I have previously written about the real history of Mark’s congregation in Rome. In my book, and here and here. Here I explain how that real history explains several assertions and silences in the official orthodox history of the early church. To review, my scenario is that Mark’s congregation in Rome was founded by Alexandrian…
Category: Jesus movement/early Christianity
The Carmignac Challenge, Part III of III: Qumran Hebrew Letter Forms
Introduction In Part II, I reviewed Semitisms in the synoptic gospels that Jean Carmignac identified in his book, The Birth of the Synoptic Gospels (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1983). I focused on those Semitisms that involved the Gospel of Mark. In the process, I noticed a pattern in some of the “Semitisms of Transmission”: words…
The Carmignac Challenge, Part II of III: Semitisms in the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Matthew
Summary In the Abbé Jean Carmignac’s short book, The Birth of the Synoptic Gospels (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1983), he identifies and classifies Semitisms in the synoptic gospels. He evaluates the value of the listed Semitisms as supporting evidence for his theory that the synoptic gospels were originally written in a Semitic language (GMark and…
The Carmignac Challenge, Part I of III: Yes, a Hebrew Gospel of Mark
Executive Summary The Abbé Jean Carmignac was a learned translator of the Dead Sea Scrolls. When he translated the Gospel of Mark from Greek into Qumran Hebrew, Carmignac noticed that the translation was “extremely easy.” He also noticed many Semitisms—linguistic features of the Greek that seemed to have been translated from a Semitic language—in the…
Pliny the Younger’s “Christians”
Summary Writing c. 112 CE from Amisos, the capital of Bithynia-Pontus, the governor Pliny the Younger identified a group of people who worshiped “Christ” and did not worship the emperor (Letters 10:96). I suggest that Pliny the Younger’s “Christians” belonged to the local ethnos-based sect that used the original letters of “Paul.” They were soon…
The Bethsaida section, Part III: The editing
Summary In my book, The Two Gospels of Mark: Performance and Text, I discuss the Bethsaida section in the Gospel of Mark (Mk 6:45-8:26). I review the staging of each scene in Mark’s original performed play, and explain why I think some scenes in the narrative text are original and some are by an editor….
The origin of Saint Veronica: Berenice, Judean princess
Summary In this post I speculate that the origin of Saint Veronica was the real-life Berenice, Judean princess and mistress/fiancée to Titus Flavius Vespasianus. I suggest that in the 80s CE, after Titus’s death, Berenice participated somehow in the Roman congregation of Mark and Flavia Domitilla. I suggest that for many decades after Berenice’s death,…
Matthew created Mt 8:5-13, which characterizes the centurion as a man of faith, in order to retain him at the crucifixion
In the Gospel of Mark, the author gave the Roman centurion the last word at the crucifixion: “Now when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was God’s Son!” (Mk 15:39 NRSV) I suggest that Matthew wanted to avoid the ambiguity of…
I doubt the existence of a church at Corinth
I Corinthians and 1 Clement are epistles addressed to a church at Corinth. 1 Corinthians is ascribed to Paul and 1 Clement is ascribed to the leader of the Roman congregation. Both letters concern factions within a congregation (1 Cor 1.10-11 and 1 Clem 1.1). It is odd that both Paul of Asia Minor, and…
Sergius Paulus (Acts of the Apostles) = Titus Flavius Clemens (Mark’s world)?
Summary Acts 13:7 mentions “the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, an intelligent man, who summoned Barnabas and Saul and wanted to hear the word of God” (NRSV here and hereafter). In other words, an elite Gentile, the highest civilian official of Cyprus, is interested in (proto-)Christianity. The character “John whose other name was Mark” of Jerusalem has…