Steven Carr

http://www.bib-arch.org/online-exclusives/easter-02.asp

This is a superb example of somebody analysing the Last Supper accounts they way other people would analyse the behaviour of Macbeth when faced with Banquo’s ghost at a meal.

This sort of thing is just not history. It is Biblical history.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Steve,

Precisely.

It assumes that the gospels are accurate recordings of historical events without attempting to prove it.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Toto

Actually, he does not assume that the gospels are completely accurate. He assumes that Jesus existed as a historical Jewish figure more or less as the gospels recount, but then he arbitrarily (?) rejects the elements that don't appear to be Jewish and replaces them with what he thinks that Jews of the time would say or do.

He thinks that the incident of the Temple must have been historic and then has to come up with an explanation for why Jesus wasn't arrested and/or killed immediately; but then decides that an inclusive meal (not a seder) would have provoked the Jewish establishment to get the Romans to crucify Jesus.

aa5874

Well, then this writer ASSUMES that he is accurate without attempting to prove his accuracy while at the same time admitting that for the last 2000 years no-one else has been right.

mountainman

Lets have a look at what they are claiming ....

Written about in the Greek language, not the Hebrew language perhaps suggests that only the Greeks really understood. Add to that the pivotal conceptions of the Logos of Heraclites, and the much documented Apostolic Tradition of Plato and Pythagoras in which appears, as fundamental to the Greek philosophy, a Holy Trinity. What might we expect?

Why dont we simply forget Jesus for one picosecond? And then c.324 CE, the Gospels were published far and wide by the Roman Emperor who destroyed the Greek traditions and Greek Temples of Alexandria, Antioch, Corinth, Damascus, Ephesus and Rome.

And we, who view these afairs from the perspective of the 21st century are fixated like Jesus-addicts to the implications of the destruction of one Jewish temple and cannot see the political relevance of the destruction of the entire Greek civilisation as a result of the new testament.


Amen. But where is the history?
It obviously exists but we are not yet aware of it.
The "historical truth is out there"!

Toto

OK, here's another professional Biblical scholar, published by BAR:

Thomas Schmidt: Jesus’ Triumphal March to Crucifixion So, scholars have long known that the gospel writers made things up. When a mythicist points out that the gospels are fictional, they can say, or course, we always knew that and act as if it had no importance.

Steven Carr

'In this way, Mark presents Jesus’ defeat and death, the moment of his greatest suffering and humiliation, as both literally and figuratively a triumph.'

That is strange.

We are always being told that the crucifixion must have happened because it was so embarrassing to have a crucified leader.

And now we learn that the death of Jesus was a triumph.

'Mark’s crucifixion narrative contains a number of striking parallels to the Roman triumph'

Parallelomania strikes again!

Sorry I forgot, the author is not a mythicist ,so he is allowed to see parallels without being shouted down as somebody who thinks there are parallels.

Steven Carr

'The wearing of purple was outlawed for anyone below equestrian rank. The only available robe of this kind for Jesus would belong to Pilate, but it is inconceivable that he would lend his garment to be spat on by soldiers. '

When I pointed this out, I was told that there was nothing out of the ordinary for Jesus to have been robed in an old purple robe of Pilate's.....

arnoldo

The purple robe was symbolic or a reference to the purple robe worn by the statue of the god ( ". . The triumphal robe, a garment of regal purple embroidered with gold, and the gold laurel wreath were both borrowed from the statue of the god in the temple Jupiter" Capitolinus). It would be as if someone mistook the ruby slippers worn by Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz as literal rather than it's symbolic meaning.

Toto

Are you sure you want to push this comparison?

Is Jesus as real as Dorothy? Was the crucifixion as real as Oz?

In the movie, Dorothy wore ruby slippers, but in the novel they were silver, for openly symbolic reasons related to Frank Baum's economic theories. The ruby slippers may have other levels of symbolism in the mind of the beholders.