Jeffrey Gibson

Ummm what?


Is that what I said? And more importantly, is that what they claim?

How do you know that they are offering "unsupported opinions"?

So what facts are the source of your "knowledge" that there are 10,000 gods being worshiped today?

Since you haven't read these authors, you have no idea whether or not what they says is in "conformance with the facts".

Irony meeter breaking again!!

Jeffrey

patcleaver

Mark may have intentionally indicated he was writing fiction by playing the part of an omniscient narrator.

Mark tells us statements Jesus makes when nobody is present. He tells us things that happened when Jesus was with Pilot when no disciple could have been there. He tells us what the guards did to Jesus on the journey to carvery when no disciples were there. He never indicates which disciple provided the information. He could have easily explained how he came to know these things but he does not. The author of Mark would have known that anyone reading the text would have known it was fiction.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Ben,

I have been thinking about the question of the unreliable narrator and if we can apply it to John. Does taking the final statement of John as ironic makes him an unreliable narrator?

21.24 This is the disciple who is bearing witness to these things, and who has written these things; and we know that his testimony is true. 21.25 But there are also many other things which Jesus did; were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.

I think it does make his narrative unreliable, but I think it might make him a more reliable narrator.

I think that Oliver Stone, at least in the "Alexander the Great Revisited: The Final Cut" version of the film, does want us to see the narrative as unreliable. This is shown in the final title where he says that Ptolemy's narrative was lost in the fires at Alexandria, but also in the speech of Ptolemy:

Did such a man as Alexander exist? Of course not. We idolize him. We make him better than he was.

Stone is acutely aware that he himself is adding to the myth of Alexander with the film. By stripping away the pretensions that he is telling the eyewitness Ptolemy's story, we are left with the reality that it is Stone's fiction that we are watching. In a sense by making it impossible to believe that he is simply transmitting Ptolemy's narrative, he is confessing to the audience. He confesses that the Alexander in the movie is simply Stone's Alexander, or Stone's myth of Alexander.

In the introduction to this version, Stone says that he has made this third version to clarify the story and "I can go to my grave with a good conscience." Stone is confessing in the movie and the last thing he is confessing is that he is the real author, just as John confesses at the end that he is the author of the text.

Confession is important to Stone. Think about the key scene in "Born On the Fourth of July," where Ron Kovic (Tom Cruise) confesses to his comrade's family that he was not shot by the enemy in battle, but that Kovic himself accidentally shot him. It is extremely painful, but Kovic needs to confess that he was the one who did it. The action saves him and frees him from the self-destructive path that he was on. Still, there is no scene in the movie that makes us feel as uneasy as this one.

I think that there is a natural tendency or desire in people to tell the truth. People feel better after telling the truth. The writer of the Gospel of John is aware of this: (8:32)And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

But the unvarnished truth (which does exist to some degree) is often so painful that we feel better using irony to get at it. Irony is sometimes the only way, especially when censorship is prevalent. So I think that John is being ironic in his closing and confessing something about his tales of Jesus.

I am not sure what he is confessing. It could be that Jesus is an imaginary character who can do an infinite number of things or that Jesus did many things, but that people writing about Jesus, can make up an infinite number of things about him.

Regarding, evidence that the last statement should be taken ironically, I would suggest that much of early Christianity made use of irony. The epithet "king of the Jews" as used by the Romans and some Jews was obviously meant to be ironic, the prayer of Jesus that his father "take away this cup" is ironic or appears to be. The whole idea of the crucifixion of the Messiah may be taken as ironic. Certainly, when the Christian fathers talked of Christians winning the crown of martyrdom, they were being ironic.

The ancient world was fulled with irony, from Homer's Trojan Horse to Oedipus to Socrates to Vespasian's deathbed pronouncement, "Væ, puto deus fio." Stephen H. Smith devotes the final chapter of his book, "A Lion with Wings: A Narrative-Critical Approach to Mark's Gospel," to irony in Mark. Aristotle, Cicero and Quintillion analyzed its use in rhetorical situations.

It is not uncommon for final words to be ironic. Tacitus (Ann. 4.70.2) tells us that Titius Sabinus was led away to execution on January 1, 28 C.E. and shouted, with a noose around his neck, "This is a fine way to celebrate New Year!"

Perhaps we should include these as ironic words too: (John 19.30) When Jesus had received the vinegar, he said, "It is finished"; and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

Apparently, it was not quite finished.

In any case, I think taking the last line ironically makes the narrative unreliable, but the narrator more reliable for confessing the truth as best he could.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay


[QUOTE=Ben C Smith;5736050]

gentleexit

But did the Jews have "sacrifice a cock to Aesclepius" moments? Was Irony a characteristic of their narrative? And the Christian gospels are very Jewish, draw only on Jewish lore.

Metaphor isn't irony. They use the rhetoric of competition time and again for every trial, every effort for the divine. I don't see the irony per se or at least I don't see it as their focus. "Wry" doesn't come to mind when you read them.

As for omniscient or unreliable narrators. Anachronism I think. We write for an audience. What audience for a Jesus story would see such nuance? Are you saying that the simple Greek of say Mark, consciously masks many layers of meaning, each intended for a different audience? Here's something for cheap seats and nudge, nudge to the boxes, we know otherwise, don't we? I don't see it but maybe I'm just bleeding up in the gods.

aa5874

Well, I tend to use the "Joseph Smith" model, that is Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism.

Joseph Smith wrote some story claiming some kind of revelation, or some vision, or some kind of book with some kind of plates was shown to him by some angel with some kind of words which he translated as the words of some God.

Now, millions believe something in Utah.

I don't think that Joseph Smith would have indicated deliberately that he was writing fiction, perhaps inadvertently.

I think the Joseph Smith model is also valid for the NT.

Some authors wrote some stories by some kind of revelation or some vision, or some kind of prophecies, about some God with some kind of name like Jesus , who was supposed to be some kind of Messiah and some kind of creature who was 100% God and 100% man and was to, somehow, save the world, after he did some kind of resurrection and ascension.

In the 4th century, somehow the story and the believers were saved by Constantine.

I think the Gospels were written as something to believe.

Analyst

But they still come across as comic books - they're like long novels based on a few words written elsewhere. Or, think big movies like Quo Vadis where hey get three hours out of three words in the NT.

Clivedurdle

May I recommend watching a DVD of Independence Day and then reading the gospels?

Independence Day is a cinema buffs dream because it alludes to a myriad other films - this is in fact very common in media - the game of spot where that came from.

I think there is a meta analysis required.

Ceasar's Messiah, Nazarenus, Homer and many other analyses are all correctly describing bits of an elephant from different perspectives that no one has met before.

A deliberately contrived game, the different gospels being riffs and cover versions is very likely.

We may be making a mistake in thinking hierarchically about this - that there is a clear evolution and family tree. Maybe part of its evolution was not deliberate at all but what if, let's put that into the marinade.

It feels far more fluid, microbiological, mix and match, chaotic and complex and we are looking at a pastiche, an evolved curry.

Clivedurdle

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-hyperreality.htm

A problem with these alleged post modern analyses is the assumption that hyperreality is a new idea. It is not. Gods, people rising from the dead, talking donkeys are clear evidence that humans - and possibly chimps and the many other species who enjoy getting drunk on rotten fruit have always played with the hyperreal.

We have different technologies to play with the hyperreal. The multimedia experience of the classic medieval cathedral has its modern version in the digital effects of Spiderman.

Clivedurdle

http://www.unomaha.edu/jrf/armagedd.htm

It is time the gospels were studied as if they were film, as representations of how people were thinking at the time. Are the gospels pre science fiction?

PhilosopherJay

Hi gentleexit,

Even if we consider the pre-gospel writings of the Jews as non-ironic, we would have to take into account that they were living under Roman authority and occupation for 70-200 years when John was written. We see how Americanized Iraq has become after just 7 years of military occupation -- forced American style elections and forced privatization of government monopolies and a free market economy -- for example.

Yet, I think a stronger case can be made that the Jews did understand irony very well. For example Thomas Krüger argues that the last line of the story of Job should be read as ironic:

Even if the rendering of Job 42:6 in the main English translations is right
and Job declares that he “despises himself and repents in dust and ashes”, the question remains whether this is to be taken as a serious revocation resulting from insight or as an ironic surrender to a deity that is almighty and omniscient, but at the same time uncomprehending and unsympathetic

see http://www.theologie.uzh.ch/faecher/...r_2006_Job.pdf

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay