Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Ory (yeah, sorry to keep mentioning him) suggests that Mark's symbolism was more Gnostic in nature: Pilate represents the archon of the world (the devil) who thinks he has captured and crucified the son of God, but in fact only crucified the Jesus of flesh, while the spiritual Jesus (Jesus Barabbas)...

So I finished translating Ory's Analyse des origines chrétiennes (1963) and will make it available online in due time. A few thoughts: it is interesting to see a different perspective on the matter — a French scholar writing to address the state of historical Jesus research in 1960s Europe. Strictly...

I like where you're going with this. Makes a lot of sense, since so much of Mark seems to be a cipher for various Old Testament passages. To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in parables; Mark 4 is a synecdoche for the entire Gospel. Those ...

For what it's worth (not much, I suspect; my skin pigmentation is undoubtedly to blame), 11QMelchizedek is a Hebrew document that speaks of a heavenly anointed Melchizedek — an angelic messiah not unlike Jesus in many ways.

The Hebrew scriptures were irrelevant for the early Christians. Irenaeus argues against the Jewish claim for priority of the Hebrew texts, stating that the Septuagint was the authoritative version of the Jewish scriptures, as it was the one the apostles cited.

Agree with Outhouse. It seems strange to demand Hebrew provenance for concepts in a religion that was almost entirely Greek-speaking in its infancy (as far as the evidence shows).

Perhaps someone here knows more about Egyptian anointing rituals. WTF does any of this have to do with what Jews - an insular culture - use משיח? Because the Jews weren't that insular. Syncretism and hellenism had a significant effect on the religion and its heterodox sects. After all, Enochic theo...

I would say that Jesus is probably divine in Pauline Christianity, but as an archangel (as I think Ehrman suggests) or saviour deity and not as the ultimate god. On the topic of anointing, I just translated this passage by Ory: By definition, the Messiah is one who receives an anointing; but Jesus w...

Very interesting observation, Ben. There is one specific, very important sacrifice that takes place outside the camp in the Torah (Numbers 19): the slaughter of the red heifer. This sacrifices removes uncleanliness due to contact with death (i.e. a corpse). The red heifer became a symbol for the esc...

One other intersection of those two name I found would be the first-century Roman historian Quintus Curtius Rufus, who wrote a history about Alexander the Great. That history does mention Alexander's conquest of Cyrene. However, I can see no connection beyond mere coincidence.