Gregg

Rad, I swore I'd never reply to any of your posts again, but I must say I'm impressed. You actually admitted that Doherty made a good point. There's hope for you yet!

Well, nah, probably not. You're still spouting this conspiracy nonsense, even though numerous people have told you numerous times that Doherty implies no conspiracy, so he has nothing to explain or offer proof for. Unless you're talking about the later Church editing and destroying documents that didn't agree with the orthodox viewpoint, something no serious Bible scholar or historian denies happened.

As to Paul, your explanation that "everyone was already familiar with all the details of the gospel story so nobody ever bothered to put them in writing until at least 35 years later" has already been trotted out several times in these HJ/MJ threads and has been pretty well shredded.

If everyone was already intimately familiar with all the details of the gospel story, then why was there all this controversy over the question of whether Christians had to follow Jewish dietary laws? Wasn't the Lord's teaching clear enough---it's not what goes into the mouth but what comes out that defiles? Why doesn't Paul write, "Look, when I was with you, I told you what Jesus said. Are you people deaf? Here, I'll spell it out for you."

And why were people going around claiming there was no resurrection of the dead? Why doesn't Paul nip that one in the bud by writing, "Hey, I personally met people who saw Jesus alive after he came out of his tomb. And you know about Lazarus. Are you calling me and all the orginal apostles liars?"

And isn't it just a little strange that Paul, who burns to share Christ's sufferings and know the power of his resurrection, tells of taking a trip to Jerusalem but doesn't bother to tell the faithful of his emotional, inspirational visits to the Garden of Gesthemane, Calvary, and the empty tomb?

Besides, Rad, it's not just Paul's silence you have to account for. It's the entire extant body of first-century Christian letters and epistles. No direct quotes from Jesus (the Sermon on the Mount? The last words from the Cross? Anyone?) or explicit references to his pre-crucifixion activities and teachings, no mention of a wandering star, wise men, a census, a flight into Egypt, a slaughter of innocents, a baptism by John, Herod, Mary, Mary Magdalene, Joseph, Joseph of Arimathea, Pilate, Judas, a triumphant, kingly entry into Jerusalem, throwing out the money changers, an arrest and interrogation, crowing cocks, sponges soaked in vinegar, crowns of thorns, signs nailed on crosses, lots cast for garments, eclipses, earthquakes, walking dead, ripped veils, names of apostles other than James and Peter, etc., etc., etc. For AT LEAST 35 SOLID YEARS nobody, but nobody, considers a single one of these details important enough to mention in a letter. "Everybody already knows that! I won't waste their time."

But what happens when somebody finally does decide to write the story down, 3 or 4 decades or more later, and this document and a few others that borrow heavily from it finally become known and accepted in much of the wider Christian world, 4 or 5 more decades later? Christians start talking about all these things and never stop. It's 1,800 years later and they still haven't stopped talking about them. They've expended endless rivers of ink and endless reams of paper and filled whole libraries writing about them, analyzing them, debating them, interpreting them. Now they do it on TV and the Internet. They've argued themselves hoarse over them. They pack churches every Sunday to listen to ministers preach about them. Every Christmas thousands of churches put on yet another Christmas play, and every Easter they put on yet another Passion play.

But at the very beginning of the faith, the crucial, fragile beginning when it was so vitally important for people to believe, to understand, to keep up their faith, to get it right--"Well, we told'em once. No need to tell'em again, even if it seems like some of them didn't get it the first time."

Did someone mention Occams Razor?

Gregg

Vinnie

I take it you would agree that the same comments can be extended towards Earl Doherty if Intensity relayed his view correctly in this thread:

A mythicist overlook a crucial piece of data? Blasphemy! Never!

I read the first half of the post you cited from Kirby and skimmed the rest. What exactly was the point in your posting that? That is was less clear? None of that material is new news here and I don't know if you are trying to imply that second centruy texts are going to supercede or argue against this early and multiply attested tradition found in a variety of sources and forms.

Are you saying that discrepancies of who the actual twelve were between the Gospels leads us to believe the twelve was not historical despite the evidence for it? What exactly makes my argument too simply?

I honestly didn't see much if anything in there from Kirby that argued against the historicity of the twelve or my earlier postings. If you know of something I missed please point it out and or any errors in my post. I will be happy to discuss the issue point by point if you like. Did you want me to hit Bill's 6 points?

Vinnie

Radorth

Well I disagree. His thesis implies all sorts of conspiracies to invent a historical Jesus, collude on or copy Gospel's, etc. I call copying a Gospel you have no good reason to believe a conspiracy. I call writing Acts in 110 a conspiracy.

That is not what I said. What I said was that there were plenty of notes, pieces of information written down, a Q gospel, eyewitness testimony, and yes the Gospel writers sat down and pulled it altogether at some point. It makes perfect sense. Who writes their memoirs at age 30? Besides that, they thought the Lord would return very soon, so why write anything down until you realize it might be awhile? Again what is the problem?

My, do you think a Jew hearing the Gospel one time is going to just chuck his whole belief system? Have you ever noticed how people disagree about interpretations? Ever heard of a Designer Christian who picks out what he likes and rejects what he does not? How can you complain about divisions among Christians who've had the Gospels in hand for 400 years and then turn around and make this argument?

Er, that's exactly what he did.

We had this discussion before. Lots of people burn to share in his sufferings who have no desire to go to Calvary. I suppose those who want stigmata to develop in their hands tend to take such pilgrimages, but I don't. I also pointed out that the Federalist papers sat around for thirty years before anybody took enough interest in them to catalogue and protect them, and that Bradford's history of the pilgrims was simply lost for 200 years. Did people flock to Plymouth rock in 1640? The most famous historical sites are often forgotten and torn down, much to the chagrin of historians now. You are talking about sentimental stuff here, not spiritual stuff IMO.

Well OK the few references of the fathers need to be explained, however the argument wouldn't be much different. The biggest problem is that so many scholars think mark was written in 60-70, so you have to answer them as well. If the Gospel was there, then we can safely assume the earliest fathers had it, and again, maybe it was common knowledge. There are other explanations as well.

More later. Contrary to various rumors being spread by my disciples, I eat regularly.

Rad

Radorth

Heb 6:

"Therefore leaving the discussion of th elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of the resurrection of the dead...."

Now I ask, if these are considered "basic" and unworthy of repetition in 70 AD or so, how "basic" would the crucifixion and resurrection of a physical Christ be? It is as if you, not the Christians here need to hear such details. We already believe while you don't even accept basic stuff. It's like you are telling us what you would need to believe, and assuming that is Paul's hearers needed as well. I'm simply saying they heard and believed the Gospels already, and that old ladies were already expounding on Jesus' parables and maybe from copies of Mark. Why is that a stretch? Why is I any more of stretch than Doherty's pontifications and alternate readings?

Paul complains about having to feed the flock with milk, but you want to hear him say "I was there! I knelt where Jesus died! I kissed the ground he walked on!"

That's milk, to me. I don't need that kind of sentimental vouching to bolster my faith.

Which reminds me. One of the reasons Peter II is rejected is because there is too much "vouching" in it. I'm not surprised. There is either too much or too little of whatever JM'ers are looking for to enable a straightforward explanation.

Rad

Vorkosigan

A mythicist overlook a crucial piece of data? Blasphemy! Never!

Happens all the time.....

I read the first half of the post you cited from Kirby and skimmed the rest. What exactly was the point in your posting that? That is was less clear? None of that material is new news here and I don't know if you are trying to imply that second centruy texts are going to supercede or argue against this early and multiply attested tradition found in a variety of sources and forms.

Peter's point is that the "tradition" is not as clear or as fixed as you might think. For example, when you say "the Twelve" who do you mean? Since I think the whole of NT writings are all second century, with the exception possibly of the authentic letters of Paul, as far as I know all attestation for any tradition is late. It is signicant that the only Pauline reference to the twelve is in the controversial and possibly (I would say probably) interpolated passage in 1 Cor 15. In other words, "the Twelve" appear to be a late-breaking legitimation strategy -- some manuscripts of Mark 3:14 do not have the line about them being apostles, only that they were "appointed" -- of some kind or other, or, maybe astrological (as I think Goodenough argued) maybe eschatological and relating to the Twelve Tribes. In any case, I doubt very much that the Twelve existed as a first-century entity. Most likely they are second-century back-projection, theological and political back projections.

Of course this does not rule out a circle of apostles running the show in the first century! I don't doubt that there was a group of people, headed by James, running the show.

Are you saying that discrepancies of who the actual twelve were between the Gospels leads us to believe the twelve was not historical despite the evidence for it? What exactly makes my argument too simply?

No, I think the discrepancies + the fact that they occur only in late and interpolated documents + the fact that '12" is a number of enormous numerological/national significance + the fact that the gospels are theological fictions full of legitimation strategies + the existence of multiple "groupings" of apostles (seven, 12, 40) all count against the existence of some fixed "12" as a historical entity. The preponderance of weight is on the non-existence side. Most likely the number of apostles was more or less fluid and they grouped themselves into factions led by influential individuals, as commonly happens today in face/shame cultures, where patronage networks and connections are so important. I often wonder if the gospels were not written for "communities" so much as factions within the Church.

I honestly didn't see much if anything in there from Kirby that argued against the historicity of the twelve or my earlier postings. If you know of something I missed please point it out and or any errors in my post. I will be happy to discuss the issue point by point if you like. Did you want me to hit Bill's 6 points?

I've lost the thread of this discussion, it has been so long!

I think Kirby said it at the end....

• So it seems that we are narrowing our focus prematurely when asking, "Are the Twelve historical?" We should really be asking, "Are the Two or the Three or the Five or the Seven or the Twelve or the Seventy historical?" At the least, I think that the tradition of the Seven deserves consideration along with the tradition of the Twelve.

Maybe you should read his whole post. It was extremely interesting and informative.

Vorkosigan

Gregg

Personally I think "running the show" is a bit strong. I don't think Paul and the Jerusalem church were as influential as they seem to have been, IN THEIR OWN TIME. It's just that their general take on the Christian message ("Christ crucified") is the one that won out in the end, with a lot of help from Mark and the other gospels based on it.I've always believed this. "Mark" I feel was definitely written solely for the community Mark lived in, mainly as a teaching and liturgical tool. Some factionalism, competition between communities, and clashing theological perspectives probably started creeping in to subsequent gospels based on Mark. While we know that Paul and other epistle writers complain about Christians who didn't preach Christ crucified, or thought you needed to be a Jew before you could become a Christian, etc., this was in the early stages of the faith, when it consisted of a wide variety of sects with the preaching of the Logos/Chist/Messiah being the one thing they all held in common. I don't think full-blown factionalism and political struggles began until the faith was pretty well established and temporal power was at stake. A cooling-off of eschatological fervor might have had something to do with it as well. The Temple destroyed but no End of the Age in sight?

Gregg

Vinnie

I don't have to mean any twelve specific people to think the twevle was historical. Read my E.P. Sanders citation again. This has little to do with the historicity here.

We have a fundamental disagreement here. We obviously cannot even begin to discuss the issue reasonably with such strikingly different Gospel presuppositions. Given that I accept the critical dating I find that many of the references Kirby brought up were late compared to this early and multiply attested tradition of the twelve.

We also disagree here. What reason is there for thinking this was interpolated?

That is all due to your Gospel presuppositions andm y views to mine. Given that most scholars do not agree with your thoughts about the dating of the Gospels it is no wonder that most of them have opposite conclusions as well on the twelve. We may use the same method but we disagree on the nature of the sources. This presents a problem as Crossan says, its all source and method! I do not see how we can discuss the historicity of the twelve when we view the sources so differently.

This whole business is becomming tiresome to me. I am no longer as interested in what I see as the reinvented-woven from whole-cloth NT scholarship of mythicists. I am also no longer interested in the reincarnated outdated scholarship of evangelical and fundamentalists that was woven from whole cloth itself! Both cases seem to be built on foundations of sand and require lots of what appears to be "special pleeding". When I get like this it means I need a break so please beg my pardon if I bow out of this for a while. I'm working on something now anyways that is keeping me occupied.

To say it again though, I think the only thing that we should discuss here is the sources and their nature, dating etc. Other than that, we are talking apples and oranges.