Amaleq13

Even if he was on the deck of the "hinder part of the ship"?

Nonsense. The head was upon a charger. You don't put food "in" a plate, Ted.

As far as I can tell, you've found one example (wilderness) or two at the most (sown seeds) that appear to support "in" as you want it read but the majority appear to argue against that reading.

For a guy who loves numbers, you don't appear to be following them here.

Ben C Smith

Please note post #26 on this thread. The phrase επι της θαλασσης can indeed mean by the sea.

Ben.

Toto

Meier's Mentor, Message, and Miracles (A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Volume 2) is searchable on Amazon.com. The section on "The So-Called Nature Miracles: VI. The Walking on the Water" starts at page 900. Meier's notes the idea that this is a version of the resurrection.

Julian

But clearly not 'in' the sea...

Ben C Smith

I see. I may have misunderstood what Ted was trying to do with the translation.

Thanks.

Ben.

TedM

Not in the translation I saw, which said "in". I understand that a charger is either a platter or a dish. You do put food "in" a dish, do you not?

Well, they were both in Mark, as opposed to your examples..

Anyway, thanks to all for the comments. I'm retreating to a less confident position now on the matter...

Amaleq13

I was referring to the meaning.

No. It is flatware. You put things on them. Charger plates are the fancy plates under your real plate of food if you are wealthy and/or pretentious.

Unfortunately for you, I had some downtime waiting for a meeting.

Restricting it just to Mark doesn't help your numbers, amigo. Giving you every benefit of the doubt, I still find 76 uses not translated as "in" against 17 translated as "in" but 7 of those do not carry the meaning you need (ie trust "in" God) which leaves you with 10 out of 93 uses.

TedM

I didn't know, so had done an internet search which said "platter or dish", but you seem to be pretty certain about this one.

Thanks for checking it out. The numbers are not as supportive as I had first thought. Another test would be to look at all the uses similar to "in or within the water" that exist, and see how many times epi is used vs something else..Earlier I found 6 or 7 in the NT and none of them used epi. I was unable to check the OT.

take care,

ted

Amaleq13

You need to watch more Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

Doug Shaver

Disagreement is, I believe, a form of interaction, and I responded in order to express it.

(1) If you want to tell me why I should believe that Josephus said anything about Jesus, go ahead.

As for the other nonbiblical references, they prove at most that by the second century, there were people calling themselves Christians and believing that their religion had been founded by somebody who had been crucified by Pilate.

(2) Why that one? If I'm allowed to stipulate that at least some of the stories might be untrue, the one about him walking on the water would be near the top of the list.

(3) That it was clearly a product of imagination was precisely my point. Your OP asked whether the story was a clue for historicity, and I construed "a clue for" to mean "evidence for." Speculation about what could have happened is not evidence that anything did happen.

I do not agree with you that the account contains any clues. My failure to agree with you does not imply a failure to read or consider what you wrote.

I dismissed the possibility after giving it some thought. Not much thought, I'll admit, but as much as it seemed to deserve.

Yes, I have concluded that. I reached that conclusion after a lot of study. A whole great big lot of study.

I used to be a Christian. After I stopped being one, I continued for the next 30-plus years to suppose that Jesus was a real person, and to suppose that only crackpots thought otherwise. Then I got on the Web about six years ago and started doing some of my own research. I found Earl Doherty's site right away and found it persuasive, but I continued researching. I'm not convinced of everything Doherty says, but I have not found one historicist -- fundamentalist, atheist, or anybody in between -- who has come up with a cogent argument against the core of his case.

I never have made, and hope I never would make, such a blatantly fallacious argument.