Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

The word thysiatherion is made up of two Greek words Thysia, meaning rite or sacrifice and Therion, meaning beast. It refers to a beast-sacrifice. This seems to be a mistake. The word θηρίον means offering or sacrifice, the word θηρίον means beast, and θυσιαστήριον means altar, with the etymology c...

According to Barnes “our” or "their" say the same thing: Our/their is not the same thing, and the difference in translation derives from the disagreement of our Greek manuscripts. "Our" limits, while "their" opens up several avenues of interpretation, only one of which...

Revelation 21:10 KJV There's your problem. The KJV does not rely on the oldest manuscript witnesses. Revelation 21:10 καὶ ἀπήνεγκέν με ἐν πνεύματι ἐπὶ ὄρος μέγα καὶ ὑψηλόν, καὶ ἔδειξέν μοι τὴν πόλιν τὴν ἁγίαν Ἰερουσαλὴμ καταβαίνουσαν ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ἀπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ (Rev 21:10 BGT) Thus reads Alexandrin...

This inspired an essay:

http://peterkirby.com/revelation118.html

Short answer, Rome wins.

Trapezomata: A Neglected Aspect of Greek Sacrifice , in The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 67, No. 2 As I said in my reply to Peter the passage about an idol temple uses quite different vocabulary. To elaborate on this, the word for a table used by this letter regarding a non-Jewish place of wors...

Paulus is not a real name, just like Cephas is not a real name; both are common nouns unattested as actual names before Christianity. The Pauline epistles themselves don't contain the name Saul. I don't know why you accept at face value the interpretation of Acts that the real name of Paul is Saul. ...

Hi Peter One thing I find a bit puzzling about your use of Hegesippus. IF Hegesippus is a historically valid source at all, then he provides evidence of a James the Just the brother of the Lord at Jerusalem before 70 CE. This must be the James the brother of the Lord who Paul supposedly interacted ...

I really do see your point, dewitness, but there are some who would say that you are begging the question (the answer to which is important) when you state your premise that the stories of Jesus had no existence before they achieved literary form in the Gospels. I have not stated [/b] " that t...

Peter, I read what you posted but there is no sign of reconstruction in Jerusalem mentioned from 71 to 135. Tunnels, citernes and the "prosperous" village were outside Jerusalem. Right, I see that the best interpretation of the evidence is that the main civilian settlement from 70-135 AD ...

I also found this, which allows us to understand more exactly the nature of the civilian settlement between the wars based on the archaeological evidence. [Elsewhere there is evidence that the Roman legion continued for quite some time to be stationed nearby, in the Antonia fortress which escaped de...