Search
Advanced search
Interview about My Writing with the North Carolina Writers’ Network
I recently did an interview for spring issue of the North Carolina Writers’ Network’s newsletter The Writers’ Network News (Spring, 2021). If you are interested in learning more about their organization, this is their website: www.ncwriters.org. Some of the questions in the interview were about my most recent book Heaven and Hell, others were on my approach to writing. Eight questions overall, with brief answers. The issue was published just yesterday, so I have permission now to post it here as well on the blog. Many thanks to Charles Fiore from the NCWN, who set up and conducted the interview. Q&A for NCWN Writers Literary portrayals of the afterlife are full of spectacle. For example, who can forget the circles in Dante’s “Inferno”? (“Purgatorio” was unnerving enough…) Are we somehow drawn to terrible spectacle, even though we also fear it? The first chapter of my book Heaven and Hell deals with early Christian tours of the afterlife. These are the earliest forerunners of Dante, and he was familiar with one of them. Unlike the […]
February 11, 2021
Very Early Understandings of Christ in A Later Book of the NT
I have been trying to show that one of the oldest understandings of Christ in the early Christian movement — in fact, *the* earliest in my view (and many other scholars), even though later it came to be declared a “heresy” — is that Jesus started out as a human, nothing more, but came to be exalted by God to become his Son, the Lord. I have long called this particular understanding of Christ an “exaltation” Christology: God exalted Christ to become a divine being. It stands in contrast with a view that I have not dealt with yet, the one that became the dominant one eventually (but which arose later), and “incarnation” Christology, which stated that Christ was a divine being who became human (not a human who became divine), a view best known, in the NT, from the Gospel of John. (Exaltation Christologies are often understood to be “low” because they locate Christ originally here on earth among us mortals; incarnation christologies are correspondingly “high” because in them Christ originally came from heaven […]
February 2, 2021
Want to Hear Me Give a Live Lecture?
Because of the crisis, I will be teaching my course, Introduction to the New Testament, remotely this semester, by recording two lectures a week, starting Sunday, for my students to listen to during the week at their convenience. Last week for the heck of it I tried recording a lecture by myself in an empty room. It, uh, did not go well, to say the least. I need *someone* to talk to if I’m going to talk. Otherwise I just stumble over my words and forget everything I’m supposed to say. I would like an audience. Which gave me an idea. Would any of you like to hear one or more of my lectures as I record them? There would be no charge per se, but I would like to ask for a (completely voluntary) donation to the blog. Here is what I have in mind. We will try it out this Sunday (Jan 24) on Zoom. I will give two lectures, one at 2:00 and the other at 3:15. Each lecture will take about […]
January 21, 2021
When Did Jesus Become Divine?
In this thread on the Trinity I am developing at some length the first major issue: how did someone besides God come to be considered God among people who thought God and this other God were different yet continued to claim they were monotheists? (Later I’ll talk about the Spirit, as many have asked; but there frankly is not nearly as much to say there, as we’ll see). What I’ve spelled out so far is not hugely controversial among critical scholars of the New Testament and early Christianity. When the disciples came to believe in the resurrection, they thought that God had exalted Jesus to a unique, divine status. This is the oldest Christology there was. It is attested in such places as the pre-Pauline fragment in Rom. 1:3-4 and in several places, pre-Lukan, incorporated in the speeches of Acts. And then what happened?
February 3, 2021
The Oldest View of Christ: Found in Only One Greek Manuscript of Luke!
The oldest view of Christ is found in one Greek Manuscript of Luke. I’d like to address the issue of early Christology from a slightly different angle in this post. So far I have talked about how an “exaltation” Christology, in which Jesus, the man, is made the Son of God. At some point of his existence he can be found in various parts of the New Testament (Rom 1:3-4; speeches in Acts), and how different early Christians located that exaltation to different moments in Jesus’ existence (resurrection, baptism, birth, pre-existence). As it turns out, this view of Christology relates to an important textual variant in the Gospel of Luke. Only One Greek Manuscript of Luke So, by way of background for anyone new to this kind of discussion. We don’t have the original copy of Luke’s Gospel (or of any other NT book or, actually, of any book at all from the ancient world!). What we have are copies made from copies made from copies that were made from copies. We have thousands of copies […]
February 4, 2021
Personal Post: My Work Habits
Blog members sometimes ask me about my work habits: I seem to get a lot of writing done in addition to the day job as a university professor and doing the blog and what not. How’s that happen exactly? I should say that it’s not happenin’ too well right now: start of classes – teaching 240 students remotely! – and lots of other things–I ain’t getting twit done on my research…. But normally I do try to pack it in. And how? My usual answer is that I don’t watch a lot of TV. And that’s certainly true. I do watch the news sometimes – I did a lot more, e.g., in election season; but I find televised news both problematic and inefficient, if what you really want is *news*. It’s problematic because most news shows these days do not demarcate between information and opinion (it’s impossible to do that completely, of course; but sometimes you really do just want to know facts); it’s inefficient because the amount of news you can get in an […]
February 6, 2021
Platinum Guest Post by Douglas Wadeson: A Christian Is Not Necessarily a Disciple, and Vice Versa. Part 2
You are unauthorized to view this page. Username Password Remember Me Forgot Password
Tags: Platinum
January 28, 2021
One of the Weird Events in My Life that Led Me To Be A Research Scholar
Everyone has significant events that shape their lives and lots of people have rather strange ones. This morning I was thinking of three weird events that contributed to my becoming a research scholar. They all happened over a four-year period, from ages 14-17. There were: getting bored with 9th grade Latin; getting hepatitis; and going to a fundamentalist Bible college. First, the Latin. In grade school we all took Spanish. I wasn’t any good at it and I didn’t much like it. I had no particular interest in languages, at all. Then in 9th grade we had to take a language and the choices, as I recall, were Spanish, German, French, and Latin. I was the kind of kid who liked to do things differently from everyone else; most kids were heading to Spanish, but I knew I didn’t do well there. German and French – kind of the same thing, modern languages I wasn’t interested in. I thought, well, Latin’s a bit unusual: maybe I’ll do that. I rather enjoyed it, but as it […]
February 13, 2021
An Alternative Christology: God Became Human
In my posts on Christology so far I have argued that different Christians in the early decades of the Christian movement maintained that Jesus had been exalted to a divine status at some point of his existence – at his resurrection, at his baptism, at his birth. I have called this a christology from below, or an “exaltation” christology; it is sometimes called a low christology because it understands Jesus to have started out as a human (down here with us) and to have been raised to a divine status. In this view he was not God from eternity past or a pre-existent being. He was a human being who was taken up to the level of divinity at some point (or, in the case of the Virgin Birth, that he came into existence at a point in time as a person who was partially human partially divine). But there was another kind of Christology which was also very early – earlier, in fact, than our earliest surviving Christian writer, Paul. This is the view […]
February 7, 2021
One of the Most Significant Passages in the NT: Paul’s Christ Poem
In my previous post I began to speak about the “incarnation” Christology found famously in Paul’s letter to the Philippians, 2:6-11. There are a lot of other things I want to say about this passage, all of them relevant to the issues I’ve been discussing. The first and most important thing is that it has been widely recognized by scholars for a very long time that this passage is something that Paul appears to be quoting, that it is not simply part of the prose letter. Moreover, it is frequently called (probably wrongly) a “hymn” (that’s probably wrong because – as I’ve been told by an expert in the field of ancient music, it doesn’t actually scan as music). But in any event, it is highly structured in a balanced fashion and thus seems to be more like a poem than like prose. The reasons for thinking that Paul is quoting rather than composing it are pretty compelling, and I will get to them eventually. For now I want to point out the rhythmic structure. […]
January 9, 2021
Do You Want to Hear Two More Lectures on the Gospels?
Last week I gave two Zoom lectures, recorded for my undergraduate course on the New Testament, and invited all of you to come. It went extremely well and a good time was had by all. Well, OK, a good time was had by *me*! After the second lecture we had about 30 minutes of Q&A, all very lively. I’m going to do it again *this* Sunday. Wanna to hear them? Then come! There would be no charge per se, but I would like to ask for a (completely voluntary) donation to the blog. This will be Sunday, Jan. 31.. I will give two lectures (different times this week!), one at 1:00 and the other at 2:15. Each lecture will take about 40-45 minutes. The topics this time: “The Oral Traditions about Jesus Before the Gospels.” This is the most controversial talk my students have ever heard about Jesus. I explain how the stories about Jesus were circulated and came to be changed, and even invented, in the years before the Gospel writers heard them and […]
January 29, 2021
Another Two Lectures on the Gospels, Live on Sunday. Join Us!
On each of the past couple of Sunday afternoons I have given two Zoom lectures, recorded for my undergraduate course on the New Testament, and invited all of you to come. After the second lecture we had about 30 minutes of Q&A, all very lively. Both times went well and a good time was reportedly had by all. But what do reporters know? I’m going to do it again this Sunday, and you are welcome to come. There would be no charge per se, but I would like to ask for a (completely voluntary) donation to the blog. This will be Sunday, Feb. 7. I will again give two lectures), one at 1:00 and the other at 2:15. Each lecture will take about 40-45 minutes. The topics this time: “The Ending of the Gospel of Mark and Jesus the Unknown Savior” This lecture introduces students to the problem that we do not have the original copy of Mark’s Gospel. It appears that the final twelve verses were not originally in the account, so that it […]
February 2, 2021
More Comments on Paul’s Rather Astounding Christ Poem
My last couple of posts have been on the “Christ Poem” found in Philippians 2:6-10. Many years ago when I talked about the poem and argued that it was in fact a poem, a reader (who apparently knew Greek!) objected that the poetic lines I suggested don’t actually work. I answered that question before moving on to showing just how amazing the poem is: it ends by giving the resurrected Jesus the authority of God Almighty himself. That may not seem surprising to Christians who already think it’s true. But just imagine how it would resonate with someone living in the first century who knew that Jesus was publicly executed for crimes against the state. It might help if you imagine how you would feel if someone made a claim like this for someone who was condemned as an enemy of the of the state for insurrection against the United States who suffered the death penalty — and someone claimed he had become God, the Lord of the universe. Uh, really? Yup, that’s what Paul’s […]
February 10, 2021
Even Giants Have a Cross to Bear: Platinum Post by Marie Wiley
You are unauthorized to view this page. Username Password Remember Me Forgot Password
Tags: Platinum
February 2, 2021
Gold Members: Audio Q&A! This week!
You are unauthorized to view this page. Username Password Remember Me Forgot Password
March 23, 2021
Ask Bart Anything! Live Zoom Chance for you to Pick My Brain and/or Stump Me
A number of people have suggested that it might be interesting for me to hold a live “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) session. I’ve been told that the term “AMA” is copyrighted (?!) and not open for public use. So we are going to call this an ABA (“Ask Bart Anything”). It will be over Zoom and will be open to anyone on the planet who wants to come. The format: I will take live questions both orally and through chats. The questions can be on ANY topic that anyone is interested in. If it is something I don’t know anything about (quantum physics or the Ming Dynasty) or that I would rather not talk about (that little incident when I was 16….) I’ll just say so. I will get through as many questions as I can, answering easy ones briefly and taking as long as I need to deal with more complicated ones. My only request will be that questions are direct questions, not lectures, sermons, admonitions, condemnations, expositions of one’s favorite views, or statements […]
February 3, 2021
But Maybe Paul Doesn’t Believe in the Incarnation….
There is a whole lot more that could be said about the Christ-poem in Philippians 2. You could literally write an entire book on just this passage. In fact, people *have* written books on just this passage. The most important one, a classic in the field, is by Ralph Martin, A Hymn of Christ (which in earlier editions was called Carmen Christi) (which is a Latin phrase that, unsurprisingly, means A Hymn of Christ 🙂 ). This passage has had more ink spilled over it by scholars over the last century than almost any other in the entire Bible (with the exception of John 1:1-18). In any event, to make sense of what I want to say here, it would help, if you haven’t done so, to read the other posts I’ve made on it. Here I just want to mention briefly an interpretation that is sometimes floated for the passage which takes it in a very different way indeed, as not being about incarnation at all. In this alternative interpretation, the passage is not […]
February 16, 2021
Platinum Members! Vote for your Favorite Platinum Post
You are unauthorized to view this page. Username Password Remember Me Forgot Password
Tags: Platinum
February 4, 2021