Amaleq13

You are correct that Mk is not understood to have used a copy of Q like Mt and Lk but he is understood to have been familiar with the community/movement that produced the lost text.

Amaleq13

That is more than a little misleading, Vinnie, because you are well aware that your alleged point is not only “touched” it is conclusively shown to be entirely irrelevant to any effort to undermine the mythicist position. This is because we would expect an absence of a Gentile mission by Jesus regardless of which perspective one adopts.

Within a mythicist context, the entire process begins with an entirely Jewish belief in a Resurrected Messiah. This belief eventually is introduced to a Gentile audience through the efforts of apostles like Paul. It is not until after the destruction of the Temple and the ejection of the Jews that Mark provides the Risen Savior with a ministry. It should be obvious that Mark would have been operating under the historical constraints of the process above and, thus, been unable to convincingly fabricate a ministry to the Gentiles by Jesus.

That there is no such ministry described is, therefore, consistent with either position. I realize you have put a lot of work into this argument but that doesn’t change the fact that it is ultimately based on false assumptions. As you have been told repeatedly, nobody is actually making that claim and the mythicist position does not require such a ridiculous assumption.

Unfortunately for you, that isn’t going to help make the case because the prophets of Q, if not actually involved in a ministry to the Gentiles, seem to have been favorably inclined toward such an idea. Scholars reach this conclusion primarily because Q compares Jewish behavior unfavorably to that of certain Gentiles.

In addition, it is from a familiarity with the behavior/beliefs of the Q community that Mark is thought to have obtained his primary model for the living Jesus.



It certainly does as I have explained to you before as well as above and you have yet to refute the explanation.

They weren’t free to invent in a mthical context for the same reason they weren’t free to invent within an historical context: NO SUCH MINISTRY HAD TAKEN PLACE!

Within the historical context, this is apparently because Jesus was focused on preaching to fellow Jews. Within the mythicist context, it is because there never was a Jesus conducting a ministry ANYWHERE.

I look forward to your promised defense. So far all you’ve done is repeat the claim without regard to the obvious problems with it.

Bernard Muller

Amaleq13 wrote:
You are correct that Mk is not understood to have used a copy of Q like Mt and Lk but he is understood to have been familiar with the community/movement that produced the lost text.

So many people are joining the same bandwagon!
My position is Q as mostly dependant on GMark. Most of its material was written after GMark was known. Q contains complements, embellishments, corrections, additions, updates on GMark material.
In other words, there was never a Q sayer, Jesus or somebody else.
I exposed that on one of my page:
http://www.concentric.net/~Mullerb/q.shtml
Because Doherty relies a lot on a Q sayer, for me his thesis falls to the ground right there.

Amaleq13 wrote:
Within a mythicist context, the entire process begins with an entirely Jewish belief in a Resurrected Messiah.

In order to resurrect, that Messiah had to be born and die, isn't it?
Did Jew have traditions about Messiah born in heaven, dying in heavens?
Actually, I agree that the whole thing started by Jews, with a Christ crucified, saved in heaven after (or at) death, and ready to come back on earth as the King, at the beginning of the Kingdom of God. Paul took it from there. The Kingdom was transported to the heavens, the "King" thing was taken out. And many blanks had to be filled up.

In defence of Vinnie, I'll post my pot-pouri on what transpires from Paul about HJ:

When eyewitnesses were still alive, Paul heard and wrote about Jesus (pre-existent for Paul then) "found in appearance as a man" (Php2:8), with "human ancestry" (Ro9:5), from "the seed of [allegedly] David, according to the flesh" (Ro1:3), "come of a woman, come under law [as a Jew]" (Gal4:4 YLT), "in the likeness of sinful flesh" (Ro8:3), who "humbled himself" (Php2:8) in "poverty" (2Co8:9) as "servant of the Jews" (Ro15:8) "that those under law [Jews] he may redeem" (Gal4:5 YLT) and "was crucified in weakness" (2Co13:4) as "Christ crucified" (1Co1:23). And the same picture can also be seen at the bottom of the earliest gospels, especially the first one, Mark's.

Best regards, Bernard

Amaleq13

Mr. Muller,


Thanks for responding to my comments. I discovered your website long before I joined the Forum and I have enjoyed the effort you've put into your arguments even when I disagree with them.<g>

I consulted your website but I didn't see any evidence that is inconsistent with the idea that the author of Mark was familiar with the Q community but did not have a copy of Q (at least not the one Mt and Lk are thought to have had).

I think you might be misunderstanding Doherty. As I understand his thesis, the Jesus in Q is best understood as a mythical founder to whom fundamental tenets of the movement were later attributed.

He does offer a sort of secondary position, within the context of assuming there to have been an actual founder, but that isn't his primary view.

I wrote:
Within a mythicist context, the entire process begins with an entirely Jewish belief in a Resurrected Messiah.

Muller replied:
Not if you accept Doherty's thesis about Paul's Savior's activity taking place entirely in the spiritual realm. There would be no "birth" but an incarnation in the lowest and most "fleshly" realm.

No more than they had a tradition of a sacrificed and resurrected Messiah.<BG>

All are too vague and/or generic to require reference to an historical human. None provide anything resembling an historical context. Taking on the "appearance" of flesh doesn't suggest to me a literal human. Any Messiah, even a spiritual one, would have to be the "seed of David" or Jewish given Scriptural requirements. Note that Paul never explains exactly how Jesus is of the linneage, he simply asserts it. He could do that just as well for a spiritual entity as a real human.

I'll repeat the question I asked Vinnie:

Do you know of any historical figure at any point in history where an author writing about him felt compelled to declare he had been "born of a woman"?

Again, methinks Paul doth protest too much.<bg>

Vinnie

Again, your counter does not explain the entire Galilean mission invented by Jesus people and the fact that there is a paucity of sustained contact between Jesus and Gentiles. Your argument is that while the Gentile mission was well underway someone several groups probably) invented a strictly Jewish mission of Jesus and no one bothered to invent any sustained contact between Jesus and Gentiles. The limits on creation of Gentile material makes us very suspicious of the claimed invention of the Galilean ministry! Becasue NO SUCH GALILEAN MINISTRY HAD TAKEN PLACE

The mythicist position is very tenuous and flimsy here. It does not account for the data as well as "there was an HJ who conducted a mission to Jews and this was common knowledge" as multiple attestation of this fact and limits on creation show.

Vinnie

Lanakila

I haven't read the Book The Jesus Puzzle but my husband has. It has a website link on the back of the book though that some folks may find interesting: I edited out the link because it doesn't work. Oops my bad. Wonder what happened to that site. Sorry for the interuption of an interesting discussion.

Vinnie

I think it moved to www.jesuspuzzle.com

Vinnie

Bernard Muller

Amalek13 wrote:
I consulted your website but I didn't see any evidence that is inconsistent with the idea that the author of Mark was familiar with the Q community but did not have a copy of Q (at least not the one Mt and Lk are thought to have had).

What positive evidence do you have proving a significant part of Q was generated prior to the writting of GMark? And what part would that be? And what do we know about that mysterious pre-GMark Q community? Looks like a lot of unsubstantiated theories to me.

Amalek13 wrote:
Not if you accept Doherty's thesis about Paul's Savior's activity taking place entirely in the spiritual realm. There would be no "birth" but an incarnation in the lowest and most "fleshly" realm.

I thought you said about Jewish belief, not Paul's. Anyway, where is this resurrected Messiah in Jewish beliefs? And where does he die?
The lowest and more "fleshy" realm is earth, for Paul and Jews. I do not see any evidence to the contrary. Philo & Josephus do not have any fleshy realm in the heavens either.

Amalek13 wrote:
Taking on the "appearance" of flesh doesn't suggest to me a literal human.

Paul used this terminology because for him Christ is mostly a heavenly creature and pre-existent. And "appearance" of flesh alludes to incarnation from a spiritual entity, the later being his normal condition.
For the same reasons, Paul never used "born" for Jesus (which would deny pre-existence), but "come".

Amalek13 wrote:
None provide anything resembling an historical context

But why would Paul want to provide that context (assuming it was not yet known by his audience, which probably was not the case)?
Was it important for his message?

Amalek13 wrote:
Any Messiah, even a spiritual one, would have to be the "seed of David" or Jewish given Scriptural requirements. Note that Paul never explains exactly how Jesus is of the lineage,

Do we know of any spiritual (heavenly) descendants of David? I think the OT has a lot of his descendants living on earth.
Why would Paul have to explain this lineage? More so that for Paul, Jesus as a descendant of David is not important (only one occurence of it in his epistles, in the one considered his last of the 7).

Amalek13 wrote:
Do you know of any historical figure at any point in history where an author writing about him felt compelled to declare he had been "born of a woman"?

In the entire passage, Paul is making a (dubious) point about Abraham's seed (singular) (from Ge24:7) to whom promises (about inheritance) were spoken (Gal3:15-17). And the seed is fulfilled in Christ, the Son sent by God, "come of a woman", as a Jew, opening the door for Christians (as followers of the seed) to be heirs according to the promise (Gal3:26-29, 4:4-5).
What striking here is the argument is "proved" by the coming of Jesus, not his death or resurrection. And Paul did not feel he had to explain that coming was unseen by humans because it happened in another world.
Since all the seeds of Abraham are humans who lived on earth, I'll have to be shown this one is the exception.
And all the women mentioned in Paul's epistles are also persons (fictional or not) described as living on earth.
PS: the seed in Ge24:7 is obviously Isaac, according to the context.

Best regards, Bernard

Layman

Do you know of any historical figure at any point in history where an author writing about him felt compelled to declare he had been "born of a woman"?

The phrase "born of a woman" is "a typical Jewish circumlocution for a human person." James D.G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, at 183. See also Richard Longenecker, in an article in Christianity Today-- http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2000/151/53.0.html ("Born of a woman is simply a Jewish idiom for being human.").

I have attempted to track down all uses that approximate the phrase "born of a woman." All of them are used as an idiom for a human being. None are ever used for any mythical savior god that never came to earth. When you said someone was "born of a woman" you meant that person was a human being. In fact, you were stressing that very point.

These examples range from the Old Testament, through the Dead Sea Scrolls, and into the Gospels of the New Testament.

1. Job 14:1-2

"Man, who is born of woman, Is short-lived and full of turmoil. Like a flower he comes forth and withers. He also flees like a shadow and does not remain."

2. Job 15:14

"What is man, that he should be pure, Or he who is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?"

3. Job 25:4

"How then can a man be just with God? Or how can he be clean who is born of woman?"

4. The Community Rule, 1QS, XI 20-21 (DSS-Vermes)

"Who can endure Thy glory, and what is the son of man in the midst of Thy wonderful deeds? What shall one born of woman be accounted before Thee? Kneaded from the dust, his abode is the nourishment of worms."

5. Hymns and Poems, 21. 22-23 (DSS-Vermes)

"It is they purpose to do mightily and to establish all things for Thy glory. [Thou hast created] the host of knowledge to declare (Thy) mighty deeds to flesh, and the right precepts to him that is born [of woman]."

6. Hymns and Poems, 23. 12-13 (DSS-Vermes)

"Thou didst open [his fountain] that he might rebuke the creature of clay for his way, and him who is born of woman for the guilt of his deeds."

7. Sirach 10:18

"Pride was not made for men, nor furious anger for them that are born of a woman."

8. Luke 7:24-28

"Yes, I say to you, and one who is more than a prophet. "This is the one about whom it is written, 'Behold, I send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you." I say to you, among those born of women there is no one greater than John; yet he who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.""

9. Matth. 11:7-11

'Behold, I send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.' "Truly I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist! Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he."


The evidence is clear. The meaning of the words used and the strong attestation of their usage both lead to the conclusion that when Paul describes Jesus being "born of a woman," he is saying that Jesus was a human being.

Against the meaning of the words and the attestation of usage, Doherty offers an inapposite example--that of Dionysis. But the idiom "born of a woman" has not been shown to have ever been used to refer to Dionysis. At most, Dionysis was described as having a mother. Which actually undercuts Doherty's argument. Dionysis was believed to have had a mother and was believed to have been born on earth in the city of Thebes.

In other words, BM is absolutely correct on this.

edited by Toto to hot link url

NOGO

Your statement about GJohn is a popular misconception.
Nowhere in John does Jesus say that he is equal to the Father.

I recommend that you re-read GJohn.

Jesus (that man) goes out of his way to say that the things that he says and does are not his but that the Father within him (the man) does His (the Father's) work.

Read in particular John 6:32 to 6:63
Note the contrast between what Jesus says in public and what he says to his disciples in private.

When Jesus says "I am the bread from heaven" "He who comes to me will not hunger"

What he really means is
"The words that I say are the bread from heaven etc."

6:54 "He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. "

The flesh is the word of God. The Paul's Lord's supper is an exchange of the word of God ie the bread from heaven.


GJohn is therefore an attempt by the author to bring together the Heavenly Christ of Paul with the earthly Jesus of Mark. In GJohn Jesus the man is possessed by the heavenly Christ who is a divine entity.
That is Doherty's position.

There is, therefore, no "progression". It is more like a bridge between two very different Christian beliefs. An attempt, perhaps, at reconciliation.