Lógos Sokratikós

And that is inappropriate for the subject because? Remember there are no "Jerusalem Post" or "La Stampa" archives to compare the info we find in the NT. All we can do is read it and judge on what is more or less "likely". It sucks, but there's nothing better. Genesis is easier, since it talks about creation in so-and-so time, the world is so-and-so years old, or Exodus with the captivity and plagues: all this can be tested, all this is falsifiable.

You can go on and on. My high-school Spanish teacher always said -and I will never forget- "el papel aguanta lo que le pongan en él": paper can hold anything one puts on it. Sure you can speculate on what happened. Nevertheless what I'm talking about is what is most likely given the text as is. A better method, methinks, than going to wild speculation. The Apostles saw Jesus? Hallucination! Jeez! Miracles? Propaganda put in the text to make "my god woweer than your god"! What if the writers of the Gospel(s), Q, or whatever, was an honest witness? Is this possible?

Yes, it is! Ever seen Benny Hinn's miracle crusades on TV? I have. I guess it must be quite electrifying to be there in person! As a psychologist I'd be delighted to witness that. It mesmerizes me... in a different way it mesmerizes the folks obviously having acute conversions when the guy presses their forehead. Which reminds me of a guy around 100 years ago that did the same mesmerizing pressing hysterical girls foreheads. Sigmund Freud. It is said there were more hysterics his day than ours, and that the nature of hysteria has changed quite a bit. That was 100 years ago approx. Imagine two millenia before old Siggy? That's another speculation. Could be.

The thing is we don't know. My point is that Jesus mythologists take the question way out any justifiable syllogistic hypothesis construction. And worse: they don't even present them as hypotheses, but as reasonable conclusions.

From a scientific point of view, horrible.

jjramsey

True. However, it is one thing to depict weaknesses in heroes in a story intended to be a rousing melodrama. It is another thing when a story shows signs of trying to make its protagonist(s) look like the best thing since sliced bread, only to admit a weakness and try to explain it away. One does have to be careful here, though. Mark is clearly trying to make Jesus look good, but doesn't seem to be attempting the same for his disciples, so the criterion of embarrassment is far more useful for Mark's portrayal of Jesus than it is for the portrayal of the disciples.

Amaleq13

The criterion of embarrassment is only helpful when we have a second author retelling a story and apparently changing that story in such a way that one can infer that the motivation was "embarrassment".

It is, however, of dubious value when applied to the original version of the story since the inference of "embarrassment" in that case tends to say more about the individual drawing the inference than about the author.

On what basis? What specific criteria or methodology can be relied upon to inform us of the "likelihood" of a given claim made within a text?

Is that why you appear to be refusing to deal with the dictionary definition of "myth" as it applies to the Gospels? You are confusing the recognition that the Gospels are Christian myths with a claim that Jesus is an entirely fictional character?

These are two different claims. The former is clearly open to the possibility of historicity while the latter is not.

Steven Avery

Except the situations were very different. Men of many nations and languages were gathered at Pentecost, and yes many of those languages would need translation, normally, for communication, unless there was a supernatural manifestation. In Acts 10 and 19 conversation was going on in a common language before the event.

jjramsey

That statement would be correct if you got rid of the "only." As it stands, you have mentioned one way of determining that material is embarassing and said it was the sole way of determining whether material is embarassing.

I think what is happening is that TheOpenMind thinks you are trying to set up a fallacy of ambiguity, that is, to talk about the materials in the Gospels as containing "myths" in the sense of "sacred story," only to turn around and use the term "myth" in the sense of fiction. That is, he does not think you are acting in good faith.

Vorkosigan

No. Whoever wrote Mark was certainly not a witness of Jesus, and the remaining writers all copied Mark. This is clear from numerous inventions, confusions, and errors in the text of Mark (negative evidence), and the widespread literary elements in the text (positive), including its invention of events out of the OT, its use of the conventions of Hellenistic fiction, and its appeal to Middle Eastern literary tropes.

Can you give some concrete examples? Apparently you are not aware of the sprawling and ongoing methodological debates we have here. So I'd like three concrete examples of this showing exactly what you mean, so we don't have meaningless exchanges on the topic.

Vorkosigan

Amaleq13

This statement would be more compelling if you were to provide another way. How else can "embarrassment" be reliably inferred except by observing how one author changes the story of another?

You may be right but I cannot control the faulty assumptions of others.

Amaleq13

Vorkosigan has pointed out that "embarrassment" might be inferred if an author is perceived as changing his own story against his apparent tendencies/preferences/prejudices. The reliability of that inference, I think, would be dependent on the accuracy of one's assumptions about those tendencies/preferences/prejudices.

Is that what you were thinking? If so, how would it apply to Mark?

Lógos Sokratikós

My dad has an old Oxford Concise Dictionary from the 1910's. It defines masturbation as "Self abuse". Guess what the history of sex therapy would be if researchers trusted dictionaries! :blush:
Now seriously, dictionary definitions depend on the definer. I wonder what the philosophical allegiance of the definer in this case is... hmmmm...

Lógos Sokratikós

I hope you're not talking about the links to the old Hebrew prophecies. For a claimant to the Jewish messianic hopes to have fulfilled anything but Jewish messianic prophecies would have been schizoid.

An appeal to Chinese tropes would have been... a miracle :angel: . Come on!

You could have a point here. Any examples?