Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Earl Doherty comments in Jesus Neither God Nor Man that it is simply unbelievable that Origen of Alexandria in the early third century discussed in detail the very chapter of the Antiquities of the Jews in which the Testimonium Flavianum is located but apparently did not notice it. The text from Ori...

I have just re-read the chapter in The Christ Conspiracy where these comments about the Pope being a mason are made. Acharya’s footnote 28 on page 342 links her reference to the Pope to Godfrey Higgins, but the reference in his 1836 book Anacalypsis may be from a different edition. Nonetheless, this...

Thank you Gakusei Don, your comment here is far more balanced and informative than some of your previous statements about this material. I have quoted your comment in full at Acharya's Discussion Board Free Thought Nation, as it certainly deserves discussion and response in an environment where fund...

a parody Abe, perhaps before you make such comments based on nothing more than your personal incredulity, it would help if you read up on the issue? For example, I highly recommend The Myth of Nazareth by Rene Salm. The archaeological evidence in Nazareth reveals none of the normal data one would e...

Does anyone know about the "state of the question" among professional archeologists and ancient historians? Are you familiar with The Bible Unearthed by Israel Finkelstein? He is a distinguished professional archaeologist who explains the many disappointments of religiously motivated arch...

Ficino – My comment on Nazareth coins at the Jesus Mysteries group is here , and Rene Salm has kindly replied. I highly recommend Rene's book as a good overview of Nazareth Studies. Any mention of the historicity of Nazareth is going to be hard to confine, as it is such an explosive question for fai...

Of course the identity of Nazareth was not a 'mistake over confusion'. The Gnostics invented Jesus as the imaginary leader of the Nazarene sect. The most plausible reason for the use of Nazareth in the Bible is that when the Romans attacked, the Gnostics found plausible deniability in saying that Na...

Chapter 6 is mainly about Paul. It begins with refuting Acharya's suggestion that Paul was really Apollonius of Tyana. (There is a general issue that the book may spend too much time on Acharya's more unusual ideas.) Hello Andrew, now you are making me want to get this book by Casey. If Ehrman's in...

Adam's quote from Jim West illustrates everything that is wrong with theology as an intellectual discipline. Jim West's demonising comments are nothing but empty rhetoric, a clanging gong, full of sound and fury but signifying nothing. If Saint Paul believed in Jesus of Nazareth he would have said s...

I enjoyed reading Enoch. Its morality and cosmology seem to me significantly better than orthodox tradition, and I can well imagine why all copies were hunted down and burnt to suppress its Gnostic naturalism. Calling Enoch a hodgepodge looks very superficial, a pedantic failure to engage with conte...