Toto

It's a simple tale of events that never happened. Just read it.

Adam

It's so simple that no one would have written it as fiction.
I suppose you do have a point. It's so simple
that if fiction it must have been leading towards John 20 with the more interesting Resurrection account. The two are separable, however. "Passion Narrative" does not imply inclusion of the Resurrection. The four gospels generally agree on the Passion, but not in what they cover about the Resurrection. Teeple's style criteria, for example, carry neither S nor G into John 20, but he creates some special sources instead.

You do your Moderator job excellently, Toto. You seem harder on MJ partisans than on HJ people, but here you are committing to rejection of even a non-supernatural account told in all four gospels. I realize that gJohn is routinely discounted, but the verses I have cited are paralleled in the Synoptics as well. Almost all historians accept that Jesus was crucified, but you are too extreme a Mythicist to accept even that?

Vorkosigan

Many mythicists accept that Jesus was crucified. They argue, however, that the drama of Jesus' crucifixion was a cosmic drama that took place in some realm above the earth. Only later, when the various Christian groups strove against each other, did someone -- probably the writer of Luke IMHO -- hit upon using the idea of Jesus-as-history to legitimate their particular group over others.

I'll get back to you tomorrow on your long post above.

Vorkosigan

Adam

In my OP in this thread I led with my chin, you might say, because I presented my recent idea that John Mark wrote the Passion Narrative, but without giving due consideration to the full text that might be involved. I took my cue from the study of the Pre-Marcan Passion Narrative at this website,
http://www.earlychristianwritings.co...ion-young.html
that starts at Mark 14:32, the entry into Gethsemane, the same start as John 18:1. Thus I focused on events starting with the arrest of Jesus, but scholars have routinely defined early passages as from the same source. Here’s a wider listing from Frederick C, Grant, The Gospels (1957, pg. 79): Mark 14:1,2, [3-9], 10,11, [12-16], 17, 18a, [18b-20], 21-27, [28], 29-31, [32-42], 43-53a, [53b-72], 15:1-15, [16=20], 21, 22, [23], 24a, [24b], 25-27, [28],29a, [29b-32a], 32b-37, [38], 39, [40-47]. This is based on the reconstructions of Dibelius, Bultmann, Lietzmann, Klostermann, Lightfoot, Olmstead, Goguel, Klausner, and Grant himself. It features the Synoptics, and many of these verses do not appear in gJohn. (Footnote: Thus it does not take into consideration my need to include the Synoptic parallel to the Palm Sunday hailing of Jesus in John 12:12-14a. Thus for my purposes Mark 11:7-10 would also be included in the Passion Narrative as John Mark wrote it. I would now explain the start of this first Passion Narrative as the author becoming aware of Jesus when Jesus had to go into hiding as we see in John 11:54. John 12:2-8 tells us of Jesus’s arrival at his own house, and 12:12-14a tells of Jesus's grand entry into Jerusalem. However, I have not ruled out that John Mark may have accompanied Jesus on the John 4 encounter with the Samaritan Woman at the Well, just that it was not included in this first writing that is the source for the shared material in the four gospels.)

This Synoptic-type reading as by Grant above is not as free of the supernatural as the verses in gJohn I attribute to John Mark, thus looking more like Form Critics’ assessment of early church teachings than the verses I list in gJohn that could be prosaic words from an eyewitness. Their listings include the institution of the Eucharist Mark 14:22-25), but it’s not found in gJohn. In gJohn Jesus predicts what Judas and Peter will do, but does not predict that all the disciples will fall away (14:26, 27). Jesus does not predict his Resurrection (14:28). The veil of the sanctuary is not torn in two (15:38). The centurion does not proclaim Jesus as the Son of God (15:39).

Given that a listing of the Passion Narrative is rarely publicized and that when it is that the larger number of supernatural or spectacular are included, it seems few people have been presented with the opportunity to consider this evidence for a historical Jesus. The simpler Passion Narrative that I find in gJohn from John Mark cannot be rejected simply from bias against the supernatural. Few people have been had a chance to look at this possible eyewitness account about Jesus. Even in the highly regarded source-criticism by Robert Fortna he does not separate out the Passion Narrative from his Signs Gospel. But one can read just chapters 18 and 19 here:
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/signs.html
Quoting Andrew Bernhard, author of The Lost Gospels, "The following reconstruction of the hypothetical source employed by the author of the fourth gospel is derived from the analysis found in Robert Fortna's The Fourth Gospel and Its Predecessor. The text of the Signs Gospel has been reconstructed using the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) of the Gospel of John; differences between the text of the Signs Gospel and the NRSV are printed italics."
[The five pages that follow are from Peter Kirby’s website, so even though I was able to paste then to my Word document, I’ll be cautious and not include them with this post. If I spend about $30 to get his C0-Rom then I can post it here? How does this work?]
The Passion Narrative source within gJohn does not tell us much about Jesus’s life or teachings, since it’s only about the death of Jesus. However, there are at least two other accounts about Jesus that can similarly be argued that they are from eyewitnesses, as they also lack supernatural occurrences. These are limited to sayings of Jesus, thus don’t tell us much about his life, but much is implied. The Discourses in gJohn that Nicodemus wrote don’t just tell us what Jesus taught (apparently only in Jerusalem), but why opponents wanted to kill him. The sayings in Q show us that Jesus was an itinerant preacher that railed against the status quo. For listings of these refer to my Posts #38 and #74 respectively.

In case anyone missed the point, have I simplified the Passion Narrative in John sufficiently that the Mythical Jesus theory stands refuted? Also my Post #1 OP should be amended to include in the shared source (from John Mark) also verses preceding the Passion Narrative in John 11:54, 12:2-8, 12-14a, 13:18 or 21, and 13:38. These provide additional evidence that the person providing this "earliest gospel" (Grant's term) was indeed John Mark, as most of these additional verses apparently took place in his house when he was a teenager.

Toto

I don't think you understand enough about mythicism.

How can anything in the Passion Narrative refute the idea that the whole story is a myth? No one, either mythicist or historicist, thinks that anything written in the gospels that is not supernatural must be accepted as historical.

stephan huller

Interestingly if you hear a Catholic sermon during Xmas or a Greek orthodox or Coptic or any old world culture for that matter- yes you will get the idea that Mary really did have this child Jesus on December 25th. Nevertheless this 'fact' is the inevitable launching board for the idea that this was established as a symbol or sign of Christ taking shape in each one of the believers. This must be a very old metaphor and it is clearly symbolic in nature and the manner in which these ideas are expressed make it difficult to tell if the people relaying the information all necessarily believe that Jesus was really born on December 25th after having been conceived on March 25th and then ultimately died some thirty years later on March 25th.

A rather implausible set of circumstances all set apart by nine months and then nine months again. There cannot be any question that this is mythical in nature. What I find intriguing is whether or not again all the people that put forward these myths really accept them as 'facts.' Yes certainly if you asked them 'is this really Jesus's birthday?' 'is this really the day Jesus died?' but what about 'is this really the day Jesus was conceived?' I don't even know the day this occurred with me or my son for that matter. How can anyone plausibly claim to know that information?

If only life always ran with such precision ...

Yet traditionally minded cultures immediately fall back on the 'spiritual' argument - i.e. that 'spiritual' things are different than 'worldly things' (i.e. facts). We're missing the point. It doesn't matter when he died or when he was born etc. And isn't that essentially saying that the facts really aren't important? And doesn't that mean that in fact none of these people really has any certainty (a) when Jesus was conceived (b) when he was born and (c) when he died.

To understand traditionally minded Christians is to acknowledge that the liturgy is all that matters, the procession of days and cycles. What Eliade called 'the Myth of Eternal Return.' Historical facts don't really figure into anything.

Horatio Parker

Yes. This is what I say over and over.

We live in empirical times and most people have little or no appreciation or understanding of the non-material(assuming such a thing exists).

Empirically speaking, religion is an emotional state or a function of the psyche. That's given a very low value in today's world where people worship science and consider their own minds to be insignificant. Therefore, if religion is to have value, it must be expressed as supernatural intervention in the physical world.

Sad, IMO.

Sheshbazzar

Employing similar 'logic'. If one disregards the Mythical supernatural elements of flying reindeer and sleigh, while allowing that most houses really do have chimneys, perhaps we ought to likewise conclude that Santa does come down our chimney on Christmas Eve.

The point here being, if a tale is Mythical, simply ignoring or purposely extracting those supernatural elements which are integral, and are even essential to the plot of the tale, does not accomplish converting any such ancient mythological tale into a factual accounting of real world events.

The Passion Story does not fare any better when it has been stripped and robbed of any of those integral elements that were purposely written to make this the impressive and moving well known tale that it is.
Attempting to do so is doing no credit to the integrity of the tale, nor to the pursuit of honest religion, nor to this ancient 'Holy' tales status as one of mankind's most powerful and enduring literary treasures.

What was written, is what is written.

Spiritual maturity only comes when one learns to appreciate the total text equally, what manner of work it is, and mature enough to discern what its effects on humanity have been, and presently are. Which when all is considered, have been neither all good nor all bad, just part of our growing experience.

gurugeorge

Here's a text T, purportedly about a character X.

Text T has a story that includes X doing some supernatural things, and some normal everyday things.

We decide that the supernatural things are impossible.

With what logic does it follow that the everyday things left over must reflect eyewitness accounts of the everyday doings of a real X?

stephan huller

Duvduv

I don't know if its so sad. I am not so sure if the question of whether there is a God is attached to the issue of what the literal truth of the Bible is. It reminds me of growing up and wanting to get laid. Because I approach all things in a straightforward manner I almost never got laid. Then after I was in a serious relationship I got a dog and kid both amazingly cute and both chick magnets. The lesson is you need poetry to live. It's not the same question as whether or not there is a god