Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

What are you thoughts on Paul? Did he exist? What do you think he thought about Jesus?

^Sure it's possible. Ancient history is not about certainty. But such "possibilities" cut both ways - could you acknowledge that it is POSSIBLE that what was edited/interpolated out of the Pauline corpus were more direct references to Jesus' family and specific earthly times and places tha...

^I suspect so. "Born of a woman under the law", "descendant of David" etc. does it for me. Bernard Muller has an excellent list of 10-15 Pauline references that I mostly agree with that seem to me to be best understood as referring to an Earthly Jesus (in Paul's eyes). I think Eh...

^Is there something in particular about Ehrman's "How Jesus Became God" that you find particularly illogical, irrational or "faith"-based (other than that he starts with a historical figure which is fairly irrelevant to the larger topic)? The book is primarily about the perceptio...

^Like most scholars I read, I find myself in agreement with Ehrman on some points, indifference / unknown on others, and disagreement on others. Although I tend to see Ehrman's reasoning as fairly sound most of the time. And this project in particular I found to be a good resource for exploring what...

^Ooops, my bad. Sorry for being under the impression that people here were interested in the history of Christianity.

For anyone interested, this project by Ehrman is now available as a Great Courses (aka The Teaching Company) video lecture series. 24 half-hour lectures. http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=6522 I've watched/listened to most of the Great Courses lectures on Judaism and ...

I don't seek God. I seek truth - a correct (or as close to correct as the human mind can comprehend) understanding of the way reality works. So if God exists, then I would hope he shows up in my search.

^Nah. I think Ehrman just sees Carrier as a bit of a prick. Which he is IMO (even though I do respect his scholarship). But there is mutual respect between Ehrman and Price, as there is between Ehrman and Dom Crossan, for example, despite their major disagreements about the historical Jesus. There's...

3. Rationalizations of Myth Are Not "History," But Are Actually Just New Versions of the Myth Borrowing a page from Levi-Strauss's Structuralism, a component to his theory is the maxim that any retelling of a myth is actually a new version of the myth -- it is pointless to hunt for an &qu...