Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Guilty Until Proven Innocent? A major problem with all such arguments is that one cannot take the canonical Pauline letters at face value. The canonical Pauline letters are filled with interpolations and modifications.... Citing Paul as evidence of anything is fraught with peril. I don't care what ...

One last comment here. Trying to understand the earlier Paul by using what little we can accurately know about the later Marcion, or by using the way the Marcionites chose to selectively spin Paul’s letters to support their own predilections as found in the polemic writings of their doctrinal enemi...

About Paul as a persecutor in Galatians 1:13-17 --- from another recent thread —- ' I've been stuck on this passage for a long time. Try as I might, I still can't fully make sense of it, but also think it is key to understanding the origins of the Pauline letters and worship of Jesus. Fully agree wi...

Isn't it clear from the start that this story can never be a realistic story about sowing, but only a parable? I think parables are most effective by far if they make sense on a literal level. Even with fairy-tale type parables with talking animals, readers can suspend logic enough, as long as the ...

The Parable of the Sower is a very simple, agrarian common folk story that even city folk would understand. I read the parable a few more times and wondered if the parable discussed the real problems of a farmer. In the Georgica, Virgil writes lengthy explanations about the quality of the soil, its...

KK, thanks for posting the interesting Davidson article. I did some work on the Parable of the Sower previously when discussing the Thomasine version on the forum. Such agricultural lore brought out the farm boy in me, and I looked for possible scriptural inspirations for the details in the parable,...

I am therefore inclined to assume that the structure of the beginning of GMark is like this: Beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet. Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way! The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare t...

I think we have to be fair in debates. If Mark is the source of all the gospels and Mark assumes among other things that Jesus was adopted to become God and had a mother and was known to his peers, it would be unreasonable to assume that Jesus never existed. Burton Mack, formerly the John Wesley Pr...

An argument against the historicity of a Judean origin --- R.G. had a long comment with a lot of questions … [Price] Why does every single story about Jesus share text with the Gospel of Mark? [Dr. Sarah] Because later authors used gMark as one of their sources. From: Jesus mythicism vs. Jesus histo...

From the link provided by KK to Dr. Sarah’s review of rgprice’s book--- ‘Deciphering The Gospels Proves Jesus Never Existed’ review: Chapter Two, Part Two https://freethoughtblogs.com/geekyhumanist/2021/03/03/deciphering-the-gospels-proves-jesus-never-existed-review-chapter-two-part-two/ Dr. Sarah a...