Metacrock

You have no way of knowing that! You have no evidence for it. How do you know it's relating it to a fictional figure? Are you saying that the authors of the Q source knew he was fictional? And also, what if one doesnt believe in Q? I mean there is no Q it was the invention of 19th century scholars.

No, you are wrong. There's tons of data. There is good textual data which proves that some kind of prior sources existed and can be pushed back to AD 50.

None. No argument on this account has ever gain wide acceptance. Such arguments are put forward, like the oral transmission claim, to enable scholars to avoid being compelled to conclude that Mark was the source of it all.



[color=blue]So you think Crosson doesnt' have wide acceptance? I doubt that you've heard of Helmutt Koster, but he definately has wide acceptance, and those are not the only two who support that view. The evidence is in the texts, it's there to be seen. The scholars talk give it. It's presented. I can't go get the Diatresseron and show you but it's clear if Koster has even a slight bit of expertise.[/font]


As for the claim that these sources were invented for some reason, you have no evidence for that. There are doctuments form the period saying so, and nothing more than conjecture.

I never said any "sources" were invented. I believe Q existed as a real document used by Luke, though it may have attributed its sayings to some other figure. Mark invented his stories about Jesus, that's what I said, and did not use sources, except perhaps for certain sayings, and of course the OT to build up his stories.

I meant that you said the material was invented.

The limitations on Christian creativity can be documented easily enough through the similarity of texts.

Sanders wants to claim that Christian creativity was not extensive. Obvious bullshit. Half of Paul's canonical letters are forged, there are other known forged letters of correspondence between Paul and Seneca, Jesus and Agbar, as well as 30 gospels, including fanciful infancy gospels, as well as acts of Paul and Thecla, Acts itself, the heavily redacted and edited and interpolated gospel of John, as well as interpolations and redactions throughout many Christian documents, and of course, demonstratable creation of stories, such as the Passion, built out of other sources, the OT, Josephus. Sanders claim is pure bullshit. Christians were early and ardent forgers.



[color=blue]First, you are getting way up into fourth centruy material. Of course if you go through the centuries you find more and more veriations. But in terms of the life span and writting of the four canonical Evenagelists.

Secondly, most of those don't so much represent creativity as they represent some latter splinter groups take on a pre set story line that they never depeart from. They even use previous documents to forge them, and they never abandon the basic story line of the Jesus story.[/font]




The sytax shows us they are copied from prior soruces. you just don't make the very same sentence structure as somone else working independently. the argument about copying OT just shows a lack of understand about the way things were done in the ancient world. They liked the OT a lot, it was their primary text, they loved to make litterary allusions to it.

Metacrock, you know as well as I do that the Passion story is not a set of allusions, but at every level it is built out of the OT. As Crossan stated, there is nothing left but the brute fact of Crucifixion.

I don't know that and neither does Crosson. Because he agreed with Koster about the empty tomb being part of the orignal Cross Gospel as early as AD 50.

As for allusions to OT, GPete is based upon OT while Matt isn't.




That argument has been so defeated by scholars today. Almost no one believes that the passage is 100% interpolation. Almost all scholars accept some core witness to Jesus as a historical figure. Your argument is analogous to an astronmer trying to plug the steady state theory.

Metacrock, in all other texts, when a passage has clear seams on each side, contains non-authorial language, interrupts the flow of the text, has no record for a couple of centuries until it suddenly appears, etc ,etc the whole passage is condemned as an interpolation. Only in this passage are those sensible principles condemned. It is one of a number of scholarly inventions that make Jesus Historicism plausible and compromise with believing scholars.

[color=blue]that is total and absolute bullshit! I've read tons of scholars on textual criticism, from A.D. Knock to Goodspeed and canon Streeter, and Ramsay and all kinds of scholars right up to David Kealsy and Helmutt Koster and I have never seen one of them say "well if there is an interpolation or emmindation or a gloss on a text then whole text is pure fabridcation!" That is not one of their principels.[/font]



Is The Bible The Word fo God?

Vinnie

Just like the iterpolation "arguments" of mythicists and HJ agnostics?

Vinine

Metacrock

this is from my historical Jesus pages; on the assumption that the TF can't be trusted:



The Testimony of Josphus is the most important extra Biblical evidence for the existence of Jesus, owing to the fact that he is our most authoritative source for events of the first century in Palestine. For this reason, sketpics are adimate about denying the authenticity of the two passages in which Joephus mentions Jesus. Often one will hear skeptics entone some statment to the effect that, "no serious scholar accepts that passage," or "all real scholars know that it was made up." Often they don't even bother with the notion that the passage was "tweeked" to include Christian sentiments. They blythly accept the idea that the whole thing was made up and Josephus never mentioned Jesus at all. It is far from the truth that most scholars agree with that. In fact most scholars now days agree that there is a core passage mentioning Jesus, but that it was added to with christian phrases such as "if it be lawful to call him a man," and the like.

Even the major atheist amature scholar of the secular web, Jeff Lowder, agrees that the passage is genuine, at least in its core."In conclusion, I think McDowell is right to appeal to the Testimonium as independent confirmation of the historicity of Jesus. " He quotes Louis Feldman as saying that the authenticity of the James passage in Jospehus "has been almost universally acknowledged."(Louis H. Feldman, "Josephus" Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. 3, pp. 990-1.)


As to the major passage, the "TF," Most scholars agree that it at least has a core of authenticity, but has been reworked. Thus most scholars agree that Jospheus does at least mention someone named Jesus of Nazerath who probably give rise to the Christian movment. According to Louis H. Feldman in "The Testimonium Flavianum: The State of the Question" in Christological Perspectives, Robert F. Berkey and Sarah A. Edwards (New York: Pilgrim, 1982) there are liberal scholars who leave the entire passage intact! (e.g. A.M. Dubarle, the French scholar). Feldman's count: 4 scholars regard as completely genuine, 6 mostly genuine; 20 accept it with some interpolations, 9 with several interpolations; 13 regard it as being totally an interpolation.[ Feldman, Louis H. Josephus and Modern Scholarship. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1984. P. 684-91]


A List of Scholar who accept at least some core passage.



John P. Meier
Raymond Brown
Graham Stanton
N.T. Wright
Paula Fredrickson
John D. Crossan
E.P. Sanders
Geza Vermes
Louis Feldman
John Thackeray
Andre Pelletier
Paul Winter
A. Dubarle
Ernst Bammel
Otto Betz
Paul Mier
Ben Witherington
F.F. Bruce
Luke T. Johnson
Craig Blomberg
J. Carleton Paget
Alice Whealey
J. Spencer Kennard
R. Eisler
R.T. France
Gary Habermas
Robert Van Voorst
Shlomo Pines
Edwin M. Yamuchi
James Tabor


Alice Whealy, Berkely Cal.

The TF controversy from antiquity to present



Twentieth century controversy over the Testimonium Flavianum can be distinguished from controversy over the text in the early modern period insofar as it seems generally more academic and less sectarian. While the challenge to the authenticity of the Testimonium in the early modern period was orchestrated almost entirely by Protestant scholars and while in the same period Jews outside the church uniformly denounced the text's authenticity, the twentieth century controversies over the text have been marked by the presence of Jewish scholars for the first time as prominent participants on both sides of the question. In general, the attitudes of Protestant, Roman Catholic, Jewish and secular scholars towards the text have drawn closer together, with a greater tendency among scholars of all religious backgrounds to see the text as largely authentic. On the one hand this can be interpreted as the result of an increasing trend towards secularism, which is usually seen as product of modernity. On the other hand it can be interpreted as a sort of post-modern disillusionment with the verities of modern skepticism, and an attempt to recapture the sensibility of the ancient world, when it apparently was still possible for a first-century Jew to have written a text as favorable towards Jesus of Nazareth as the Testimonium Flavianum.



Josephus'Testimony to Jesus: by Dr. James D. Tabor

Testimonium Flavianum)
Josephus, Antiquities
18. 63-64



"We have only three Greek manuscripts of this section of Josephus, all from the 11th century. These phrases, added rather clumsily, appear to be rather obvious additions even to the modern reader in English. Once restored to its more original reading Josephus offers us a most fascinating reference to Jesus. Indeed, it is the earliest reference to Jesus outside the New Testament, and its rather matter of fact, neutral reporting, makes it all the more valuable to the historian. It is worth noting that in his earlier work, The Jewish War, written shortly after the revolt under the auspices of the Emperor Vespasian, he mentioned neither Jesus, nor John the Baptist, nor James, while in the Antiquities, written in the early 90s C.E., he mentions all three. For an excellent discussion of this text see John Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus(Doubleday, 1991), Vol I, pp. 57-88.

Metacrock

well it wouldn't be the first time. so spit it out! how??????


Is The Bible the Word of God?

Metacrock

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Iron Monkey:
*

Quote:

Then the assertion that early skeptics never doubted the historicity of christ

what skeptics? when? What century?



*Is The Bible the Word of God?

Metacrock

LOL. I'm sure that assuming such a position saves them lots of actual thought on the topic.

I bet you would give short shrift to my Ancient Rome didn't exist theory. They don't wate their time on Big Foot either.

I think it is really ignoring the basis assumptions of historiography in this age.

Like Peter, I'd like a list of these.


Not just ignoring them I said, but also using ones that would never occurr to any real historian.

keyser_soze

Tell you what, I'll give you core on josephus. I'm sure vorks will do the same. But it has been modified, without much doubt. And while we're using him as the "defacto" historical proof, perhaps you can tell me more about the other things in his volumes, including, if I'm not mistaken, one species of an animal giving birth to another species? And was not one of his friends a TRUE miracle worker(meaning he healed people) also? Perhaps I am mistaken, and josephus was a rock of professional journalism....

keyser_soze

Point being, there are flaws in his works, and if you combine natural flaws, to the fact that it was not eyewitness accounts, to the fact that it was later MODIFIED by the christians....You end up with a very dubious source. The problem with christianity, is that MANY sources are proposed to try to support it's merit. The flaw in this proposal is that each of the sources is dubious, some downright STRETCHED to encompass this supposition. And the church's past is drowned in forgeries and icons that the mentality of the church has promoted. The histories have been rewritten, documents forged, all to support a belief system that is no more credible than the greek and roman gods. So why defend it in such a manner? Who knows, personal indulgences aside?

Ted Hoffman

Metacrock is arguing about the TFs authenticity? A case that was open and shut a while ago?
And he claims he is an unbiased historian?

AFAIK, the only Josephan passage that can be mildly used to argue the historicity of Jesus is The James Brother of Jesus reference (Antiquities 20).

And as I said - only mildly - because it has enough problems as it is but I'd rather not get into another discussion.

Metacrock asked:
1st century circa 50. Any skeptics - if any.

Kirby had stated earlier:
PS : Meta, you really ought to work on the UBB code/VB code and I find the blue rather distracting - but thats just me.

Vorkosigan

I think it is really ignoring the basis assumptions of historiography in this age.

Like Peter, I'd like a list of these.

Not just ignoring them I said, but also using ones that would never occurr to any real historian. [/B][/QUOTE]

Meta, can you give us this list of basic assumptions mythers ignore? And the ones they have invented as well?

Vorkosigan