I continue to receive great questions from folk and continue to try to answer them. Here is a wide range on key issues for anyone interested in the informed study of the New Testament.
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QUESTION:
Do critical scholars agree that miracles and the supernatural are outside the purview of the historical process? If so, can you present the evidence to that effect?
Is this what is taught in post grad history schools outside evangelical institutions?
RESPONSE
It doesn’t take much evidence. Read any historical account of, say,
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I recently read Clare K. Rothschild’s book “Baptist Traditions and Q” wherein she argues that in its earliest iteration the “Q” material existed as a collection of teachings and traditions, not about Jesus, but centered on John the Baptist. Subsequently the material was adapted and expanded and applied to Jesus.
I’m prepared to go out on a limb and assume you’re probably not willing to go as far as Rothschild. So, in general, what is your intuition about how much the depiction and traditions ascribed to Jesus by the gospel writers depend on the life and teachings of john?
Do you think some of Jesus’ recorded sayings might actually go back to John? There were probably a bunch of folks back then who would repeat Mark 1:15 more or less as it’s recorded, right? Would john have taught anything substantially different?
Not many I’d say. And I don’t think there are good reasons for assigning (m?)any of Jesus’ sayings to John. But their messages would have been quite similar (since Jesus was, after all, his follower at first)
Hey Bart,
Over the last year I have been digging into Deuteronomy 22:5 which has lead me down a very deep rabbit holes. One them, why are the nambe books (Matthew, Mark…) euro-centric?
They names are not Eurocentric: the English translations of the names are. Just as “Jesus” is the English version of the Greek ΙΗΣΟΥΣ.
Sorry for the off-topic question, but I’m curious to hear your take. They say that if Moses existed as a historical figure, it would have been in the 12th-14th centuries BCE. But the Hebrew language only dates back to the 10th or 11th century BCE. So if Moses had God’s commandments, what language would they have been in? Egyptian? Does the chronology imply that ancient Jews who read Exodus in Hebrew were reading material in translation?
The authors of the Pentateuch appear to believe they would have been written in Hebrew. They didn’t have the modern analysis of Hebrew linguistics (dates of the language, etc.)
Have you spent much time studying the Gospel of Thomas?
Oh yes.