Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Thanks for the info thus far. I figured someone would call me out for not mentioning Arthur Drew's The Christ Myth :p Anyway, what I've gleaned is: Catholic priest Lorenzo Valla published a treaties exposing the Donation of Constantine as a forgery in 1440. Exposure of this forgery contributed signi...

What are the main important milestones in biblical scholarship starting with the Protestant Reformation? There is of course the Protestant challenges to Peterine primacy, there is the theory of Markan priority, the identification of the Synoptic problem, the acknowledgement that the Gospels are not ...

I get the impression that there was an early tradition of a John - probably [mostly] John, son of Zebedee - telling of a revelation from/by a Saviour/Christ/Jesus and of this eventually being usurped by [perhaps new] narratives about this Saviour-Christ or a Saviour-Jesus* +/- the Christ descending...

The birth stories of Matthew and Luke are clearly late and reactionary additions to earlier narratives that gave no account of a birth of Jesus. They are specifically anti-docetic inventions. The case that the birth accounts are late anti-docetic inventions is very strong. So much has been done on ...

I agree that the birth stories are late additions. I think this really be beyond question at this point. I have come around to the idea that the first Gospel was simply ambiguous about the origins of Jesus, but likely inferred that he was indeed a person, not that he descended from heaven. But it wa...

What is this evidence? I am not inclined to take your word for it. I don't feel like hashing this out again, so I'll just say that there are many papers written on this topic Which do you have in mind? It's an interesting topic. Here's a simple example: https://www.logos.com/grow/when-mark-goodacre...

Yes, Celsus makes some claim about the "real" biography of Jesus, but it is evident that these supposed "real facts" about Jesus are themselves just alternative imaginings derived from the Gospels. "Let us imagine what a Jew- let alone a philosopher- might say to Jesus: 'Is...

What is this evidence? I am not inclined to take your word for it. I don't feel like hashing this out again, so I'll just say that there are many papers written on this topic, which argue that Matthew used Luke, not the other way around, and a lot of linguistic work has been done to show that Luke ...

i think it looks like the gospels are being massaged to fit in with the Pauline narrative rather than they (or their sources) not existing prior to the epistles. why did Acts take pains to introduce Paul out of nowhere, because he wasn't originally there? My personal thesis is that all of the mater...

I'm going to be radical here, and says it's possible Mk, Mt, Lk were the authors of the original gospels bearing their name. Or rather they may have been earlier versions of which they were authors. Irenaeus has no reason to make up Mark and Luke as authors. Cause they weren't disciples. Arguably t...