Nanos, Chartrand-Burke, and DeConick

I don't usually do "around the blogosphere" posts, but here's a trio of papers/discussions worth checking out.

(1) Mark Nanos has a new article up on his website, "The Myth of the 'Law-Free' Paul Standing Between Christians and Jews", continuing his campaign for a Torah-observant Paul. Mark's papers are always a delight to read, and especially challenging to someone like me who thinks Paul had become anti-nomian after I Corinthians.

(2) Tony Chartrand-Burke has some things to say about the Secret Mark session at SBL, declaring that he's "pleased to remain agnostic in the debate" (not good), and rather nonplussed by Carlson and Jeffery who "are not biblical scholars", and whose "readers have been convinced by them, likely because their arguments merely confirmed in their minds what they hoped would be the case and not because the readers had sufficient knowledge of the contents of the text, nor of previous scholarship on it to make an informed decision." That's an awful half-truth, as I pointed out under the reaction of Mark Goodacre, who rightly underscores the scholarly character of debunking Secret Mark, even if Carlson and Jeffery weren't/aren't professionals in the field.

(3) April DeConick has followed up on the dating session at SBL, and Mark Goodacre responded to this as well. April's most striking point is the urge for memory experiments and more familiarity with cognitive-psychology literature. "Because human memory is a factor in the transmission of materials in rhetorical environments, it behooves us to know how the human memory works and how its effects might be reflected in the various versions of sayings of Jesus that we find in the literature." She says she might post more on this subject, and I look forward to it.