Radcliffe Emerson

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Skeptical:
[QB]


A tremendous amount of scholarship has been devoted to recreating the background and circumstances under which the gospel stories were created. The evidence strongly supports the conclusion that whoever wrote the NT documents, they were not writing about eyewitness accounts. For starters, you can look at the forum on this site under Theism-Christianity-biblical criticism.

Not only that, the evidence strongly suggests Mark was written first, and Matthew and Luke are both essentially copies of Mark with the ideas changed to suit the opinions of those writers. Also the discovery of the Gospel of Thomas indicates they all just took stuff from that gospel and changed it.
There are so many changes in different bibles, different versions of individual gospels, etc, it becomes painfully obvious (to me anyway) that the bible is just a book. It's not a history of God, or a God favoring anyone. It's all individual books written by authors trying to influence people in their day to think the way they do.

Alexis Comnenus

Intensity - you are right that popularity is not the arbitor of truth but you and I are amateurs and should be swayed by the opinions of professionals. Their opinions on MacDonald's thesis are that he has pointed out a valid idea for enquiry and then gone totally overboard with it.

I follow the standard Markan priority (written 65-75) plus Q model and believe this is the case for most scholars. I believe Matt and Luke to be independent and John a different tradition altogether. The only possible eyewitness gospel is John although I think it much more likely that certain eyewitness traditions were incorporated into a later Gospel.

In England, we tend to keep our religious proclavities to ourselves and I'm afraid I won't be advertising mine.

Regards

Alex

Ted Hoffman

Alexis,
Thanks for responding. I have never thought of myself as an amateur. Just as someone who has relatively less facts.
There is a huge difference between answering a direct question and advertising.
I have also noticed that it is not possible to send you a private message (actually, thats why I asked you in this forum - you obviously noticed it is an irrelevant matter).
Personally have never understood the importance of being so conservative and secretive. I find it queer and amusing.

TheDiddleyMan

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Alexis Comnenus:
[QB]you and I are amateurs and should be swayed by the opinions of professionals.

First of all, being "swayed" by a professional means that you agree with their arguments because you think that they are sound - which Intensity thinks they are, so he has, in fact, been "swayed" by a professional. Being swayed by a professional doesn't mean just conceding their opinions because they are professional opinions. Second of all, why should we just accept what professionals say, including what they say about the book on Homer and the Gospels? I realize that we should recognize our own limitations and lack of education compared to theirs, and give due respect. But it sounds to me like you are saying we should just accept the professional's opinion just because they are professional. Am I right, or have I misunderstood you?

CX

The problem is this argument is reversible. Although not as popular as 2 source theories like Q and Farrer, there are others that do not entail Marcan priority. I don't happen to find those theories compelling, but they are certainly worth noting.

As far as I know no scholar makes this assertion. The value of GThom is that it provides evidence of a sayings genre early in the Xian tradition. I think most conclude that GThom is either independent of the gospel tradition or borrows from it adding some sayings with a decidedly gnostic bent. Do you have any references for the claim that the gospels are in any way dependent on GThom?

Can you identify any variants of canonical texts which are doctrinally significant? Given the nature of the formation of the canon we should expect a high degree of uniformity in the canonical texts. I think this is precisely what we see. Anything that did not support the proto-orthodox position was excluded from the canon and branded as heretical. Also since we have scant manuscript evidence prior to the 4th century it becomes increasingly difficult to pin down the autographs to begin with.

Koyaanisqatsi

Um, if I can add something back on topic, if the question is whether or not the original Gospel authors lived during Jesus' lifetime and actually knew Jesus and were writing from memory, common sense tells us they couldn't be, since they all describe events that they couldn't possibly have been present for.

Unless Matthew was in Jesus' pocket or something:

Notice that nowhere in the account does it say, "Then Jesus and I were led up of the Spirit and this is what I saw and heard," which it would have to say if this were an eyewitness accounting of events.

The dialogue, sequence and detail of events, all of it would be impossible to relate directly from an eyewitness standpoint unless the author of Matthew was actually there with Jesus, and not just told by Jesus what happened after the fact (an even more unlikely event), so it's fairly reasonable to deduce that the author was simply using a literary style prevelant in the Hellenistic-Jewish circles.

Likewise with the resurrection myths. Mark, for example, doesn't say, "I met the Marys and we saw a man sitting in the tomb and we decided not to question who the fuck this guy was and what it was he did with the body, because we're just that stupid."

This is precisely why the cult has always maintained that the gospels are inspired.

If you want more scholarly analysis, however, an excellent book to check out would be <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1585672521/qid=1022005271/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/104-3316522-6916731" target="_blank">Jesus: One Hundred Years Before Christ</a>, by Alvar Ellegard (where he makes a compelling case that Jesus was actually crucified earlier than the first century) as well as two books by Burton Mack: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060655186/qid=1022005661/sr=2-3/ref=sr_2_3/104-3316522-6916731" target="_blank">Who Wrote The New Testemant? The Making of the Christian Myth</a> (where he goes into more detail about the literary style used by the authors and how such a style helps in properly investigating who wrote them) and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060653752/qid=1022005661/sr=2-2/ref=sr_2_2/104-3316522-6916731" target="_blank">The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q and Christian Origins</a> (where he goes into why Mark is considered to be the first myth and the rest just embellished his story).

Jayhawker Soule

Perhaps it's my novice status, but I found "Who Wrote The New Testemant? The Making of the Christian Myth" wholly unsatisfying. I remember plodding through page after page of story-telling wondering: "Damn -- when's he going to substantiate some of this?"

[ May 21, 2002: Message edited by: ReasonableDoubt ]</p>

TheDiddleyMan

[QUOTE]Originally posted by ReasonableDoubt:
[QB]Perhaps it's my novice status, but I found "Who Wrote The New Testemant? The Making of the Christian Myth" wholly unsatisfying. I remember plodding through page after page of story-telling wondering: "Damn -- when's he going to substantiate some of this?"

I'd agree. I'm no apologist (and I'm no expert either) but I can remember reading that book and not knowing where the hell he got any of his stuff. The dating stuff was interesting, but what about those many different original christian communities. IIRC, he pretty much had no facts to back them up. Of course, I should also point out, that as soon as you reject the gospels (and acts) as history, you have to dig very hard to get facts because all we have, pretty much, is what the christians are telling us. There are very few extra sources we can use to learn anything about Jesus or the original christian movement. (even the epistles don't tell us an inredible amount). Therefore, a non-christian scholar who doesn't accept everything at face value will have to speculate a lot, which is unfortunate. It really comes down to whose speculations sound the most reasonable. This isn't to say that there are any facts or anything, just not as many as we'd like.

Ted Hoffman

TheDiddleyman,
Thanks for voicing my position on the matter. You of course noticed that I asked Alexius where the Homeric stuff is unpopular and he did not provide an answer. Maybe its unpopular with him?
CX
You need to demonstrate that the argument is reversible; not just sing it.
Quoting from <a href="http://www.bowness.demon.co.uk/gosp1.htm" target="_blank">Steven Carr</a>:
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Of the 661 verses in Marks' Gospel, Matthew's Gospel uses about 607 and Luke's Gospel uses about 360. There are also about 230 verses which are very similar in Matthew and Luke, but which are not in Mark. Many Biblical scholars argue that , for these verses, Matthew and Luke must have used another written source, which is usually called "Q". The existence of Q is disputed, however it is almost universally agreed that Matthew and Luke knew of, and used, Mark.

Why would an eyewitness like Matthew need to use ninety percent of somebody else's book? Why would Luke, (a companion of Paul as it is said), need to use a written source like Mark? If Luke knew Paul and Paul knew Peter, and Peter told Paul many stories about Jesus, then Luke could have written about Jesus from what he himself had heard, rather than relying on second or third-hand information.
=================================================
This is the argument you need to reverse.
And you need to explain why you don't find "these theories" compelling.
Actually, I dont agree that we have to speculate. When debunking the Testimonium Flavianum for instance, one can pretty much build a compelling case not based entirely on speculation.
You see, its like detective work. They( the early christians - so-called church fathers) fabricated stuff, you have to demonstrate they did that. And it can be done. Based on the info thats available. And I believe its a lot.
You just need to grab what they present as evidence and pitt then against each other. Conflicts and contradictions abound. Even if one has to speculate, one can do so based on some info.
And hey, its not called speculation. Its called interpretation of the evidence available.

[ May 22, 2002: Message edited by: IntenSity ]</p>

Ted Hoffman

Oh and Koy (As Albert Cipriani used to call you), Thanks for the links and the contribution.
What the hell hapened to Albert? last thing I heard, he was fiddling with the child-lock lids as he sought to take anti-depressants.
Him and Amos, and Oh, Tercel. The most slippery theists I have ever met.