Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Stringbean · 05-12-2013, 05:27 PM

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Originally Posted by Adam

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Originally Posted by Toto

Of course - but how is this different from requiring skeptics to disprove his claims?

I have explained many times before that my thesis arose in 2011 in reaction against New Atheists dogmatically asserting that there are no gospel eyewitnesses. It didn't do any good to show that they were right that "Matthew" did not write gMatthew (because he would not have copied his own conversion story from gMark), but Mark 2:14 could have been his own entry in Q or the Twelve-Source. (The argument from Tradition for Matthew as author of Matthew applies as well to him as author of Q.) It didn't do any good to acknowledge that if John was the Beloved Disciple, then indeed he as a Galilean fisherman would not have written mostly about high theological controversies in Jerusalem, but this would not mean that he could not have added in John 13 as his own eyewitness testimony.

So I got busy and systematized it so that no one could say with a straight face anymore, "We know there were no eyewitness records to Jesus". It ain't necessarily (not) so. I found seven written records. Unless you guys prove them to be fiction, you can't say that any more. There is evidence. Deal with it or stop asserting you know there were no eyewitness records.

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I found seven written records. Unless you guys prove them to be fiction, you can't say that any more. There is evidence. Deal with it or stop asserting you know there were no eyewitness records.

They are right. There is none. And from what everyone else has said here in response to this there are no eyewitnesses to a Jesus. Where do any of them say what he looked like? Where is the forensic, documentary and archeological evidence? Where is something he wrote? Where is something he built? He was supposedly a carpenter right? You continue to assert your right but what have you shown? Encylopedia Biblica has it right went it said:

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the order of events in the life of Christ as given to us by the Evangelists are contradictory and untrustworthy and that the chronological framework of the Gospels is worthless. In other words Mark, Luke, Matthew and John wrote not what they knew but only what they imagined.

Adam · 05-12-2013, 05:31 PM

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Originally Posted by JoeWallack

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Originally Posted by Adam

Again, still waiting for engagement in Gospel Eyewitnesses per above

JW:
Toto, I know we Atheists generally don't believe in The Death Penalty but Adam is not providing any sensible Methodology here. I'm starting to fear that Jesus might actually return before this Thread dies (thereby making it eligible to be with us in Hell for all Eternity). I disrespectfully request that either Adam be required to list his Methodology here in outline form or we place the Thread in Solitary confinement with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and tell him it's a Jewish Thread.

Joseph

ErrancyWiki

Welcome to my world! I have started over two dozen threads here on FRDB and got up to 24 posts even on this abstruse

Truth Methodology
Post #2 is explicitly "Epistemology of Gospel Criticism" (from the second non-bolded paragraph)

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Originally Posted by Adam

I propose a new starting point. To reach Descartes’s dictum, “I think, therefore I am”, we must find some place in the gospels where an individual starts from his own knowledge. This point occurs in John 12 where Jesus comes for dinner to Bethany in the home of Mary and Martha and (and apparently also of John Mark). The Passion Narrative is widely recognized as the written source underlying the gospels, but the writer has to have known Jesus from earlier to be among his followers in what occurs in John 18 and 19. The individualistic standpoint of this writer may go back no farther than these few days earlier when Jesus came in John 12:2. This was also Lazarus’s house, which may be why some scholars have suggested Lazarus as being the Beloved Disciple and/or the author of the Gospel of John (or a source in it). But Lazarus was already well known to Jesus (11:3), so his own eyewitness story would have to start much earlier, and it does not seem to. Tentatively let’s work with “the disciple known to the high priest (18:15-16) as this “I am” source who is telling us all he knew about Jesus for the next week, starting with John 11:54, 12:2-8, 12-14a, 13:18 or 21, and 13:38. The Passion Narrative in John 18 and 19 is told very simply, quite unlike what precedes it. We can easily accept this as proving that the historical Jesus was arrested tried, and crucified.

Yes, I do claim to be a philosopher, still like Descartes. If you do too, read Post #1 there.

Adam · 05-12-2013, 06:59 PM

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Originally Posted by Toto

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Originally Posted by Adam

... IF the gospels seem to be simple, early, and by eyewitnesses, then the best Atheist alternative seems to me for them to show that conspirators got together. . .

The gospels do not seem to be either simple or early or by eyewitnesses, so dragging conspiracy theorists into this is uncalled for.

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Each had his own piece of the mosaic to fit in and others had the job of stitching them together.

Each of who? Do you know how fiction is written, or how urban legends develop?

In this case it would take a team. Sources like the Discourses, Q, the Signs Source, and the Passion Narrative are too different in nature to stem from one novelist. Yet the character Jesus is integral to each, not seeming to be inserted either afresh or replacing someone else, as they do fit together (minus the Signs Source) as in my Early Aramaic Gospels

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Indeed there are various theories out there like this, such as by Carotta, Atwill, Wheless (or whoever touts the Piso Family as the forgers), and Huller.

How did Wheless get into this list? Or Huller?

You're right, it was some other non-current writer,
Reuchlin.

Stephan Huller rarely still mentions his theory that King Marcus Agrippa (Acts 26 & 27) was the prototype for Jesus, but he wrote a full book presenting it.

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No one here touches them with a ten-foot pole. . . .

Except that Huller is here, and Wheless has a number of admirers.

Carotta and Atwill do claim a conspiracy. But this is hardly the only way to claim that the gospels are not historical.

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My "GattA" repositioning in the 500's in Gospel Eyewitnesses (still unaddressed)
(see my post #178 in this thread)
does not take for granted that any non-supernatural sources is necessarily true. I even acknowledge that an eyewitness source may be inaccurate or misleading (and intentionally so with the earlier Discourses within John). And I just above stated that it may indeed be lies. That's why I expected conspiracy theories to be trotted out as defense against my thesis that their are seven written eyewitness records about Jesus in the four gospels.

You post there does not say anything about non-supernatural sources not being necessarily true. It is a typical confusing raft of pointers to other threads and empty claims to have established something that has not been refuted.

You state there

The poster "Tassman" on Theology Web so categorically denied this that I started accumulating seven written gospel eyewitness records to refute that contention. I asked him, and later everyone here on FRDB, to provide evidence that there were no eyewitnesses. None has been forthcoming, not even pointers toward scholars who have done so.

which is asking everyone else to prove a negative, is it not?

I'll stop asking you to prove a negative when you agree not to continue categorically stating that there were no eyewitnesses to Jesus. HJ partisans might accede, but can we get MJers to go along? Hardly likely, so yes, I guess I'll have to keep asking them to prove a negative.
That is, they can properly keep saying, "We don't acknowledge there were any eyewitness records of Jesus, and here's why we think Adam was wrong. "The Flavians forged...." or "here's the group of tragedians who teamed up to worked out this elaborate myth of a God-man in their own time."

Toto · 05-12-2013, 07:33 PM

I will categorically state that you have not produced any evidence of any eyewitnesses to Jesus, that you do not understand how fiction is written or how urban legends develop, how fictional characters can be borrowed by different writers.

Adam · 05-12-2013, 07:48 PM

Great! Then you can display for us the process of fictional sources arising and how mostly different people added to them while editing them into their own gospels. Account for at least the Passion Narrative, Q1, Q2, the Discourses (all free of supernaturalism to this point), the Signs Source, L, subsequent additions and editing as in Ur-Marcus (the Passion Narrative as expanded to about 80% of our present Mark), Proto-Luke, and then on to basically our current four gospels.

Or point to the scholar who has already done all this for us. (All of this is fiction, remember, so he can't be HJ, has to be MJ or a conspiracy plot.)

JoeWallack · 05-12-2013, 07:56 PM

JW:
Alright, let's get this party started. The most important assertion of "John" is:

John 20

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11 But Mary was standing without at the tomb weeping: so, as she wept, she stooped and looked into the tomb;

12 and she beholdeth two angels in white sitting, one at the head, and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain.

13 And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.

14 When she had thus said, she turned herself back, and beholdeth Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus.

15 Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou hast borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.

16 Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turneth herself, and saith unto him in Hebrew, Rabboni; which is to say, Teacher.

Adam, who is the eyewitness to these verses?

Joseph

ErrancyWiki

Adam · 05-12-2013, 08:13 PM

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Originally Posted by JoeWallack

JW:
Alright, let's get this party started. The most important assertion of "John" is:

John 20

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11 But Mary was standing without at the tomb weeping: so, as she wept, she stooped and looked into the tomb;

12 and she beholdeth two angels in white sitting, one at the head, and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain.

13 And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.

14 When she had thus said, she turned herself back, and beholdeth Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus.

15 Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou hast borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.

16 Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turneth herself, and saith unto him in Hebrew, Rabboni; which is to say, Teacher.

Adam, who is the eyewitness to these verses?

Joseph

ErrancyWiki

Good issue, Joseph, and helpful.
Yes, I do say eyewitnesses wrote (or had scribes write for them) seven records to Jesus, but they relate some things they knew about, but did not see. I don't believe any of the seven were women, which helps explain why the Resurrection accounts are not readily harmonized. Different eyewitnesses (presumably on my version John Mark, John, Peter, Matthew and Simon) heard different things from the women. I would hold that John Mark heard the above version he wrote for the Passion Narrative underlying gJohn.
Early Aramaic Gospel Post #49
The version with angels inside the tomb in Mark 16:1-8 was told by Salome or Mary the mother of James (16:1).
Gospel Eyewitness Sources #153
Luke 24:2-11 (combining the above two) was told (by elimination) by Joanna 24:10). They did not write these verses, but Matthew, Peter, or Simon did, just not from first-hand observation.

Toto · 05-12-2013, 08:53 PM

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Originally Posted by Adam

Great! Then you can display for us the process of fictional sources arising and how mostly different people added to them while editing them into their own gospels. Account for at least the Passion Narrative, Q1, Q2, the Discourses (all free of supernaturalism to this point), the Signs Source, L, subsequent additions and editing as in Ur-Marcus (the Passion Narrative as expanded to about 80% of our present Mark), Proto-Luke, and then on to basically our current four gospels.

Or point to the scholar who has already done all this for us. (All of this is fiction, remember, so he can't be HJ, has to be MJ or a conspiracy plot.)

The intermediate steps and the identities of the authors and editors are lost to history, but there is nothing improbable about this process.

It is more probable than your attempt to turn John 20 into eyewitness material, which you can identify in spite of its being at least double hearsay.

spin · 05-12-2013, 08:54 PM

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