Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Hi beowulf, Thank you for this. This is more evidence that Romans was not written by the Pauline writer who wrote the other epistles in the "authentic" corpus. He appears to be unaware of Paul's ban on women talking in church let alone being a deacon. I wonder about the relationship of Pho...

Hi beowulf, In general, I agree that facts are often used to argue opposite sides of a question. However, it is also true that very often one side ignores the facts or interprets them in a fantastic way to reach their conclusions. If I said "Daniel Dennett traveled through Georgia and South Car...

Hi Robert, Paul's whole discussion of his fights with the Jews in Jerusalem would be a long and pointless digression unless these Jews were the same people trying to get the Galatians to follow Jewish laws. Warmly, Jay Raskin Hi Jay, Needless to say that I don't accept the passages from Acts as evid...

Hi All, I propose that Aquila and Prisca (AKA Priscilla), the man and wife mentioned in 1 Corinthians, Romans and Acts, were actually a gay married couple. Here is some of the evidence. 1. These are strange names considering that the text calls Aquila a Jew from Pontus. Aquila is Latin for "eag...

Hi Robert, I agree that one has to be very careful in using the information in Acts. I am afraid that I have to rely on both information in Acts and the epistles for showing that the Galatia Church was not founded by Paul. Acts 16.6 - Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia...

Hi Robert, Acts says this about Apollos: 24 Now a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures. 25 He had been instructed in the way of the Lord. And being fervent in spirit,[d] he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Je...

Hi Blood, Good question. Wikipedia gives this information about the seven churches in revelation: Ephesus (Revelation 2:1-7) - the church that had forsaken its first love (2:4). Smyrna (Revelation 2:8-11) - the church that would suffer persecution (2:10). Pergamum (Revelation 2:12-17) - the church t...

Hi Pakeha, Thanks. I think these ideas may be original, but they are based a great deal on and inspired and influenced by the work of Earl Doherty in "The Jesus Puzzle". I don't agree with him in everything, but I do agree that the writer of the main epistles never heard the story of Ponti...

Hi beowulf, In ancient time, myths were constantly changed. Any particular element in a myth could be changed in the retelling. We see the same process at work in movie remakes today. Some elements are kept and others abandoned. We know from the Dead Sea Scrolls that this was the process with the He...

Hi Beowulf, The Catholics have an ulterior motive for including Romans. They want to associate Paul with Rome as it gives the Roman Catholic Church more authority. Getting rid of 2.Thessalonikians destroys the obvious chiastic structure that appears when it is included among the seven. One has only ...