The Secular Frontier

Overview: After first outlining the literary and theological reasons why scholars question the historical accuracy of the gospel passion narratives, this presentation tackles a range of hotly disputed questions: How likely is it that Jesus had a Jewish tr ... Read Article

Overview: New Testament scholars often act as if all the really important historical data about Jesus survived somewhere, somehow, and that we can piece together a good general picture of his life. But the reality is that the overwhelming majority of Jes ... Read Article

The modern quest for the historical Paul, determining who the apostle Paul was and what he said, is in an important way borne out of a real peculiarity in our New Testament sources.  On the One hand, we have the authentic letters of Paul that scholars se ... Read Article

Why are you so petrified of silence?Here can you handle this?Did you think about your bills, you ex, your deadlinesOr when you think you're going to die?Or did you long for the next distraction? (Alanis Morisette) When I wrote my MA thesis on Heidegg ... Read Article

I did my MA thesis on Heidegger and the Greeks. Here are my Secular Frontier posts on Heidegger's reading of the history of Philosophy: Heidegger and the History of Personhood: How Humanity Became Alienated from Itself Proving Heidegger: A Case Stu ... Read Article

Abstract: One of the exciting challenges in Heidegger studies is engaging him as a Historian of Philosophy, not only piecing together what Heidegger said about the tradition, but then attempting to show Heidegger’s interpretation to be compelling ... Read Article

Last time I said: If we can think back to a notion of boredom not yet encased in a hermetically sealed “I” but as a feature of the world, this helps us overcome Hume’s challenge when we see causality is a category of the understanding and a fe ... Read Article

I participated in a yearlong seminar of presentations for young researchers on the topic of Transcendental Idealism through the Sorbonne.  The below is based on my presentation. The gauntlet of Hume that awakened Kant from his dogmatic slumber was ... Read Article

The Biblical Studies Carnival is out today and I have a contribution  in it.  Check it out: https://readingacts.com/2025/09/01/biblical-studies-carnival-228-for-july-and-august-2025/ ... Read Article

Previously: Announcing A New Blog Series: THE QUEST FOR THE HISTORICAL PAUL Now the conclusion (I will be adding the reviewed essays to the above page as they are published). The earliest reception history for the Gospel of John,  John 21 which ... Read Article

Previously: Announcing A New Blog Series: THE QUEST FOR THE HISTORICAL PAUL The Corrupt Trial of Jesus and Paul Let's try to resolve an apparent contradiction between the Gethsemane prayer in Hebrews and the one in Mark.  We read: 7 In t ... Read Article

Previously Lot’s Angels and Jesus as a Great Angel in Paul Eusebius of Caesarea, a 4th-century Christian historian, attributed the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE and the Jewish loss of land following the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–135 CE) to div ... Read Article

Previously: Announcing A New Blog Series: THE QUEST FOR THE HISTORICAL PAUL Paul and the Churches: From Corinth to Rome The Jews believed that God actively governed history, using tragedies to discipline and restore His people.  With the des ... Read Article

Previously: The Incarnation in the Prologue of the Gospel of John and Paul’s letters The communities of the letters may be idealized as to the length of Paul’s reach, like the seven communities of Revelation represents universality, not literal ... Read Article

Previously: Announcing A New Blog Series: THE QUEST FOR THE HISTORICAL PAUL The notion of the incarnation is well known from the Gospel of John.  We read The Word Became Flesh (John 1) 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was w ... Read Article

I'm doing a series of 4 articles on the historical Paul based on my 8 post blog series. A PhD specialist is looking at the articles to make sure there are no egregious errors. Here is the first one: https://infidels.org/library/modern/quest-for-histori ... Read Article

The Heidegger Circle welcomes submissions on any topic in Heidegger scholarship for its annual Satellite Session at the Central Division of the APA. The Central Division Meeting will be February 18th to 21st at the Palmer House Hilton, Chicago, Illinois. ... Read Article

Last Time: THE QUEST FOR THE HISTORICAL PAUL (Part 7/8: Paul and Salvation by Any Means Necessary) Hermann Detering and others argue for a significantly later date for the composition of the Gospel of Mark than the mainstream scholarly consensus, wh ... Read Article

Last Time: THE QUEST FOR THE HISTORICAL PAUL (Part 6/8: The Dog Who Stopped the War) Now: (Introduction) If the Gospels, Acts, and Pauline letters are fictive 2nd century writings, the Q source would then be our only early source about Jesus.& ... Read Article

Last Time: THE QUEST FOR THE HISTORICAL PAUL (Part 5/8: Literary – Beyond the Historicism/Mythicism Debate) Now To recapitulate, while Paul is written in role as an early 1st century apocalyptic Jew, the apocalyptism to the contrary also makes ... Read Article

Last Time: THE QUEST FOR THE HISTORICAL PAUL (Part 4: Paul and the Schools) (Intro) One popular debate right now is the historicism/mythicism debate in New Testament studies - the historicity of Jesus or whether he was originally believed to exis ... Read Article

Last Time: THE QUEST FOR THE HISTORICAL PAUL (Part 3: The Coming Kingdom of God on Earth and the Unnecessary Jesus and Paul) One thing I note in these posts on Paul is that Paul seems to be briefly summarizing complex theological themes worked out i ... Read Article

Last Time: THE QUEST FOR THE HISTORICAL PAUL (Part 2: Jesus, Paul, and Plutarch) Now: (Introduction) We’ve been thinking about how an early date of Mark or Paul’s writings would be useful for historical mining reasons but may just be wishf ... Read Article

PREVIOUSLY: THE QUEST FOR THE HISTORICAL PAUL (Introduction with Prof Nina E. Livesey) Last time we levelled the playing field and established a spectrum of interpretation of Paul from the far right of Christian fundamentalism with a very early date ... Read Article

Previously: Announcing A New Blog Series: THE QUEST FOR THE HISTORICAL PAUL The Letters of Paul in their Roman Literary Context: Reassessing Apostolic Authorship (by Nina E Livesey, Peer Reviewed Cambridge Press, 2024) (INTRODUCTION TO THIS S ... Read Article