There’s a new issue of the open access Biblical studies journal Relegere, featuring several interesting articles, including an article about U2 and the Psalms, one about Genesis 1-3 and evolution, and an essay by James Crossley offering “An Immodest Proposal for Biblical Studies.”
There will be a conference about the criteria of authenticity in historical Jesus research in Dayton, Ohio in October. Click through for more details about the dates and the scholars who will be speaking there.
Jim West pointed out Philip Davies’ article in The Bible and Interpretation on the question “Did Jesus Exist?”
Timothy Dalyrymple mentioned mythicism. Here is a sample quote from his short post on the topic:
When examined carefully and critically, the arguments in favor of the Jesus Myth hypothesis really are that bad…[T]he fact is, you cannot make the Jesus Myth argument in a way that meets minimal scholarly standards. If it could be done, there would be a bunch of doctoral students and young professors on tenure track trying to make their careers on it. The fact that there are not droves of such over-eager, looking-to-debunk-traditional-Christian-beliefs scholars who think they can make a plausible argument for the Jesus Myth hypothesis really tells you something.
Ben Witherington gave an interview that is also relevant to this topic, asking what the Gospels would look like if they were pure fiction. And Joel Watts thinks that Roger Pearse’s recent words about bad scholarship apply to mythicism.
Jeff Carter has been reading one of Geza Vermes’ books, with one of my books in mind.
Tony Burke blogs about the process of writing a book about extracanonical texts.
Mike Kok discusses whether Mark’s Christology is attempting to correct some other Christology.
AWOL posted online resources for the Peshitta, and AMIR shared e-Ktobe, with still more Syriac materials.
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