Loading...Bart: I often get asked if there is some kind of simple guide to what scholars say about the New Testament, something that is competent, by an expert, but expressly for lay folk who want to know the most important findings of scholarship. A couple of years ago James McGrath published a book that is just that kind of thing, and I realized, it’s “bloody well time” (as they say in England) for us to have some posts about it. James has kindly agreed to provide them.
James is the Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University, and occasional guest-poster on the blog. Here is his first post of three.
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James,
Thank you for this post. I liked your A-Z book and concept and I agree that the Sunday School venue is a useful place to expand biblical understandings and perspectives. I too teach Sunday school and I slowly and carefully (it is a more conservative bible-belt church than my prior western church) try to build insights into why things don’t always add up when things are looked at with some more important and contextual details. The short, modern and deconstructed apologetic answers to things tend to be more of the “we don’t really know” or “must it be literally true or could it be a powerful metaphor or allegory?” types instead of the “but God clearly says here in [proof text]…” or “we believe” creedal type responses. I agree that the pastors fear their congregation’s faith-fragilities. You cannot just bluntly state to some that Colossians was a forged letter or that James’ name is actually Jacob. But we can slowly introduce that our knowledge today is better able to root out stronger biblical understandings than what people knew centuries ago.
Dr. McGrath your ears must be burning I quote your great Mandaean scholarship so often! “Misinformation about the Bible has been allowed to run rampant in churches.” That’s the Mandaean point, haha.
“Did you know that Jesus made puns?” — your plug on Amazon for “A-Z”. I actually didn’t know that scholars clocked any puns.
Dr. McGrath, what do you think of John the Baptist potentially enacting the role of “Hairy One” Lahmu to Jesus’ “Living One” Ea? (Ea the water ablution deity I’m sure you’re aware of means “Living One” per Sumerologist Dr. Eespak.) This is my original hypothesis as a whole, but I did find Enki comparisons and one Syracuse academic paper comparing Jesus’ and Ea’s stars on the Internet.
I think the scholarly consensus that Jesus is only a peasant is incorrect. I think Jesus is the son of a handmaid and a Lord, and that The Way was influenced by the Antiquarian Revival of Seleucid & Arsacid Uruk. Via Nabataea, since royals like Phaesalis have the same “For the Life Of” blessing.
Your guest post referencing Chuza in Luke 8:3 as a Nabataean was one of my very first clues!
Could we get a video duet parody song with James and Bart?
I’m up for it! Any suggestions for what we might do a song about? Think carefully…I’ve been known to actually do these! 🙂
Song subjects: The Parousia that didn’t happen; the Rapture (that also didn’t happen); a ballad about Jabez (one line in the Tanach, but a popular Christian book in 2000); ballad of Simeon Stylites (the pillar monk) I was thinking of the song Ballad of Davy Crockett;
Here’s an idea for a McGrath-Ehrman duet, based on the 1958 hit “Book of Love”: “I wonder, wonder, who, who-whooo, who wrote Ephesians….”
Take it!
James: “Be honest, how many of you, if you go to church, want to hear a sermon about the Synoptic Problem?”
That might actually inspire me to go to church!
“There may be a place for such topics, but sermons are expected to be inspiring and practical. As much as I love the Synoptic Problem and this it is fascinating, I’ll readily admit that a sermon about it would probably not inspire most people to live out their faith during the week that follows.”
But, like Matthew and Luke, don’t we all rewrite the gospels every time we ? How would you change this story to make it more relevant to your everyday life? Would your rewrite, the way you live the gospel, inspire anyone in your community to want to canonized your version of the gospel?
Sermons do indeed do precisely the same thing that the Gospel authors did in important ways. We have evidence in the Gospels that even at the earliest literary later, authors were reinterpreting and recontextualizing sayings of Jesus to apply them to the needs of their audiences.
Raised fundamentalist at home, but attended a mainline Protestant church in my childhood and youth where the minister wasn’t afraid to insert biblical criticism into sermons and Sunday School classes. Boy, was I resistant to this as a tween and teen! How dare he treat Genesis like a myth? But even as a kid I had to admit Genesis 1 and 2 weren’t a seamless fit. And no conservative or fundamentalist I encountered then and later came up with a satisfying answer as to why.