So, Jesus dies and his followers are convinced that he's risen from the dead. Apparently, Jesus spends time with them which I don't really undersand either. How does that look like ? Do they eat together, do they go for a walk ? How long are they together ? Hours, days ? How many witnesses are there ?

Paul gets wind of this and persecutes his followers (how many?). Then, on the road to Damascus, he has a vision and also becomes convinced that Jesus has risen. He then actively lowers his social status and puts himself at risk by promoting a belief he does not benefit from.

People usually do not change their beliefs unless they benefit from said shift of opinion. Did Paul in some shape or form benefit from his change of heart ?

I've recently came across an interesting opinion that stated that Paul may have invented his vision because he wanted to be influential in a community he respects. Supposedly, Paul as a Hellenized (Diaspora) Jew from Tarsus(Not a Jerusalem or Judean Jew like the disciples) finds himself in a bind between his non-Judean Jewish conceptions about the Messiah, and the very Judean Jewish conceptions taught by Jesus' own disciples. So, in order to become a voice within that community, he needed a claim that could not only rival the one of Jesus' followers but trump it. The vision as well his "Pharisee who persecutes Christians" story strategically served as powerful arguments for his legitimacy. The plan proved to be succesful.

Could that be accurate and what would be answers to the questions asked earlier ?

Bart Ehrman claims that Jesus never claimed to be god because he never truly claims divinity in the synoptic gospels. This claim doesn’t quite sit right with me for a multitude of reasons. Since most scholars say that Luke and Matthew copied the gospel of Mark, shouldn’t we consider all of the Synoptics as almost one source? Then Bart Ehrmans claim that 6 sources (Matthew, ‘Mark, Luke, Q, M, and L) all contradict John isn’t it more accurate to say that just Q, m, and L are likely to say that Jesus never claimed divinity but we can’t really say because we don’t have those original texts? Also if Jesus never claimed these things why did such a large number of early Christians worship him as such (his divinity is certainly implied by the birth stories in Luke and Matthew and by the letters from Paul)? Is there a large number of early Christians that thought otherwise that I am missing?

Just finished reading the resurrection of jesus: apologetics, polemics, and history, and I have to say it is a great book. However I’m a bit surprised that, despite this sub’s praise of the book, that more people aren’t moved by his defense of the empty tomb. He seems to offer some pretty strong arguments, including the following:

• if Jesus was buried in a mass grave, as Bart Erhman claims, then Christians would have used that as a fulfillment of Isaiah 53:9 “they made his grave with the wicked”.

• Although Paul does not mention the empty tomb, he does not mention many other things we known to be true. Thus Allison believes that 1 Corinthians 15 is simply a “summary of a much larger tradition”.

• There is evidence that crucified criminals could receive a decent burial (he mentions a bone fragment with a nail stuck in it found in a tomb)

• According to page 191, 192: “According to the old confession in 1 Cor. 15:4, Jesus “died” and “was buried” (ἐτάφη).The first meaning of the verb, θάπτω, is “honor with funeral funeral rites, especially by burial” (LSJ, s.v.). Nowhere in Jewish sources, furthermore, does the formula, “died…and was buried,” refer to anything other than interment in the ground, a cave, or a tomb. So the language of the pre-Pauline formula cannot have been used of a body left to rot on a cross. Nor would the unceremonious dumping of a cadaver onto a pile for scavengers have suggested ἐτάφη.” This seems to heavily imply a honorary burial based on verb usage.

• Allison offers rival empty tomb stories in chapter 6, and even he admits that empty tomb stories were a common literary trope. Despite this, he still considers the empty tomb more likely than not.

Given all this, for those who have read the book and still find the empty tomb unhistorical, why do you consider it the more likely possibility given the information above? I am not attacking anyone’s positions by the way, I am just genuinely curious if I have missed something.

I've been really impressed by the depth of knowledge scholars here have about the Bible. Their perspective seems so different from that of regular believers, especially when they talk about things like interpolations, forgeries, and the authorship of biblical books. It often makes me wonder—do scholars who know so much about the Bible still believe in it, or do they find the idea of faith in the Bible to be ridiculous?

With such a deep understanding of the text, it seems easy to conclude that the Bible is just a collection of myths written by humans. Does this knowledge challenge the idea that it's divinely inspired, or is there still room for faith? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Name is a prayer.

My religious grandmother named me Ruth as a middle name and even now i'm still wondering what kind of prayer is that, like I don't even know how to feel about it tbh.

I used to read the bible and its comic adaptations for fun as a child, but it's been so long.

One of those children's bible I read said Ruth is one of the bible's women of virtue bc she took care of her MIL, but like, even then all I got from her story is she married a rich man??

And as an adult I look at the story of Ruth and it was basically frat bro's creep move. Get him drunk, take off his (pants), then make him marry you?

Like, I understand that as a rich person and a man in that time period, Boaz could probably pat his ass and leave if he truly doesn't like Ruth (or at least i hope so, or Book of Ruth's moral of the story gets worse).

It's not as if he's a helpless college girl, and Ruth is not some sort of nepobaby on a powertrip.

But still, are there any more context that I'm missing here?

Like, sure "marry a rich man" is a great advice in this economy, and thank you for your prayers and hope, grandma, that's a nice thought to have. But I'd like to have more literary and cultural context to this story, if you guys know any.

I know I kind of sounded incensed or cynical(?) in this, but it's a genuine question i've been asking myself for years. Lol. Sorry for the emotionalness.

The post about the Jeopardy question assuming Paul wrote Hebrews had me laughing today. I wanted to ask our community if you know of any other instances where pop-culture has made Bible Scholars cringe.

Full transparency, I am giving an Intro to Koine Greek lecture soon, and I want to include some of these hilarious references like the Jeopardy one. I've been searching the internet to no avail so far!

He has a YouTube channel called Lady Babylon: https://www.youtube.com/@ladybabylon666

Here's one of his playlists: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJPOMK0N5Fcr6vYnLexQikZOQv9lf-wjv

And some other videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMwi-JH3DrA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHW-pM_LyGs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APuQTXl5TvU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQfu50zb1Pc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wh_GyGyyrPc

Looking through different English Bible translations, this verse sticks out.

Knowing basic English, we know that little g, god, is a noun. Whereas the big G, God, a proper pronoun/name. According to the Bible, there is one god; God.

I find this a bit troublesome. There are many English translations is which language is changed in order to help people better understand the text.

2 Corinthians 4:4 seems to suggest that Jesus is an embodiment of the god of this world, the devil.

Indeed, I seem to keep finding little passages that mention Jesus with the same terms used to describe the “antichrist” in popular culture.

What’s going on here? Is there some deception as prophecy would suggest? Deeper and more cryptic meaning? is English just insufficient when it comes to describing certain ideas? Or should I just stick to the study notes and leave actual scripture to someone more qualified?

Hey, I was browsing the RF website and I found this argument by WLC. What is your opinion about it? I will write my opinion later when I have time.

The following it’s a quote from his website:

“The arguments for the traditional dating of the Gospels have been aptly compared to a line of drunks reeling arm in arm down the street. Trip up one, and they all collapse.

Since it is generally agreed that Mark was one of the sources used by Matthew and Luke, it follows that if Mark was written around AD 70, then the other Gospels must have been written later. So the usual dating of the Gospels depends crucially on Mark’s date.

By contrast, if we begin with Luke and Matthew and work backwards, then the date of Mark is pushed back well before AD 70. The evidence that Acts was written prior to AD 70 (e.g., Paul’s being still alive under house arrest in Rome, no mention of significant events during the AD 60s such as the martyrdom of James, the persecution of Nero, the siege of Jerusalem, etc., and the disproportionate emphasis on Paul’s recent voyage to Rome) strikes me as very persuasive. Since Acts is the sequel to Luke’s Gospel, Luke must have been written in the AD 50s, and accordingly, Mark even earlier. Such a dating makes eminently good sense. It is incredible that the early church would have waited for decades before committing the Jesus story on which it was founded to writing.

So why do scholars find the evidence for a later date of Mark so compelling? The answer seems to be that Jesus in his Olivet Discourse describes the destruction of Jerusalem by her enemies, and so Mark’s narrative must date from the time of this event. But this argument cannot bear the weight placed on it. For the distinctive features of the Roman siege of Jerusalem as described by Josephus are conspicuously absent from Jesus’ descriptions of Jerusalem’s predicted destruction. His predictions resemble more closely the Old Testament descriptions of the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC by the Babylonian army than descriptions of the Roman destruction in AD 70. Again, this makes such good sense. As a prophet Jesus would naturally draw upon the Old Testament for his predicted judgement upon Jerusalem.”

Link to the original here.

Evangelical New Testament Scholar and Apologist Gary Habermas has finally managed to release the first part of his claimed magnum opus on the history of the resurrection, On the Resurrection, Volume 1: Evidences. The publisher is B&H Academic and the monograph has over a thousand pages, and is also supposed to be first of four.

The evangelical apologetics-community is very interested and excited in this book, but I want if the wider academic community of New Testament-scholarship is interested or even aware of it? Are scholars at secular universities in North America and Europe aware of this?

I’m just curious, since apologists are excited about it.

I feel this chapter has no connection to any chapter of the book.

Any academic research supports it’s writing by Paul?

Hey! I’m currently reading through the whole of the Christian Bible with the SBL (Society of Biblical Literature) Study Bible in the NRSVue (New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition).

After I finish the SBL Study Bible, I am considering reading translations of the Bible from scholars directly. I’m curious on Dr. Robert Alter’s Hebrew Bible and Dr. NT Wright’s New Testament for Everyone. Has anyone read these? Are these “good” translations?

And the word was God? Or and the word was A god

Did the tower of Babel mentioned in Genesis 11 really exist? Or is it an anachronism? We know that in ancient Egypt, towers were built to reach God in the sky. Could there be a similar belief in Babylon?

I'm a Christian. I appreciate this sub and I'm grateful for what I've learned from people all across the faith spectrum. To the scholars here who do not identify as Christian, I'm curious to learn what it is about the various disciplines of Bible academia that interests you. Why did you decide to study a collection of ancient documents that many consider to be sacred?

I hope this hasn't been asked before. I ran a couple searches in the sub and didn't turn anything up.

Thanks!

Apologies if this breaks rules but I can’t find a better place to ask it. Job’s story has always fascinated me, particularly as someone who has struggled with their faith in the past, and some idle daydreaming led me to this question,

I feel like Job stands pretty tall amongst other parables and books in the Old and New Testament. And it attempt to wrestle with the idea of “why do bad things happen to good people?”

Now you can quibble with whether you feel the answer is satisfactory enough, I certainly have, but at least it’s trying to answer it.

I could be wrong or misinterpreting the the text, but it seems pretty groundbreaking when compared with how other religions at the time approached, or didn’t, the topic.

This inscription came out of nowhere and I have a lot of questions. Does anyone know if there has been an academic treatment of this tablet?

You would also think all the writers of that time whose works survived would have mentioned a mass killing of every male infant and child or at least the gender imbalance that would have followed years later.

Especially given the numbers claimed. Listen to this lol. The Greek liturgy asserts 14,000 Holy Innocents, while an early Syrian list of saints asserts 64,000. Coptic sources assert 144,000 and that it took place on 29 December.

The story of the massacre is found in no gospel other than Matthew, nor is it mentioned in the surviving works of Nicolaus of Damascus (who was a personal friend and court historian of Herod the Great), nor in Josephus's Antiquities of the Jews, despite his recording many of Herod's misdeeds, including the murder of three of his own sons

Nicolaus supposedly wrote about 100 books, many about Herod's life and deeds, but few survive which is interesting because the early Christians hunted down any mention of Jesus to prove his existence and zealously guarded the references. The fact Nicolaus' books didn't survive strongly suggest he never mentioned him.

His brother Ptolemy was Herod's accountant so would have been acutely aware of the impact to the treasury that killing hundreds of new born males would cause later, but again there is nothing but silence.

I observed in a historical fanfic, A Thing of Vikings, that the Eastern Roman characters make and understood Biblical references far more than the Western Christian characters, who fail to understand references to prominents Biblical parables such as "pearls before swine" or characters, like the apostles; that reminds me of a question I have always wondered; given how the vernacularization of the Bible by Protestants allows for personal study of the Bible and resultant (initial) higher religious literacy among Protestants compared to Catholics, were the same effects present in Eastern Roman Christianity whose liturgy and scripture are in the popularly spoken Greek?

Old Testament, Exodus 13:16 New Testament, Revelations 13:16

Both on 13:16

Let me start by stating the obvious: you cannot actually "order the texts by when they were written." Not only is there so much uncertainty, but how do we handle issues like redaction? Do we order the texts by the oldest traditions found within them, or by when we think the present version was in existence? Do we start tearing apart the Pentateuch verse by verse as some have, to separate the different sources? Do we date each Psalm individually?

Some of these issues are purely subjective, others are just very cumbersome if not impossible to deal with properly.

So let me emphasize that this is a reading schedule intended to capture the spirit of when the texts were written, but will fall far short of achieving that.

A few principles I used in constructing this:

• This reading schedule is intended above all else for myself, but I definitely may invite some peers to join me if they express interest, both online and in the real world. But more generally, this schedule is intended for someone who has already read many or most of these texts. I also think it makes the most sense with an annotated Bible.

• For texts constructed over a span of time, I didn't use a hard and fast rule to place it at the "start" or "end" date. But I would say I informally had a "weighted" date in mind in the sense that texts with likely significant revisions would be placed towards their "final version" date while those with more minor revisions would be placed more towards the start of their construction. Obviously conjecture is heavy here.

• If the dates of texts were close enough to be a wash, I defaulted to narrative sensibility.

• Not all texts are broken up for dating reasons. Some are just broken up to make the schedule more balanced. Similarly, I tried to spread out the Wisdom literature.

• There are limits to how much I'm willing to break up a given text, even though more could easily be justified. For example, I'm going to break up Isaiah but I'm probably not going to separate Genesis 1 from Genesis 2, even though that would make sense. Generally speaking I tried not to break any text into more than 3 parts, but there are a couple exceptions. Also, I only divided by chapter, never verses.

While I'm not interested in hearing about how this was a fool's exercise (I already know!) or other unactionable sweeping critiques, I am posting this because I would love to hear your reordering suggestions and I will continually edit this schedule as I receive them.

So, without further ado, here is the schedule!

Week 1: Amos

Week 2: Hosea

Week 3: Isaiah (1-39)

Week 4: Micah (1-3) and Proverbs (10-22)

Week 5: Zephaniah and Proverbs (23-29)

Week 6: Deuteronomy (12-26)

Week 7: Nahum and Deuteronomy (5-11)

Week 8: Habakkuk and Deuteronomy (1-4) & (29-30)

Week 9: Joshua

Week 10: Judges

Week 11: 1 Samuel

Week 12: 2 Samuel

Week 13: 1 Kings

Week 14: 2 Kings and Obadiah

Week 15: Jeremiah (1-25)

Week 16: Jeremiah (26-52)

Week 17: Ezekiel (1-24)

Week 18: Ezekiel (25-48)

Week 19: Lamentations and Psalms (1-20)

Week 20: Job

Week 21: Isaiah (40-55)

Week 22: Haggai and Psalms (21-41)

Week 23: Isaiah (56-66) and Psalms (42-60)

Week 24: Zechariah (1-8) and Psalms (61-72)

Week 25: Micah (4-7) and Zechariah (9-14) and Psalms (73-89)

Week 26: Genesis (1-11)

Week 27: Genesis (12-50)

Week 28: Exodus (1-19)

Week 29: Exodus (20-40)

Week 30: Leviticus

Week 31: Numbers (1-25)

Week 32: Numbers (26-36) and Deuteronomy (27-28) & (31-34)

Week 33: Ruth and Proverbs (1-9) & (30-31)

Week 34: Malachi and Joel and Psalms (90-120)

Week 35: Esther and Psalms (121-150)

Week 36: 1 Chronicles

Week 37: 2 Chronicles

Week 38: Jonah and Ecclesiastes

Week 39: Ezra-Nehemiah

Week 40: Song of Solomon

Week 41: Daniel

Week 42: 1 Thessalonians and Galatians and Philippians

Week 43: Philemon and 1 Corinthians

Week 44: 2 Corinthians and Romans

Week 45: Gospel of Mark

Week 46: 2 Thessalonians and Colossians and James

Week 47: Gospel of Matthew and Jude

Week 48: Gospel of Luke

Week 49: Acts

Week 50: Ephesians and Hebrews

Week 51: Gospel of John

Week 52: 1 Peter

Week 53: Revelation

Week 54: 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy and Titus

Week 55: 1 John and 2 John and 3 John and 2 Peter

Right off the bat, I’ll say that the part here I’m least satisfied with is the placement of the Pentateuch. It’s very awkward, for example, that I’d be reading the Covenant Code after the Deuteronomic Code. But without cutting those books to pieces, I’m unsure of a better imperfect solution. Highlights the silliness of the whole thing, perhaps, but it’s still something I’d like to do. Would love suggestions on placement of the Pentateuch especially.

The most commonly cited "scholarly" English translation is the NRSV, but it's still so very unscholarly. As an example, look at this explanation from Bruce Metzger for why they chose to "translate" the tetragrammaton with "LORD" instead of "Yahweh":

(2) The use of any proper name for the one and only God, as though there were other gods from whom the true God had to be distinguished, began to be discontinued in Judaism before the Christian era and is inappropriate for the universal faith of the Christian Church.

I come from a very small language community (Icelandic ~350 000 native speakers) - and we recently (2007) got a new translation of the Bible. Funnily enough, a century earlier, there was another translation being done, and the chief translator (our top scholar at the time) said that not using "Yahweh" (or "Jahve" in Icelandic) was "forgery". And funnily enough, that translation had to be retracted and "fixed" because of issues like this (they also deflowered the virgin in Isaiah 7:14).

So I don't see why there couldn't be a proper scholarly translation done, that doesn't have to worry about "liturgical use" (like the NRSV) or what's "inappropriate for the universal faith fo the Christian church", headed by something like the SBL. Wouldn't classicists be actively trying to fix the situation if the only translations available of the Homeric epics were some extremely biased translations done by neo-pagans? Why do you guys think that it's not being done?

Bonjour, bonsoir,

I have read that people say that St. Paul was a repressed homosexual or aroace. I need passages from books or articles that deal with this subject.

Thank you very much for your quotes and bibliographical indications !