“There is no difficulty in principle with including oral tradition in discussions of gospel interrelations, but the use of it as a default position at every step can mask evidence of literary links. The problem with the appeal to oral tradition is not what it affirms but what it denies.”
– Mark Goodacre, The Fourth Synoptic Gospel: John’s Knowledge of Matthew, Mark, and Luke (Eerdmans, 2025), 6.
- Bart Ehrman is retiring!
- But he’s also doing a class on early Christian heresies, as discussed here with Shirley Paulson.
- Paulson also recently interviewed Tobias Nicklas on the importance of the Apocrypha.
- Meanwhile, Megan Lewis asked Bart Ehrman some rapid-fire questions about the apostle Paul.
- Tim O’Neill offers his assessment of Alice Robert’s history of Christianity. Long story short, Robert’s work ain’t good.
- Mark Goodacre talks Jesus’s brothers.
- Need some reading material? You can download Gavin McDowell’s book The Rewritten Bible in Late Antiquity for free!
- Go take out a personal loan because The Oxford Handbook of the Textual Criticism of the Bible is on its way! It looks like it will be a really helpful volume. For those who have been paying attention to my podcast “Bible Study for Amateurs,” the name Elizabeth Shively should be familiar. She has a chapter in this tome entitled “New Testament Textual Criticism and Exegesis.”
The Amateur Exegete 
Will there ever be a religious history book written by a critical skeptic that O’Neil won’t find some reason to dismiss? With all due respect, it just seems that when its a book written by a Christian or someone promoting something similar like “cultural Christianity,” (a la Dominion), the author will get a video interview and publicity from History for Atheists. However, if it’s a book more negative toward Christianity or a book trying to at least show positives and negatives of the faith, it seems like it must be “bad.”
Originally when I first came across History for Atheists, I thought it was a nice critique of things like “Jesus Mythicism” and a few of the myths told by the New Atheists. However, from what I’ve seen lately (such as the video interview of Thomas Schmidt on the Testimonium Flavium), there may be a tendency on Tim’s part to “over-correct” for skeptical myths (i.e. play “devil’s advocate” for apologetics to the detriment of arguments made by skeptics). (There have been sound arguments for the complete forgery of the Testimonium made by individuals like Peter Kirby and Mark Edward.)
While I still respect the original goals of O’Neil’s site, it has unfortunately become a tool for some Christians to “troll” non-believers online as some of them seek to “absolve” the Christian faith of every accusation against it. (This isn’t his fault but just a consequence on the nature of “apologetics” and the tendency on the part of many Christians to smear skeptics in order to avoid engaging in serious discussions about biblical criticism, philosophy. science, or other topics.) It would be nice for some Christian to launch History for Christians to deal with myths like “Early Christians being persecuted at every turn by Romans and others” or “the Gospels were histories of the caliber of those of Tacitus or Suetonius.”)
I wonder how many people who visit History for Atheists have seen Tim’s exposé on the Crusades on another site given that many believers (especially conservatives such as James Hannam and Rodney Stark) have tried to defend the Crusades as an example of “defensive warfare,” ignoring atrocities such as the civilians slaughtered in the First Crusade’s capture of Jerusalem. Also, there are modern-day atrocities such as how an Guatemalan evangelical military leader (and dictator) named Efrian Ríos Montt called for genocidal attacks on local Mayas in Guatemala during the Guatemalan Civil War (and used his faith as justification for attacks on “Communists.”)
LikeLike
He did say “Personally, I find the partial authenticity position most convincing, but can see there are decent arguments for wholesale interpolation. And for the substantial authenticity position argued by Tom Schmidt. ” so I think you’re wrong about him not acknowledging those arguments.
He also recommends books by skeptics like Ehrman.
LikeLike
Thanks for the clarification. I didn’t know that he still favored partial interpolation of the Testimonium Flavium and would like to apologize for that part of my post.
In regards to books by Bart Ehrman, I did see a generally positive review of The Triumph of Christianity on Tim’s site and have seen his work mentioned on other parts of History for Atheists. While I am fan of Ehrman’s work (Misquoting Jesus and Forged got me interested in lower and higher criticism of the Bible respectively), The Triumph of Christianity was focused mostly on discussing the propagation of the religion through the Roman world and did not devote much attention to historical events after the reign of Constantine the Great. If he decided to write a “two-thousand year” history of Christianity, it would definitely be worth the read, but to my knowledge his books are mostly focused on the New Testament, the Historical Jesus, and the religious background of the Roman Empire.
One thing I was curious about in regards to books dealing with religious history on Tim’s site is discussions of books about other faiths. Given the title of his site, it wouldn’t be out of place to mention books that debunk myths on the history of Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, (maybe even agnosticism) etc. While Christianity is obviously the biggest religion in the Western world, there are misconceptions about Islam or Buddhism that are probably shared by both Christians and non-believers. One example of an author off the top of my head (I don’t know whether or not he has appeared on History for Atheists) is Robert Wright with his books Evolution of God and Why Buddhism is True. His work has received much acclaim but also presents material that would make both believers and skeptics uncomfortable.
Once again, I don’t want to sound like I’m blaming O’Neill for the misuses of his site; he strikes me as intellectually honest and well-read. It does get frustrating when Christians and other believers who use his site don’t often don’t want to “return the favor” by creating a sort of sister website with myths spread by Christians and the so-called “persecution complex” that some scholars have noted throughout the church’s history. (They could interview scholars like Candida Moss on the history of persecution or Dan McClellan on textual criticism). My other concern is that certain books highlighted on his site (such as Tom Holland’s Dominion) has begun to be used for political ends by people who advocate some form of removal of church-state separation or for a variant of Christian “dominionism.”
LikeLike
Great links!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I enjoy the weekly roundups as well and wanted to thank you for finding these resources. If I seemed critical of one site above, I wanted to apologize and look forward to new pieces in the future.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ben, what do you think about the methodology of some scholars who trace “evolutions” or “developments” among the four Gospels? Personally, I don’t think it’s that simple. One must take into account the plurality of the communities behind each Gospel, since the community of Matthew is not a continuation of the community of Mark.
LikeLike