Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Both BeDuhn and apparently Vinzent render a significantly different version of the Christ Hymn for the Marcionite version of the Pauline letters. But I'm not sure I understand the full justification for their versions. BeDuhn has simply: . . . 5 [Think this about yourselves (what you think) also abo...

I have somehow the impression that you are dissatisfied with Sarah's review of your book. I haven't read all the posts and discussions on Sarah's blog, but it seems to me that there is no basis for your dissatisfaction. No. She's spent a lot of time and effort doing an in depth review. I just disag...

The opening sections are heavily dependent on Plato's Timaeus with its description of the primordial chaos (the formless material Receptacle), and the subsequent separation of the four elements when the Demiurge began to order creation, and the earth, oceans, air and heavens took their present sepa...

About a passage of Ovid he cited above, rgprice declared "This of course parallels the story of the Tower of Babel." I don't see that. So, in this case, apparently, I agree with the dismissal of that assertion by Russell Gmirkin. If I read this right, the mortals are attempting to reach t...

Note that the introduction of Phlegon's Book of Wonders has been lost, but in his Long Lived Persons Phlegon introduces the material as being factual in nature. For example he introduces a Sibyline passage by saying, "The Sibyl of Erythrai lived just short of a thousand years, as she herself sa...

Yeah, my view is that all of these, "We have to explain this or that" hypothetical questions totally miss the point. One has to follow the data, period. "Why would someone write this, why would they write that?" These issues are irrelevant when one has not established the writer'...

These are interesting passages. I wouldn't put any stock in them, but it is interesting in how it shows an early set of claims about the prevenance.

So for me, instead of focusing on the pre-Gospel origins of Christianity and trying to show that pre-Gospel writers were talking about a heavenly Jesus, I understand that you would like to sound (rightly) original with the your theory of Mark (and I like a lot your solution to the Synoptic Problem ...

I would say that the case I put forward in Deciphering the Gospels is fundamentally different from many other "mythicist" arguments, such as those put forward by Carrier and Doherty. The Doherty case, and many related mythicist cases, argument primarily that the "original" worshi...

OTOH Mark is not using prophecies at all, rather he is building scenes from narratives and passages that are about how the Israelites displeased God, leading God to reject or punish them by sending foreign armies against them to destroy their cities, hunt them down, and destroy their temple. That i...