Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

So again, toejam (you can help on this): Who told Mark that John had baptized Jesus? Who was present to observe the fact that John baptized Jesus? We don't know. My suspicion, like the content of most of his gospel, is that he's compiling known traditions (oral and/or written) into a single biograp...

I would like defenders of "oral tradition" to examine the assumptions that they hold. Oral tradition is a magic bullet they pull out as a "source" of facts. They need to have a theory to defend the assertion that oral tradition contains factual or authentic material. So far, I d...

If I'm right that there is this trend, I don't know to what extent it's directly motivated by: 1. fashions in literary theory 2. the philosophical stance that truth is eternal so the historical contingencies of a text's formation don't matter 3. a (tacit?) realization that the gospels/Acts can't be...

It is strange - it seems studies into Islam are actually going further than in xianity This book is an effort at the “quest for the historical Muhammad” that uses methods and perspectives borrowed from biblical and early Christian studies to investigate the beginnings of Islam. It takes its main fo...

Since euhemerism has an original meaning and some modern scholars are, seemingly, using this term to denote the complete opposite of what it referenced originally - Carrier would have been better served to have defined the term he was using in OHJ rather than leave his use of it open to question. A...

Conservative scholars will say that the writing's veracity rests on oral testimony of the apostles and their successors. For something like this event, they might say that Jesus told his disciples about his baptism. Or that disciples of JtB told Jesus' disciples. Then they'll bring up other ancient...

^Is it really that much of stretch to think that Jesus may well have been baptised by John? John is attested to in Josephus as a popular Jewish baptising cult leader. Baptism is taught and alluded to in Paul, our earliest source for the Christian movement. The gospels seem to be skirting desperatel...

Where is your evidence of an oral tradition? . Illiterate people did not talk? Ok. So, let's try this: How did the author of the Gospel of Mark know that Jesus was baptized by John? Who was his source? Who was the source of that source? If we go back to the beginning, who was the original witness w...

We in fact have no (or at least very little and disputed) evidence of this oral tradition in the earliest Christian writings . Does not apply. There is no evidence for this other then an illiterate people who used oral traditions to communicate. Its a given. Your example was of a semi-illiterate pe...

What oral traditions do you think existed? What do you think did not exist in a illiterate society that could recite the OT verbatim. A lot of Mark would contain oral traditions, and if I guessed I would be no better then those I ask for credible sources from. I think the wiki article explained it....