Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Neil Godfrey wrote: Just for the record, Ernst Haenchen (apparently Ken's source) acknowledges that these events were taking place as early as Paul's own missionary activity (pp.441f). Neil, when you say "these events" did you mean to include Mark 13.-12-13 and 14-20, about Roman officials...

John2 wrote: I gather you see these official proceedings as taking place after 70 CE, and while I do think Mark was written c. 70 CE, the context of Mk. 13 is presented as being Jesus' words pre-70 CE. And I find what Jesus says in Mk. 13 lines up well with what Josephus says about the lead up to an...

Ben Smith wrote: In other words, with the translational hypothesis, everything is explained: both the garbling and the difference between Matthew and Luke, conveniently dependent upon a common word in Aramaic. With the editing hypothesis, however (Luke editing Matthew), one is left wondering why Luk...

Ben Smith wrote: What I wonder is whether your explanation adequately covers the wording of Luke's admonition: "But give the things within as alms" (πλὴν τὰ ἐνόντα δότε ἐλεημοσύνην). What does that mean, to give "the things within" as alms? The motif of inside and outside works f...

Ben, I gave a paper titled "Mistranslated Aramaic or Septuagintal Greek?" at SBL in 2008. I'll copy the pertinent section here: II. MATTHEW 23.25-26//LUKE 11.39-41: “CLEANSE” AND “GIVE ALMS” In its Matthean form, Jesus’ saying to the Pharisees on cleansing the cup and the plate reads: οὐαὶ...

About a week ago, Ben Smith wrote: Ben: From what I can tell, interpretation in antiquity was split between interpreting the abomination of desolation (A) as a prediction which has yet to come to pass (still future from the perspective of the interpreters, among whom number most if not all of the ch...

John 2 wrote: I suppose the definition of "idol" could be debatable, but I side with the camp that sees Josephus' reference to the Romans sacrificing to their standards as essentially being worship of a pagan idol. War 6.6.1: And now the Romans, upon the flight of the seditious into the ci...

Ben, Sorry, this one took a while and ends up being awfully repetitive. I’d like to have re-written it so that I’m not just making the same point (maybe three points) over and over, but that would have taken even longer. Ben: One might think that we have grounds for suspecting a cipher here because ...

Ben Smith wrote: I learned at a very early age that Mother Rabbit's advice to Peter Cottontail may well apply to me, too, in my own time and place ; this does not make anything in the Beatrix Potter story a cipher for something from my own situation. My trouble with the second "hook" is th...

Back on Feb. 24, Ben Smith asked: Ken, if I may ask a broader question of you, what is your "hook," so to speak? What is the internal or external datum (or set of data) that makes you look at Mark 13.14 and say, "Ah, that abomination thing must be official Roman persecution of Christi...