Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

The lack of evidence in conjunction with the elaborations that are part of theology - especially part of the development of a theology - suggest most, if not all, of the narrative is fiction.

I find the question of whether or not Jesus existed quite tedious (given that there is almost nothing to talk about). Basically a war between people that love Christianity the way it is versus those who hate Christianity the way it is. Not so - that's a false dichotomy. Why not talk instead about t...

... In fact, 25 years after John's death, an apostle of John's reaches Ephesus before any apostle of Jesus of Nazareth does. ... Although nobody in Ephesus or Alexandria had preached Jesus before 54/55, somehow the Church of Rome has become world famous for its faith by 58/59. Galatians 1 supports ...

... the reality is [early christinaity is] more like the Cambrian Explosion, where the time became ripe for simultaneous emergence of the same idea in many places. Yes, my point of view is that early Christianity (ie first century and before) was Docetic and Gnostic, understanding Jesus Christ as a...

Not sure 'prediction' (or predicitve value) is the right term/s for these proposals.

Not sure falsifiablity or 'unfalsifiability' is, either.

^^ I'd say

The Christian religion is the object of the same evolutionary process that has been changing our view of our world.

In Wars of the Jews , an apocalyptic prophet named Jesus ben Ananias goes around preaching the coming destruction of Jerusalem. The Sanhedrin has him arrested and brought before the Roman procurator, whereupon he is interrogated and severely whipped. Yet he does not defend himself against the charg...

gMark mention the John the Baptist in the wilderness story. Dating usually given as either prior to or soon after 70 c.e. The Josephan life story of 99 c.e. thereby being ruled out as being used by the gMark writer. gLuke is usually given a date of somewhere between 70 c.e. and 100 c.e. Thus it's s...

^ I don't know how many more times to explain this. It's not that we deny that she is a nice person. We don't know either way. But when you develop a theory solely from second and third hand sources - or even partly from second and third hand sources - it all comes down to the accuracy of those dev...

I would disagree, however, with the assertion that astrotheology is "scientific efforts" to understand how astrology has functioned within religion. Astrotheology might be investigative; or involve a methodology; or a combination of methodologies, including the historical method; but I fi...