Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

I have no doubt that Mark was revised in the presence of Matthew, so yes, parts of Mark were written after Matthew and conformed to Matthew. The real problem here is that people keep thinking of these as actually independent works that are purely preserved in their original form. NOTHING in the New...

Would Mark be the source that Celsus's Jew learned from? "But let us now return to where the Jew is introduced, speaking of the mother of Jesus, and saying that when she was pregnant she was turned out of doors by the carpenter to whom she had been betrothed, as having been guilty of adultery, ...

Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. And Joseph her husband, being a righteous man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily. ...

In all seriousness I guess I will participate in the discussion in earnest. Firstly, my thinking about Marcion and his relation with the early Christian movement tries to take into account various systems theories (information, cybernetics, world system, psychoanalysis, and so on) in order to get a ...

That, I think, is Marcionism. I am Marcion, the Man of Pontus, because we are all Marcion, Man of Pontus. Each of us attempts to recreate the world to fit how we can best economize it to suite our understanding of it so we can cope and survive. Marcion is human psychology. Marcion is human philosop...

Indeed. My entire methodology or experiment has been an attempt to disentangle how we think in the context of Christianity so as to get to a purer understanding of it. Maybe I was wrong. Could Josephus himself be doing the same thing? He is doing something similar with his account of signs? He is as...

As Peter noted, the thread isn't about trying to prove one theory or another, but rather what is people's best guess about how Marcion fits into early Christianity? I'm interested in reading the range of views people have developed based on their intuition, and not challenging anyone to 'prove' tha...

I don't follow this logical succession. Even taking my niche and amateurish observation as possible would mean that, in this hypothetical context, Josephus did know about Christianity, or at least some potential source for what would be Christianity in the future. But I don't think you're appreciati...

A cow gave birth to a lamb? Huh. I really didn't see that one coming. :o Like you I think these little tidbits make up a potential source for early Christianity ... Michael Crouch believed that this was just how Josephus understood Christians and their wacky, zany beliefs. Who made who? Perhaps Cro...

Josephus also implies that God had removed Himself from the Temple. This is consistent with what he wrote about how God had abandoned Jerusalem and the Temple due to the actions of robbers and the High Priests: At the same festival also, a heifer, as she was led by the high priest to be sacrificed,...