Newfie

I did not mean to imply that any one of them would not be closer to the truth than the other three, so the possibility does exist. My question was if you saw one as the best example. That, if the church had decided to select just one gospel, which one would you bet on?
You do not see them as being in conflict, while others do. Would I be correct that what separates your viewpoints is your faith that the gospels must not conflict, or would I be wrong?

bacht

Obviously all the Christian writers, both canonical and apocryphal, embrace the supernatural. Even if such things are "real" it's still theoretically possible to trace normal behaviours in the reporters of same, though their credibility is a question.

You're following the centuries-old tradition of dating the NT books as early as possible, a procedure driven more by Christian legend than real evidence. These are pieces of literature we're talking about, not coins or other more readily datable artifacts. As mountainman points out, it's not a stretch to imagine the whole pile of early church lit as being created much later than the events being described. This is a radical position but not impossible afaik.

Chaucer

That's where many proponents of mythicism and many proponents of the church have something in common: Many in neither group seem ready to address seriously much of the careful research and analysis that has now developed in modern times and been based on the perception that in perusing the Gospels, both Scriptural and extra-Sciptural (like Thomas), we are perusing various different texts rather than a single text. This notion of various different texts seems anathema to many an absolutist mythicist and Christian fundamentalist alike.

In any case, Newfie's remark does not address the chief point here. That chief point speaks to the scholar's perspective today and not the church's today. The fact that the church lumps together as one all the Gospels it eventually canonized (whether they be 4 or 44 in number) does not mean the conscientious modern scholar need do the same. In fact, it would be careless of the scholar to do the same. The very fact that even the very few Gospels eventually chosen by the church still fail to harmonize only strengthens, not weakens, the point re a variety of implicit witnesses in these texts. These various Gospel texts still constitute -- especially when the modern scholar carefully includes non-canonical texts like Thomas alongside the canonical -- a number of various witnesses, whether delusional to a degree or not, and not just one witness.

One can only hope that neither the dogmatic church nor the dogmatic mythicists will ever have the full power to squelch ongoing research of these texts as individual documents <shudder>.

Chaucer

bacht

I've never seen a mythicist arguing for unity of authorship, usually they're the first to point out the discrepancies in Paul's letters or between the canonical gospels.

I don't know where you're getting this stuff about mythicists. There is no dogma, no central authority, no conspiracy, just individual people asking questions. If you're projecting your own suspicion or covert agenda onto others please stop.

Dentarthurdent

Now do you see?

/if you were trolling, nevermind

Dentarthurdent

Neither did JK Rowling ever state that her books were fiction, and yet we figured it out somehow.

Doug Shaver

IF the author of Acts intended to write a factual history of the origins of his religion, AND IF the author knew the circumstances of Paul's death, THEN it is anomalous that he failed to mention Paul's death.

I believe the antecedent needs to be demonstrated, not assumed, before we can infer the consequent.

Yes, he does, if we presuppose Jesus' historicity and presuppose that the gospel attributions of certain sayings to Jesus are approximately correct.

On the assumption that the gospels contain at least a residue of actual history, it certainly reasonable to suppose that Paul could have learned of Jesus' teachings from any of numerous sources.

I agree that conventional scholarship, as you say, does not accept the presupposition that some men are able to predict the future. Therefore, conventional scholarship infers that a reference to a historical event could not have been written before the event. I also agree that there is no other evidence for dating Mark on or after 70 CE.

I would also note, however, that there is no evidence at all for dating Mark as early as 70 CE. You fault conventional scholars for assuming naturalism. I fault them for assuming a few other things in their attempts to date the gospels as early as they possibly can. I don't think there is any unambiguous evidence supporting a date of composition before the early second century.

Chaucer

I grew up a skeptic surrounded by fundamentalists down in Florida (although both my parents were skeptics). So I can spot dogmatic tendencies a mile off. And many mythicists, if not necessarily all, are dogmatic. There needn't be a "conspiracy" here. There probably isn't. All there need be is a growing tendency (as in Florida back in the '60s when I grew up) to favor increasing thought control on a general level. Thought control sooner or later favors community censoring of open research. Think of what creationists eventually managed to do to too many school systems through sheer accumulation of critical mass in a disciplined direction.

Chaucer

sschlichter

seems like a fair statement. I beleive the intent is demonstratable.

A lack of historicity would only make me think that the gospels would be more likely the source of his quotes. where else would he get quotes from a otherwise fictitious jesus. A real Jesus would lend itself to a wider selexction of sources.

bacht

Well, I grew up a skeptic too, my mother was a Randian libertarian atheist.

If you're just talking about contrarianism or anti-traditionalism or some weird variation of political correctness then of course such things exist. But surely you don't think that Jesus Mythicism is anywhere near as severe as Soviet or Maoist atheism, or reactionary Opus Dei Catholicism? Where is the institutional support for this alleged JM cabal? It's certainly not in seminaries or university Biblical Studies departments.

I still think you're flipping arguments used against Christian apologists and turning them on mythicists. How can skeptical mythicists be compared with Creationists? The latter have a century of evangelical/fundamentalist teachings and churches to back them up. Skeptics are lucky if they get past a blank stare when the idea of a Jesus myth is suggested.