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Where in your own scholarship do you think you insert yourself--your personality, your religious beliefs, your ethics, your political beliefs, your worldview--most? And how do you, as a scholar, try to avoid falling prey to that common fate?
Is there an early form of Christianity that, had it somehow won out over what became mainstream Catholic (and then eventually also Protestant) Christianity, you think would have better served humanity through the millennia? If so, how and why?
Do you think the doubting Thomas passage in John was meant to be a polemic against the gospel of Thomas which seems to have been authored and gaining traction at the same time?
Be fruitful and multiply AND Replenish the earth are two separate commands, not one joined together with a comma. In other words, God didn't command Adam and Eve to replenish the human population.
Are we to assume that some unknown author in the first century/early second century put together the so-called Q sayings? And for what purpose? Did the author ascribe the sayings to some fellow named Jesus prior to the fleshing out of the Jesus character in the gospels? Is the Q theory wholly dependent on an assumption of a historical Jesus?
A recent Facebook posting from the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, showed a picture from their collection and gift shop book of a message written out on a potshard. This message, written in Aramaic from the 5th Century BCE includes the sentence "Let me know when you will be celebrating Pascha (Passover).” Doesn’t that imply it was a “moveable feast” reflecting agriculture rather than commemorating a historical occasion, the exodus?
In the Parable of the Two Sons in Matthew, it reads:
“But what do you think about this? A man with two sons told the older boy, ‘Son, go out and work in the vineyard today.’ The son answered, ‘No, I won’t go,’ but later he changed his mind and went anyway. Then the father told the other son, ‘You go,’ and he said, ‘Yes, sir, I will.’ But he didn’t go. “Which of the two obeyed his father?” They replied, “The first.”
The footnote reads: "Other manuscripts read “The second.” In still other manuscripts the first son says “Yes” but does nothing, the second son says “No” but then repents and goes, and the answer to Jesus’ question is that the second son obeyed his father."
What do you think is the origin and reason behind the contradicting manuscripts of this parable? What do you think is the intended meaning?
I still find intriguing is Saul's
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