I see there is no point in proceeding.

I support a point with references to the leading New Testament scholars. You counter with a quote from the encyclopedia(!) that doesn't even contradict what I said. If that is an example of how well read you are on this issue, then I can see you aren't taking this discussion seriously.

And you still refuse to offer even the slightest hint of what might be a common basis for discussion.

Like I said, you don't want to discuss, you want to waste my time.

Then you shouldn't have any problem finding one example. And hopefully one that answers the same objections I raised.

I did not say "invent". I said that the description of the baptism event is not an embarrassment. AGain, you create strawmen at a whim's notice.

John himself is depicted as the 2nd coming of Elijah; this is clear from the gospel texts. Are you seriously disputing this?

Thus, the reason why the explanatory passage of Luke 3:16-17 were included. They remove the objections you enumerate above. Without those passages, you would be right - this would be an embarrassment.

Christ's baptism was not for the remission of sins; it was for being empowered by God (in the same fashion). THis would only be an embarrassment if the rest of the chapter 3 of Luke (that describes the dove, the voice from heaven, etc.) had been left out. However, with that material, it becomes obvious that the point of the baptism was anointing and empowering, not for remission of sins.

And John's verbal testimony as to his relatively low rank answers the second objection that there was embarrassment here because Christ was "supposed to be higher than John." Well, based upon John's own testimony, Christ WAS higher.

And once again, you demonstrate that you aren't even reading my posts. I never said that the existence of John was an embarrassment, nor did I ever think that was YOUR position.

The OT passages I am talking about are the ones that refer to the Messiah as the "anointed" one; the one empowered by God to liberate, heal, etc. The act of the Holy Spirit descending in the form of the dove marked the beginning of Christ's ministry of healing and miracle-working. And there is a strong prophetic typology between oil, anointing, and the Spirit of God. The baptismal event was the anointing ceremony that had to precede the ministry of the Messiah.


Yawn.

No, you make a claim, and then string a bunch of names after it. You have yet to actually provide a source quotation, or reference.


1. Britannica is an excellent volume; your ignorance of that is astonishing.

2. I used it because it is a readily-available online resource.

3. I also checked this point about Josephus last night in the Oxford Companion to the Bible. YOu know, Bruce & Metzger? They concur with me.

Sure I am. It is merely YOU that I do not take seriously.

At least not as seriously as you seem to take yourself, anyhow.

L - thank you for the post.

Hmmm.
Multiple attestation.
Coherence.
Embarrasment.
Dissimilarity.
Aramaisms.
Vividness.

Let's see - isn't it possible that errors/fictions have multiple attestation?
or, on the other hand,
If an event in the NT does not have "multiple attestation" is it an error or not? How do you know?? It seems in that case "multiple attest" fails. And, it seems to me, that goes for the others too (errors can be quite coherent).


I've got a better idea:
Give me some examples of errors in the NT, and how you came to "know" that they were errors. That might shed some light on it for me...

Many Thanks

Okay, I really don't see the point, but I had to respond to this one.

"3. I also checked this point about Josephus last night in the Oxford Companion to the Bible. YOu know, Bruce & Metzger? They concur with me."

They do?

Your statement: "Josephus does not testify to the miracles, so no help for you there."

From what I have read, Bruce & Metzger accept my proposition, that there was redaction but that Josephus' references to Jesus' miracles was original to Josephus.

Here is, from Bruce's own book, his reconstruction of the passage:

"Now there arose about this time a source of further trouble in one Jesus, a wise man who performed suprising works, a teacher of men who glady welcome strange things. He led away many Jews, and many Gentiles. He was the so-called Christ. When Pilate, acting on information supplied by the chief men among us, condemned him to the cross, those who had attached themselves to him at first did not cease to cause trouble. The tribe of Christians, which has taken its name from him, is not extinct today."

F.F. Bruce, Jesus and Christian Origins, 39.

So, please explain how F.F. Bruce's reconstruction supports your position rather than mine?

Now. You are right that I didn't give you pinpoint cites to the scholars I cited. That is because I don't keep my full library at work. However, I can give you the books for many of the scholars that affirm that Josephus original passage existed, and referred to miracles, although other points were embellished.

Luke T. Johnson, The Real Jesus.
Graham Stanton, The Gospels of Jesus.
Raymond E. Brown, The Death of the Messiah.
F.F. Bruce, Jesus and Christian Origins & The New Testament Documents.
J.P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, Volume 1.
Ben Witherington, The Jesus Quest and The Christology of Jesus.
N.T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God.
Robert Van Voorst, Jesus Outside the New Testament (at 94).


[This message has been edited by Layman (edited March 15, 2001).]

Yes. The Oxford Companion also indicates that the Testimonium Flavium contains later christian interpolations and does not reflect the original words of Josephus.



1. I mentioned "Bruce & Metzger" to remind you of who the editors of the Oxford Companion were.

2. Neither Bruce's reconstruction above, nor any of several other variant reconstructions, provides conclusive independent testimony of miracles. At most, it shows us that there was such a legend in those days, and Josephus was recording it in his role as historian.

3. Additionally, there is evidence that the core Josephus material (which excludes the later Christian interpolation) was copying from an earlier Judeo-christian gospel, which is now lost. That being the case, Josephus was copying the text of someone else and not necessarily endorsing any of the words themselves. His concern in that situation would have been to faithfully reproduce the text he was working from. This is documented in The Journal for the Study of Pseudepigrapha, 13 (1995), pages 59-77.

Ah, I see. You don't have your books with you. But for some reason, I am supposed to provide you with something besides Britannica.

Ironic.

Of course a mistake may be attested to by more than one source. And no, just because something is only attested to directly by one source doesn't render it false per se. These criteria should be used together.

Things I'm pretty sure are wrong? Well, I suspect that one of the synoptics are wrong about when, exactly, Peter denied Jesus. It is also possible that Luke was wrong about which census he was talkinag about, although I have seen reasonable explanations for this apparent error.

But it is difficult to completely rule out things that the New Testament books records, especially given the nature of oral tradition. I find it much more useful to rank things according to historical support. The Lord's Supper, for example, is multiply attested. It also coheres with Jesus' proclamation of the kingdom and his pattern of using feasts to portray added religious significance. It is also dissimilar from Judaism. So, there is strong evidence that we have a legitimate tradition preserved for us.

Matthew's recording of the dead prophets rising after Jesus' resurrrection, on the other hand, is only attested to by Matthew. It doesn't seem to necessarily cohere with the rest of Jesus' message, or better established facts about Jesus. Neither embarrassment or dissimilarity don't seem to apply either. So, I bevieve that, from a historical standpoint, the evidence is weaker than for the Last Supper.

So I think a historian is on good ground if he is skeptical of the dead prophets rising from the dead. Not just because it sounds unlikely, but because of the criteria I detailed above.

Nice try, but despite your selective editing of my point, it is clear that you WERE claiming that Bruce and Metzger ("they") supported your argument that Josephus did not refer to Jesus' miracles. When I provide a quote from one of "they" showing very clearly that the relevant author in fact DID believe that the disputed reference was originally Josephan, you again retreat and pretend you never denied it.

The new story is that, even admitting he referenced Jesus' miracles, Josephus doesn't provide CONCLUSIVE independent testimony. I guess that means that he does provide SOME or PERSUASIVE independent testimony?

While I'm glad you have modified your position, I doubt you will even admit it.

Just another example of why debating with you is so useless and frustrating.

"Ah, I see. You don't have your books with you. But for some reason, I am supposed to provide you with something besides Britannica."

Well, I wasn't expecting pinpoint cites, but I will mention that I did manage to list off about 10 respected New Testament scholars who I had actually read on this issue. I thought you might have remembered at least one scholar who supports your opinion from all that New Testament research you have done.


[This message has been edited by Layman (edited March 15, 2001).]

Actions like this are why you deserved to be called a liar. Metzger and Bruce were only the editors of OCTTB; they did not write the entire thing. It is a collective work for which they provided editorial direction, content control, and overall vision for the volume. Because of that, it would have been really stupid for me to use their names as supporters since the particular passage on Josephus wasn't necessarily even *written* by either of them.

Correction: when you get further sidetracked by another of your own strawman positions.


Your accusations are getting rather old, Layman. They were somewhat amusing at the start, but now it's just whiny.


No, this is not a "new story". I am comparing the testimony offered here to your two original analogies. Remember those? I realize you are doing everything you can to distance yourself from them, becuase you realize how utterly you overstepped yourself. But the facts remain.

Your analogies had the following attributes:[list=1][*]first-person eyewitness testimony from 4 or 5 sources,[*]none of the sources borrowed or contaminated each other;[*]the testimony was transmitted freshly and immediately after the event in question;[*]the receiver of the testimony (YOU) got it second hand, without any intervening person to add a layer of indirection[/list=a]

None of these attributes are true of the NT texts. Yet you still want to say that your analogy is valid.


What a joke you are.

No, he provides evidence that, in the time period in question, someone thought that such miracles occurred.

The position is not modified.
You've simply forgotten (once again) that the standard of comparison here is:

(your original 2 analogies) vs. (the NT texts)

I keep bringing you back to that fact. Your resentment is understandable.


Because I won't let you distance yourself from your previous bogus claims. As I said earlier:

This is a forum where he who claims, will be asked to substantiate. Gee; imagine that.

If you're uncomfortable with that level of accountability, then perhaps you'd prefer a less challenging newsgroup. I suggest alt.flyfishing.



[This message has been edited by Omnedon1 (edited March 15, 2001).]