Those who have done a bit of academic reading about our New Testament gospels have come across the idea of what is most often referred to as the “Q Source.” Over the years I have found that despite lots of discussion about the hypothesis few have in fact sat down…
As I have done in the past, I want to commend to my readers the many uniquely valuable posts of “Scribes of the Kingdom” blogger Alex Finkelson. He never disappoints. This latest one truly hits the mark and expels a huge cloud of confusion among those who dabble in New…
The question of how the earliest followers of Jesus viewed Jesus as well as the “God of Jesus,”–that is the One God so central to most forms of Judaism, is a complex one that has been explored extensively in the field of New Testament and Christian Origins studies. I highly…
I am convinced that the historical figure of Jesus began to pore over key prophetic passages in the Hebrew Bible, especially in the Isaiah and the Pslams, where he became convinced that both his identity and his destiny was laid out. After the death of his cousin John the Baptist,…
In the introduction to this this extended interview with Paul Williams, I update viewers a bit on my activities in April and beyond–including my Zoom meeting on April 30th with students in the Mark course. Paul Williams is the YouTube host of #BloggingTheology, we explore Mark’s view of the figure…
Over the past few months I have created a special on-line course on the Gospel of Mark titled “Creating Jesus: Why Mark’s Gospel was Forgotten,” that is now available. This is a college level mini-course, with seven video lectures filmed in 4K quality, along with a Study Guide containing notes, maps,…
The ancient group of Jesus followers referred to as the “Ebionites” were slandered, damned, and declared heretics by the mainstream Christian Orthodox Church Fathers. In this interview with Derek Lambert, Youtube host of MythvisionPodcast, I argue that they might well be one of our main clues to recovering what the…
Here is a short interview in which I lay out an interpretation of the famed “Christ Hymn” in Paul’s letter to the Philippians that so many interpreters–from mythicists to evangelical Christian believers consider to support the idea of Jesus as a pre-existent divine Being. I posted this yesterday and it…
Over the decades I have heard dozens of interviews with John Crossan, listened to his lectures, read his books, and spent time together in Jerusalem in 2007 with him and his wife Sarah, in endless conversation, visiting some of the “off the beaten tourist paths” places with Shimon Gibson. He…
Another great post over at “Scribes of the Kingdom” which I am happy to endorse. I prefer my friend, the late Jimmy Dunn, Christology in the Making (Eerdmans 1966) to Bauckham’s Jesus and the God of Israel (Eerdmans, 2008). Dunn shows that nowhere in the New Testament documents is the Lord…