ichabod crane

I suppose is it possible that they were writing an allegory, but it doesn't seem to fit the text. Why the concrete setting in real locations with real details? Why the concern for genealogies and mentioning rulers and so forth? But while they may have been creating a religion, that doesn't mean they didn't believe in what they were creating. It's not like they sat down and said, hey, let's make stuff up and fool everybody into believing it.

By the way, I'm not necessarily denying that there mightn't be a deeper meaning to these texts. I'm just questioning whether that meaning is what the authors consciously intended.

graymouser

No. I didn't say that at all. I said I could not believe that anyone from the Roman Empire actually believed that a man was crucified and then buried. Forget resurrection, burial of a crucifixion victim alone is grounds for outright incredulity. If you were crucified, you died and were left on the cross to rot as a warning to others. That was the entire point of the procedure.

I have no difficulty believing that Pontius Pilate would crucify a Messianic claimant; indeed, given the history of his rule, I find the unwillingness to crucify Jesus completely out of character. But burial of a crucifixion victim was entirely out of the ordinary, and if you had to pick someone to acquiesce to it, Pontius Pilate would not be the one.

Resurrection claims are irrelevant fantasy. Burial claims are serious factual error.

-Wayne

Magdlyn

Some people will believe anything won't they? Superstition, pure and simple. National Enquirer stuff. "I saw Elvis serving a burger to Batboy" genre.

The stories of Elijah and and Elisha were written down hundreds of years after they had been passed down orally as "amazing" campfire stories. People didn't have TV back then, so this was (maybe thought to be edifying) amusing entertainment.

Disagree. The narratives of Jesus supposed life are obviously Tanakh midrash with a unifying theme of a new covenant.

Correct, but a useless point. One could say that about almost any novel or movie being made or written today. Harry Potter and Bridget Jones go to London. Does that prove they are real people like you and me?

I did not mean they were entirely hagiogrpahies. They are far too complex. There are hagiographic parts, but are more correctly approached as fiction with a theological theme, an idealized and fictional history of the Jewish people.