I wanted to share this with anyone interested. I was just interviewed by SJ Thomason on her YouTube channel. We discussed a variety of things from Biblical Studies in general, to YECism, Genesis 1-11, Bart Ehrman, and Richard Carrier. I also give a little bit of background about myself. So if you have an hour…
In my last post, I began to go through chapter 2 of Bart Ehrman’s book, How Jesus Became God. It is in chapter 2 that Ehrman attempts to argue that within Judaism there was a “divine-human continuum” similar to that of the pagan world. What does that mean? Basically, it is the belief that there…
Bart Ehrman’s second chapter in his book, How Jesus Became God, is entitled, “Divine Humans in Ancient Israel.” Having spent his first chapter taking about pagan concepts of what he calls a “divine-human continuum,” Ehrman then turns his attention to ancient Judaism and proceeds to basically argue that even though Judaism was monotheistic, it wasn’t…
With the Idumeans now in the city, they and the zealots began to unleash a reign of terror in Jerusalem. The first order of business for the Idumeans was to go directly to the temple, slaughter the temple guards, and free the zealots who had been holed up in the temple. The fighting was vicious,…
In Bart Ehrman’s book, How Jesus Became God, he argues (as the title suggests) that the historical Jesus was just a man—an apocalyptic prophet who expected the end of the world within his lifetime, but who was crucified by Rome. We’ll call this Point A. Yet that gradually over the years, his followers ended up…
Over the past decade or so, Bart Ehrman has made quite a name for himself, having written numerous books about Jesus and early Christianity that, to say the very least, have stirred up some controversy. Just a quick look on Amazon turns up books by Ehrman whose titles scream, “Let’s freak people out!” –Misquoting Jesus,…
In actuality, Eleazar ben-Simon and Zacharias ben-Phalek, two of the zealot leaders who, along with the rest of the zealots, were trapped in the Temple, smuggled out a letter to the Idumeans. In it, they told the Idumeans that Ananus had betrayed Jerusalem and the Jews, had already sent word to Vespasian and the Romans…
After the zealots had seized control of the temple complex and thrown out all the established priests, the high priest Ananus made one last effort to regain control of the city and crush the zealot revolutionaries. The fact was the majority of the citizens in Jerusalem, although they had no love for Rome, quickly saw…
Upon coming to Jerusalem, John of Gischala attempted to rally the populace to engage the Roman army in battle. He had seen the difficulty the Roman soldiers had when they attempted to take some of the more fortified cities in Galilee—and he was convinced that Jerusalem was big enough and vastly more fortified than any…
After the taking of Jotapata, Vespasian dispatched the 5th and 10th legions to secure Scythopolis in Samaria, while he took two other legions to the coastal city of Caesarea. From there, he marched down the coast to Joppa, and promptly destroyed it. Meanwhile, some of the Jews who had escaped from Jotapata made their way…