Juststeve

What rings true to me is that a man in the situation Jesus was in described by Mark would be praying for deliverance from a nasty and impending fate. What does not ring true to me is the behavior of Jesus prior to his arrest as described by John. My basis for understanding how some men behave as they face death is having been there with them. A lot of them prayed for deliverance.

As to the use of the phrase “rings true” those of you who think it is a phrase used exclusively by fundamentalist really need to read a little more broadly.

Steve

dizzy

Yes, it is a staple of mainstream scholarship. And it is a faulty metric. Gut feeling, personal experience, anecdotal evidence... are all faulty metrics. Maybe it "rang true" to the writer of Mark. Maybe that's why he wrote it. "Rings true" has no bearing on historicity.

show_no_mercy

There are a number of problems with this scene in Mark.

First, Jesus' prayer is redundant if we take it as an authentic prayer. The historical Jesus was supposed to be a native Aramaic speaker. His prayer in Mark 14 starts with the Aramaic word for "Father" -- Abba -- and then he says father again in I'm assuming Greek since that's the langugae that Mark wrote in.

Second, if this was an authentic prayer... who was around to hear it and record it? The entire point of this pericope is that the disciples were asleep and failed to keep watch. Jesus was completely by himself with no other witnesses around.

Third, which I think is most significant, is that a couple of scenes after this prayer we are introduced to a character called [Jesus] BarAbba. Bar Abba means "son of the father". This Jesus is the polar opposite of the Jesus presented up to now in Mark's gospel - an violent insurrectionist. It seems as though the redundancy in Jesus' prayer at Gethsemane was to let the reader know what the word "abba" means so that they could identify the ironic contrast. A Jesus who is only the son of the father in name is released while the Jesus who is the real son of the father gets executed.

Juststeve

Dizzy:

Everyone, including you, based on experience, has formed expectations about what is or is not likely to be the case under certain circumstances. When a report confirms to those expectations it rings true to use. When it doesn’t it doesn’t ring true, and we quite reasonably require more evidence of a proposition which doesn’t ring true than one that does.

If a guy living in a trailor park in rural Arkansas tells us he drank a six pack and went to bed early we are probably going to believe him without much additional evidence. If the same guy tells us he was abducted by aliens, taken aboard a space ship, had his rectum probed and then went to bed I’m going to want a bit more evidence. How about you?

The witness is the same in both cases. The difference is that in one case the story rings true, in the other it doesn’t.

Now to ancient history. There are historical reports that Constantine won a battle at the Milvian Bridge. There are also reports that he raised a dead soldier back to life with a touch of his hand. I believe the first but it is hard to imagine evidence that would be persuasive enough to convince a reasonable person of the latter proposition. It doesn’t ring true.

Contrary to what you assert it is impossible to evaluate evidence for proposition, historical or otherwise, without some foundational assumptions about what is or is not likely to be the case. In other words what does or does not ring true. Historians, scientists, lawyers and the man on the street operate from such assumptions all the time and it is right that they do so.

Steve

Juststeve

No Mercy:

Everything you say is true but it hardly goes to what I said. I said that Mark’s description of a man about to be arrested and killed by the Romans rings true and John's description does not. The same exact point could be and often is made about the behavior of characters in acknowledged works of fiction. The character either rings true or he doesn’t. In my judgment Mark's depiction of Jesus at this moment rings true, John's does not. You are free to differ.

Steve

bacht

Depends on who Jesus was: a channel for God's spirit, separated at his death? Or John's pre-existent Logos?

As mentioned, Jesus bar-Abbas is the guilty one, yet the innocent Jesus is the one who gets killled. Isn't this the whole point of the Passion, the suffering of the Righteous One?

All the way through Mark no human except Peter recognizes Jesus' true identity, and no-one stands by him at the arrest. In John Jesus' identity is clear from the first verse, and those who don't recognize him are wilfully blind. He welcomes the arrest and execution as fulfillment of the divine plan. It's a march to victory, whereas Mark is more of a tragedy.

dizzy

First of all, let me say that I appreciate your response. It directly addresses the issue.

This is the heart of the problem. Why wouldn't we believe the alien abduction story? Not because it doesn't ring true. But because it violates our understanding of natural laws, and because it conforms to the tropes and conventions of folklore. That makes it less plausible than the drunkard in Arkansas. But it still doesn't demonstrate that the drunkard's story is likely to be true. What you've done here is to juxtapose a rather tame story next to an outrageous one, and this has a rhetorical effect. The tame story is less likely to be questioned when it stands in direct contrast to an alien abduction. And in the same manner you have juxtaposed a story from Mark next to one from John. This has a rhetorical effect. You are playing a trick on yourself. As show_no_mercy pointed out, the writer of Mark may have had literary reasons for what he wrote. But next to John's account, which seems to epitomise literary fabrication, it's hard to imagine Mark's as being equally fabricated.

I accept that assumptions are made. But those assumptions need to be challenged and qualified. And before this can happen, they need to be stated. When someone says "rings true" they are not explaining their assumptions, which therefore can't be examined. So it's not useful to talk about what "rings true". It's too vague, and truthfully it's just phony. It means "I don't want to talk about it".

Juststeve

Bacht:

You are right but I think I have made it plain from the outset who I think Jesus was. A human being, an itinerant preacher, a guy who got cross ways with the Romans and crucified. Might add some other not improbable details but you get the point. Later fanciful tales grew up around him.

As an atheist I could hardly regard him either as John’s Logos or Mark’s channel for God’s spirit. As one who thinks he was a man and not a God Marks description of him as he awaits arrest rings true to me and John’s doesn’t. Mark depicts him as behaving as I’ve witnessed men behave in similar situation. Mark depicts him as acting like I would expect a man to act under those circumstances, John doesn’t. Why anyone would feel the need to debate such a simple and ultimately meaningless point is beyond me.

If I were to change my entire world view and regard Jesus as God All Mighty in a temporary skin suit then I would have no idea what to expect of him. How could I?

Steve

Juststeve

Dizzy:

I agree that even if an assumption rings true it still must give way to contrary data. If that's what you mean by challenging assumptions we are in agreement.

Steve

show_no_mercy

Where is the impetus for Jesus to know that he's about to be arrested by the Romans and crucified? There's no naturalisic reason for Jesus to know about it. But there's certainly a supernatural reason for it. Jesus makes this prayer in Gethsemane because the Jesus depicted here knows that his death is for the salvation of mankind.

Under the usual secular historical Jesus interpretation, Jesus and his disciples were supposed to be caught off guard by his crucifixion and death. Which is why "no one would invent a crucified messiah". The Jesus in Mark 14 is not someone who is caught off guard by his crucifixion; he knows that this crucifixion has to take place and prays that he doesn't have to go through with it.

So the HJ approach makes no sense of this pericope, for this reason and the reasons that I outlined in the previous post.