurrection is likely to be early. In the gospels there is the phrase Son of Man. I argue that once Jesus is seen as being in heaven he is identified firstl...

The Babylonians conquered Judah in 586 BCE and the Persians took over control of Palestine after 539 BCE. Alexander the Great conquered Egypt in 332 BCE and in 164 BCE Judas Maccabeus conquered Jerusalem and in 63 BCE the Romans ended the Maccabee kingdom. Persian influence would have had 200 years...

Thank you for making it clear that you think Mark is writing a "mystery cult story". Well, I think it's more than that. The mystery cult theme is just one aspect of the story. The main source is Jewish scriptures. I thought that the idea of resurrection in Judaism arose because of the inf...

Oh men! I should criticize you harshly for squeezing this story into schemes that have little to do with it and thereby overlooking the essential point. Until this moment, GMark was a story in which the characters following Jesus were men. The role of the unnamed women was limited to the home and a...

the description mystery cult context of Christianity might apply to the type found in the epistles its not clear if its the earliest type then if the role of the women is still there its as messengers of it continuing after loss of the leader, viz they were the true believers. it doesn't matter if ...