Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

As it is in GJohn, the very first time we hear about Mary and Lazarus we know nothing about them, but are told that Jesus loves them, and not just that he loves them, but that he has a special relationship with them. Where id this come from? I'm going to start a new thread to explore the issue of J...

I would propose that the strict historicity of Jesus was not assumed even with the writing of each gospel. My own personal hypothesis is that there was a historical basis for the emergence of Christianity, but this was relevant mostly to the radical messianists whose cult was crushed successively by...

Even wikipedia gets it right: Lucian of Samosata had sweet f*ckall to do w/ Xtianity. NO he wasnt Xtian, had no Xtian sect/followers, and had no Xtian Gospel as Origen states here for THIS Lucian. It's a three-part Fail. Ergo: NOT THE SAME LUCIAN! (There's no logical reason to insert his name here,...

These recent volcano obsession has given me a thought. The belching, pounding rhythm of a volcano sounds a lot like various modern technological contrivances, but to an ancient I'm sure it must have sounded like pounding on an anvil. The location of "Noah's Ark" South of Ararat, in Corduen...

Late Daters: Some one thought it up at the very last minute, wrote it all down, sent it everywhere immediately. Simples! (This is a natural bias towards the gratified instantaneous, for the Internet Generation.) We also have the bias of 20/20 hindsight. We encounter this information having already ...

Backtrack. For most myths, oral teaching is probably a generation or two (30-75 years) before the script begins to circulate widely. Whichever (re-copied) fragment survives -in the future!- is not likely the oldest but rather the newest or from the 'early popularity' of the work's dissemination, sa...

Hanilai and Asinai ruled a large portion of Babylon for a brief time, and Josephus attributes the flight of Jews from Babylon (at least, Seleucia/Ctesiphon) due to the aftermath of the rule of Anileus. We know just a little about the two brothers: Now there were two men, Asineus and Anileus, of the ...

My general hypothesis about Christian origins is that Bazeus Monobazus of Adiabene was identified as the "Prophet Elchasai". Although in the West, post-Christian sects changed this historical incarnation of the blessed one back into a mythical figure, in the East there was a continuation o...

Right. Jewish factionalism was rife, but both Josephus and Philo pretend it's non-existent in Egypt. The Sicarii infiltrate Alexandria 73 AD to kill their enemies: Roman-Jewish elites, anti-Zealot Jews opposed to Total War, and perhaps to eradicate the vestiges of the Melchizedek cult? The universa...

All this also presupposes many father-warriors raised sons to be soldiers. Perhaps. If so, my Melchizedekian thesis looks iron-clad: Battle-God Melchizedek as a Divine Warrior-Intercessor (c.275 BC) morphed into a Logos-Saviour Cult (100-75 BC) about 3-4 generations later. These Roman Egyptianized ...