Sheshbazzar

:hysterical: Hell, might just as well pull quotes from Oral Roberts or Benny Hinn

Adam

I really appreciated your #381 story. I could easily imagine myself among the glad-handers, offerring encouragement where little could be expected thereby.
I did come to this forum for negative feedback, and you say it helps, but it would be more helpful if it addressed what was wrong with my thesis rather than just expressing disagreement with it.

Adam

Please note that the two above quotes from me are consecutive parts of one sentence. I was not ordering spin to cease and desist posting anti-Christian statements. Rather, I was referring back to my closing sentence in my Post #335 (and thanks again to DCHindley for providing the paragraphing in #337 to make it more readable for some of you):
Above it I had detailed all my seven written eyewitness records, and I had shown that each was essential in one or another argument used against Christianity. I'm still waiting; refute me or cease considering yourself justified in stating those particular arguments.
And we go back once again to my peripheral thesis. 240 posts now without dealing with my thesis of seven written eyewitness records. Anyway, I have explained time and again that how the layers can be seen to relate to comparions of gMark with gJohn, with gLuke, and of gLuke with gMatthew.
My introduction with Post #230 of my 6 layers of gMark and the further detailing of the six layers in my Posts #245 and #248 immediately preceded spin getting involved (after Vorkosigan largely dropped out), so it might seem to him that I have not answered him as he expected. I am sure I did not present enough detail to satisfy spin, but I doubt anything would.
I'm taking everything you say seriously. I hope you will start doing the same, instead of automatically dismissing every sentence I write.

Sheshbazzar

I have addressed what is wrong with your thesis__repeatedly.
You are making unevidenced claims for these texts having been written by "eyewitnesses".
The writer of 'Mark' nowhere identifies himself as being an eyewitness.
In fact, this writer never identifies himself as being the Mark of the Gospels. (or even being any 'Mark' at all.)
From that 'friendly' christian apologetic site link in #389 above;
And the following alleged 'indirect evidence" claimed is either outright error, or is extremely weak; 'vividness of description' pffft! any interesting narrative tale requires vivid details to 'glue' the plot together, take away those details and you would have such a dull dud of a tome that no one would have even bothered with reading it. And following in the literary traditions of the old Hebrew texts, for it to have attained any level of acceptance, it would have been imperative to incorporate considerable detail, but those 'vivid' details provided are as just as fabricated and fictional as the vivid details found in Patriarchal tales in Genesis. (and most of the themes, situations, and ideas when closely examined are found to be ridiculously contrived and adapted replays of material lifted directly from the TaNaKa.)

Your 'method' from the beginning has been to simply assert that this, that or another portion of these texts was written by this, that, or another 'eyewitness', assigning whatever you would to whomever you would without a providing shred of textual evidence to back up your asserted choices.
As I objected early on, you are building a house of straw, all stuck together with nothing but copious amounts of horse-manure.
Yet not really a house, and certainly not a castle, but rather something on the order of of a hundred room nightmare of a hovel constructed of unsupported assertion piled upon more unsupported assertion.
You start out with an assumption, and pile on the 'possiblies' and endless 'could have beens' until you've built up a teetering pile of straw construction that is not even safe to walk under.
I am not trying to be offensive here, but honestly, I cannot see how you can expect anyone to believe or accept such a shoddily constructed thesis as you are attempting to sell here.
I do not see it as capable of even finding minimal support among your fellow christians. You are being played.
Oh yeah, you did find someone willing to publish it and give you your cherished pat on the back. They didn't even bother to give you an honest critique of your submission, just delighted to add you to their number, only another statistic to add to their long, long line, as these demons snapped shut their iron shackles around your vanity.
And in their thrall you've been clanking along in those fetters and chains ever since, going ever on down 'ol rocky road, always in that direction pointed to you by these minions of hell.

tanya

Sheshbazzar: I don't know you, but I am slightly familiar with W.B.Yeats, and with Peter, Paul, and Mary, whose lyrics are vaguely similar to your excellent poem in post 381.

Thank you. Very well done. If your real profession in life, is not poetry, it should be.

1. I have read that Dennis R. MacDonald claims that the gospel of Mark is based upon Homer's Odysseus: then, how can one conclude that it is "non-literary"? Does this mean that MacDonald's thesis about the close relationship to, and reliance upon, Homer, by Mark, is incorrect?

2. If the author had been a "Palestinian Jew", why would he have written, in Mark 6:27 σπεκουλάτορα ? Isn't there a more appropriate Semitic or Greek word, for executioner? Do native Koine Greek authors use this same word? Do other Semitic authors use it, when writing in Greek (e.g. Philo, Josephus?)

spin

As predicted, the next shift of the goalposts backwards, functionally saying that everything else he wrote was a waste of time. Given that everything else he wrote was a waste of time, do you think that the nine he mentions above will not be consistent with the rest?

Horatio Parker

I just listened to a lecture claiming the same for Plato's Republic.

The real source, though, is the myth of Ra. It's a sun god theme where the hero travels through a series of tests or travails, often twelve in number, wins the battle with a many-headed beast(the suitors in the Odyssey), then rises triumphantly.

Adam

Yes, it's true. You have said that before. I was just looking yesterday at your #139, to which I responded in #142. Here's some of what I said:

Some things you say are crude, so I assume they don't need a proper reply. Your specifics tend to be the same thing "asserted" again and again (same as spin does) that I don't prove what I say. If anyone proved what he said, the matter would presumably end right there, there would be nothing further to say. Yet the scholarly debate goes on without resolution.
As I said in my quote above, it was militant atheism (even invading Christian websites) that stimulated me to respond with my thesis. Just as in your poem, Shesh, fervent opposition was essential to deriving the hypothesis of seven written eyewitness records to Jesus. That there are no eyewitnesses to Jesus is what is unproven.

Adam

This seems pretty close to an admission by spin that he has not even yet read any of my posts presenting my thesis. Doen't "will not be consistent with the rest?" imply speculation about what he will find if he does read them?
I could ask spin whether he had read, has read, or is reading, but spin never answers questions. It's too late now to present evidence of more than the most cursory reading (apparently just my OP), because even what he mentioned about my basic thesis he presented no argument against other than that I assert things. This isn't mathematics, almost nothing about ancient history is known with certainly. Yet here we all are on this sub-forum, your assertions vs. my assertions. It's all a matter of weighing probabilities and possibilities.

Horatio Parker

Then why do "militant atheists" or anyone need to *disprove* it?

Your thesis is DOA.

And how your thesis constitutes a blow against atheism or advances the cause of Christianity or spitiruality in any way is beyond me.