I've begun blogging on the "Synoptic Problem," the problem of why Matthew, Mark, and Luke are so similar in so many ways (many of the exact same stories, often told in the same sequence, and even in the very same words), and yet so different (often in wording, sometimes in sequence, etc.).  The solution virtually everyone accepts is that there is some kind of copying going on. The first step is to see if one of them was copied in part by the others, and based on long examinations of all the evidence, the vast majority of scholars have come to agree Matthew and Luke had a copy of Mark that they copied as the basis for their accounts.  They each changed it in places, moving a story to another place, rewording sentences either a little, or a lot, etc..  But Mark was first and the others copied most of it. I should point out that Matthew and Luke almost certainly didn't have the same *copy* of Mark.  And the copies they each had may [...]

A while back blog member Kevin Grant and I did a recorded interview on the teachings of Jesus about the coming apocalypse.  Did he really mean it?  Are we supposed to take it literally?  How can readers understand the dire predictions?   Here is the video! Kevin is the author of What the Hell is Hell?  A Non-religious Look at the Facts and the Love that Shows You How to Soar, available  on Amazon.com.

Now that I’ve devoted two posts to the major sine qua non of the Gospel of Mark – one that lays out its major themes and emphases, the other that deals with who wrote it, when, and why, I can provide a bibliography of important works, written by scholars for non-scholars. You may find one or more of these useful if you choose to dig more deeply into the the Gospel. For each of the books in this this list I provide brief annotations to give you a sense of what it’s about and so help you decide which, if any, might be worth your while. I have divided the list into three sections: Books that provide important discussion of Mark in general or with respect to a particularly key topic Commentaries that give lengthy introductions to all matters of importance about the Gospel and then go passage by passage to provide more detailed interpretation (that’s where you can dig more deeply into “what does this particular word actually mean?”; “what is the real point [...]

Who actually wrote the Gospel of Mark?  When?  And Why? In my previous post I laid out the major themes and emphases of Mark’s Gospel, and now I want to turn to some of the key historical issues about it.  I begin with the author. The two most important things to note are (1) every surviving manuscript that preserves a title ascribes the book to Mark, either calling it “The Gospel according to Mark” or “The Holy Gospel according to Mark,” or just “According to Mark” and (2) these manuscripts were produced over three centuries after the book was placed in circulation. Our oldest two manuscripts (Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, for you fellow Bible nerds) come from toward the end of the fourth century (around 375 CE), and they have the titles (“According to Mark”).  What about manuscripts before then?  We just have no information (since these are our two earliest).  But it does mean that some 300 years after Mark had been circulating, scribes copying it were entitling it that.  And how much earlier than [...]

How could Jesus be the messiah?  Wasn’t the messiah to be a powerful figure sent from God to overthrow the enemies of the Jews and establish a new kingdom on earth?  How could a person publicly humiliated and tortured to death by his enemies be considered the Mighty One to Come?  That is the question Mark sets out to address in his narrative, the first of our surviving Gospels. My goal in this entire thread on the books of the New Testament is to provide four major posts on each of the books, one summarizing its major themes; another dealing with the historical questions of who wrote it, when, and why; another providing an annotated bibliography of other work written by scholars for a non-scholarly audience – studies, commentaries, and online resources; and a final one dealing with one of its key, interesting aspects. I have done that for Matthew, and now I do it for Mark. This post is on its overarching and distinctive themes. As I did with Matthew, here I begin by [...]

Before I can talk about the Gospels individually, I need to say something about them as a group. How would YOU summarize the most important things to say about the Gospels in a single sentence?  Try it.  See how you do.   There are roughly 34 million ways to put it.  Here’s one of them. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the four Gospels of the New Testament, are our earliest surviving accounts of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the Son of God sent for the salvation of the world. And now to unpack that in a single post: The term “Gospel” translates a Greek word (EUANGELION; from which we get the word “evangelist”) that literally means “Good News.”  Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are Gospels because they narrate Jesus’ life not only to provide information about what he said and did, but also to proclaim the authors’ faith that he was the messiah sent from God to bring salvation to those who accept his message.  Scholars have long realized these books are not [...]

What exactly is the New Testament? If someone standing behind you in a long line in the grocery store should lean over and out of the blue ask:  “Hey, can you tell me what the New Testament is”, what would you say? (This happens to you every day, right?)  This person wants it in one sentence.  Well – come up with something.  What would you say?  (Try to formulate something before reading any further.) I’m not sure what I would say, but I would have a ton of options in my head, depending on what I thought she wanted really to know and on what kind of mood I was in (probably a foul one, if I’m in a long line).   But among the options, here would be a relatively decent one: “The New Testament is the collection of twenty-seven books thought to be written by the apostles of Jesus that came to be considered Christian Scripture.” If she wants either clarification or more information, I or you could go from there. [...]

In case you didn't see the announcement the first time!  There are still some seats that can be filled for my blog dinner this week in Tampa, if you're interested.  Here is the original post:   I will be in Tampa next week and would like to do a Blog Dinner on Friday, January 17, with any blog members who happen to be around or can, well, get around.  Probably around 6:30 or so for drinks to start (for whoever is interested in quenching thirst before satisfying hunger), and location TBD. You interested?  I'll limit the table to 8, me and the perfect number 7.   For those who come there are no obligations other than: Being a blog member Showing up Talking Paying for whatever you ingest.  Whatever you exgest is free. If you're interested, do NOT reply here as a comment.  Send along an email at [email protected]. Hope some of you can come!    

Most readers of the blog are interested – either passionately, intently, deeply, moderately, or somewhat – in, well, the New Testament.  But many do not actually know much about it as a whole.  You may well be the exception!  But hey, all of you are exceptional. My view is that anyone who claims to be a New Testament aficionado should be familiar with the basic contents of each book and know the essential facts about it – both its major themes / emphases and its basic historical context – when it was written, by whom, and for what reason. On the most basic level, that would mean being able to state what any of the 27 books is about in ONE SENTENCE.  How many of you can summarize the major themes and emphases of the Gospel of Luke in one sentence?  Or, well, 2 Thessalonians?  1 Peter?   Ephesians?  My guess is: very few indeed.  Or how many can explain what we know about the author of any of these books (without looking it up!)? Exactly. [...]

Most of my textbook approaches the New Testament from a historical and traditional literary point of view.  But there are many other approaches that one can take to the Bible or any other writing.  In recent decades other theoretical forms of analysis have developed and fruitfully employed by scholars. I decided to say something about these theoretical approaches in my book so students would be informed about them, even though I do not employ them in the book itself.  Since critical theory is not my long suit, I asked my then graduate student and now Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Virginia Tech, Shaily Patel (who is deeply familiar with various kinds of theoretical discourse) to write up a short summary for me. Here is the Excursus she produced, now in the textbook. ******************************   Methods of Ideological Criticism By Shaily Patel So far in this book, we have examined a number of different critical methods for studying the writings of the New Testament, all of them firmly committed to a traditional [...]

In my textbook, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings (now in the 8th ed., co-authored with Hugo Mendez), another feature I rather like are several "excursuses" on key issues I chose not to deal with in the text itself.  A couple of these were written by other scholars in the field, including this important one on Digital Bibles by my friend and occasional blog-contributor Jeff Siker. Jeff is on the blog, and will be willing to answer any questions you have. ****************************** The changing technology of writing and reading has always played a major role in the transmission and interpretation of the New Testament; from papyrus rolls to parchment codices to Gutenberg’s printing press; and, finally, to our modern digital age. We are still learning how a digital screen, rather than a printed book, affects the way we read and understand. This applies to the Bible more than any other book, since no other has held (and continues to hold) the special place of the Bible within Christian tradition and Western [...]

I will be in Tampa next week and would like to do a Blog Dinner on Friday, January 17, with any blog members who happen to be around or can, well, get around.  Probably around 6:30 or so for drinks to start (for whoever is interested in quenching thirst before satisfying hunger), and location TBD. You interested?  I'll limit the table to 8, me and the perfect number 7.   For those who come there are no obligations other than: Being a blog member Showing up Talking Paying for whatever you ingest.  Whatever you exgest is free. If you're interested, do NOT reply here as a comment.  Send along an email at [email protected]. Hope some of you can come!    

I’ve received a number of interesting and important questions from readers over the past couple of weeks, and would like to devote a couple of posts to airing my answers to everyone.   QUESTION: I have a question for Bart. Every year right before Christmas we get numerous claims that Jesus was a Palestinian or a Palestinian Jew. As far as I know it’s not true but if you have academic evidence it’s true I will change my mind.   RESPONSE: It's a tricky business.  The areas of Galilee, Samaria, and Judea were together renamed "Palestine" in 135 CE.  In Jesus' day they were called by their separate names.  They were not called "Israel."  In two of the Gospels, Jesus is born in Bethlehem of Judea; does that make him a Judean?  Normally yes.  But he is raised and ministers in Galilee. Does that make him a Galilean?  Normally yes.  Today we usually refer to both areas as Israel, as it was originally called.  Should he be called an Israelite?  That term was [...]