Session 10: April 22, 2021

The Session Assignment [link]

The Lead-in:

By now you understand how we can read so little of the text of Luke and yet be consuming a major portion of the parts of Luke we haven't yet encountered. I've included the two most famous parables in L.

I tried to make two general points last week: 1) there were lots of "gospels" circulating in the first hundred years following the crucifixion but the canon probably has the four with the most historially-based material; and 2) there were at least a dozen "Christianities" with every variation in number of Gods and role for Jesus you can imagine. You would expect Ehrman to have taken advantage of the chance to "shock" non-scholars by describing them: we'll read from two chapters of "Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew" this week.

The Lead-out:

We managed to cover the gist of all the questions, even though not in any particular order!

I was delighted to see that some of you have some familiarity with Paul because I'm trying to figure out how deeply to dive into his theology, something that's had endless discussion because it's both not consistent and in places just plain obscure.

At the same time, I was surprised at the less-than-sound grasp people had of gnosticism which I thought was well described by Ehrman. Oh, well; onward!