Freethought & Rationalism Archive

outhouse · 05-02-2012, 10:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Quote:

Originally Posted by graymouser

The person revered as Jesus Christ in the Christian religion was crucified while Pontius Pilate was the Roman prefect of Judea. There is no evidence to support any other time; therefore, Jesus died sometime between 26 and 36 CE. It is not "some of them." Every single piece of evidence we have points to precisely this time period, and it's consistent with the timing of the epistles we have from Paul. You can't just wave your hands and say we don't know as if every wild conjecture was perfectly equal.

The person revered as Jesus Christ in the Christian religion was baptized by John, who died at the beginning of the public ministry of said Jesus. Josephus relates the death of John to the brief war between Herod Antipas and Aretas IV of Petra which was close to the end of the life of Tiberius (17/03/37), putting the war about a year before T's death. We have the execution of JtB not long before the war in early 36 CE for Josephus relates the result of the war to retribution over the execution of John (AJ 18.116 = 18.5.2) and the connection between the events would not make sense with an elongated timeline. Postulating a death of John long before the war invalidates any meaningful relationship between the two events. Josephus places the recall of Pilate before the death of Tiberius, which happened before Pilate reached Rome. (AJ 18.89 = 18.4.2)

We can throw out the chronology of three passovers in the ministry of Jesus according to gJn as completely unrealistic when compared to the historical data from Josephus. If JtB died in 35 CE Jesus according to gJn would still have been alive when Pilate was removed. As it is we have difficulty trying to make the chronology work when Pilate was gone in 36 CE. What we are doing is trying to fit the gospel story to the historical events and we are pushed into a short ministry in the last year of Pilate's prefecture. (Most pundits just ignore Josephus and work from the fanciful birth narratives to get a death circa 30 CE. That would be five years before JtB died.)

It appears as though the data have been marshaled for the story rather than the story being based on historical events.

Or the oral tradition wasnt accurate the gospels are based on, and they did the best they could to keep things in order with the little knowledge they poccessed.

I agree with your first parts it as accurate as we known, its just that last sentance that I dont follow

outhouse · 05-02-2012, 10:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Atheos

Quote:

Originally Posted by outhouse

yes

we know the oral tradition was not accurate, we know it changed dramatically.

oral tradion in one culture with established religions and material handed down through the centuries "can" remain incredibaly accurate.

Cross culture oral tradition is more of a influence at this point as there is no reason at all to maintain accuracy

How does one know that oral tradition remained accurate if the only method of transmission was oral? If there is any other means by which its accuracy can be measured how can one know that that means wasn't a factor in maintaining the accuracy?

If the "Jesus" cult was in its infancy why would the "established religions and material handed down through the centuries" be applicable? These are problems with attempting to apply this alleged oral transmission accuracy to something as tenuous as the gestational period of the christian movement.

There is abundant evidence of early conflicting traditions, including "gospels" that were later rejected by those who were influential enough to codify their favorite version of the stories and brand all else as heretical. How does this evidence fit in with the proposition that oral transmission was so amazingly accurate? Why do the four canonical resurrection narratives contain such blatant contradictions with regard to the single most revered part of this story if (once again) oral transmission was so remarkably accurate?

Evidence does not favor these claims of incredibly accurate oral transmission.

You did read what I posted.??? I stated oral tradition is not accurate when used cross culturally.

really everything in this post is close to spot on, but it doesnt go against what I stated

outhouse · 05-02-2012, 10:20 AM

Quote:

If the "Jesus" cult was in its infancy why would the "established religions and material handed down through the centuries" be applicable?

becuase the OT was used heavily in oral tradition within the poor peasant jews.

that is how much of the HJ legend took on some of these traits

the movement was wide and varied, jewish, and god-fearer's, and romans were all part of the begining of all this.

The reason the most educated people [scholars] all agree on a HJ is because from history itself, it seems that at a event with 400,000 people in attendance, something happened that was remembered and talked about for decades afterwards.

we know there were many different views as the oral tradion went in all directs and all culture's, failing in judaism rather quickly and catching on in the roman empire [which is the only version we are left with do to the destruction of literature that was deemed non worthy

spin · 05-02-2012, 10:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Quote:

Originally Posted by graymouser

The person revered as Jesus Christ in the Christian religion was crucified while Pontius Pilate was the Roman prefect of Judea. There is no evidence to support any other time; therefore, Jesus died sometime between 26 and 36 CE. It is not "some of them." Every single piece of evidence we have points to precisely this time period, and it's consistent with the timing of the epistles we have from Paul. You can't just wave your hands and say we don't know as if every wild conjecture was perfectly equal.

The person revered as Jesus Christ in the Christian religion was baptized by John, who died at the beginning of the public ministry of said Jesus. Josephus relates the death of John to the brief war between Herod Antipas and Aretas IV of Petra which was close to the end of the life of Tiberius (17/03/37), putting the war about a year before T's death. We have the execution of JtB not long before the war in early 36 CE for Josephus relates the result of the war to retribution over the execution of John (AJ 18.116 = 18.5.2) and the connection between the events would not make sense with an elongated timeline. Postulating a death of John long before the war invalidates any meaningful relationship between the two events. Josephus places the recall of Pilate before the death of Tiberius, which happened before Pilate reached Rome. (AJ 18.89 = 18.4.2)

We can throw out the chronology of three passovers in the ministry of Jesus according to gJn as completely unrealistic when compared to the historical data from Josephus. If JtB died in 35 CE Jesus according to gJn would still have been alive when Pilate was removed. As it is we have difficulty trying to make the chronology work when Pilate was gone in 36 CE. What we are doing is trying to fit the gospel story to the historical events and we are pushed into a short ministry in the last year of Pilate's prefecture. (Most pundits just ignore Josephus and work from the fanciful birth narratives to get a death circa 30 CE. That would be five years before JtB died.)

It appears as though the data have been marshaled for the story rather than the story being based on historical events.

Josephus does not actually give a date for the execution of JBap. He relates that event to Antipas' scuffle with Aretas, but does not say how long before the war the execution happened, and it was conventional for people to look for events in the past to explain subsequent events without necessarily being very particular about immediate currency.

The nearest parallel is to be found in the account of Onias the Circle Drawer in AJ 14.22-25 (14.2.1-2). The wrongful death of Onias supposedly caused immediate retribution. Obviously the longer the pause between death and retribution the more tenuous the connection.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

I think it also goes without saying that the actual passion narratives in the gospels are wholly fabricated fictions,...

(I always have problems with the use of terms that imply intentions that can never be falsified. Both "fabricate" and "fiction" in their normal senses indicate intention, just as surely as "falsify" does.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

...but that doesn't mean they weren't based on knowledge of an actual crucifixion, it was just a crucifixion that they didn't necessarily know anything about other than "he was crucified." I would not actually expect the followers of a putative HJ to know any details about anything that happened after the arrest, because (according even to the Gospels) they all fled.

I agree that such thinking is coherent, though also arbitrary.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

It's historically plausible at least, that Mark (or ur-Mark, or whoever) was starting with basically no information but "he was taken away and crucified,"...

Basically what was revealed to Paul?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

...which he then enhanced with pictures he made from clouds in the LXX.

Plainly fictional passions are not necessarily proof against a historical crucifixion, just evidence against Mark having any detailed knowledge about it.

We can also take away the round table and the holy grail legends and perhaps reclaim Arthur as a historical leader as well. Come to think of it, there's nothing in the few surviving traces of the life of

Ebion that need to be discarded as fabricated fiction, so do we declare that he was probably historical?

You can't do historical research in purely negatives. Getting rid of what is not acceptable doesn't necessarily render what's left reflective of a real past.

spin · 05-02-2012, 10:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by outhouse

Or the oral tradition wasnt accurate the gospels are based on, and they did the best they could to keep things in order with the little knowledge they poccessed.

Oral traditions are no less susceptible to being false than written traditions. They are just more fluid in content.

Atheos · 05-02-2012, 10:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by outhouse

Quote:

If the "Jesus" cult was in its infancy why would the "established religions and material handed down through the centuries" be applicable?

becuase the OT was used heavily in oral tradition within the poor peasant jews.

that is how much of the HJ legend took on some of these traits

the movement was wide and varied, jewish, and god-fearer's, and romans were all part of the begining of all this.

The reason the most educated people [scholars] all agree on a HJ is because from history itself, it seems that at a event with 400,000 people in attendance, something happened that was remembered and talked about for decades afterwards.

we know there were many different views as the oral tradion went in all directs and all culture's, failing in judaism rather quickly and catching on in the roman empire [which is the only version we are left with do to the destruction of literature that was deemed non worthy

Now I'm curious. What was this event with 400,000 people in attendance? What did they see and talk about?

outhouse · 05-02-2012, 10:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Atheos

Quote:

Originally Posted by outhouse

becuase the OT was used heavily in oral tradition within the poor peasant jews.

that is how much of the HJ legend took on some of these traits

the movement was wide and varied, jewish, and god-fearer's, and romans were all part of the begining of all this.

The reason the most educated people [scholars] all agree on a HJ is because from history itself, it seems that at a event with 400,000 people in attendance, something happened that was remembered and talked about for decades afterwards.

we know there were many different views as the oral tradion went in all directs and all culture's, failing in judaism rather quickly and catching on in the roman empire [which is the only version we are left with do to the destruction of literature that was deemed non worthy

Now I'm curious. What was this event with 400,000 people in attendance? What did they see and talk about?

well they do say 300,000 - 400,000 jews attended passover in the temple when this disturbance and crucifixion took place.

this would have generated many different versions of oral tradition on the subject before condensing into a few different versions decades later.

I believe Marvin Meyers puts it like this. Hey! did you hear about the guy that got crucified? I heard he taught this, and did that, ect ect ect, and on and on and on

oral tradition was wide and varied on this event, its no wonder the legend changed based on geographic location of the authors

outhouse · 05-02-2012, 10:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Quote:

Originally Posted by outhouse

Or the oral tradition wasnt accurate the gospels are based on, and they did the best they could to keep things in order with the little knowledge they poccessed.

Oral traditions are no less susceptible to being false than written traditions. They are just more fluid in content.

that is true

sotto voce · 05-02-2012, 10:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Atheos

Sorry, I've heard that schtick about oral transmission supposedly being more reliable back in the good old days and I just don't buy it. It didn't add up when I was studying textual criticism in college 30 years ago and it still doesn't.

First of all it's a categorically unfalsifiable claim. The only way to verify that oral transmission in ancient times was reliable is to have some evidence of what was being said in an earlier time and what was being said in a later time. The existence of that evidence alone would by definition render it impossible to know if the story stayed consistent solely through oral transmission or if it was buttressed by the other evidence. Lack of such evidence leaves us with no record of the earlier version of the story and no way to verify if it changed. Catch-22.

The discovery of the Qumran texts gave us insight into the reliability (or sometimes lack thereof) of scribal transmission but that's not the same thing in any sense of the word.

Meanwhile, we know that in modern times orally transmitted information is nowhere near as likely to remain intact as printed information.

It's not the means of production, it is the number of copies produced that counts. A document that has many available copies is impossible to corrupt (though it can very easily go out of print, and may be appalling lies to begin with). But an autograph, or a few copies of it, can be easily adulterated in secret. So oral transmission is more reliable, because many people hold the 'original' in their memories, that is passed on by rote learning to offspring. The memory capacity of ordinary people is far greater than is evident today, because we turn to reference works, calculators and computers with such ease. Where the subject matter is of great interest, memorisation is faster and more permanent, and this would have been the case with the lore that found its way into the 'gospels'.

Unlike many matters of concern in newspapers, to which only a tiny proportion of a population has direct witness, the ministry of Jesus was seen and heard by a very wide public. Much of the material that was to go into the gospels was 'unforgettable', and significant deviations would have been identifiable for several generations after Jesus' ministry.

Quote:

This claim of reliable oral transmission in ancient times appears to me to be nothing more than a shortcut taken by apologists to avoid having to come to terms with the fact that supporting evidence for many of their claims is non-existent.

That's fair enough, but they are not making formal claims. They are merely presenting what has been passed down, and allowing people to believe it or not. There is not much reason to expect supporting evidence, because the Christian message tended to polarise opinion. It's very likely that what written evidence was not corrupted by moisture, etc. was destroyed by those antagonistic to Christianity. There was no shortage of such people in the early centuries.

Atheos · 05-02-2012, 11:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by outhouse

Quote:

Originally Posted by Atheos

Now I'm curious. What was this event with 400,000 people in attendance? What did they see and talk about?

well they do say 300,000 - 400,000 jews attended passover in the temple when this disturbance and crucifixion took place.

this would have generated many different versions of oral tradition on the subject before condensing into a few different versions decades later.

I believe Marvin Meyers puts it like this. Hey! did you hear about the guy that got crucified? I heard he taught this, and did that, ect ect ect, and on and on and on

oral tradition was wide and varied on this event, its no wonder the legend changed based on geographic location of the authors

I'm afraid you have me at a major disadvantage here. I was unaware of how dismal my knowledge of the evidence was. Apparently there is evidence of hundreds of thousands of pilgrims discussing the passover crucifixion of Jesus and I had no idea. Any chance you can help me find this evidence? I tried Google and didn't find anything other than the usual apologist sites full of unsubstantiated assertion. I'd like to see some of the primary evidence on which these assertions are based.

This might be just the thing I've been looking for all these years to convince me to take a side on this issue. Thanks! :thumbs:

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