Freethought & Rationalism Archive

spin · 08-17-2009, 03:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vinnie

My two cents:

I'd start with the outside sources and work my way in.

Stratify Christian texts with thorough discussions of the more important ones for the questions of historicity. This includes the triple and double tradition material. The relationship between the triple tradition material and the Gospel of John. The relationship between the Gospel of Thomas and John. I would like to see my question on Pauline silence adequately addressed: is the argument from silence impacted in any way since 6 of the 13 Pauline epistles are pseudonymous and are more concerned with imitating Paul rather than the gospels? Other works seem to evince knowledge of some Pauline letters as well. To what degree is this silence predicated on seven works of Paul?

In addition the primary sources need to be analyzed for earlier written documents and sources. That "Mark made it all up from scripture" might win a few converts on the internet, but it won't go far in academia.

How does the mythicist position account for so much (apparently) independent and early material attributed to Jesus? Some of which goes against the theological grain. Is Mark's entire gospel an apology for the shame of the cross? (Gundry). Is the passion in Mark and John dependent or independent? Was there a pre-Markan PN (Brown, Death). After you stratify your sources, since the gospels appear to consist of movable pericopes you should complex them chronologically (Crossan, Historical Jesus). Is there a number of multiply attested traditions? Early traditions? Embarrassing traditions? Early, multiple attested and embarrassing traditions? Discuss the criteria of Meier, Sanders et al. Whether or not the criteria go back to the lips of Jesus, which logically they do not, is somewhat off topic for the question of the historicity of Jesus. For if they go back to the very early church I do not see mythcism as being tenable. You might of course disagree.

Take your own adivice in your review of Doherty and state how a different date to various works impacts your decision, how does a different theory of synoptic relations change things?

Not only that, but if you side on mythicism show how it account for the spread of historicism. Don't merely chronological locate texts, spatially locate them as well. It is often said that the four-fold Gospel was established ca 180 by Irenaeus. But how does a reference in Rome in 180 show the four-fold gospel was established across Christendom--or most of it? Was Rome the hub? Muratorian Fragment also represents Rome if dated to the later second century. Clement of Alexandria also tells us they made it to Alexandria just after Irenaeus at least.

Obviously this is a bit off topic, but I would like to see more concern for spatial locators as opposed to merely chronological ones, as if the Christian church grew linearly in all directions at a constant rate.

I would also like to see a listing of the original followers of Jesus in the first gospel and the references to them in Paul and all other independent works. Why are so many followers of Jesus listed in the context of an HJ independent of one another?

For example, Mark presents Peter as a follower of Jesus (duh). The historicist reads this in Paul while the mythicists says "nuh uh" you are projecting Mark into Paul. Now so lets say we abstain from Paul for a bit and move to Thomas. Well there we find Peter, Thomas, James, Mary Magdalene, all in the context of an HJ as in Mark. Obviously we need to be sure they are the same people but does the attestation here support reading historicity into Paul? We can look at all the names and how they are used up until 150.

If you accept the commonly shared dating that Paul's was the first christian literature you have to start with Paul, not Mark. From him you get a group of messianists in Jerusalem called James, Cephas and John. Of course it is only by retrojecting Mark into Paul that you make the connection between these people and characters from Mark. Obviously someone did so in antiquity, for we have the infusion of Petrine priority in Gal 2:7-8, though nowhere else in Paul.

You have to start from Paul, yet what you find is no necessary connection between what we learn from him and what we get in Mark at all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vinnie

I just don't see how, without dating certain works significantly later than its consensus opinion can lead one to mythicism.

History, read my lips, Vinnie, history is not democratic. It doesn't matter what lots of people say now about the past if it is not based on evidence. The evidence will beat them every time. It's a nasty business.

(And, just to remind you, I'm not advocating mythicism.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vinnie

That has always been my biggest complaint.

That's because you're not doing history.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vinnie

Doherty dates Mark 85-90. If we can find reason to date all the clearly historical texts...

(You always did put the cart before the horses, Vinnie.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vinnie

...further away from the time of Jesus then the mythicist case is more viable as extra time to develop from mythicist to historicity is avaliable. But with Mark writing ca. 65-75 (20 to 25 years earlier than Doherty believes) the only adequate explanation for the plethora of Jesus traditions we have, attested in different sources and forms in different spatial locations, is an HJ with accretions.

Answer me this, Vinnie, without retrojecting stuff into Paul, how do you know when Paul wrote?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vinnie

I still haven't seen a single convincing argument that suggests Mark had to be written after 60 C.E.,...

It was obviously written after the loss of the temple. You avoided the torn curtain issue.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vinnie

...this of course does not mean it does date that early. This needs to be accounted for. An anonymous Christian, possibly named Mark, writing in Rome or somewhere like Syria,...

(Remember any sources regarding "Syrophoenician" that were not Romans or Roman-based Greeks?)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vinnie

...is consistent, in my view with dates anywhere from 55-85.

Or 55-135.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vinnie

25 years is neough developmental tme for the traditions in Mark to have taken their shape.

Given your unfounded assumptions.

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Originally Posted by Vinnie

Curiously this is how Mark is dated so late, on the basis of an HJ and needed time for the development of oral materials.

Any more curious than the way apologists date everything early? I think not.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vinnie

All the mythcists have, it would seem, is chapter 13 and a ton of literature has gone into that. No one has ever brought forth any convincing evidence why we should date the text past 70 C.E.. I admit that it is a plausible view but dating Mark to 55 c.e. is as well. I still find ca. 70 to be the best overall fit, however. That is my $0.02.

We know your biases here, Vinnie, but your opinion isn't based on evidence.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vinnie

...This just serves to show neither you or anyone will come up with a perfectly objective method here....and that is not an insult to you or any other scholar. It is a factual statement about 2,000 years of Christian baggage.

I can basically agree with this. The interesting thing is that through such dialogue we have an opportunity to get closer to objectivity.

spin

Vinnie · 08-17-2009, 08:28 AM

Quote:

History, read my lips, Vinnie, history is not democratic. It doesn't matter what lots of people say now about the past if it is not based on evidence. The evidence will beat them every time. It's a nasty business.

Do you even respond to what people write? Or you just pluck out snippets and caricature someone's view? I presented that as an argument, on the basis of so much existing tradition attributed to Jesus.

Quote:

Answer me this, Vinnie, without retrojecting stuff into Paul, how do you know when Paul wrote?

I shouldn't even answer this. Carrier said he wants to bridge a gap. If you start dating Paul later no gaps will be bridged. It is counterintuitive to the stated purpose of the book. Bridging a gap will require Paul seven epistles to have been written when they were, the gospel of Mark to date before 80 C.E. and Matthew and Luke before 110 C.E.

At any rate, start with p46 and work your way backwards using the many external references. Then use Acts and the urgent eschatology and weave out a fit from there.

Quote:

If you accept the commonly shared dating that Paul's was the first christian literature you have to start with Paul, not Mark. From him you get a group of messianists in Jerusalem called James, Cephas and John. Of course it is only by retrojecting Mark into Paul that you make the connection between these people and characters from Mark. Obviously someone did so in antiquity, for we have the infusion of Petrine priority in Gal 2:7-8, though nowhere else in Paul.

You have to start from Paul, yet what you find is no necessary connection between what we learn from him and what we get in Mark at all.

Also the common "brother line" and how many pillar Peter's or Cephas were there? Though I suppose you'd distinguish Cephas from Peter ala Erhman.

Needless to say, I don't read Paul the same way as you. If all I had was Paul I would be a bit confused but there are still historical references there. Historical details are not required by that medium though Doherty at least attempts to point out places where certain sayings, if Paul knew them, would have fit well.

We use Paul but he doesn't provide much historical material so we go to our next earliest sources, Mark and Q. This is not democratic. Its source criticism. I was merely pointing out that we can possibly test the no or yes HJ in Paul theory by looking at other factors if we wanted to treat that initially in an agnostic sense. I do not treat it as such.

And an early apologetical date for Mark is 40 or 50, not 65-75. That is the point, the pologists want it eyewitness and early and the anit-apologist who enjoys critiquing fundamentalists on the internet dates them at the complete opposite extreme. While most critical New Testament scholars have put it ca. 70 C.E.

Vinnie

spin · 08-17-2009, 09:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vinnie

Quote:

History, read my lips, Vinnie, history is not democratic. It doesn't matter what lots of people say now about the past if it is not based on evidence. The evidence will beat them every time. It's a nasty business.

Do you even respond to what people write?

Usually, I do, Vinnie and in this case I have. It doesn't matter what all your collected opinions are. That doesn't seem to have sunken into your head yet. But trying to tell you that history isn't about those opinions but what the hard dirty nitty-gritty evidence says. Oh, I forgot, you haven't got any. That's why you're peddling opinions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vinnie

Or you just pluck out snippets and caricature someone's view? I presented that as an argument, on the basis of so much existing tradition attributed to Jesus.

You do a better job than I could at caricaturing your position.

Did you notice me telling you that tradition is not a good source of historical data at some stage?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vinnie

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Answer me this, Vinnie, without retrojecting stuff into Paul, how do you know when Paul wrote?

I shouldn't even answer this.

You didn't. Look at what you said:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vinnie

Carrier said he wants to bridge a gap. If you start dating Paul later no gaps will be bridged. It is counterintuitive to the stated purpose of the book. Bridging a gap will require Paul seven epistles to have been written when they were, the gospel of Mark to date before 80 C.E. and Matthew and Luke before 110 C.E.

Not a skerrick so far that hints at you answering the question, right? We have some of the dating assumptions you work by regarding the gospels.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vinnie

At any rate, start with p46 and work your way backwards using the many external references. Then use Acts and the urgent eschatology and weave out a fit from there.

I thought you were trying to give some clues about when Paul was actually written. ("how do you know when Paul wrote?")

Did you think you were answering the question I asked? If so, perhaps I missed it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vinnie

Quote:

If you accept the commonly shared dating that Paul's was the first christian literature you have to start with Paul, not Mark. From him you get a group of messianists in Jerusalem called James, Cephas and John. Of course it is only by retrojecting Mark into Paul that you make the connection between these people and characters from Mark. Obviously someone did so in antiquity, for we have the infusion of Petrine priority in Gal 2:7-8, though nowhere else in Paul.

You have to start from Paul, yet what you find is no necessary connection between what we learn from him and what we get in Mark at all.

Also the common "brother line" and how many pillar Peter's or Cephas were there? Though I suppose you'd distinguish Cephas from Peter ala Erhman.

I've been making the distinction for a decade. I even asked you for a reference to the stuff you mention regarding Ehrman, but you didn't notice that. I'd like to see what he has to say. It's only obvious to me as I've already said that Gal 2:7-8 were written after Petrine authority was established, because amongst other things the sole commission to Peter for the circumcised contravenes the shared commission attributed to all three pillars.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vinnie

Needless to say, I don't read Paul the same way as you. If all I had was Paul I would be a bit confused but there are still historical references there. Historical details are not required by that medium though Doherty at least attempts to point out places where certain sayings, if Paul knew them, would have fit well.

Talk to me, Vinnie, not to Doherty or people who follow his views.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vinnie

We use Paul but he doesn't provide much historical material so we go to our next earliest sources, Mark and Q.

And not knowing when these works were written you deliberately retroject.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vinnie

This is not democratic. Its source criticism.

Rubbish, Vinnie. You are simply tarring one text with another whose relationship to the first you refuse to demonstrate.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vinnie

I was merely pointing out that we can possibly test the no or yes HJ in Paul theory by looking at other factors if we wanted to treat that initially in an agnostic sense. I do not treat it as such.

And an early apologetical date for Mark is 40 or 50, not 65-75.

You have your own apologetic, Vinnie. Just because it isn't as conservative as some, doesn't make it any less apologetic.

Apologetics is like an onion: there are many layers. You cry at your layer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vinnie

That is the point, the pologists want it eyewitness and early and the anit-apologist who enjoys critiquing fundamentalists on the internet dates them at the complete opposite extreme. While most critical New Testament scholars have put it ca. 70 C.E.

And historians don't touch it with a barge-pole.

You will not face the fact that what you are talking about is simply taking a better defensive position. More OEC rather than YEC. YECs are too obviously ratbags. There is a better defense to hold onto OEC. You can tell me with a straight face that you know that Mark was written 65-75 C.E. when you have only a paltry fudge to give you such a date.

I must admit that I don't know when Mark was written. I assume on the torn curtain that it was post-temple destruction, but it could be with the loss of Jerusalem under Shimeon bar Kosibah. You could even be right about the date, but you can't know, though you can kid yourself.

spin

Steven Carr · 08-17-2009, 11:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vinnie

Non sequitur.

Your abuse of logic is stunning. If Christians invent stories to you they write pure fiction. If they don't invent enough stories to you they write pure fiction. I get it, really, I do. Its exactly similar to your textual critical view on the Pauline corpus.

Do you even realize how many Christian voices we do not hear from this poorly documented sect? By the time of Irenaeus there were probably ca. 100k Christians (using stark at 3.4% p.y.). You tell me how much literature we have and how many stories and voices we don't have. Go to Kirby's site and add them all up. Do it by generation (30-60, 61-90, 91-120, 121-150, 151-180). In addition, incorporate the urgent eschatology of the early church which might not make writing seem the most urgent of ideas or needs in an oral culture. We are talking pre-wikipedia here.

Vinnie

I see. So Mark wrote about all these people because the urgent eschatology of the church did not make writing seem the most urgent of ideas.

In fact, it was so urgent that nobody had time to ask James about his brother.

In fact, there is no evidence that these people existed, so an excuse has to be found why all these people are missing from recollections of Christians writing in the first century, apart from in anonymous , unprovenanced Gospels which can tell you even how scared Mary Magdalene was - although the very name is missing from Christian works which have some provenance.

Vinnie · 08-17-2009, 05:29 PM

Quote:

I've been making the distinction for a decade. I even asked you for a reference to the stuff you mention regarding Ehrman, but you didn't notice that.

Cephas and Peter
Author(s): Bart D. Ehrman
Source: Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 109, No. 3 (Autumn, 1990), pp. 463-474
Published by: The Society of Biblical Literature
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3267052
Accessed: 03/08/2009 00:34

But see also the older work:

The Cephas-Peter Problem, and a Possible Solution
Author(s): Donald W. Riddle
Source: Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 59, No. 2 (Jun., 1940), pp. 169-180
Published by: The Society of Biblical Literature
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3262521
Accessed: 31/07/2009 02:25

Vinnie

spin · 08-18-2009, 01:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vinnie

Cephas and Peter
Author(s): Bart D. Ehrman

But see also the older work:

The Cephas-Peter Problem, and a Possible Solution
Author(s): Donald W. Riddle

Thanks, Vinnie. That will be useful.

spin

Vinnie · 08-19-2009, 11:49 AM

Peter and Cephas: One and the Same
Author(s): Dale C. Allison, Jr.
Source: Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 111, No. 3 (Autumn, 1992), pp. 489-495
Published by: The Society of Biblical Literature
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3267263
Accessed: 19/08/2009 14:20

Direct critique of Ehrman.

I found that incidentally today while searching for articles on the Epistula Apostolorum and that came up, for obvious reasons. I only skimmed it but I will read it later. Always good to see two sides of the story.

spin · 08-19-2009, 11:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vinnie

Peter and Cephas: One and the Same
Author(s): Dale C. Allison, Jr.
Source: Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 111, No. 3 (Autumn, 1992), pp. 489-495
Published by: The Society of Biblical Literature
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3267263
Accessed: 19/08/2009 14:20

Direct critique of Ehrman.

I found that incidentally today while searching for articles on the Epistula Apostolorum and that came up, for obvious reasons. I only skimmed it but I will read it later. Always good to see two sides of the story.

Thanks. It came up for me while I was trawling JBL.

spin

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08-19-2009, 11:49 AM	#117
Vinnie Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: Waterbury, Ct, Usa Posts: 6,523	Peter and Cephas: One and the Same Author(s): Dale C. Allison, Jr. Source: Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 111, No. 3 (Autumn, 1992), pp. 489-495 Published by: The Society of Biblical Literature Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3267263 Accessed: 19/08/2009 14:20 Direct critique of Ehrman. I found that incidentally today while searching for articles on the Epistula Apostolorum and that came up, for obvious reasons. I only skimmed it but I will read it later. Always good to see two sides of the story.

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