PhilosopherJay

Hi Avi,
Thank you for raising these points.

Regarding the fact that the term "apostle" is found in Sinaiticus, I don't think that this allows us to conclude it was in the original Mark. Sinaiticus and Vaticanus are still, I believe, fourth century. If we assume traditional dating for Mark of circa 70 C.E. or my hypothesis 150 C.E., that still leaves us 150 to 225 years that the text could have been altered to change the word "disciple" to "apostle".

However, I find DCHindley's post on this issue extremely useful. He writes:

In the context of Mark 6:30, there is a sea voyage mentioned shortly after the use of the term "apostle"

This is actually the first sea voyage that the disciples take in Mark's story.

If we look at how many times the disciples are called "disciples" "apostles" and "the twelve" in the gospels and Paul, we get these stats:

Matthew: disciple/s: 76, the twelve: 8, Apostle: 1
Mark: disciple/s 78, the twelve: 10, Apostle: 1
John: disciple/s 82, the twelve: 4, Apostle: 0
Luke: disciple/s: 39, the twelve: 7, Apostle: 6
Paul: disciple/s: 0, the twelve: 1, Apostle 34

We know that Luke in Acts of the Apostles is constantly talking about sea voyages. It seems likely that he first used the term "apostle" in the ordinary Greek sense of a representative sent on a sea voyage, probably getting it from Paul. At some point, Mark or a copyist of Mark saw that Jesus ordered his disciples onto a sea voyage. He thought it appropriate to use the term "apostle", although Jesus doesn't order them on a sea voyage until the next passage.
In describing the feeding of the five thousand, Matthew does not use the term "apostle," so it is possible that Mark is getting the story from Matthew and just inserting the term because it means a representative on a sea voyage.
The use of the term "apostle" in Matthew is in the list of the twelve.
(10:2) This seems to be simply an attempt to harmonize Matthew with Luke. The original text probably has the term "12 disciples" as this term is in the previous line (10.1) does.

So the movement of the term "apostle" probably goes from Paul to Luke to Mark and Matthew, never touching John. On the other hand, it could go from Luke to Paul and also from Luke to Mark and Matthew.

It seems almost certain that the writers of John, Mark and Matthew never thought of the disciples as apostles in the sense that we use the term.

While some authors will use a term once for a special meaning, in this case, there seems to be no special meaning attached to it. The use in Mark and Matthew are singular and haphazard, just used interchangeably with disciple. Since it only happens once, we should probably see it in both cases as harmonizing interpolations.

Presuming this, we can say that the writer of the Paulines knows that Jesus Christ has apostles and no disciples, while John, Matthew and Mark know that Jesus had disciples but no apostles. This suggests that they had two very different Jesus Christs in mind. Luke may be considered the great harmonizer between them.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Clivedurdle

Doesn't the twelve also need discussing?

PhilosopherJay

Hi Clivedurdle,

Good point.

Here's the relevant statistics again:

Matthew: disciple/s: 76, the twelve: 8, Apostle: 1
Mark: disciple/s 78, the twelve: 10, Apostle: 1
John: disciple/s 82, the twelve: 4, Apostle: 0
Luke: disciple/s: 39, the twelve: 7, Apostle: 6
Paul: disciple/s: 0, the twelve: 1, Apostle 34

Just as the term Apostle seems likely to be a later interpolation in Matthew and Mark, the term "the twelve" seems likely to be an interpolation in Paul.

We get it in 1 Corinthians 15:
The use of the numbers 12 and 500 are interesting here and relate the passage in some way to the miracle feeding story.

Mark 6:

Which in turn relates to
Paul seems to reference the passage from 2 Kings 2:42-44 when he says a few passages later:

Their seems to be some kind of drift in the texts between eating and seeing. Perhaps the original said something like this:

This would suggest that the passage comes from a combination of 2 Kings 2:42–44 and some Osiris cult.

This would suggest that material for this epistle was taken from an Osiris Jewish cult where Jesus is somehow intertwined with the god Osiris (God of Barley).

This makes me curious to read Archarya S.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

spin

Paul invalidates himself as a witness to a historical Jesus. He clearly states that he never met Jesus, nor does he clearly cite anyone he says had met Jesus. This doesn't mean that Paul didn't believe his Jesus was real (as with Tertullian and his Ebion), just that he isn't a witness.

Dealing with Mark, we don't know when the gospel was written, but with the standard guess, it could reflect the start of the Jewish war (to be conservative). That means at least twenty years since Paul first delivered his good news to the Greeks and Anatolians. The earliest report we have about Mark, which again we cannot date, says that Mark was based on the recollection of Peter, yet a reading of Mark certainly doesn't agree with that claim. The nature of Mark is not transparent and there has been time for a more hands-on Jesus tradition to have developed since the time of Paul. Further, Mark appears to have been written in Rome, isolated from a Palestinian context. There is no way to treat this text as a witness. Besides, we cannot know whether it is an independent tradition from that started by Paul among the Greeks or not.

I don't see any scope that these sources give any historical information that we can ever discern.


spin

aa5874

But, haven't you established a pattern that tend to show that the Pauline writers were after gMark?

After reading your stats and then looking at the relevant passages it would be noticed that the author of gMark used the phrase "his disciples" about 39 times when referring to the disciples of Jesus, the same phrase "his disciples" is found about 43, 23 and 43 times respectively in gMatthew, gLuke and gJohn.

The phrase "his disciples" cannot be found anywhere in the Pauline writings.

It can be deduced that the authors of the Gospels did not use the Pauline writings for the phrase, they either used some other source of copied from one or the other.

Now, if the only mention of the word apostle in gMark is considered a LATE interpolation and the Pauline writing only used the word "apostles" instead of "his disciples" then it may be that gMark was written before the word apostles was used to described the disciples of Jesus.

And there is another example of a LATE interpolation in gMark that is compatible with events in the Pauline writings and Acts, examine the LATE ending of gMark where the resurrected Jesus promised the gifts of the Holy Ghost and the ability to survive snake bites.

The Pauline writer was bitten by a venemous snake and survived after he had received the gifts of the Holy Ghost.

It would appear then that the author of the short-ending of gMark did not know that the disciples of Jesus were called apostles by Paul and that he was bitten by a snake after he recieved the Holy Ghost.

Why did he not know?

Perhaps the character called Paul and the Acts of the Apostles were not yet fabricated.

GakuseiDon

It's generally assumed that Paul's gospel message came from revelation/scriptures, and that he learned additional facts from those he persecuted and, later on, from the other Christians (like Phil 2 and 1 Cor 14). I know that some on this board disagree with that, so I acknowledge it could be wrong, though I haven't seen anything that convinces me personally (if that matters to anyone).

About the same, I guess. Does Josephus tell us where he found information about the Circle Drawer, John the Baptist and the others? I don't believe he does.



Actually, the inspiration for this thread was someone pointing out that Ehrman "just assumes" that there was a historical Jesus. And I thought, "Of course he does. Every blamed piece of writing that we have coming out of the first few centuries is consistent with the idea, and there is no record of anyone ever doubting it, until the last few centuries."

It might be that Paul had in view a non-earthly Christ, and that Mark might have written fiction, so it is possible such an assumption is wrong. But I don't see any problem with anyone not holding those views to assume that there is a high probability that there was a historical Jesus. Such an assumption isn't based on nothing.

Toto

Paul is clear that his message comes from revelation from the Risen Christ, not from any man. The idea that he learned facts from those he persecuted, or from others, appears to be an attempt to connect him to other sources.

This is not exactly true. Paul's letters are not totally consistent with a historical Jesus, forcing a lot of apologetic explanations. The gospels do not describe a historical Jesus - they describe a legendary supernatural Jesus. The many writings that do not mention Jesus are not exactly consistent with a historical Jesus, unless by "consistent" you mean "not explicitly contradictory."

The historical Jesus was a construct of the Enlightenment, of Deists who thought that they could discard the supernatural aspects of Christianity and discover a [merely] human Jesus behind them.

Once again, there is the possibility of a historical Jesus behind the legend. But you have no basis for calling that a "high probability." To do that, you would have to know how often a historical personage is turned into a legend, versus the number of times that a legend arises with no historical antecedent but is later regarded as historical. I don't know of any data base that would allow you to calculate the probabilities there. For many figures, we might have no way of knowing whethere there is a historical core to the legend. (Romulus and Remus? Hercules? Achilles? Helen of Troy? Arjuna? Who knows?)

renassault

How is Paul supposed to receive messages from someone who has ascended in Heaven?

It's unlikely he would have learned anything from them he wouldn't have already known from his superiors.

Once again the voice of irrepairable knowledge-absense speaks..Galatians 3:13, 4:4.

Oh right, they don't describe someone who walked, ate, and spoke amongst other people.

Many don't need to mention a description of an earthly Jesus.

You don't need to calculate any probabilities. All you need to do is look at the historical information available, which is fairly plentiful to make a historical Jesus an inescapable reality.

dog-on

Mark and Paul are enough to conclude myth.

It's the other things, Josephus, Pliny, Tacitus, etc. that cloud the picture.

Without these references, there would be no question.

So the real issue is. in my view, the authenticity of the non-christian sources.

gurugeorge

Hercules also walked, ate and spoke amongst other people. Is there a "historical Hercules" behind the evident myth of Hercules? It's difficult to say.

Same with the Jesus story, which is, on the face of it, an evident myth about a miracle-working God-man (as in the synoptic superhero comix). Is there a man behind it? Difficult to say.

Many myths have what one might call pseudo-historical details - things that appear to pin them down to some concrete time and place. But that isn't historical evidence in itself, it's just evidence that might turn out to be historical, contingent on other things that pin down real-human-being-hood in the cult figure.