Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Josephus mentions (or invents) these prodigies as a way to show that the populace was mistaken to revolt against Rome; and were foolish not to listen to their teachers and the elite classes, who wanted to mend relations. "these prodigies" - you mean Peter & Paul? I should have said &q...

Well, Take it from someone who went to High School with BOTH Pilate and Josephus (my dad kept getting promoted so we moved a lot), they never dated one another. Joe was a manly man type guy, you know, all hairy and sweaty, while Pilate was a high flying dude. How do you think he got his name "P...

Just following up on this --- seems that some early Christian writers felt that the spirit of god had to depart-- do you think I am on the right track here with jerome? None of the gospels mention voices crying out when Jesus died other than Jesus himself. Later-- I think Josephus used the symbolog...

I think that your observation that " towards the end of his reign , [Tiberius] became increasingly reluctant to change governors" holds the key. Gratus replaced Annias Rufus, who had been appointed by Augustus in 12 CE, in 15 CE, after 3 years of governorship, which would be in Tiberius' f...

So, since the conversation seems to be going nowhere (or to familiar places which is the same thing) let's demonstrate the other implication of this theory - that 21 CE was a Jubilee year. This is more difficult to accomplish than at first seems because we have to establish sabbatical years. So if ...

Quoting a little more from pages 52-54: [052] ... Ekkehard Mühlenberg stated already in 1979, "We are not furnished with a list of omissions, so that the argumentum e silentio cannot be admitted." 106 Mühlenberg voiced this caution against Harnack's assumption that silence equals absence, ...

I know this will not be a direct analogy, but his insistence that because the church fathers who wrote against Marcion did not mention certain orthodox NT passages that work against Marcion's theological POV means they were probably there is a little like Eisenman's argument that C14 analysis can o...

I would like to see this official Roman text. Define "see". I'd explain what I mean but don't want to waste my time if you intend to blow it off as irrelevant no matter what it was. There is no manuscript. The first church father to mention it, Eusebius, did not attempt to quote it, just ...

Well, I have spent a couple of weeks reading the book and I am a little uneasy about what BeDuhn is concluding. He seems to be using circular reasoning. He gives up on reconstructing exactly how Marcion's Evangelion (Gospel) and Apostolikon (10 letters of Paul the Apostle) were worded, although he s...

Greek Magical Papyrus I.229-330: And when [the God Apollo] comes [in response to your invocation], ask him about what you wish, about the art of prophecy, about divination with epic verses, about the sending of dreams, about obtaining revelations in dreams, about interpretations of dreams, about cau...