ShadowMan

Cut and paste removed for bandwidth reasons

This text is from:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08375a.htm

Rick Sumner

Cite your sources.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Vinnie

Paul offers extremely little historical information about Jesus. Claims to be God, Davidic descent, the twelve, resurrection and all that other jazz you listed are all in serious dispute.

Paul gives us strong Multiple attestation of source and form for a few sayings (e.g. the saying on divorce, the strongest of all Jesus sayings). He mentions the twelve which means such a group existed early, he mentions a saying of the Lord's supper (which means this practice began early). Whether it derived from the open commensality of Jesus into this after his death or not is another issue.

As far as Jesus' poverty, well all Jews of his type were pretty much poor. As Crossan more or less says, "you worked with your hands or you didn't". That was the great divide but there was a poorer and lower class than the one Jesus was in IIRC.

Paul shows no clear knowledge of a betrayal. He says on the night he was handed over. This could mean Judas (which I deem historical myself) or it could mean by God as in it was God's will for Jesus to be delivered, sacrificed and resurrected.

Most of the passion narratives are pure fiction and prophecy historicized. See Crossan's "Who Killed Jesus". Its the two goats. There may be a few nuggets in there but they have to be dug out. What verses from Paul can you cite?

And of the four Gospels for reconstructing Jesus' life one of them is least instructive. The Gospel of John is filled with created dialogue and is based upon advanced theological meditation on the person of the "risen Jesus", not history remembered. Its about as historical as Huck Finn.

The synoptic gospels are more useful but have a ton of their own problems.

Vinnie

spin

It would be better if guys like this who post screeds in the usual cut-and-paste I haven't read what people here have already said ignorance, would just try to read what has already been said here on much of the stuff that such guys are about to post, and they would probably think again, if they were reasonable.

Historical sources aren't quite as friendly as to be able to cite them gullibly willy-nilly without ever analysing what one knows about the writers and their situations.

We've talked about most the named people in the headings above and what problems the particular sections of interest have, so do a search on each of them and know that you didn't need to post much of this stuff.

If you would like to argue for the veracity of any particular text, please go ahead, for that must be done before you can introduce them as witnesses.

Have fun.


spin

Sparrow

Welcome to IIDB ShadowMan. :wave: If you truly want to learn what evidence there is for a historical Jesus, you've come to a good place to learn. Many of the posters here are very knowledgeable about ancient texts and history. They don't always agree, but you can learn a lot from them. I certainly have.


I wonder if you were on trial for murder (not quite as serious an issue as salvation, eh?) would you accept a quality of evidence against you as you appear to accept for the gospel story? I know I wouldn't.

I'll join the chorus recommending you peruse some other threads in this forum. You'll find much original discussion of the topics that interest you.

Vorkosigan

Which one?

11: And he said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; 12: and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery."

Vinnie

The one I discussed in 5b here:

http://www.after-hourz.net/ri/mark.html

I'm pretty sure you've seen that before.

I didn't focus on historicity but did discuss it. I was interested in analizing claims about alleged memorizing of Jesus' sayings and so on. My conclusion:

Vinnie

DISSIDENT AGGRESSOR

Vorkosigan

We can disagree about Q. But I'm convinced Mark knows 1 Cor -- or 1 Cor knows Mark, one or the other. There are so many points of contact between them. Since Q collapses into Mark-Matthew, the inference is obvious: there is no multiple attestation at all. Multiple documents does not equal multiple attestation.

Let me ask you something: why is there a saying on divorce in Mark, and right there in Mark 10?

One quick point: You write:

• Mark mentions the case of a woman who divorces her husband, while Matthew does not.. Mark here supports Paul. We should note that Paul's terminology reflects his own knowledge of Jewish law. He states that a woman should not 'separate from' or 'leave' her husband, while the man should not 'put away' his wife. In Jewish law only the man could initiate a legal divorce, which he did by writing for the woman bill of divorce and (at least in some traditions) repaying her the dowry which he had received from her father. The woman could 'leave' the man, but not 'put him away'. Mark uses the verb 'leave' for both the husband and the wife, probably being ignorant of this rather fine point of Jewish law

I doubt Mark is ignorant of this fine point; rather, many exegetes see this as an anachronism aimed at non-Jewish populations. In other words, from a time when this problem arose among the gentiles, where a woman could divorce a man. In other words, during the time of Paul....

BTW, I love the layout of your website very much. Clean and easy to read. Much better than what I have envisioned for mine.

Vorkosigan.

Steven Carr

It is worse than that. We have no idea what Jesus really taught about divorce.

The early manuscripts have some twenty different sayings about divorce. I list just a few of them.

All of them are different versions of the same passage :- Matthew 19:9 They give different teachings about whether a man can remarry or whether a man can marry a divorced woman.

Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Ephraemi, Codex Regius Whoever divorces his wife, except for fornication, and marries another commits adultery.

Codex Purpureus Petropolitanus Whoever divorces his wife , except for fornication, makes her an adulteress and the person marrying a divorced woman commits adultery

Here there is no prohibition on a man remarrying, but there is a new prohibition about marrying a divorced woman.

Freer Gospels, Koridethi Codex Whoever divorces his wife , except for fornication, and marries another commits adultery and the person marrying a divorced woman commits adultery

Both prohibitions have been combined She is not committing adultery here, but he is.

Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (Original Version) Whoever divorces his wife , except for fornication, and marries another makes her an adulteress and the person marrying a divorced woman commits adultery

The prohibitions on a divorced man remarrying has been removed , but the part saying 'makes her an adulteress' has been added. He is not committing adultery here, but she is.