Bennett places himself in a long line of mythicist sympathetic scholars who try to argue the dying/rising God theme was conspicuous in the ancient world, and so Jesus was just another example of this theme. For example, regarding Baal, Bennett concludes that: The sources and scholarship firmly establish that Baal was a dying and rising … (REVIEW part 5) “Varieties of Jesus Mythicism: Did He Even Exist (2021)?” Ch. 3 Dying and Rising Gods By Derreck Bennett

This chapter reminded me of the movie Religulous which tries to show everything about the Jesus story was copied from earlier religious belief. For instance, the Cana wine miracle is prefigured by the lore of Dionysus (Which Dennis MacDonald fleshes out in a recent book). The author comments: Nothing in Jesus’ myth occurred at random; … (REVIEW part 4) “Varieties of Jesus Mythicism: Did He Even Exist (2021)?” Ch. 2 Jesus Christ by Barbara G. Walker

There are a couple of notable elements I’d like to point to here about Fitzgerald’s chapter. He writes: In his letters, Paul often rages and fumes that his rivals are evil deceivers, with false Christs and false gospels so different from his own true Christ and true Gospel, that he accuses them of being agents … (REVIEW part 3) “Varieties of Jesus Mythicism: Did He Even Exist (2021)?” Ch. 1: Why Mythicism Matters, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Jesus (Myth Theory) By David Fitzgerald

One thing I would like to highlight in Price’s introduction is the embarrassment of riches of Jesus portraits we have in (i) mainstream historical Jesus portraits, just as we do in (ii) mythicist portraits. Price comments: (i) As you are probably aware, today’s mainstream Jesus scholarship is quite diverse. Many theories have attracted dedicated partisans, … (REVIEW) “Varieties of Jesus Mythicism: Did He Even Exist (2021)?” editors John Loftus and Robert M. Price [Review Part 2: Introduction: New Testament Minimalism By Robert M. Price]

To begin our exploration of this volume, in the foreword Miller declares the Quest For The Historical Jesus has been a fool’s errand. Miller comments: Similar to contrived faith-based efforts to class the Gospels within the genre of historiography, despite close familiarity with the genre, early Christians likewise avoided applying biographical labels to the Gospels. … (REVIEW) “Varieties of Jesus Mythicism: Did He Even Exist (2021)?” editors John Loftus and Robert M. Price [Review Part 1: Foreword by Richard C. Miller]

Let us do a two-level interpretation in the Gospel of John (literal vs figurative) and relate it to McGrath’s non penal substitution interpretation of the cross in John.  This will undermine the mythicist sin debt payment interpretation of the faith.  There is perhaps no saying in scripture that is more “seemingly” horrific than John 14:6, … The Gospel of John on Incarnation

I just wanted to make a quick clarification to the last post.  In that post, I mentioned in the gospels Jesus says the son of man does not come to be served, but to serve, to die, an allusion to the son of man/human in Daniel, second only to the ancient of days/God.  As I … Dunn and Ehrman on “Forms” of Jesus in the Philippian Christ Hymn/Poem (PART 2/2)