8:10 AM Saw this today: One of the many curiosities in the study of the NT and earliest Christianity is the early history and fortunes of the Gospel of Mark (hereafter, GMark). On the one hand (assuming the dominant view of Mark’s priority), the GMark appears to have been very influential. It is widely thought…
Gospel Dates in Relation to Philippians
7:16 PM Mark over at Alternation continues his excellent discussion of the book of Philippians, which we are now studying in Greek 3. His current passage is 1:12-18. In verse 14 Paul refers to the “word” which the Romans believers were speaking boldly and fearlessly. Concerning this word, Mark states: The word is not yet…
The Church Fathers and Study of the Gospels
5:50 AM I’m glad to see that the Gospel of Mark is being discussed on several blogs these days. The latest hubbub seems to have to do with something called Mark’s “community.” However, the elephant in the room, it seems to me, is the absence of any discussion of the church fathers. Of course, a…
Jesus of Faith or Jesus of Histroy
6) Who is Jesus? The “Jesus of history” or the “Jesus of the church”? Yesterday I listened to an interesting discussion of this topic called Der Mann aus Nazareth. It’s not surprising that this is a hot topic in Germany. And it was good to hear scholars calling us back to the biblical, core revelation…
External Evidence and the Synoptic Problem
2:36 PM I continue to be fascinated by the synoptic problem. My book Why Four Gospels? examines different elements that play an essential role in resolving this question. My position is based on two foundational pillars: the external evidence provided by the earliest fathers that Matthew was the first of the canonical Gospels, and the…
Embellishing Stories
4:45 PM If you are a Civil War buff (as I am you) have probably seen the movie Gettysburg starring Martin Sheen as Robert E. Lee and Jeff Daniels as Joshua Chamberlain. There’s an unforgettable scene that takes place on the first day of battle. Union cavalry General John Reynolds is in the copula of…
Dave Black Answers Some Questions
6:57 PM This morning somebody emailed me a couple of questions about my book Why Four Gospels. Here are his questions, along with my answers.
MCTS Notes on the Four Gospels
The Midwest Center for Theological Studies blog has some notes on the four gospels, which largely rely on Why Four Gospels?. (HT: The Voice of One Crying Out in Suburbia)
Motivation for Matthew
10:12 AM On the original motivation for Matthew: As soon as the first wave of converts had been baptized and their instruction organized by the Twelve, the apostles’ thoughts turned to the practical question of how to unify and consolidate their teaching about Jesus. The apostles realized that they somehow needed to promulgate those passages…
Dave Black on Textual Criticism
Dave Black has written a new essay on textual criticism. Here’s an extract: In textual criticism, one enters a discipline that is as much art as it is science, so that what is all too clear to one scholar may be opaque to another. My friend Dan Wallace — who, incidentally, also took Harry Sturz’s…