Bart’s Public Blog that provides membership samples.
Could the Gospel of Thomas Be Q? Could it Be Older Than the NT Gospels?
A number of blog members over the years have asked about Thomas’s relation to the Synoptic Gospels and the famous Q source -- that is, the lost source that both Matthew and Luke used for many of their sayings of Jesus not found in Mark (called Q from the German word Quelle, which means “source”). Here is what I say about those issues in my textbook: The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings (Oxford University Press). ****************************** Thomas and the Q Source. The Gospel of Thomas, with its list of the sayings of Jesus (but no narratives) reminds many scholars of the Q source. Some have maintained that Q was also composed entirely of the sayings of Jesus and that the community for whom it was written was not concerned about Jesus’ activities and experiences, including his death on the cross. If they are right, then something like Thomas’s community was already in existence prior to the writing of the New Testament Gospels. Many other scholars, on the other hand, have their [...]
Send in your Questions! November Gold Q&A
Dear Goldies and Plats, It's time for the November Gold Q&A, where I answer your questions--or at least as try to. Send your questions to [email protected], and Diane will compile and send me the list. Get your question in by Saturday (11/11/) midnight (whenever midnight is in your time zone). (Sorry 'bout the late notice) The questions are always interesting, but remember that shorter, more general-interest questions are more likely to be answered. Lookin' forward to it!
The Most Famous Non-Canonical Gospel: The Gospel of Thomas
We've talked about Gnosticism and in the previous post I mentioned Gnostic groups connected with "Thomas," allegedly the (twin!) brother of Jesus. There are a number of writings written in the name of Thomas, the most famous of which is the Gospel of Thomas discovered at Nag Hammadi. I haven't talked at length about it on the blog for several years now, so it seems like a good time to return to it here. This will take three posts. The one today is a broad introduction to what the Gospel is and what it contains. I have taken this from my textbook, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings. ****************************** The Gospel of Thomas is without question the most significant book discovered in the Nag Hammadi library. Unlike the Gospel of Peter, discovered sixty years earlier, this book is completely preserved. It has no narrative at all, no stories about anything that Jesus did, no references to his death and resurrection. The Gospel of Thomas is a collection of 114 sayings [...]
My New Course: November 11 — The Scribal Corruption of Scripture
Just a reminder, in case you haven't noticed or don't remember! I will be doing a new online course on Saturday, November 11: "The Scribal Corruption of Scripture: How the Bible was Changed and Why Readers May Never Know." The general topic will sound familiar to many of you -- it is the kind of thing I discuss in my book Misquoting Jesus and that I"ve dealt with on the blog at times. But this course will be different. Among other things, it will provide much fuller explanations about: How scribal changes affect major issues in understanding the New Tesament Why decisoins about the original text are so complicated. What motivated scribes to alter the texts in places. Whether we can be reasonably sure that we know what an author wrote (the answer here will surprise many of you, in a way that you won't expect to be surprised) How *exactly* do scholars make decisions about what the text said and why a scribe changed it. In addition, I'll be discussing a number of textual [...]
Want to Sit in on My October Gold Q&A (Monday Oct 30)?
I will be recording my Gold Q&A tomorrow, October 30, at 8:00 pm Eastern Time. Wanna come? I'll be doing it on Zoom so any gold or platinum member who wants to listen in is welcome. I've gotten a lot of unusually intriguing questions this time, and will not be able to answer all of them, but will pick a bunch and will be happy to have you listen in. I won't be able to answer live questions, but I will get on five minutes early to say hey to those who want to come. Here's the link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84586175851?pwd=h9zaZs1tYF3zvFhJh64GOTy9FafBh7.1 Hope to see you there!
October Gold Q&A – Send Questions!
Gold & Platinum members: lend me your...questions! It's time for the October Gold Q&A, where I answer your questions--or at least as many as I can get to in an hour! Send your questions to [email protected], and Diane will compile and send me the list. Get your question in by Friday (10/27) midnight (whenever midnight is in your time zone). The questions are always interesting, but remember that shorter, more general-interest questions are more likely to be answered.
Vote for Your Favorite Platinum Post!
Hey, Platinum members, we're trying out a new way to vote for your favorite Platinum post to be published to the main blog. No need to send a separate email--just respond to the poll below By Oct 27 (Note that the checkboxes may appear under the post name): Thanks!
Reminder: Interesting Lecture on Thursday Oct. 19: Creation Stories not in Genesis!
Hey Blog Folk, Quick reminder of an interesting lecture tomorrow evening (Thursday Oct. 18); it's free even though we're hoping for donations (not connected with the blog). Here's the original annoucement in case you missed, misplaced, misconceived, or misconstrued it: ********************************* Are you interested in the Creation account in Genesis 1? Did you know there are *other* creation accounts in the Hebrew Bible? Different ones? Want to hear about them? And about how they relate to other creation accounts in the ancient world? On October 19, 8:00 pm, my colleague Joseph Lam, professor of Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East will be giving a remote public lecture: "Beyond Genesis: The Many Creation Stories of the Bible." Below you will find a short video that I did with Joseph to explain the event, and a link to sign up for it. This lecture is NOT related to the blog, but it IS a fundraiser for my department (I'm mentioning it here on the blog only because many of you are interested in the topic). The [...]
New Policy on Platinum Guest Posts
Dear Platinum Members, We have had a slew of terrifically interesting Platinum Member guest posts over the past year, and such a slew that we (we being me and my blog advisory committee) have decided we need to limit the quantity of the submissions. Keep on sending ‘em in! BUT, we would like to limit each participant to one guest post submission within any two-month period. If you haven’t ever submitted one before but art tempteth, go for it! And if you have submitted one (or some) and art still tempteth, you too go for it!
Misquoting Jesus Podcast: Special One-Year Anniversary Edition
As some of you know, I do a weekly podcast (unrelated to the blog) called "Misquoting Jesus." My co-host is Megan Lewis, a terrific interlocutor who is an expert on ancient history (she's actually an Assyriologist! And trained in classics), who asks terrific questions. Basically, she interviews me on a different topic each week, the sorts of issues we deal with here on the blog, but in a recorded interview style. You can get it on Youtube (to my surprise, that's where by far most people get it) or on any podcast app. This coming Tuesday, October 17, will be our one-year anniversary of doing the podcast, and I thought you might be interested in knowing about it. This time rather than a back-and-forth with Megan it will be a live Q&A, with previously submitted questions by listeners. Megan will MC it, but the questions we have selected will actually be asked by the person who proposed them. If you're interested, check it out live or catch it later, either on Youtube or wherever you [...]
Did Luke Originally Have the Birth Narrative (chapters 1-2)?
In my previous post I pointed out that some scholars, myself included, think that the original Gospel of Luke did not have the birth narrative recounted in chapters 1-2 (the annunciation of Mary's virginal conception, the trip to Bethlehem from Nazareth, the worship of the shepherds, etc. etc.). In this view the Gospel started with what is now 1:1-4 and then the next verse was what is now 3:1, and the Gospel went from there. I posted on this issue some years ago, but I think it's worthwhile addressing it again in the context of the current thread, on just how "messy" the situation was in the first couple of centuries when different Gospels were all in circulation (not just our four), saying different things, and sometimes in different versions themselves. What's the evidence that there was an earlier version of Luke without the familiar birth narrative (which, in case you don't recall, differs hugely from Matthew's). One place to start to explain the matter is with what comes *after the birth narrative in [...]
Reading the Bible in a Secular Age: Guest Post by Prof. Julius-Kei Kato
I am pleased to publish this guest post by Dr. Julius-Kei Kato, a scholar and professor of New Testament (and other things!) at King’s University College at Western University, London, Ontario, Canada, and, luckily for us, a member of the blog. You can learn more about him here: Dr. Julius-Kei Kato (uwo.ca) Just over a month ago Julius-Kei published a book of relevance and surely of interest to members of the blog: Reading the Bible in a Secular Age: The New Testament as Spiritual Ancestry (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2023). I asked him to write a blog post about it, to explain what it is and to indicate where, if you're interested, you can get a copy. He has happily complied, and here is his post. If you have any comments/questions, he will be happy to reply. ****************************** The burning question of this book is: Why still read the Bible in a secular age? My answer, briefly stated: For us who are located in the West, the Bible is an important part of our “spiritual ancestry,” [...]
The Creation Stories in the Hebrew Bible (outside of Genesis!). A Lecture You May Be Interested In
Are you interested in the Creation account in Genesis 1? Did you know there are *other* creation accounts in the Hebrew Bible? Different ones? Want to hear about them? And about how they relate to other creation accounts in the ancient world? On October 19, 8:00 pm, my colleague Joseph Lam, professor of Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East will be giving a remote public lecture: "Beyond Genesis: The Many Creation Stories of the Bible." Below you will find a short video that I did with Joseph to explain the event, and a link to sign up for it. This lecture is NOT related to the blog, but it IS a fundraiser for my department (I'm mentioning it here on the blog only because many of you are interested in the topic). The donations will go to the departmental efforts to fund graduate students for research trips for their dissertations and professional conferences to present the results of their research. Both are crucial features of a graduate education, unusually important for anyone who wants [...]
Proposed Solutions For the Four Metaphysical Puzzles Related to Jesus From an Islamic Perspective From Omar Robb
Here is an intriguing look at the life and death of Jesus from a Muslim point of view. Many of you will not grant the first of these four puzzles, but the others you may not find problematic. But look at it from a Muslim point of view instead of yours. How can these puzzles be resolved? Platinum member Omar Robb attacks these issues in this post. ****************************** Omar Abur-Robb omr-mhmd.yolasite.com This is a brief summary of an article with the same name, and I will provide the link for the original article at the end. There are 4 puzzles related to Jesus that are really interesting: Jesus didn’t die on the cross (as per the Quran). So, was Jesus nailed to the cross but didn't die there, or was he not on the cross at all? Jesus missionary lasted for about 3 years, and we can conclude that he finished his mission. So, what was this mission? Why Jesus ascended to heaven and why is he returning back? Why not just die [...]
Why Would Jesus Get Angry at this Poor Leper?
So far in this thread I have argued that Mark 1:41 originally said that Jesus got angry when the leper asked him to heal him; and I have shown that elsewhere in Mark’s Gospel Jesus gets angry in context involving healing. And so: if Jesus got angry when the leper asked for healing in Mark 1:41 – what exactly was he angry about? Over the years numerous interpretations have been proposed, and some of these explanations are highly creative. Some interpreters have argued that Jesus became angry because he knew that the man would disobey orders, spreading the news of his healing and making it difficult for Jesus to enter into the towns of Galilee because of the crowds. The problem with this view is that it seems unlikely that Jesus would be angry about what the man would do later -- before he actually did it! Others have suggested that he was angry because the man was intruding on his preaching ministry, keeping him from his primary task. Unfortunately, nothing in the text says [...]
Did Jesus Think He Was Going to Atone for the Sins of the World? A Platinum Post by Manuel Fiadeiro
I'm pleased to publish this interesting Platinum Guest Post by Manuel Fiadeiro; it's dealing with an unusually important question: who was the first to come up with idea that Jesus' death was an atonement for sins? Was it ...? Remember that you too can submit a Platinum post for other Platinum members. Why not give it a shot? ****************************** Did Jesus think he was going to atone for the sins of the world? We don’t know what Jesus thought. We don’t have texts before Paul. The best we can do to figure out what Jesus preached is to try to understand the beliefs of the Jesus Community in Jerusalem under James and the apostles. One of the scholars that studied thoroughly the Jewish Christian community is Hans-Joachim Schoeps. In “Jewish Christianity” (English translation copyright 1969 by Fortress Press) he wrote: "Jewish Christianity clearly knows as little of a supernatural birth as of a soteriological interpretation of Jesus' death on the cross, such as the view which regarded Jesus as a vicarious atoning sacrifice. Since [...]
Why Is Jesus So Angry?
Jesus never laughs in the New Testament Gospels. But he does get angry. In my previous post I tried to show that it happens in the "original" text of Mark 1:41: when a leper asks him to heal him, he (Jesus) gets angry. Later scribes, understandably, changed the verse to say Jesus felt "compassion." But if Mark actually said he got angry, uh .... what was he angry about? To answer the question we need to consider a feature of Mark that very few readers have ever noticed. Unlike in Matthew, Luke, or John, Jesus gets angry on several occasions in Mark’s Gospel. How do we explain that? Scholars have sometimes noticed that it happens in Mark. But rarely has anyone pointed out that in every instance it appears to involve Jesus’ ability to perform miraculous deeds of healing. In Mark 9 we find the account of a man pleading with Jesus to cast an evil demon from his son, since the disciples have proved unable to do so: “Often,” he tells Jesus, “it casts [...]