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Abstract
This article presents an imaginative exercise in which a fictional author from the year 4025 details results from excavations of archaeological sites dating to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Based on analyses of small domestic finds, as well as the discovery of a monumental complex utilizing similar imagery, the author concludes that people must have worshipped an anthropomorphic mouse god – the Historical Mouse – in the Mechano-Digital Age, keeping devotional votives in their homes and traveling at least once a year to a primary space of worship centered around the experience of various ritual mysteries. This article calls upon students to perform a self-evaluation about their own assumptions and approaches to the ancient world as they witness a hypothetical historian make outrageous, yet plausible, errors in the course of trying to describe an ‘ancient’ religion.
Abstract
Are name statistics in the Gospels and Acts a good test of historicity? Kamil Gregor and Brian Blais, in a recent article of the jshj , argue that the sample of name occurrences in the Gospels and Acts is too small to be determinative and that several statistical anomalies weigh against a positive verdict. Unfortunately, their conclusions result directly from improper testing and questionable data selection. Chi-squared goodness-of-fit testing establishes that name occurrences in the Gospels and Acts fit into their historical context at least as well as those in the works of Josephus. Additionally, they fit better than occurrences derived from ancient fictional sources and occurrences from modern, well-researched historical novels.
Abstract
Having taught the subject of the historical Jesus for more than thirty years, from New Zealand to London, I review from a personal perspective what has changed, and how I have taught the course over the decades. Overall, it seems harder to teach now than ever before, for reasons explored here.
Abstract
The hypothesis according to which Jesus and his group were somehow involved in anti-Roman resistance has been systematically opposed by some quarters through the centuries. One of the most recent examples is Jesse P. Nickel’s The Things that Make for Peace: Jesus and Eschatological Violence, a book whose author boldly claims to have ‘refuted’ that hypothesis. The present article surveys this volume, concluding that it contains several misunderstandings of the field and method, as well as serious misrepresentations of the hypothesis under discussion, to the extent that everything indicates that it is influenced by theological presuppositions. These conclusions are not limited because Nickel’s book is representative of a much wider trend within the field.
Abstract
This article discusses the author’s experience of teaching historical Jesus courses at several institutions in the United States over a span of fourteen years. It outlines some observed pedagogical challenges in teaching these courses and some strategies the author has employed to address them.