(Part 2) Best products from r/AcademicBiblical

>This is a fantastic reply, thanks so much.

You're welcome!

>To what extent was this preacher correct in his observation of other creation myths and comparing them to the Genesis narrative,

I would say he's incorrect. As I've shown, Egyptians believed all of humanity was created in god's image. They also believed all humans were created "equal":

Ancient Egyptian Literature Volume 1, Miriam Lichtheim
>Words spoken by Him-whose-names-are-hidden, the All-Lord, as he speaks before those who silence the storm, in the sailing of the court: Hail in peace! I repeat to you the good deeds which my own heart did for me from within the serpent-coil, in order to silence strife. I did four good deeds within the portal of lightland:

>I made the four winds, that every man might breathe in his time. This is one of the deeds.
I made the great inundation, that the humble might benefit by it like the great. This is one of the deeds.
I made every man like his fellow; and I did not command that they do wrong. It is their hearts that disobey what I have said. This is one of the deeds.

Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs, James P. Allen
>Although Maat was established by the creator, as part of the world's natural order, it's opposite came from human beings themselves. In one Middle Kingdom text, the creator says:

>I made every man like his fellow
I did not command that they do jzft:[wrong]
it is their minds that destroy what I have said(CT VII, 463f-464b).

>In other words, the creator established a balanced universe ("I made every man like his fellow"); imbalance in the world comes about not through the existence of some evil force ("I did not command that they do jzft"), but through human behavior ("it is their minds that destroy what I have said").

You also find god creating humanity in his image in Plato:

Plato, Timaeus, 37c:
>When the father creator saw the creature which he had made moving and living, the created image of the eternal gods, he rejoiced, and in his joy determined to make the copy still more like the original...

"Primeval History in the Persian Period?", Lukasz Niesiolowski-Spano, Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament
Vol. 21, No.12, 106-126, 2007
>Creation of man in God’s image is probably one of the most striking analogy to Plato’s work. The whole Platonic philosophy is based upon the notion of likeness of a being of the lower level to a being of the upper level.
................................

>...and ANE leaders making themselves images of God while ancient Israelites did not but rather included everyone?

This seems to be incorrect too.

According to the book King and Messiah as Son of God: Divine, Human, and Angelic Messianic Figures in Biblical and Related Literature( Eerdmans,2008) by Adela Yarbro Collins and John J. Collins, the Davidic king and messiah was considered "divine" or the "son of god" just like a lot of other ANE kings.

From the book:
>Eckart Otto has argued persuasively that Psalm 2 combines Egyptian and Assyrian influences. He finds Assyrian influence in the motif of the rebellion of the subject nations, and in the promise that the king will break the nations with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. These motifs suggest a date for the
psalm in the Neo-Assyrian period. The declaration that the king is the son of God, however, has closer Egyptian parallels. The idea that the king was the son of a god is not unusual in the ancient Near East. We have noted some Mesopotamian evidence. Kings of Damascus from the 9th century BCE took the name "son of Hadad", and at least one king of the strian state of Sam'al was called "son of Rakib". Only in the Egyptian evidence, however, do we find the distinctive formulae by which the deity addresses the king as "my son." The formula, "you are my son, this day I have begotten you," finds a parallel in an inscription in the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut...

>The list of titles is reminiscent in a general way of the titulary of the Egyptian pharaohs. Most importantly, the passage confirms that the king could be addressed as elohim, "god". The latter point is further illustrated in Ps. 45:6, which is most naturallly translated as "Your throne, O God, endures forever." The objection that the king is not otherwise addressed as God loses it's force in light of Isaiah 9. The fact that the king is addressed as God in Ps. 45:6 is shown by the distinction drawn in the following verse, "therefore God, your God, has anointed you." The king is still subject to the Most High, but he is an elohim, not just a man.

>In light of this discussion, it seems very likely that the Jerusalem enthronement ritual was influenced, even if only indirectly, by Egyptian ideas of kingship. At least as a matter of court rhetoric, the king was declared to be the son of God, and could be called an elohim, a god.

About the book:

https://www.amazon.com/King-Messiah-Son-God-Literature/dp/0802807720
>This book traces the history of the idea that the king and later the messiah is Son of God, from its origins in ancient Near Eastern royal ideology to its Christian appropriation in the New Testament.

>Both highly regarded scholars, Adela Yarbro Collins and John J. Collins argue that Jesus was called “the Son of God” precisely because he was believed to be the messianic king. This belief and tradition, they contend, led to the identification of Jesus as preexistent, personified Wisdom, or a heavenly being in the New Testament canon. However, the titles Jesus is given are historical titles tracing back to Egyptian New Kingdom ideology.

I also made a post recently that you might find interesting that is somewhat related to your questions.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/ddb6at/what_are_the_moral_teachings_of_jesus/f2fnzm1/

I can't say that I'm familiar with the writings about Romulus, Asclepius, or Hercules; however, the Gospels seem (at least in their final form) to be written and redacted by people who were trying to portray a somewhat historically accurate picture of Jesus of Nazareth. Whether they are wholly or in part actually historically accurate is a totally different question, which I won't delve into here. The genre of the Gospels is sometimes referred to as a subset of Greco-Roman Biography or of Ancient Biography or simply of ancient Lives (βίοι, bioi; vitae) writings.^1



Ancient Biography^2 | Gospels^2
---|---
In ancient biographies, the subject’s name is listed at the very beginning of the text or immediately following the prologue. | All four Gospels mention the name of their subject (Jesus) in or directly after the prologue (though they lack a formal title signaling that they are ancient biographies).
Authors of ancient biographies could present the subject’s words either chronologically or topically. They could also highlight one time period of the subject’s life over and above others (e.g., a particular battle, time in office, death, etc.).| The Gospels aren't too concerned with the chronology of Jesus' life/teaching. Each of the Gospels devotes a considerable amount of attention to Jesus’ death, which aligns with ancient biographers’ tendency to devote more attention to the events or attributes that they believed best portrayed their subject.
Authors of ancient biographies maintained a singular focus on the subject (unlike ancient historiographers, who could offer treatments of several key characters). The individual focused on in the biography was the subject of the verb more than any other character. | Jesus is the subject of the verb in the Gospels far more often than any other individual.
Ancient biographies were typically written in narrative form and typically ranged from 5,000–25,000 words. | The Gospels were written in narrative form and fall within the 5,000–25,000 word count common to ancient biographies.
Ancient biographies were often framed by the birth and death of the individual (although some could start at adulthood) and then filled out with various stories, speeches, or actions from the life of the subject. | Two of the Gospels (Matthew and Luke) open with the narration of Jesus’ birth, while the other two begin in His adult ministry.
Authors of ancient biographies predominantly highlighted specific character traits of their subjects through the inclusion of a subject’s words and deeds, rather than direct analysis or commentary. | The bulk of the narrative is composed of miracle stories, discourses on various topics, sayings, and parables that contribute to the author’s portrayal of Jesus.
Authors of ancient biographies often used a wide variety of both oral and written sources and had greater freedom than historiographers in deciding which information to include or exclude. | The Gospel writers seem to have used a variety of sources in composing their Gospels.
The authors of ancient biographies deployed a range of styles in their writing—from formal to more popular literature—and wrote in both serious and light tones. | The Gospels have a serious tone, and the writers predominantly used a simplistic or popular writing style.
Most ancient biographies cast their subject in a positive light. In some cases the portrayals seem too positive, which makes the characterization seem contrived or stereotypical. | The writers of the four Gospels cast Jesus in a positive light and exhibit the same intentions or purposes for writing as other authors of ancient biographies.

If I understand the Greco-Roman Biography genre correctly, they were normally intended by their authors to be historically factual, but often integrated with ideology (or in the case of the Gospels, theology). The important thing to note is that they didn't pen history or biography in the same way moderns do. They took certain liberties in their telling of the story of someone's life. We wouldn't always see that as a responsible way to do history, but they didn't have the same concept of historiography as us moderns. Furthermore, I'd like to quote at length from Brant Pitre^3 regarding Jesus quotes and gospel/historical Jesus research:

> First, with reference in particular to the sayings of Jesus, it is important to be precise about what I mean when I speak about the "historicity" or "historical plausibility."
> On the one hand, there are some readers of the Gospels who come to them looking for the ipsissima verb Jesu (the "exact words of Jesus"). As contemporary scholarship rightly insists, rarely, if ever, is it possible for us to reconstruct the exact words of Jesus.^4 Indeed, as even a cursory comparison of the sayings of Jesus in a Gospel synopsis shows, on many occasions, the evangelists themselves do not seem bent on giving us anything like the exact words of Jesus.^5 ... On the other hand, it is much more popular in the scholarly realm to come to the Gospels seeking the ipsissima vox Jesu, an expression sometimes used to refer to "the basic message of Jesus" or "the 'kind of thing' he usually or typically said."^6 Although at first glance this may seem like a more helpful formulation, upon further reflection, there are several problems with it. For one thing, "the exact voice of Jesus" (ipsissima vox Jesu) reflects the peculiarly modern preoccupation with exactitude (ipse), and hence smacks both of historical positivism and philosophical foundationalism. Moreover, the emphasis on the exact "voice" (vox) of Jesus is precisely the wrong emphasis. The image of a "voice" lends itself to a focus on how someone sounds (form), rather than what someone says (content), for a "voice" can be completely without substance or meaning... However, for historical research, a case can be made that it is not so much the form of Jesus' teaching that is most important, but the content or substance... Once again, even a quick glance at any Synopsis of the Gospels should show us that a representation of the exact forms of Jesus' sayings does not seem to have been a primary goal of the evangelists.^7 ...
> In this study, I will be pursuing what I would like to refer to as the substantia verb Jesu—i.e., the substance of the words of Jesus. In other words, I am interested in what he said and did and what it might have meant in a first-century Jewish context. Hence, whenever I conclude that a particular saying or action is historical or historically plausible, I am not saying that Jesus said exactly these words (ipsissima verba), nor am I just saying the text "sounds exactly like Jesus" (ipsissima vox). Instead, I am claiming that the basic substance or content of the teaching or action can be reasonably concluded as having originated with him.^8 That is what I mean by historical — no more, and no less.^9


[Edit: I'd like to say that /u/Nadarama and /u/o_kosmos have great points against what I've presented here. I wish I had time to give each the response it deserves, but right now I don't, so I apologize. What I will say is this: the view I've presented is one popular theory among scholars, but is not without its problems. If I understand correctly, its something of a majority view, but I'm open to being corrected on that. Its certainly no "scholarly consensus," if such a thing can be found.]

***

1. See David Aune, Greco-Roman Literature and the New Testament: Selected Forms and Genres (Atlanta: SBL, 1988), 107 and Burridge, R. A. “Gospel: Genre” in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels Edited by Joel B. Green, Jeannine K. Brown, and Nicholas Perrin (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2013), 335-343.
   
2. Adapted from Edward T. Wright, “Ancient Biography,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).
   
3. Brant Pitre, Jesus and the Last Supper (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), 46-47.
   
4. E.g., Geza Vermes, Jesus in His Jewish Context (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 74.
   
5. Emphasis mine
   
6. Meier, A Marginal Jew, 1:174
   
7. Emphasis mine
   
8. Emphasis mine
   
9. See Theissen and Winter, The Quest for the Plausible Jesus (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002), 197-99.

The canon of the Hebrew bible is basically the same as that for mainstream Jews, minus the book of Esther:

http://www.talmidi.co.il/htm/bible/bible1.htm

This is our only scriptural authority. There is no ‘favoured translation’. Of Jewish translations, I find the JPS translation is good, and out of Christian translations, the NASB is generally faithful to the Hebrew.

However, to enable us to read about the Jewish teachings of Yeshua without having to run the gauntlet of Paullist theology, we have ‘The Exhortations’, which is our equivalent of the ‘New Testament’:

https://www.amazon.com/Exhortations-Shmuel-ben-Naftali/dp/168907650X/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=168907650X&qid=1567502231&s=books&sr=1-1

It has no scriptural authority, and it is not used to prove anything. It is a de-Christianised and re-Judaised collection of the gospels and ancient ‘Jewish-Christian’ writings, which were collected and put together in the 1980’s. It is used to keep us focussed on Yeshua’s spiritual and ethical emphases (the Kingdom of God, the practice of religion with humility and compassion), also to protect us from Paul, and inspire us to the same faith as that of the first Jewish, non-Paullist followers of Yeshua.

As an introduction to the faith, there are 2 books: An Introduction to Modern ‘Jewish-Christianity’ (Talmidaism):

Book 1:

https://www.amazon.com/WAY-Introduction-Jewish-Christianity-Talmidaism-Re-interpreting/dp/1976844371/ref=sr\_1\_1?keywords=talmidaism&qid=1568207665&s=books&sr=1-1

Book 2:

https://www.amazon.com/WAY-Introduction-Jewish-Christianity-Talmidaism-Teaching/dp/1982958081/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=talmidaism&qid=1568207689&s=books&sr=1-2

As to the question of ‘Are modern Christians still viewed as “real” Christians if they don’t follow Jewish law?’ I have to say that we don’t really engage in such arguments; we are respectful of the spiritual choices of other faiths. By way of information however, we view the term ‘Christianity’ as referring to the religion of Paul of Tarsus based on his beliefs and teachings, and so we really don’t like to be called, ‘Jewish-Christians’. We call ourselves, ‘Followers of the Way’, or ‘Talmidis’ (from the Hebrew/Aramaic word for ‘follower/disciple’, talmid). Ebionites are just one of our sects.

Our view of history is this: Paul began Christianity in Antioch. From the very beginning, he insisted that his Believers should not follow Torah or Jewish customs. In the 'Book of Acts', the council of Jerusalem in 49 CE is portrayed as having reconciled the Jewish leadership with Paul, but we view 'Acts' as being pro-Paullist propaganda, and so take this view with a pinch of salt. Our view is that the council formally defined Paul’s Believers as non-Jewish, but still exhorted them to live an ethical way of life (Acts 15:19-20, 28-29). The Jerusalem leadership did NOT see Paul’s ministry as a way of taking Judaism to Gentiles, but rather as a way of spreading monotheism and Jewish ethical values to Gentiles (Yeshua’s core values are, after all, the values of the Israelite religion and the Hebrew Prophets – they didn’t begin with Yeshua). Initially Jerusalem approved of Paul’s ministry. However, when news reached Jerusalem that Paul was telling Jews in synagogues across the Mediterranean to abandon Torah, that was when the Jerusalem leadership withdrew their approval. Christianity therefore departed/split from Talmidaism in 49 CE.

In short, we pass no judgment on any faith. If Christians wish to follow the ethical principles and teachings of Yeshua, we have no objection whatsoever. Christianity is the religion based on the teachings and beliefs of Paul of Tarsus, and Talmidaism is the faith inspired solely by the teachings of Yeshua (ie his teachings give our community our emphases). The Ebionites are just one of our sects.

Academic Biblical studies encompass a very broad range of subjects, but I'll try to cover a bunch here. In my opinion, though many people who frequent this subreddit may protest, the best overall introductory text to Higher Criticism of the O.T. would be R.E. Friedman's Who Wrote the Bible?. Although Friedman holds a number of fringe views and the vanilla Documentary Hypothesis has overall fallen out of favor (though there has been a recent revival of it), this is definitely the best-written and most entertaining introduction to the basic theory (I read through the entire thing in about 3 days). If you're looking for more on DH after that, Joel Baden's book, The Composition of the Pentateuch, is much more scholarly and explains the logic behind source division using numerous test cases (providing both the original Hebrew and translation).

For literary studies, just start with Robert Alter. I'm not really sure if this falls under the category of "academia" or is what you were looking for, but it's certainly an interesting analysis of how the Bible (both as a whole and by source division) tells its stories.

The only book I've read on the foundation of the Bible in the mythology of surrounding cultures is Tim Callahan's The Secret Origins of the Bible, which wasn't written by a scholar, but the author sources just about everything he writes; think of it as a Wikipedia for Biblical mythology--not entirely trustworthy, but fine for reference and finding further information. This one's also the only book on this list that has information on the New Testament as well.

Finally, make sure to check AcademicBiblical's wiki! It has tons of resources including videos, articles, etc. that can help you out.

I don't really know of any good books for Hebrew language since I've just been studying it in school my entire life. If you do seem to find a good book/course though, make sure that it's in biblical Hebrew and not modern Hebrew, as a lot of the language is very different. Having studied Arabic myself though, I can tell you that it'll give a significant leg up in learning Biblical Hebrew. For example, the way that words are constructed by fitting 3 letter roots into certain formulations is the same in Hebrew, and the vocabulary of the two languages are often close cognates. Once you've learned Hebrew, it's much easier to pick up Aramaic (I know that as well), but if you're just learning it to read Daniel/Ezra, it's not worth learning the whole language; the grammar is practically the same and the words are also similar enough, so at that point it's easiest just to fake your way through it with knowledge of Hebrew and and good translation to check against (NJPS, NRSV).

> I don't think this is a true picture.

Modern developments in non-Orthodox Jewish theology would beg to differ:

> The attempt to harmonize the texts in pursuit of a unified biblical message often serves only to flatten them. In sum, the identification of distinct and contrary theological views in the bible provides the constructive theologian with more working material in which to ground his or her inquiry and discussion and with more “choices” that are grounded in Scripture. It also allows the critically minded reader of the bible who is not a “professional” theologian to engage with Scripture in a way that is both intellectually honest and, at least potentially, engaging and meaningful.

> [...]

> I would add in support of Buber’s position, that Jeremiah’s claim that certain Torah-laws are not authentic is itself rooted in a claim to divine authority! The religiously engaged reader of the bible is thus called upon by the divine voice in the Bible to attempt to distinguish between the “divine” and the “scribal,” within its conflicting reports about what God commanded.

https://zeramim.org/current-issue/volume-iii-issue-3-spring-summer-2019-5779/contemporary-jewish-theology-in-light-of-divergent-biblical-views-on-revelations-content-david-frankel/

https://www.amazon.com/Revelation-Authority-Scripture-Tradition-Reference/dp/0300158734

(A review here: https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/articles/2131/our-rabbis-j-e-p-and-d/ )

> J,E,D and P were not contemporaneous.

I think this is too literal a statement. Just because the competing Torah schools neither were contemporaneous nor interacting directly with one another in Mishnaic or Talmudic-style arguments doesn't mean that their works weren't argumentative ("Rabbi So-And So Said This"). Inspired by the Zeramim article above and by articles in thetorah.com, I wrote this comment elsewhere:

Said “Rabbi J”: My legal collection is the one and only collection of Divine commandments! (Exod. 34:27)

Said “Rabbi E”: No! My legal collection is the one and only collection of Divine commandments! (Exod. 24:3)

Said “Rabbi D”: Whatever. This, my legal collection, is the true instruction of Moses, not the Covenant Code, not the Ritual Decalogue, not a whole bunch of Priestly laws, and not whatever Mosaic law collection has faded into history! (Deut. 4:44) Do not add to or subtract from my legal collection! (Deut. 13:1)

Said “Rabbi P”: Nonsense! My legal collection is the single correct version of the words of Divine commandments! (Lev. 34:36)

> A fifth hand, R, the redactor

Who, for all intents and purposes, said that "these as well as these are the words of the living God" when it came to synthesizing what the competing Torah schools wrote. [And in so doing, deemed 140 or so commandments to be majority opinions / the majority view in the written Torah.]

"Apocryphal gospels" are a number of gospel writings by early Christians that give accounts of Jesus and his teachings, the nature of God, or the teachings of his apostles and of their lives. Some of these writings have been cited as scripture by early Christians, but since the 5th century, a widespread consensus has emerged limiting the canonical gospels to the four we have in the modern canon. Ever since then Christians do not view these 'apocrypha' as part of the Bible or aren't considered canonical.

See Ehrman, Bart D. (2003). Lost Christianities: Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew. Oxford University Press. pp. 230–231.

Here's an article from Oxford Bibliographies which explains it well:

>The title “apocryphal gospels” conventionally applies to certain early Christian or Gnostic texts that are written either in imitation of the genre “gospel” as applied to the New Testament canon or in telling of events and sayings in the life of Jesus and his immediate circle of family and disciples. The pluralism of the centuries of Christianity, the absence of a clearly established canon, the role of orality and intertextuality in the shaping of the new texts, and the existence of different “editions” of even the future canonical texts also doubtless encouraged the writing of Christian apocrypha. Modern critical editions of the texts are collected into compendia under umbrella titles such as New Testament Apocrypha or the Nag Hammadi Library. Some texts, such as the Gospel of Thomas, have been extensively studied and have spawned a vast secondary literature. Others are only recently undergoing scholarly examination. Some of the texts, for example the Gospel of Judas, have come to light only recently. Others, such as the Protevangelium of James, have survived in numerous manuscript copies, some of great antiquity, and those have been known to scholars for centuries. Some texts are fragmentary; the smallest examples raise the question whether they are indeed chance survivors of a larger gospel-type writing or should really be classed as something else, perhaps part of a patristic writing or homily. The texts selected here are largely orthodox. Only a few are Gnostic: the Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of Judas, and the Gospel of Mary; the famous Gospel of Thomas has been considered Gnostic by many readers. Most of the remaining Gnostic gospels have been included in a final section on their own.

https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195393361/obo-9780195393361-0006.xml

>I know that Simon isn’t an apocryphal Gospel but why is that. Also, why are Mary, Thomas and Judas apocryphal?

From what I could understand on the Internet, the "gospel of Simon" is from a fictional novel written by John Smelcer:

https://www.amazon.com/Gospel-Simon-John-Smelcer/dp/1935248847

http://thegospelofsimon.com/

If you mean the gospel of Peter, that's a "passion gospel", which was a type of gospel concerned specifically with the "Passion" (from Greek pathos (suffering) i.e.: the arrest, execution, and resurrection) of Jesus.

You're incorrect with regards to the gospel of Peter. It is considered a non-canonical gospel and was rejected as apocryphal by the Catholic Church's synods of Carthage and Rome, which established the New Testament canon. It was the first of the non-canonical gospels to be rediscovered, preserved in the dry sands of Egypt.

​

(1) Speaking of 'a canon' in the early Church, is, well, a little rough on the early church and it's not clear if it's appropriate. There were a lot more Church writings going around than we now have. It's not clear how early these started to percolate into 'collections', as opposed to 'here's everything we got, boy howdy', but definitely by the time that emperor Constantine asked for 50 bibles there was SOME idea of 'core books'... because if nothing else, his request created a need to identify 'core books'.

(2) Debate about the Bible lasted for a long time. Some of the Pauline epistles were accepted far later than the rest of the books (more on that below.)

(3) 'Orthodoxy' and 'heresy' were pretty fluid in the early centuries of Christianity. Things weren't quite 'settled', so one man's orthodoxy is another's heresy. Bauer is the main proponent of this idea; I also like how Boyarin took that idea and ran with it, arguing that the idea of 'heresy' (specifically in the context of Judeo-Christian relations) was evolving and involved a dialogue.

There is evidence of an early consensus on some of the books of the New Testament because of Irenaeus, but even there there is significant variation in the texts of those books, as this work attempting to figure out the exact source of Irenaeus' bible quotes makes clear. For more on Irenaeus, this section of Against Heresies has some good quotes. I especially recommend searching for 'four zones'.

So the 'canon' is relatively fixed by 200 AD, because we can see it in Irenaeus' works but is still missing some books (notably, some Pauline Epistles and the Apocalypse of John, the latter of which was rejected by Eusebius). We're not quite sure when it began but the current trend is to view it as a relatively fluid process, instead of one person (Irenaeus/Marcion) laying down the law and saying 'these are the books I trust.'

• Books could have never made it in simply because they were written later than 'our' biblical books. The Acta Pilati/Gospel of Nicodemus may fall into this category.
  
• They may have been of 'secondary' import, and not directly a testimony on Jesus, so it just wasn't important enough to make the cut. Some of the early works with exalted Mariology or of early saints may fall into this category. They were good, people liked them -- but the New Testament is about the early Church, Jesus, and, weirdly, the end of the world.
  
• It sort of duplicated something already deemd important. The Acts of Paul and Thecla, while slightly controversial (to Tertullian), might fall into this category. Because Acts already has Paul's entire missionary career (in brief), do we need to include Thecla?
  
• It existed, but was niche (sort of like Thecla, which is really "let me tell you about the nobility of virginity, at length") or not well-known. You can't consider something important if you don't know it exists.
  
• It was deemed heretical and, more importantly, stayed heretical. A lot of the works mentioned by Irenaeus fall into this category.
  
• It was deemed non-authentic or of suspect value. The term for this is "Antilegomena", and included books that are not in the canon, as well as books that eventually made it into the canon (notably, some Pauline Epistles and the Apocalypse of John/Revelation). Early church authorities had differing ways to judge the authenticity of a text, and I'm not well-equipped to talk about their methods.

>Most find it unpersuasive due to it being contradicted by the historical record.

I'm not sure that most (most who? People? Scholars? Christians?) find the arguments unpersuasive. I haven't read all the scholarly reviews of these works but the ones I have were positive. Also, contradiction of established historical record is typically not well received.

>"Well-received" does not mean accepted. It means responded to, taken seriously, respected. I respect the idea, just like I respect your thoughts on the matter. Your comments here are well-received by me

I agree. I appreciate your respect and I reciprocate!


>Incorrect. I am referring to Clement of Rome who quoted Acts of the Apostles between 96 and 98 AD.

I had actually never heard this mentioned before, which is odd because if this was accepted then it would be the immediate answer to the flood of questions on this sub regarding dating of the gospels.


I found several blogs making the claim but it appears this is not a scholarly position. I found a previous comment by /u/Otherwisdom which is informative (emphasis mine):

>…it is clear that this author (a) does not yet have anything like a canon of "New Testament" Scriptures, and yet (b) is beginning to ascribe authority to the words of Jesus and the writings of his apostles (see Hagner). He quotes Jesus' words on several occasions (see chs. 13 and 46), evidently as he knows them from oral traditions rather than written Gospels, since the quotations do not match any of our surviving texts.

• The Apostolic Fathers: Volume I: I Clement - II Clement - Ignatius - Polycarp - Didache
  

/u/psstein /u/BaalZubab1 /u/Corohr /u/slkfj08920

I have a very small book entitled Mishnah and the Words of Jesus in which the author argues the teachings of Jesus compared to the other sages of his day.

Here's an excerpt:

> In Mishnah 12, we are told that Hillel and Shammai received their tradition from the foregoing Sages. Hillel and Shammai are the last and most renowned of the zugot, or pairs. Notice once again how each receives from his predecessor so that all goes back not just to Moses but all the way back to God.

> Hillel and Shammai were both contemporary with Jesus and considered two of the greatest Sages of their day, representing two different schools of Jewish thought. Hillel, in most instances, might be considered more liberal. The school of Shammai, on the other hand, might appear more conservative.

> I personally believe we could identify a third school of thought as the school of Jesus--all three contemporary with one another in the first century. I believe that can be established from some of the teachings of Jesus when He runs headlong into a controversy between the two different schools, the school of Hillel and the school of Shammai.

> To illustrate that point, we can note Jesus' teaching about divorce in Matthew 5:31 when He says, "Whoever shall put away his wife let him give her a bill of divorcement." Jesus is quoting from Deuteronomy 24:1. He said, "You have heard that it has been said, 'You shall not commit adultery."' He goes on to say, "But I say unto you that whosoever puts away his wife save for the cause of fornication causes her to commit adultery, and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced shall commit adultery."...

> ...What is Jesus really saying? In order to understand what is happening, we have to see Jesus coming into conflict with the school of Hillel and the school of Shammai over the subject of divorce and remarriage.

> In Everyman's Talmud by A. Cohen, p. 166, we read that in the first century of the present era, the schools of Shammai and Hillel took opposite views of the biblical text in Deuteronomy 24:1 which allows a man to send his wife away if she find no favor in his eyes because he has found some "unseeming thing" in her. The phrase "unseeming thing" is literally the nakedness of a thing which the school of Shammai explained to mean that a man may not divorce his wife unless he discovered her to be unfaithful to him.

> Hillel, on the other hand, declared he may divorce her even if she spoiled his cooking. From the words, "...if she find no favor in his eyes," Rabbi Akiva argued that he may divorce her even if he found another woman more beautiful than she. (Order Nashim, Tractate Gittin 9:10)

> The more lenient opinion of Hillel was adopted as law so that in Jesus' day a man could put away his wife even if he did not like her looks. Here we have an example of something Jesus taught when he talked about the scribes and the Pharisees teaching for commandment the traditions of men. This was not a commandment. In Jesus' day, Jewish law was very specific. There were reasons whereby a man could put away his wife and a wife could put away a husband. It was specific in law. Everybody knew it.

1. Video lectures by Richard Elliott Friedman. (There is a fee, but they are worth every penny if you want to learn more about the Hebrew Bible.)
   
   
2. Video lectures by Shaye J.D. Cohen. (These are free and include class notes.)
   
   
3. The Jewish Study Bible.
   
   
4. The New Oxford Annotated Bible.
   
   
5. NIV Study Bible (This may seem like an outlier, but some of the notes are actually pretty good, and you see what the inerrantist view of certain passages is. I also give the caveat that the NIV is definitely biased toward Bible inerrancy and will fudge its translation accordingly.)
   
   
6. The Anchor Bible Dictionary. "Dictionary" is somewhat misleading due to the thoroughness of the entries.
   
   
7. A good commentary series or commentary about a specific Bible book.
   
   There are numerous resources that I could suggest, but these are a good start.
   
   ​

If you're very new to OT biblical analysis, as a fellow lay person, and even though it's not intended to be a 2 Kings analysis per se, I highly recommend Finkelstein and Silberman's The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts.

2 Kings is sort of the linchpin for OT biblical archaeology. Virtually all the OT texts preceding 2 Kings appear to have been written (or at least redacted) at some point during the periods of the monarchies we read about in 2 Kings. So when reading this text in particular, you have to come at it with two questions in mind:

1. What events written here actually happened (or at least sort of happened like the way they're told here)?
   
2. Who wrote this, and when?
   
   These topics are typically in tension when you're trying to analyze the texts using the modern textual-archaeological hybrid approach. What we know from the archaeological record may suggest a reason that a story was told in a certain way--emphasis on one person may mean that the story was told by a political or social supported of that person's family. And what we read in the texts can help us fit pieces of the archaeological record together, or even fill holes. As you can imagine, some people give more credence to the biblical record as a factual record, while others sort of acknowledge it only when it coincides with the archaeology. But even those folks will then still try to fit the author into the historical context, again basing their understanding of the author's context on the archaeological record.
   
   In 2 Kings especially, this tension plays with what you're reading, because the historical context of the author is much closer to the context of the story itself (at least more closely than, say, the context of the author/redactor of Judges vis a vis the context of Judges). It makes it a little difficult to know where to begin; that's certainly something I encountered when I started learning about this kind of textual analysis. What I liked about Finkelstein and Silverman's book is that it does a bit of both: there is a broad, comprehensive historical context for what we know happened, and what may-or-may-not have happened, for the stories relayed in 2 Kings (especially the latter end of it), with a constant referencing back to the archaeology that supports what we know (and don't). And then there is discussion of the context and motivations of the author(s) of the texts, fitting those people (whoever they were) into the political and social movements of the time. It's a juggling act, but for me the narrative of this book was strong enough to carry me through, and allow for understanding how both biblical text and biblical author fit into their times.
   
   The caveat to this recommendation is that you should know at the outset that Finkelstein's views are by no means universally accepted. He is an ardent minimalist, and his evolving views of the origins of Benjamin and Judah and on what facts the Saul-David stories were based on have continued to be challenged. But as an introduction to the major topics affecting the study of that period, and of the major texts written in and/or about that period (primarily 2 Kings and 1 and 2 Chronicles), I found this book to be engaging and educating.

Hurtado starts that 1 Sept 2017 blog post with

>"At a conference earlier this week in Málaga, one of the main sessions was on Justin Martyr, and the lecturer was asked about Justin’s knowledge and use of NT writings.  The lecturer responded by rather firmly urging that there is scant evidence that Justin knew the NT Gospels, emphasizing that Justin’s numerous references to the “memoirs [ἀπομνημονεύματα] of the apostles” might very well have designated other kinds of texts instead."

As for -

>Oskar Skarsaune, “Justin and His Bible,” in Justin Martyr and His Worlds,, ed. Sara Parvis and Paul Foster (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), 53-76; and arguing for Justin’s use of G.John in particular, C. E. Hill’s essay in the same volume, “Was John’s Gospel Among Justin’s Apostolic Memoirs?” (88-94);

In the introduction to Justin Martyr and His Worlds, the editors Sara Parvis and Paul Foster write -

>"Oscar Skarsaune tantalizingly introduces the possibility that Justin may have been acquainted with the collection later labeled as the New Testament. He states that 'as far as the New Testament is concerned, he did not know the specific collection of books that later got that name'."

and

>''Charles Hill states that the 'only quote, or near quote, of the Fourth Gospel of Jesus' saying from John 3:5,7 about being reborn and seeing the kingdom of heaven (of God, in John) (1 Apol. 61.4)'. ''
>
>https://www.amazon.co.uk/Justin-Martyr-Worlds-Sara-Parvis/dp/0800662121

Apparently Hill thinks that the citation of Dialogue 105.1 appears to link Johannine Logos Christology with the apostolic memoirs.

_______________________________________

As for Hill CE, (2010) Who Chose the Gospels?: Probing the Great Gospel Conspiracy, OUP Oxford, -

>".. the truth is that scholars who have studied the question of Justin’s use of Gospels are today quite ‘diverse’ in their conclusions on the matter. It is true that some influential scholars, in keeping with the idea that a four-Gospel collection was the brainchild of Irenaeus, think that Justin either did not know or did not appreciate the Gospel of John, or that instead of the individual Gospels he knew only a three-Gospel Harmony, or that he held Gospels other than the four in equal or greater esteem ...
>
>"[many ask] ‘If Justin had the canonical Gospels (or any of the New Testament books for that matter) why didn’t he simply tell us?’ (the only New Testament author he mentions by name is the author of the book of Revelation, John, ‘one of the apostles of Christ’, Dial. 81.4) .."
>
>Hill CE, (2010) Who Chose the Gospels?: Probing the Great Gospel Conspiracy (p. 125-6). OUP Oxford. Kindle edn.

eta: The rest of Hill's commentary about Justin Martyr over two chapter is, in my opinion, spurious, with rather a lot of appeal to Celsus.

​___________________________________

Earlier this year Hurtado and Brent Nongbri made a series blog-posts in answer to each other and the issue of Justin Martyr came up. In one post Nongbri wrote -

>"Over the years, different studies have sought to demonstrate that Justin definitely knew all four canonical gospels (e.g. Stanton), while others have emphasized instead the handful of examples in which Justin’s quotations don’t match up well with any of the canonical gospels (e.g. Koester)."

and in another

>"When Justin refers to texts very similar to what we would call the Gospel According to Matthew and the Gospel According to Mark, he consistently uses the plural (both  apomnemoneumata and euangelia) and does not distinguish individual authorship (it’s nearly always 'of/by the apostles' .. 'and their followers').
>
>"All of this tends, in my view, to confirm Matthew Larsen’s argument [in 'Accidental Publication, Unfinished Texts and the Traditional Goals of New Testament Textual Criticism', 2017, Journal for the Study of the New Testament], about how Justin and earlier Christian authors characterize the gospel(s), which in turn supports his larger conclusions: '…early readers and users of gospel texts regarded the gospel not as a book, but as a fluid constellation of texts. … Ancient writing practices and textual fluidity present us with exciting challenges and interesting possibilities to rethink how texts became books, how writers became authors, and how we might describe how texts change'.”

​

​

The big names would have to include OT scholars like Thomas L. Thompson, Niels Peter Lemche, Thomas Römer, Philip R. Davies, and John Van Seters, as well as archaeologists like William Dever and Israel Finkelstein. The top books on their respective Amazon pages are all very well-known works.

The best go-to book for beginners is probably The Bible Unearthed by Finkelstein and Silberman. Another interesting one that takes you through biblical history via two perspectives (religious tradition and historical evidence) is Israel's History and the History of Israel by Mario Liverani.

1. Yes.
   
   
2. Yes, because the majority of additional gospels to those that are canonical were found accidentally. Nag Hammadi, for example. Archaeologists aren't focusing in the ME because of Christianity. There are far more culturally rich communities/civilizations there. Christianity was a non-entity in the macro scale of events in the ME until Late Antiquity.
   
   
3. I don't think Julius Caesar is a fair example because he was a Roman senator from a very well establish family in a very literate part of the world during the height of Roman legal articulation. Consider for perhaps a better comparison the different stories involving other religious leaders like Buddha, or Krisha, or even Alexander the Great outside of Plutarch.
   
   The difference with Jesus is the motivation of the authors. Historical accuracy is a modern concern. These people were writing to forward the concerns of their particular communities. The world wasn't "global". Each gospel reflected the needs of the community that produced it, whether it's Gentile vs Jew, the proliferation of miracles, high vs low Christology, etc.
   
   I think you would find this one interesting: http://www.amazon.com/New-Testament-Historical-Introduction-Christian/dp/019020382X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1458179626&sr=8-1&keywords=the+early+christians+ehrman
   

Depends what you're into. If you want some nice primer stuff on the field of textual criticism and the mechanics and practice of it, with some discussion of philosophical/methodological concerns, I would recommend David C Parker's 'An Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts and Their Texts'.. I believe Ehrman spoke highly of this book (with criticism, as always) at a meeting of the SBL a few years back, and also said he thought Parker was one of the leading critics in the world. So that should give you an idea of where Parker sits in the scheme of things.

If you're just looking for arguments about various trends in scholarship (apart from maybe the idea of the 'original' or 'authentic' text, which is one of Parker's research interests and features here), this is not it. But frankly, more people who weigh into these discussion haven't taken the time to look at the actual mechanics of the field, to learn about what texts people use and how they make judgements about them, to learn about the Greek and versional evidence and how to actually read MSS. If that sounds valuable or interesting, this is a good book to pick up. Academic level, but probably pitched to an undergrad level, and is designed to be an introduction (although as an introduction, it is incomplete and there are some things it just doesn't go into, probably as a concession to length and complexity).

Also, because it's not polemically geared like most of the popular level stuff, it will act as a good palette cleanser and will give you good tools to use regardless of what other material, from whomever you choose to read it.

Based on speculative literacy rates of the random/general population in 30 AD Palestine, many do assume that the apostles were illiterate. I think Michael Bird (I’ve listed other links below) believes there’s no reason to believe Jesus randomly selected the apostles from the general population. The ESV records, “(He) called to him those whom he desired and they came to him …. The NASB translates “summoned those whom He Himself wanted”.


We know Jesus preached to thousands of people and He attracted disaffected Pharisees and disaffected scribes – finding writers would be a high mathematical certainty. Jesus was well liked by sinners to include tax collectors. Finding writers among tax collectors would also be a high mathematical certainty. For instance, we are told Matthew was a tax collector and as such he would have had to have had the ability to keep written records of transactions (in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin) to demand taxes from the diverse population in the district and to report to his Roman administrators.


We also know within thirty years after the resurrection, the early Christian church had spread from Galilee into several cities, from Galatia to Thessalonica, Corinth and Rome. The early church had to have involved people who were well travelled and used to travel: most likely writers, readers and Greek speakers.


Obviously Paul writes letters and that Paul authored up to seven letters is uncontested. The New Testament mentions Paul meeting with the other apostles (e.g. those who were with Jesus from the start) and never mentions a language barrier or translator. Paul felt confident enough in their facilities to hotly debate doctrine with them and does not write that they were illiterate backwoods hillbillies.


It seems likely that Peter, James and John would not have been the lowest strata of a peasant society because they appear to have owned boats and had hired men working for them. (If they were followers of John the Baptist from the very beginning, they may have had some synagogue training over and above what a “lowly peasant” normally receives.)


I don’t think anyone claims they were highly educated, and their notes certainly would not have been considered proto-Gospels, it just seems unreasonable to think that they would not have had some form of written aide to accompany the mnemonic memorization process of the oral tradition.


Support:


“It is highly probable that notebooks were used by Jesus’ own disciples and by later adherents in the early church to assist in memory retention by functioning as an aide-mémoire.” – The Jesus Tradition and Notebooks – Michael Bird


The Gospel of the Lord: How the Early churchy Wrote the Story of Jesus – Michael Bird.


Graham N. Stanton says the oral and written traditions were not like oil and water. They could exist side by side; orally transmitted traditions could be written down by the recipients – and written traditions could be memorized and passed on orally. (p. 189) (Graham N. Stanton. Jesus and Gospel Cambridge, 2004.)


Saul Lieberman (Jewish scholar, expert in Talmudic literature) “Now the Jewish disciples of Jesus, in accordance with the general rabbinic practice, wrote the sayings which their master pronounced not in a form of a book to be published, but as notes in their pinaces codices, in their note-books (or in private small rolls). In line with the foregoing we would naturally expect the logia of Jesus to be originally copied in codices. (p205) (Hellenism in Jewish Palestine, Saul Lieberman The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1962.)


James M. Robinson, one of the foremost scholars on the hypothetical Q source and the Gnostic texts in the Nag Hammadi collection, says that the pre-Synoptic traditions were not entirely oral: “The history of the synoptic tradition is no longer dependent only on the forms of oral transmission, but now has a series of written texts bridging much of the gulf back from the canonical [Biblical] gospels to Jesus” (p. 61). (James M. Robinson. [A Written Greek Sayings Cluster Older than Q: A Vestige.] (http://www.jstor.org/stable/1510156?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents) Harvard Theological Review 92 (1999) 61-67.) Harvard Theological Review research article


Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony – Richard Bauckham, Professor of New Testament Studies and Bishop Wardlow Professor at the University of St Andrews, Scotland; a Fellow of both the British Academy and the Royal Society of Edinburgh.


“It is clear that the synoptic Gospels reach back to the ministry of Jesus. When we read them, we can be sure that we hear his voice and his words. The Synoptics accurately convey his ministry.” Did Some Disciples Take Notes During Jesus’ Ministry? – James M. Arlandson.

The two books by Trobisch (no 'e' nor umlaut) you mentioned are really great, The First Edition of the New Testament particularly. I would recommend it to anyone interested in NT studies.

Also from DC Parker is An Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts and their Texts, a truly deep dive into a survey of the extant manuscripts. It's really dry, but comprehensive.

> Aune suggests the book was written in two stages, with the first stage being in the late 60s, and the second stage (that resulted in the current text) in the 90s.

Elaine Pagels also agrees with this assessment. She paints a a fascinating portrait of John of Patmos in her book, Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation

https://www.amazon.com/Revelations-Visions-Prophecy-Politics-Revelation/dp/0143121634

As it turns out, I just finished reading the book Relevations by Princeton professor Elaine Pagels. It's a fun read, and it tells all about what we know about the book's origin and why it was included in the New Testament canon. Highly recommended!

These are written on a more popular level

• Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard Elliot Friedman, a nice introduction to the Documentary Hypothesis of Torah authorship.
  
• The Bible Unearthed by Israel Finklestein and Neil Asher Silberman. An archaeologist examines the historicity of the Bible, from Adam through Solomon, based on the archaeological evidence.
  
• Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who changed the Bible and Why by Bart Ehrman. Hard to go wrong with any of Ehrman's books. This is as good a place to start as any.

If it's textual criticism you're interested in and you're just starting out, I'd recommend the following two books to wet your appetite. They both will have bibliographies to get you deeper into the study as you wish.

David C. Parker. An Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts and their Texts. (ISBN: 978-0521719896)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0521719895/

Bruce Metzger and Bart Ehrman. The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration. Fourth Edition. (ISBN: 978-0195161229)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/019516122X/

these look nice:

https://www.amazon.com/Jewish-Study-Bible-Second/dp/0199978468/

https://www.amazon.com/Hebrew-English-Tanakh-Jewish-Publication-Society/dp/0827606974/

(supply your own NT)

Ok, so first things first, stop saying it in the plural - Its the Revelation to St. John, so "The Book of Revelation."

Secondly, some fun tidbits.

• Someone mentioned Nero as Anti-Christ, you might also check out p115, which has a variant reading of the mark of the beast (616 instead of the old 666) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus_115
  
  
• Origen (et. al.) considered it to be "nothos" that is "bastardly," without proper apostolic patrilineage. However it makes it into the canon (but just barely)
  
  
• Its not prophecy, but a specific genre called apocalyptic. Revelation is generally thought to be a strong encouragement to retain faith knowing that soon the Hellenistic world order (under Nero) would be destroyed when Jesus returned. Other examples of apocalyptic include texts like 1 Enoch (portions) or "The First Apocalypse of James" - http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/apocalypsejames1st.html
  
  FOr a good lay treatment of the text by a scholar, try pagels - https://www.amazon.com/Revelations-Visions-Prophecy-Politics-Revelation/dp/0143121634

Elaine Pagel's book Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation.

Combo:

Robert Alter's Hebrew Bible

The Jewish Study Bible

The Jewish Annotated New Testament

Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard E. Friedman

> the Jews during Exodus left egypt supposedly around 1250 BCE

There's no historical nor archaeological evidence for a Jewish captivity in Egypt, nor for the Exodus as portrayed in the OT.

See Finkelstein & Silberman's The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts for details.

>I'm also open to other suggestions if I have possibly missed other options that fit my needs.

The following two books are often recommended:

The Jewish Study Bible

Jewish Annotated New Testament


Both of these are academic in nature. You will find stuff about source criticism and they have scholarly articles about various things in there too. The Jewish Study Bible is also used in the Yale Online Course on the Hebrew Bible by Christine Hayes(you can find the lecture series on YouTube).