Biblical Scholarship

(Bible Interpretation) – R.G. Price:

As the work of Tom Dkystra, David Oliver Smith and myself shows, the Gospels are based directly on the Pauline letters. The Pauline letters and the Jewish scriptures are the sources used for the derivation of the Gospel narratives. And this is ultimately why claims about hypothetical lost documents are nonsense and disproven.

We have proven that these hypothetical lost documents don’t exist because we have proven that other known sources better explain the content of the Gospels than the proposed hypothetical sources. What is so infuriating about mainstream scholarship, and scholars like McGrath and even Ehrman, is the refusal to engage in addressing these facts.

It is infuriating that we still have major names in biblical scholarship talking about “oral traditions” and “Q” when in fact those sources have been completely and entirely disproved. The evidence and facts are there and have been laid out plain as day, but Christian scholars refuse to look at it. …

The big farce here is the idea that theologians are qualified in any way to assess the sources and historical validity of the Bible. In realty theologians and people like Bart Ehrman are no more qualified to assess the historical validity of biblical stories or to understand the provenance of biblical sources than the average person off the street. In fact they may even be less qualified because they have been specifically instructed in biased methodologies that are designed to lead to invalid answers.

What we need in the field of “biblical studies” is a revolution in the fields of scholarship that are directed at the issue and a revolution in recognizing who is qualified to actually study biblical texts from a historical perspective, and this also requires recognition by non-theological scholars that theologians aren’t qualified and shouldn’t be treated as authorities on this subject.

These issues can only be addressed by real scholars, not theologians. These are questions to be address by historians, anthropologists, and data analysts, not priests and pastors. …

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Christian Scholars Are Biased

(Bible Interpretation) – R.G. Price:

Let’s face facts, “theology” is not a legitimate field of study on par with other secular fields of study like biology or physics or anthology, etc. Theology is inherently biased, with a predisposed foregone conclusion at its core.

Unlike real sciences and fields of academic study that start with open ended questions seeking unknown answers, theology starts with an assumed answer and then works to fit evidence to the assumption. This is a central fact that has to be acknowledged because when you look at the field of biblical studies, which is dominated by Christian theologians, you can see the impact of this approach quite clearly.

Time and again, over and over and over and over and over (I could keep going), Christian theologians discard or even fail to consider solutions to problems that result in answers that don’t support their starting assumption. …

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Denmark Offers to Buy U.S.

(New Yorker::The Borowitz Report) – Andy Borowitz:

If Denmark’s bid for the United States is accepted, the Scandinavian nation has ambitious plans for its new acquisition. “We believe that, by giving the U.S. an educational system and national health care, it could be transformed from a vast land mass into a great nation,” a spokesperson said. …

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