Month: October 2023

The Historical Unreliability of Matthew – Part 4: The Rest of the Birth Story

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WHERE WE ARE Most of the stories about Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew were borrowed from the earlier Gospel of Mark. In Part 1 of this series, I provided some general reasons why we should doubt the historical reliability of any changes or additions to the stories about Jesus made by the author of the Gospel of Matthew to the stories about Jesus that … The Historical Unreliability of Matthew – Part 4: The Rest of the Birth Story

(2/2) Current Events: The Richard Carrier Controversy

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So, last time I pointed out Carrier’s spicy blog post that religious studies scholars are simply not fact-checking evidence for the existence of Jesus, because if they did more people would agree with Carrier’s mythicism. Again, here is Carrier’s post:

(Speaker 6) New Insights Into The New Testament: The Gospels In Review (CONFERENCE)

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Robyn Faith Walsh spoke next, and raised the issue that the gospel writers were not literate spokesmen for their faith communities, but highly educated Greek speaking Christians working within a network of writers, as was the practice in the ancient world. Given this, if there are sophisticated Greek literary allusions in the gospels, how does … (Speaker 6) New Insights Into The New Testament: The Gospels In Review (CONFERENCE)

New GOP Speaker Mike Johnson

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CNN KFILE: GOP House speaker Mike Johnson once wrote in support of the criminalization of gay sex, calling it a “dangerous lifestyle” Get to know the new GOP speaker Mike Johnson, because being a superstitious fundamentalist Christian is still viewed as conducive to wise leadership:

(Speaker 5) New Insights Into The New Testament: The Gospels In Review (CONFERENCE)

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Jodi Magness talked about the archaeology evidence from Jesus’ day. In some ways, the archaeological record contradicts the biblical record. The archaeological evidence contradicts the biblical record of the walls of Jericho falling down, for instance. If temples always had a commercial areas, why would Jesus have gotten so mad? Magness says perhaps Jesus was … (Speaker 5) New Insights Into The New Testament: The Gospels In Review (CONFERENCE)

(Speaker 4) New Insights Into The New Testament: The Gospels In Review (CONFERENCE)

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Mark Goodacre was the next presenter and he raises the issue of the empty tomb. Interestingly, the idea of an empty tomb doesn’t fit with what we know of burial practices at that time. All the tombs that have been unearthed from that area and period were communal tombs, and so for instance our earliest … (Speaker 4) New Insights Into The New Testament: The Gospels In Review (CONFERENCE)

(Speaker 3) New Insights Into The New Testament: The Gospels In Review (CONFERENCE)

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Our third speaker is Hugo Mendez, who is an expert on the Gospel of John and argues the gospel and the three letters of John are a lineage of literary forgeries. For instance, the gospel of John pretends to be written by Jesus’ beloved disciple, even though this is false. John is full of cryptic … (Speaker 3) New Insights Into The New Testament: The Gospels In Review (CONFERENCE)