Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

It may be worth noting that Suetonius in the Life of Nero reports Punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition. afflicti suppliciis Christiani, genus hominum superstitionis novae ac maleficae the text appears to be clearly Christians not Chre...

Does the Quadratus fragment provide any verification for the supposed "zombie periscope" in Matthew or is it too old to be counted as testimony to this? Was Quadratus talking about people the Jesus rose from the dead while he was preaching? Is this another exaggeration by Eusibius? I hadn...

Bar Kohba is a well known self-proposed Messianic figure from the early/mid 2nd c. and was able to get a very large following, so he must have been tapping into widespread sentiments. What evidence is there that Bar Kochba was a 'self-proposed' messianic figure ? He got a large following b/c he led...

....................................................... About Hebrews 11:35: what would be the basis for "Women received their dead by resurrection" ? That phrase is very puzzling. Cordially, Bernard http://biblehub.com/commentaries/hebrews/11-35.htm Those meant are the widow of Sarepta (...

My apologies in advance if this response seems a bit disjointed, as I am trying to use my mouse left handed and type with my usual leading arm in a sling. Yes, I had that rotator cuff surgery again, this time to the opposite shoulder. Fun fun ... Anyways, history has a way to make the rough edges o...

I've been reading Lundhaug and Jenott The monastic origins of the Nag Hammadi codices and I'm not sure what to make of it. First a clarification: the book is about who wrote the physical codices found at Nag Hammadi. The authors accept that the texts themselves are older, generally much older. The a...

I want to repeat, as someone who is intimately familiar with ALL of the early Christian sources, that there simply isn't an early or ancient witness who describes the existence of wholly observant 'Jewish Christians.' There's always an asterisk besides their 'Jewishness' insofar as they appear more...

DC, Here's another one for you: "Serenity now!" (It's busy at work tonight.) On another note, regarding the son of man = Michael idea, I was reading Schafer's review of Boyarin's The Jewish Gospels and noticed this statement: Boyarin dismisses the possibility that the Son of Man is a coll...

The Apocalypse of Peter exists partly in Greek in the "Ahmim fragment", and there is a later Arabic copy and an even later Ethiopic copy of the Arabic one. The Early Writings site has the Ahmim fragment and quotes from the relevant portions of the Ethiopic one. The editor, M. James, wrote...

Larry Hurtado's reading does seem clearly possible, which indicates how deeply ambiguous the ending of Mark at 16:8 is. It seems, from your words, that you are doing the following implication: the LH's reading is possible --> the ending at 16:8 is ambiguous. I agree and accept personally the premis...