Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

. Barbara Thiering died 4 months ago, in November 2015, aged 85 - http://www.smh.com.au/comment/obituaries/academic-and-iconoclast-barbara-thiering-exemplified-tumultuous-1960s-ethos-20151203-glf9mk.html From wikipedia - ... she propounded a theory arguing that the miracles, including turning water...

. According to Barbara Thiering - " ...when people were initiated as Christians their name was changed, to express the fact that they were now “born again” into a new symbolic family." https://www.peshertechnique.infinitesoulutions.com/index9.html That might account for Saul -> Paul (?) -...

Some interesting commentary on "the flight to Pella" - http://www.preteristarchive.com/StudyAr ... light.html

Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote: Personally I tend to think that the „flight to Pella“ is a late pious legend. If the church of Jerusalem took an active part in the first Jewish-Roman war, it would explain a lot.

Do these things have to be a reference to the first Jewish-Roman war? Can they be a reference to other conflicts?

seditious elements were a fact of life under Roman occupation. The gospel writers could hardly ignore this fact setting, as they do, their story under Roman occupation. Yes, sedition would have been a part of life in many time periods. Some Gospel or some pericope writers could well have been remov...

... must (at least some of) the material antedate the gospels ? From my perspective, if these materials do in fact run counter to authorial tendencies, then the author probably did not make them up; he or she probably inherited them in some form and did what he or she could with them. If, however, ...

I would probably belong to that group in a general way if, by "Ur-Gospel", one does not have to intend a single, unified text. I tend to think that gospel materials of some kind preceded our earliest extant gospel, which I take to be Mark. But I am still investigating all of that, and I a...

... I think anyone in any amount of academic study on Jesus historicity gets the jest of the appointed label in the core of its context. What core??! There are no criteria that meet suitable criteria for evidence for the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth - the only information is the books of the NT...

This is what is so unfortunate about the term 'mythicism.' Atheists want to stick the knife into religion. That's what prompts the preference for speaking in terms of 'myths' (= untruths). Yet many 'anti-mythicism-ists' seem to be atheist (or claim to be). This is unnecessary super-waffle - But 'my...

'Parallelomania' seems to be used to disparage propositions that various Christian texts or practices are similar to texts or practices in non-Christian scenarios. It has become a scholarly equivalent of a four letter word. It is used to insult, to dismiss, to ostracize, to avoid engagement. I agre...