...This prologue provides an overview of the debates surrounding Morton Smith's discovery of a Secret Gospel of Mark in 1960. Smith claimed to have found an unknown letter written by the Christian philosopher Clement of Alexandria in the ancient monastery of Mar Saba, located on the edge of the desert...

...This chapter describes the biblical gospels. It examines the Gospel of Mark, which preserves an earlier “crucifixion narrative”. It also reports the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple and its leadership and reveals that the Christian martyr tradition has resulted in more suffering. Luke NT gospel...

...’ death love science Protestantism Roman Catholicism apostles pneuma psychê Adam empty tomb history angels miracle supernatural creation apocalyptic modernism Lessing Gotthold E culture celibacy family gospel pacifism revolution violence and the historical Jesus idolatry Israel...

...This book describes how most modern treatments of the Gospels and Acts view their authors as redactors, or editors, of preexisting traditions and written sources. These practitioners of form criticism divide texts into constituent units and categorize them by genre, such as parables, proverbs...

...The introduction defines the ancient sense of myth, explains the ancient cultural value attached to historiographical discourse, outlines historiographical tropes, defines the category of mythic historiography, and creatively applies that category to the canonical gospels. myths Christian...

...The purpose of this book is to show why and how (what later became) the four canonical gospels take on a historical cast, a history-like “feel” that remains vitally important for many Christians today. This aim is worked out by in-depth comparisons with other Greco-Roman stories that have been made...

...This chapter discusses Jesus's attitude toward the Temple, which plays an important role throughout the gospels' narratives. The gospels seemingly describe a relationship of conflict between Jesus and Temple authorities but lack any straightforward statement by the evangelists about Jesus's...