Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Ben, My curiosity about the Ignatians was sparked by my reading of Henri Delafosse’s book about them, and then Alfred Loisy’s review of Delafosse’s book. Loisy suggested that the author of the letters may have been someone like Apelles. As far as I could determine Loisy never pursued that idea furth...

Here are some of the reasons I suspect a specifically Apellean provenance for the original GJohn: GJohn is a significantly different from the Synoptic gospels. Apelles — in contrast to Marcion who was accused of for the most part of cutting out parts of a synoptic gospel -- was said to have written ...

Hi Ben, April Deconick’s article first came to my attention via Neil Godfrey’s Vridar blogpost for 12-11-2013, “The Devil’s Father and Gnostic hints in the Gospel of John.” Upon reading these I sent an email to Deconick explaining why I think Apelles should be considered a good candidate for author ...

What concerned me the most was the "death wish" the author exhibited. Wow! 4.1) "I am the wheat of God, and let me be ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of Christ." 5.3) Short: "Let fire and the cross; let the crowds of wild beasts; l...

Great post, Peter. I've been on the fence about the authenticity of the passage. You've knocked me off the fence!

Open questions: Is Paul worried about gospels that are preaching a noncrucified Christ? Or is he worried about gospels that are misinterpreting a crucified Christ? If the former, why does he spend virtually all his time (in Galatians, for example) decrying gentile circumcision rather than more dire...

Ben, My admittedly speculative proposal that the Son’s visit to earth lasted for only a few hours and was unrecognized is one way for me to try to make sense of Paul’s puzzling silence about any public ministry for Jesus. The proposal attempts to combine the apparent absence of a ministry on earth f...

Impressive, Ben — this post and the whole series on Hebrews. You’ve analyzed this complicated epistle systematically and clearly, and I find your argument quite convincing.

If our author did not invent the crucifixion or the sitting at the right hand of God, whence did he or she derive those ideas? The most obvious candidate for the latter is Psalm 110.1 (109.1 LXX); as with so much else in this epistle, here we have an event that, for all we can tell from this epistl...

Hi, Roger. You explain Simon here; but who would Alexander and Rufus themselves be? Or what do they symbolize? Why the unusual inversion, identifying sons of a character in the narrative when those sons play no part in it? Any thoughts on the sons? Ben. Hi Ben, No, no ideas I’m comfortable with. If...