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08-01-2001, 02:18 PM | #31 | |
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(2) At that time if a Palestinian subject claimed to be the king of Israel, then he was found guilty of sedition against Rome. It didn't matter whether he was a popular guy or a marginal figure like Jesus. John do you intend to say what Isaiah 6 has to do with the miracle reports of Jesus? Ordinarily I wouldn't ask twice but you went to a lot of trouble to say that we were all switching the subject. |
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08-01-2001, 02:22 PM | #32 | |
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1) An appeal to authority, which pointed out that only Christian scholars believe that Jesus is alluded to in the OT. I addressed this. 2) An almah rehash. I did not respond to this because I didn't see the connection, and it easily become a 3 thread issue itself. 3) An LXX rehash. No response for the reasons in 2 above. This seems fair to me. If you have brought up even more issues in later posts, then you're taking a "throw everything against the wall and see what sticks" approach, and I don't respond to those. What's your view of your first post? |
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08-01-2001, 02:29 PM | #33 | |
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08-01-2001, 02:37 PM | #34 | |
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For those interested in my remark that the Markan Jesus is clandestine, just enter "messianic secret" into any search engine. It is a subject which has been widely commented upon since the German scholar William Wrede first wrote about it. Here is a good neutral summary from L. Michael White,
Professor of Classics and Director of the Religious Studies Program at the University of Texas at Austin, spotted at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...ory/mark.html: Quote:
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08-01-2001, 02:38 PM | #35 | |
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Actually, his point was not an appeal to authority, as such, and your response did not adequately address it. Apikorus' point was that the acceptance of the "Jesus in the OT" hypothesis was more likely to be an indication of confessional status rather than of scholarship due to the fact that those who accept it are all Christians while those who reject it are both Christian and non-Christian alike. In other words all non-Christian scholars and some Christian scholars reject the hypothesis while only Christian scholars accept it. Therefore, while it cannot be an indication of "confessional status" to reject the hypothesis (as it is rejected by both Christians and non-Christians), it certainly could be an indication of "confessional status" to accept it. I now return you to your previously scheduled flame war. Regards, Bill Snedden |
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08-01-2001, 02:54 PM | #36 |
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No, John, I must disagree. First of all, you are confusing what you describe as "appeal to authority". The authorities I quoted (Blenkinsopp and Brueggemann) are Christian scholars who insist that Jesus is wholly absent from the Hebrew Bible, and that Christians retroject Jesus therein imaginatively, with no regard for the plain sense of the text. This point you did not address at all.
I then remarked how there are no non-Christian scholars who find any reference to Jesus at all in the Hebrew Bible. You protested that surely anyone who read the Hebrew Bible as prophetic of Jesus would be a Christian, but as I pointed out that view is a product of your own confessional stance amd that there could be many intermediate levels of belief in a prophesied Jesus which might not automatically lead one to the Christian faith (e.g. you could believe that both Jesus and Mohammed are prophesied). I then proceeded to discuss a detailed example of how a Christological reading is inconsistent with the text of Isaiah. You incorrectly accuse me of an "almah rehash" when I specifically pointed out that the linguistic problems are in fact minor when compared with those presented by the following verses. (Incidentally, quite aware as I was that the almah/bethulah issue has been discussed to death, I adduced additional material - the rabbinic recensions - which bear on that issue.) Then I discussed the mechanism by which the early Christian writers associated Jesus with the Hebrew Bible, by constructing their miracle stories of Jesus to parallel those in the Elijah and Elisha cycles in Kings. I don't know what you mean by an "LXX rehash" - perhaps you could elaborate? The main point here was that the gospel authors' hagiographies of Jesus reworked material from the Hebrew Bible (in its LXX form). I suspect you think I was attempting to denigrate the LXX in some way, but that is not the case. (Indeed in many instances I believe the LXX offers a superior reading to that in the Masoretic Text. But, alas, Isaiah is generally regarded to be one of the worst translated of all the books of the LXX.) My second post discussed how the Christian approach to allegorizing the Hebrew Bible so as to retroject Jesus therein can easily be turned on its head, with some rather uncomfortable results for evangelicals. This all seems rather plain and coherent to me. To reiterate: (i) Modern bible scholars of every religion, save for evangelical Christians, overwhelmingly agree that Jesus is mentioned nowhere in the Hebrew Bible. (ii) Attempts to retroject Jesus into the Hebrew Bible are fraught with difficulties, as my example of Isa 7:14 showed. (iii) The gospel authors, who knew the LXX as their holy scriptures, borrowed material from it in constructing their hagiographies of Jesus, as examination of the original Greek texts suggests. It is therefore little surprise that credulous readers of the New Testament should find "remarkable" resonance with certain stories they've read in their "Old Testament". (iv) The Christological hermeneutic allegorizes material in the Hebrew Bible so as to retroject Jesus therein. This approach can be applied equally persuasively to prove that Jesus was a misguided, false prophet and an enemy of YHWH. You haven't offered anything substantive in response. James, sorry if I was being a nit-picker. There's a difference, though, between an anonymous work and a pseudonymous work. The gospels are more properly classified as the former. Mark's gospel does not know of Mark (John Mark, presumably) as a "famous biblical character" as it predates all the other gospel writings and Acts! [ August 01, 2001: Message edited by: Apikorus ] |
08-01-2001, 02:57 PM | #37 | |
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08-01-2001, 03:13 PM | #38 | ||||||
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08-01-2001, 03:19 PM | #39 |
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John V, I suspect we'll never come to any agreement. I'm content to let the others here judge the relative strength of our arguments.
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08-01-2001, 03:26 PM | #40 | |
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(1) Jewish-Christians were not yet thrown out of the synagogues when Mark wrote so perhaps a clean break was just unthinkable. Certainly, John's gospel was written after the expulsion so he has no difficulty with making that break. (2) Ancient Christians enjoyed protection from the state so long as their religious beliefs were under the umbrella of Judaism. If they had embraced the pagan elements with which we're familiar today too soon, they might have been crushed before they even got started. (3) Along the same lines, if they had blamed Rome for crucifying their leader the young movement might have been persecuted as revenge-seeking followers of a seditioner. However, if the Jews were responsible for Jesus' death rather than the Romans then this would serve to divorce the movement from the crime for which Jesus was convicted and executed. And of course a combination of these considerations (or of others I haven't thought of) may have influenced the young movement as well. |
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