offa

Lance wrote;
Offa, wait a sec? Wasn't Mark written first, then John
last? Everything I've seen on dating the gospels suggests
that.

Offa in reply; Lance, I saw your post immediately after
it was on the board, but, I did not have a minute to reply.
Had I replied Ron Garrett would not have asked the same
sort of question. My reply is below.

Ron Garrett wrote;
Offa posts: The gospel of John was written first
and this book was completed before 37 CE. I'd love to see
the source for this early dating of the Gospel of John.

Offa in reply;
Barbara Thiering is my source. The Gospels and the Book
of Acts are sources. William Whiston, the editor of
Works by Josephus is a source. Of course, Josephus is
a source as well as Robert Eisenman. Also, the Old Testament
and the New Testament in the King James Version. I could
probably cite Newt Gingrich and Ken Starr.

Barbara Thiering, Jesus of the Apocalypse, p. 525,26,
writes The gospel of John was written under the auspices
of the anti-Herodian John Mark, although not necessarily
by him personally, and its first twenty chapters were
completed by AD 37.

One of the main characters in Palestine during the gospel
period was Simon Magus. Funny thing, he may be mentioned
once or twice in the New Testament. Why? Because Simon
was the bitter enemy of St. Peter and St. Paul. You can
find Simon if you look for him. His main pseudo name was
Lazarus. He was the Lazarus that Jesus raised from the dead.
Only, he was not really dead. Lazarus/Simon Magus had
committed a zealous act against the Romans and was captured.
He was the replacement of John the Baptist and was the
chief priest at the other Jerusalem, Qumran. The "Raising
of Lazarus" is a miracle that is recorded only in John.
The other three gospels were written after Saul (St. Paul)
discovered Jesus alive and well in Damascus (Mar Saba).

Everybody keeps working of the writings of the ancient
church fathers (Eusebius for example). A point that is
missed is the fact that Eusebius and his predecessors were
not from the original Christian church. In my cobwebbed
library I have The Decline and Fall of the Roman Catholic
Church, Malachi Martin, and on pp.41-44 he tells about
the blood relatives of Jesus and their rejection from
the newly formed church in AD 318. They were called the
deposyni.

Josephus tells us about phony names given to locations and,
mark my words, the Hebrews were never in Egypt and the
pharaoh that took Sarai was Abram's brother Haran. Egypt
was alongside the Dead Sea and it was a haven for zealots.

thanks, offa

boneyard bill

Toto:

If Mark is supposed to have invented the gospel story then it becomes a question of where he got his historical and geographical information. It's assumed that Luke got his information from Mark. That Luke may have read Josephus is tangential to the question of the origin of the gospel story itself.

I read Doherty's article on the web, but I haven't read his book. However, it seems to me that Doherty has to maintain that Mark invented the gospel story. If he says the Mark received the gospel story from an oral tradition, he has to show that there is no human figure behind the oral tradition. The human figure I have in mind would have the characteristics of a savior, martyr, or both.

So then there's the problem of showing that Mark could have invented the gospel story.

Toto

Doherty thinks that Mark wrote his narrative as an exercise in creative fiction. There are other scholars who agree with him - Burton Mack in Who Wrote the New Testament? The making of the Christian Myth agrees that Mark composed his gospel without basing it on a real person, although he does seem to think that there was a historical Jesus. Most scholars see a lot of reworking of Old Testament stories in Mark, but Dennis MacDonald in The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark sees a lot of influence from Homer and Hellenic myths of the suffering savior.

When you say "The human figure I have in mind would have the characteristics of a savior, martyr, or both" you have to realize that there are many more myths and legends that fit the category of saviors or martyrs than there are actual humans (if there are any without feet of clay). Mark had many models to chose from in the mythology, legend, and religions of his day.

Peter Kirby

"But he correctly gets Pilate, Herod, and Caiaphus as contempories (Do we have dates for Caiaphus?) And he shows a passable knowledge of the geography of Jerusalem and Galilee."

Actually, the author of Mark never mentions Caiaphas by name but rather refers to "the high priest."

We know that Caiaphas died in 37 CE according to Josephus, and supposedly we have found his family's tomb.

"But there is not one person mentioned in Paul's letters who appears in Mark with the possible exception of Cephas."

We ought to add the possible exceptions of John and James. The same threesome of names (Peter, John, James) appears both in Mark and in Galatians 2.

"This supposed 'brother' of Jesus figures prominently in Paul but isn't mentioned in Mark."

Actually, a James the brother of Jesus is mentioned in Mark 6:3.

"I think what Doherty says about Paul makes a lot of sense, but the very disconnection between the gospels and Paul that allows him his point speaks for a separate tradition that was probably based on a real person."

This may be a valid point. In Doherty's defense, however, it should be noted that Doherty does spend a good portion of his book analysing the so-called "Galilean Tradition" and concluding that this side was also based on a fiction, through the process of creating a sectarian etiological founder for the Q community. Whether Doherty's belief that Q originally had no HJ stands up or instead is an example of the wish fathering the thought, it should be noted that Doherty does attempt to address this issue.

"Paul has nothing to say about Passover, Tabernacles, or the Passion Story."

Actually, Paul calls Christ "our Passover lamb" in 1 Corinthians 5:7.

Vorkosigan

As an aside, Luke/Acts is almost universally dated to c. 75-85AD, not 110-130 as you believe.

As an aside, I already said that I was aware of that.

In any case:
Stevan Davies writes (Jesus the Healer, p. 174): "Luke wrote at least sixty years after Pentecost and perhaps closer to a century after that event. Scholarship on the subject presently vacillates between a late first century and an early to mid-second century date for Luke's writings."

Dating Luke into the second or third decade of the second century is hardly a rash act.

Further, simply dismissing arguments put forward on these boards with nothing more than a wave of your hand, and an appeal to Ellegard's authority is hardly very convincing.

In a post of 500 words, I'm not likely to give a very detailed impression.

Please try to do better. (BTW, you did know that Ellegard's linguistic arguments are almost universally rejected by NT scholars, right?...

I sure the ones you read reject them. If it is the same Alvar Ellegard I am thinking of, he is a major figure in the science of determining authorship from statistics based on style.

The arguments for a 1st Century authorship of Luke/Acts is pretty overwhelming, and your refusal to address even one of them looks pretty lame).

The arguments for first century authorship are not overwhelming. Reading through Wallace's, which you recommended, some of them are almost laughable.

As Wallace says:
In conclusion, the following points can be made: (1) Luke depends on Mark and therefore should not be dated earlier than the 50s CE. The date of Mark, then, provides the terminu a quo for the date of Luke. (2) Luke neither knew of Matthew’s work, nor Matthew of Luke’s. If Matthew is dated c. 60-65, then Luke was probably written within the same time frame.

I agree that the date of Mark provides a terminus a quo for Luke, but Wallace's point (2) does not follow logically from (1). Luke could have been written at any time after Mark up to ~150, and need not have been written in the same time frame as Matthew at all, even if we date Matthew so early.

The way I see it, Luke-Acts is probably by the same author, and that it was written after the fall of Jerusalem in 70, and sometime prior to the putative use by Marcion c. 150. Since I think that Luke used Josephus (and not the other way around), I tend to shove it into the first part of the second century. I can't pin it down more than twenty years in any direction, and neither can anyone else. Note that many scholars put it in the 90s anyway...

I did not "appeal to the authority" of Ellegard. What I said was, he makes arguments that I like. Since I know you are aware of those arguments, I referenced them so that you could understand where I am coming from.

Michael

Vorkosigan

As for why I think Luke used Josephus and not the other way around, refer to the article on the SecWeb cited above for the relationship between the two. Mason discusses why Luke is thought to copy from Josephus, and not vice versa.

Here's the link: http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...djosephus.html

Michael

boneyard bill

Posted by Peterkirby:

Looks like I lose another one. I didn't claim to be Biblical scholar. I should have remembered the reference to Jesus' brothers in Mark, however. Still, I think the paucity of reliance on Paul speaks nearly as loudly as the near-absence. Of course, we don't know Mark's purpose.

He had Paul, and he had Old Testament prophecy to work with. Where did he get the rest? Out of his own imagination and extremely difficult historical research? Or did he have some oral or written facts to go on? That's what the scholars are arguing about.

I read Mack's book some time ago. I remember that I wasn't convinced at the time. I haven't read Doherty's book.

Thank's for the information on Mark.

boneyard bill

Savior's yes, I'm not sure about martyrs. Those were tough times. In any case, Mark's alleged innovation in this area would make his religion a very tough sell to the Jews. But the point I intended by that was that I personally do not think that discovering a single author for gospel Q, for example, would constitute a historical Jesus.

Peter Kirby

Actually, do we know that Mark knew of Paul? I'm not sure how we could establish that Mark knew of the apostle Paul himself, let alone that Mark had access to the letters of Paul.

Of which book by Mack do you speak? _A Myth of Innocence_, _The Lost Gospel_, or _Who Wrote the New Testament?_. And what exactly is it of which you were not convinced?

In any case, all three books by Mack are worthwhile, as is Doherty's book _The Jesus Puzzle_.

best,
Peter Kirby
http://home.earthlink.net/~kirby/

Nomad

I have not been interested in exploring a question posed by you (about Mason) until I first understand what Bill is talking about. I would hope that you would appreciate that my interest is in covering off one issue before we move on to another.

Now, as it stands, you appear not to have read Bill's own words, although I did repost them. Here it is again, then compare them to what you think he said:

As you can see, Bill thinks that the ONLY accurate information we have on first Century Palestine is what Christians preserved of Josephus. Of course, since the Gospels themselves (all of them, not just Luke) record facts about 1st Century Palestine, it is logical to assume that Bill believes that the Gospels used Josephus. This a very novel idea, and I would like to know if Bill mispoke, and only meant Luke read Josephus, or did all of the evangelists do this.

Do you know the answer to this question? If not, please inform Bill that it has been asked, and I would like to know his response.

See above. If Bill is arguing that Mark, Matthew and John used Josephus in recording their facts about 1st Century Palestine, I would like to know where he aquired this novel idea. It certainly is "fringe", even if it may be true. Up until this point, however, this is the first time I have heard it offered, and I would like to know what supports he has for his belief, or if it just popped into his head. At the same time, if he was mearly over zealous, this is cool, and he need only say so.

Not scribes Toto. The evangelists themselves.

All he has to do is clarify his statement. Right now I am giving him the benefit of the doubt, and expecting that he merely mispoke.

All he needs to do is clarify his point Toto. How would you read his quotation above?

I accept that anything can be offered as evidence. But I then believe that we have the right to examine this evidence to see how it holds up. As I do not consider Bill's opinion to be evidence any more than I think my opinion is evidence, I would like to see what he has got to support this assertion.

I hope that he will return to clarify the matter.

Nomad