Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

There are essentially just two places where relatives of Jesus are mentioned in the Gospel of Mark. Those are in Mark 3 and Mark 6. I've attempted to understand these in a variety of ways and now consider the possibility that these were not part of the original narrative, but are instead examples la...

Perhaps then πειραζόμενος is original, but it should be read, "tried" by Satan, in the sense that John was being put on trial. After his baptism in the Spirit, John was was put on trial by Satan. In Matthew and Luke the Temptation of Christ indicates that Satan was attempting to coerce Jes...

I often hear that many heretics, especially Marcion, considered Paul to be the only legitimate apostle, but I'm unclear on the primary sources used to support these claims. What are the strongest evidence showing that there were sects of Christians who considered Paul the only legitimate apostle?

In Mark 1 we famously read that Jesus was driven into the wilderness to be "tempted" by Satan. 2 Immediately the Spirit impelled Him to go out into the wilderness. 13 And He was in the wilderness forty days being tempted by Satan; and He was with the wild beasts, and the angels were minist...

Interesting for sure, though I wonder how they misunderstood this? Isn't the book of Job the earliest mention of Satan? And in the book of Job, it's explicitly clear that YHWH and the accuser/adversary, are two distinct entities having conversation in the courts of Heaven. I wonder how the Gnostics...

I know of medieval claims that Jews worshiped Satan, but were their ancient claims that Jews worshiped Satan/Beliar? Jewish texts themselves identify Satan/Beliar as the "Lord of this world". Understanding how Satan became the "Lord of this world" if the world was created by God ...

This is interesting: These texts and some others, such as the episode of Beelzebub - through whom the Jewish exorcists, and not Jesus, expel the demons ( Lk 11:15 ff; Mt 12:24 ff) and who is therefore the god of the OT - or the speech in which Jesus treats the father of the Jews - the god of the OT ...

The interesting thing about the origins of Christianity is that no matter what you have to accept that forgery was rampant and played a huge role in the origins of the religion, because even the orthodox Christians accused everyone else of committing forgery. Forgery is an indelible part of the orig...

when Paul talks about Paul is talking about The fact that Paul lists whatever Paul was talking about Talking about Paul as a real guy writing before the 70 is not more interesting than reading a second time OHJ by Richard Carrier. I am comparing in this thread two authors who place the 'epistles' i...

You'll have to forgive me as I'm apparently going through a hyper fixation on the book of Mark right now, and what it might have looked like in earlier stages. I read through much of an earlier thread that you posted about the beginning of Mark. It had a lot to do with John the Baptist, and Jesus d...