Biblical Scholarship Quotes

“...most people in the ancient world, did not make a sharp distinction between myth and reality. The two were intimately tied together in their spiritual experience. That is to say, they were less interested in what actually happened, than in what it meant. It would have been perfectly normal, indeed expected, for a writer in the ancient world, to tell tales of gods and heroes, whose fundamental facts would have been recognized as false, but whose underlying message would have been seen as true.”
― Reza Aslan, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

“...the ongoing suspicion that scientific discoveries or rigorous biblical scholarship will undermine faith is a tacit admission that faith is threatened by knowledge, because it is ultimately constructed on weak or faulty assumptions and, like the proverbial house of cards, needs to be "protected" from collapsing. (p. 21)”
― Robin R. Meyers, Saving Jesus from the Church: How to Stop Worshiping Christ and Start Following Jesus

“In my qualified opinion as a Biblical scholar, there is 'massive' and overwhelming historical evidence that the New Testament manuscripts are in fact reliable."


~R. Alan Woods [2013]”
― R. Alan Woods, The Journey Is the Destination: A Book of Quotes With Commentaries

“In general, it should be noted, biblical law is evolutionary, not revolutionary...”
― Joseph Telushkin, Jewish Wisdom

“With regard to the gospels, biblical scholarship has mixed-up theology with history, thereby turning the eschatology of the epistles into memoirs.”
― Eli Of Kittim, The Little Book of Revelation: The First Coming of Jesus at the End of Days

“There is the vast difference in content between John and the others. Simply put, John has Jesus preach himself as the object of faith, while Matthew, Mark, and Luke make Jesus a pointer to the Father. In the Synoptics, Jesus proclaims the coming kingdom of God, while in John he speaks instead of eternal life. For the Synoptic Jesus, one must believe in his news and repent, while the Johannine Jesus demands belief in himself. In the first three gospels, repentence is sufficient for salvation, unlike John, where, unless one accepts the Christological claims of Jesus, one will die in one's sins.”
― Robert M. Price, The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable is the Gospel Tradition?

“The chronology of John is so totally at odds with that of the Synoptics (not that they always agree among themselves) that we must suppose John's itinerary of Jesus to be governed solely by the theological demands of any particular scene. For example, Matthew, Mark, and Luke have Jesus, by implication, active for about a year's worth of ministry and teaching in Galilee, after which he embarks on the fatal visit to Jerusalem for Passover. But John has Jesus going to Jerusalem and back several times. For Matthew, the Jerusalem crowds on Palm Sunday have to inquire of the Galileans who Jesus is, but John's Jerusalemites know him well enough. And John has Jesus present at three Passover feasts, giving us our traditional estimate of a three-year ministry. But is John just constructing a Passover scene whenever he wants to have Jesus return to Passover themes in his teaching? Likewise, in the Synoptics, the Last Supper takes place on Thursday, the crucifixion on Friday, but not in John, where Jesus must die on Thursday, like the Passover lamb he typologically embodies.”
― Robert M. Price, The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable is the Gospel Tradition?