Category Archives: Exegesis

Suetonius, Nero’s Dreams, and Biographical Memory

Posted on October 14, 2019 by Celsus

Several years ago, back in Spring 2011, I took a graduate course taught by prominent Classics scholar Marilyn Skinner on ancient biography and Suetonius’ Life of Nero. One of the most interesting sections of the biography is a series of … Continue reading →

Posted in Ancient Biography, Classics, Dissertation, Exegesis, Historical Jesus, History, Literary Theory, Religious Studies, Weird Stuff from Antiquity | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Did the Author of Matthew Intend to Imply that the Disciple Matthew Was the Brother of James son of Alphaeus?

Posted on July 19, 2018 by Celsus

In doing research on the Gospel of Matthew the other day, I noticed a peculiarity in the Matthew’s redaction of the Gospel of Mark. The process started when I was looking into the name change between “Levi” son of Alphaeus (Mk. 2:13-17) … Continue reading →

Posted in Exegesis | Tagged , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Authorial Third Person Narration–in Thucydides, Josephus, Xenophon, and Caesar–Versus the Gospel of Matthew

Posted on July 18, 2018 by Celsus

One of the issues that pops up frequently, when discussing the authorial anonymity of the Gospel of Matthew, is how a number of Classical authors refer to themselves in the third person, when narrating historical events in which they themselves … Continue reading →

Posted in Classics, Exegesis, History, Literary Theory | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

David Bryan on N.T. Wright and the Argument from “Anachronistic Anastasis” by Eric Bess

Posted on April 1, 2018 by Celsus

[Below is a guest blog by my friend Eric Bess, which deals appropriately with a topic pertaining to Easter and how to interpret the nature of the resurrection event.] General Problems of Reasoning and Rhetoric One of the most common … Continue reading →

Posted in Exegesis, Guest Blogs, Historical Jesus, History, Miracles, Resurrection | Tagged , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Bart Ehrman and Jodi Magness on the Burial of Jesus and the Empty Tomb

Posted on January 20, 2018 by Celsus

It’s been almost four years since Bart Ehrman’s How Jesus Became God was published, and one of the points of controversy that arose when the book was first released is the fact that Ehrman does not endorse the historicity of … Continue reading →

Posted in Exegesis, Historical Jesus, History, Resurrection | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 90 Comments

Eschatology in Alexander’s Letter to Olympias and the Book of Revelation

Posted on May 9, 2016 by Celsus

I have been writing recently on Κέλσος about the topic of my dissertation, which identifies the NT Gospels as belonging to the genre of Greek popular-novelistic biography, through a comparison with the Alexander Romance and the Life of Aesop. The comparison of Alexander the … Continue reading →

Posted in Ancient Biography, Ancient Novel, Dissertation, Eschatology, Exegesis, Historical Jesus | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Homeric Mimesis in the Alexander Romance

Posted on April 20, 2016 by Celsus

Recently I posted a guest blog by NT scholar Dennis MacDonald, which discusses the possible use of Homeric mimesis in the canonical Gospels, particularly the Gospel of Mark. Mimesis of earlier literature is a common literary technique found in the genre … Continue reading →

Posted in Ancient Biography, Ancient Novel, Classics, Dissertation, Exegesis | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

SBL 2015: Markan Christology

Posted on December 13, 2015 by Celsus

Yesterday I blogged about some of the sessions that I attended at the recent SBL annual meeting in Atlanta. Today I am going to follow up by discussing another interesting session that I attended Saturday afternoon on Markan Christology. Since … Continue reading →

Posted in Academic Conferences, Christology, Exegesis | Tagged , , , , | 12 Comments