Vorkosigan

Perhaps I wasn't clear. The writer of MARK knows Josephus.

Sure, but since Luke knows at least some of Mark (8,000 of Mark's 11,000 words are in Luke) then clearly Luke postdates Mark.

No, doesnt need to. When Independence Day copied its ending from Star Wars (1977) it added a bunch of stuff and removed other stuff, but it's still a copy. Likewise, Luke expanded Mark's text -- partly because s/he understood Mark was creating off the OT and so added additional details in some passages that represent parallels off the OT that Mark himself did not add.

Clearly not, because I'd never attribute anything to fictional characters like John Mark!

Sorry, but I said Luke had a version of Mark. Not the current full text. as I said in my previous post "Luke has to be later than Mark because its writer uses a version of Mark. "

You sure talk like one!

Vorkosigan

Adam

And repeating your assertion proves you're right? So I Googled "Josephus, Mark Gospel" and on the third page found The Flavian Testament by C. N. Carrington that makes most of its case assuming what it is to prove, even drawing upon documents centuries later:

"The story gets better as time goes on. In the later, Arabic, Infancy Gospel, there are two thieves who held up Joseph and Mary, with the infant Jesus, on their way to Egypt when they were fleeing Herod. The bad thief would rob and murder the holy family. But, the good thief recognized the baby Jesus as being born of God and let them go free. In the Arabic gospel the good thief asks the infant Jesus not to forget his kindness saying:"
Edited to add: Now I've gone over to your commentary on Mark, where your evidence is there, but slim in my opinion:
"Perhaps a stronger indicator of a late date is that the Crucifixion scene in which Jesus lives, while those on his right and left hand die, is strongly reminiscent of a similar scene in Josephus' Life, which dates from at least after 95, and more probably 110." I have to reply to the above as a group, because to all of them my answer is that that Luke used a version of Mark does not prove at all that Luke used a version of Mark that was written after 62 A.D. Are you congenitally unable to admit you are the source of a confusion or do you really not see that you have caused the logic-chopping? Looking at your personal information, the problem may be that English is your second or third language? That you were raised in some other culture than a nominally Christian one? Further edit: Joke's on me, Barrayar is the fictional world where you want to be. What Fundamentalist talks about Higher Criticism or sources underlying gospels? What Fundie even talks about any authors for the entire gospels besides Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John?

Vorkosigan

Sorry, I misread. Adam, it's pretty obvious from your "what's changed since 1993" that you haven't caught up. What's changed? Well, for starters, its been argued for a long time that the Crucifixion/Resurrection owes something to the crucifixion survivor in Antiquities. That predates 1993.

But more importantly, Craig Evans and Ted Weeden each published work showing that the Pilate trial scene depends on the Jesus. Here's a complete rundown:

• "Several scholars (Helms 1997, p37, Evans 1995, Sanders 1995, p266)) have observed that this scene has strong similarities with, and may be related to, a passage in Josephus, from Book VI of Wars:
  
  But, what is still more terrible, there was one Jesus, the son of Ananus, a plebeian and a husbandman, who, four years before the war began, and at a time when the city was in very great peace and prosperity, came to that feast whereon it is our custom for every one to make tabernacles to God in the temple, (23) began on a sudden to cry aloud, "A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the holy house, a voice against the bridegrooms and the brides, and a voice against this whole people!" This was his cry, as he went about by day and by night, in all the lanes of the city. However, certain of the most eminent among the populace had great indignation at this dire cry of his, and took up the man, and gave him a great number of severe stripes; yet did not he either say any thing for himself, or any thing peculiar to those that chastised him, but still went on with the same words which he cried before. Hereupon our rulers, supposing, as the case proved to be, that this was a sort of divine fury in the man, brought him to the Roman procurator, where he was whipped till his bones were laid bare; yet he did not make any supplication for himself, nor shed any tears, but turning his voice to the most lamentable tone possible, at every stroke of the whip his answer was, "Woe, woe to Jerusalem!" And when Albinus (for he was then our procurator) asked him, Who he was? and whence he came? and why he uttered such words? he made no manner of reply to what he said, but still did not leave off his melancholy ditty, till Albinus took him to be a madman, and dismissed him. Now, during all the time that passed before the war began, this man did not go near any of the citizens, nor was seen by them while he said so; but he every day uttered these lamentable words, as if it were his premeditated vow, "Woe, woe to Jerusalem!" Nor did he give ill words to any of those that beat him every day, nor good words to those that gave him food; but this was his reply to all men, and indeed no other than a melancholy presage of what was to come. This cry of his was the loudest at the festivals; and he continued this ditty for seven years and five months, without growing hoarse, or being tired therewith, until the very time that he saw his presage in earnest fulfilled in our siege, when it ceased; for as he was going round upon the wall, he cried out with his utmost force, "Woe, woe to the city again, and to the people, and to the holy house!" And just as he added at the last, "Woe, woe to myself also!" there came a stone out of one of the engines, and smote him, and killed him immediately; and as he was uttering the very same presages he gave up the ghost. (Whiston translation)
  
  Craig Evans (1995:108) analyzed Josephus's account of Jesus ben Ananias. Like Jesus, he predicted doom on Jerusalem and the Temple, even referring to Jeremiah's prophecy of judgment against the temple (Jer 7:34), just as Mark did in Mk 11:17. Note that the Jewish authorities arrest and beat Jesus ben Ananias and hand him over to the Roman governor, who interrogates him. He refuses to answer the governor, was scourged and then released. Although Jesus was not released, Pilate asks the crowd in 15:9 whether they want Jesus released, and eventually does release Barabbas, who, though Evans does not make the connection, is a double of Jesus. Lawrence Wills (1997, p160) further fleshes out the parallels:
  
  *he enters Jerusalem for a pilgrimage festival (Sukkot)
  *he delivers an oracle against Jerusalem, the Temple, and the people
  *he is seized by leading citizens
  *he is beaten, later scouraged
  *he offers no answer to interrogators
  *he is taken by them to the Roman procurator
  *he is considered a madman (exestokos; compare Mark 3:21 exeste, and also John 7:20)
  *he prophesies his own death
  *he dies
  
  One should add, of course, that his name was "Jesus."

Weeden came up with an even greater number of correspondences, 24 in all, as I recall. I don't know if he published yet; I saw his paper privately. He is/was a ranking Mark scholar

Luke knows of Mark's account of the destruction of the temple in Chap 13. That did not occur until after 62, hence the Mark version that Luke used must have been written after that date. Luke knows that Jesus didn't come immediately, since he corrects Mark to have Jesus saying this wouldn't happen right away, implying some distance in time from Mark's writing. Not to mention implying how little the gospelers cared for getting the story right! Luke also put the persecutions before the disasters, not after. Luke eliminates the Abomination of the Desolation. Luke is clearly writing from a much later period, as Luke knows that the Jews were dispersed among the nations.

So.... the issue isn't really my logic chopping. It's your understanding of the relationship between M and L. The redirection and rewriting of this passage along show how the writer of Luke simply invents what s/he needs and cares not a whit for historically accurate rendition.

I know some that do. Generally only fundies believe John Mark was a real person, AFAIK. And only fundies use a phrase like "Higher Criticism", for the rest of us, it is just scholarship or critical scholarship.

Vorkosigan

Steven Carr

Another person who has cut himself off from reality and is now building walls to keep the reality at bay.

Meanwhile, True Believers have no difficulty accepting the reality of the falsity of the Book of Mormon and the Koran.

Ruth Tucker is an evangelical Christian. In her excellent book, 'Another Gospel', (Zondervan,1989), she examines the beliefs of Mormons, Moonies, Jehovah's Witnesses etc. Here is what she says about the Book of Mormon.

"Many of the stories in the Book of Mormon were, as Fawn Brodie and many others have shown, borrowed from the Bible. The daughter of Jared, like Salome, danced before a king and decapitation followed. Aminadi, like Daniel, deciphered handwriting on a wall, and Alma was converted after the exact fashion of St. Paul. The daughters of the Lamanites were abducted like the dancing daughters of Shiloh; and Ammon, the American counterpart of David, for want of a Goliath slew six sheep-rustlers with his sling".

What could be more obvious and clear-cut?

Or take Chapter 2 Verse 249 of the Koran, which is about the first king of Israel, called Talut in the Koran.

So when Talut departed with the forces, he said: Surely Allah will try you with a river; whoever then drinks from it, he is not of me, and whoever does not taste of it, he is surely of me, except he who takes with his hand as much of it as fills the hand; but with the exception of a few of them they drank from it. So when he had crossed it, he and those who believed with him, they said: We have today no power against Jalut and his forces.

Christians will at once recognise this strange story about how God tested the army of the Israelites by making them drink from a river. It is found in Judges 7:4-7.

Why does reality work for every Old Book except the Christian one

Why does the Christian Old Book have a moat around it to keep the real world out?

Sheshbazzar

:hysterical:

That you would even venture to offer up this type of superstitious horse-shit, discredits damn near anything else that you might argue.

Adam

Reply to Vorkosigan #63:
OK, there is recent scholarship that Josephus influenced Mark, but apparently only in the current climate of aggressive Atheism is much weight being put upon it.
On the more general scholarship about Luke, it is clear now that your case is not that the basic version of Luke must be later than the latest version of Mark, but that it must be later than the Fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. However, this assumes what is to be proven. From the Atheist point of view, Jesus could not have made accurate predictions before the fact. Yet Jesus could have had supernatural knowledge or He could have been just lucky. And it's not just Atheists who make this presupposition--the consensus scholarship dates Luke after 70 A.D. for this same reason (of historiological convention). If we don't presume that Jesus coulld not have made accurate predictions about the future, the apparent date of writing for Luke returns to the conservative date of 62 A. D.

I have not encountered anyone but mythicists who deny that John Mark was a real person.
The differences in apocalypses between Mark and Luke do not show that Luke changed Mark, but that each adapted a common source. Thus Mark could be 65 A.D.
even with Luke 62 A.D.

Sheshbazzar

Excuse me dude, Are YOU an atheist?
You should damn well know that Atheists as individuals, do not hold any monolithic belief system.
And you not being an Atheist, cannot presume to state what constitutes; 'From "the Atheist point of view".

From this and a lot of other Atheists 'points of view', Jebus -IF-(a very BIG 'IF') any such person ever even existed)- looking around at the political environment and the fucked up world that they lived in, might very well have made such a prediction.
More of your superstitious horse-shit. Save this line of jive for your T-web buddies, they will suck it up.
Yeah, about as equally likely with Mark being a circa 65 B.C. fiction.

Adam

Yes, Theology Web is quite a toxic site. I've avoided its politics except for early in 2008 when I labelled "The Bush Depression" and was soon vindicated. I'm the one notorious over there for identifying the "Dirty Dozen", some of whom were active in your time there. You would probably recognize Darth Executor, Theonomist (now calling himself "Jack Bauer"), JPHolding, Little Shepherd, Mountain Man, One Following Him, and Sparko.
The Orthodox and the Atheists agree in dating John later, its sources could be earlier. Both the Signs Source (as with John 1 35-51 above) and the Passion Narrative are widely recognized as sources.
Judging from your Michael Turton Commentary on Mark, I see that you do well to reject my proposed sources for Mark. From your Topical Index about the Elijah-Elisha Cycle:
When I compared my two lists with your verses noted as E-E, I found them about equally split between my proposed Ur-Marcus and Q-Twelve-Source portions. My theory of two major independent sources does not support your analysis, as it is unlikely two writers would both have the same agenda.

bleubird

http://books.google.com/books/about/...d=kXdXKaJWs2UC
I am 'bout half way through this book,have read some books on the bible.
As Bart proposes,how can we know the bible?
What translation?
Over 30 thousand errors by Mill et all!

Adam

I suppose, bleubird, that the relevance of your Post #69 is that some skeptics like the Jesus Seminarare still striving to discover the historical Jesus, even though it seems most here on FRDB take the opposite approach of mythicism. From Michael Turton's Commentary on Mark:

Thomas L. Thompson (2005) argues:

"The most telling objection to using such sayings for reconstructing a historical Jesus is that these sayings can be shown to have had their origins too early -- far earlier than any possible historical Jesus."(p107)
This presents a perplexing cast of mind. I sort of understand it and sort of don't.
Google seems to indicate that Thompson is Vridar of the blog.