Switch89

TruthSurge has been making some remarkable videos popularising Dennis MacDonald's thesis of Homeric parallels in the gospels. Great Stuff.

http://youtu.be/nJAcX_K5YA4

stephan huller

this is the worst argument I've ever heard trying to debunk the gospels. the text does not read "far flung glory." wtf?

steve_bnk

According to a recent PBS show on Christianity the gosples plus the acts are in the form of a modified Greek actiion adventure as we'd call ot today.

We see see similar form from the old western cowboy movies morality plays in movies like Star Wars. People build on what comes before.

Joseph Campbell's point was in all myths in recorded history there really are only a few recurring themes from ancient to today.

Even the Rambo series. A Homeric odyssey in which the tested warrior finds his way home.

What is the Jesus story in the gospels?

Not an uncommon theme. The offspring of the mating of god and human grows up to take on the weight of the world/tribe/clan/nation and dies in the act of salvation. God-human goes to hevaven to be with his god-father. Clan is saved and lives happily after after. Divine power passed on by blood in a dynasty. Can't have the orginal; god-man hanging around, it is inconvienient and would cramp the style of the successors.

Taken as a complete fiction or fiction based on an orginal person, the form and content are really nothing new in mythology and story telling, certainly to litereate Chistians in the empire who were capable of writing.

stephan huller

well if a PBS show said so it must be true

LegionOnomaMoi

Beginning largerly with Stanton, but most clearly in expressed in works like Frickenschmidt's Evangelium als Biographie: Die vier Evanelien im Rahmen antiker Erzählkunst or Burridge's What are the Gospels?, the tendency among both NT scholars (who had for the most part accepted the tenets of Formgeschichte when it came to the relationship between historiography and the gospels) and historians in general is that the Gospels are closer to ancient history/biography than to Homer. The problem, however, is that ancient history grew out of myth and epic, and from Herodotus onwards greco-roman historians either incorporated myth into their narratives, or accepted the myths but edited out the mythic parts.

Ancient history/historiography was essentially story-telling. It differed from myth primarly because the author sought to explain what the author believed actually happened in the past, but not because it rejected mythic stories or mythic accounts.

steve_bnk

I know,not only that it was in English not Greek...

One thing I get from Job, Proverbs, and other OT books is that us humans have not really changed very much. The basic questions and human ills ramain the same. There was an ancient Egyptian board like game that loosley translates as 'fate'.

To get a time sense I use a 50 year lifespan as a metric. Over the last 2000 years there has been only 40 end to end overlapping lifespans. From the founding of the USA there has been only 4.

A fiction written by people who lilkely knew Greek literature being influenced by Greek literature, who woulda thunk it.

The priobelm with being overly academic and aanlytic is in mssing the simple and obvious.

steve_bnk

Agreed in general. Herodotus was also called Herodotus The Liar. They all had to creatively fill in the blanks, they had limited travel and limited accurate documention.

Historically taken as fiction to embed an idiology the gospels should not be a puzzle or mystery.

steve_bnk

Thinking a little more, look at our 2000 year old metaphors today.

Making a Herculean effort
Having an Achilles heel
A woman being a Jezebel
Having the patience of Job
Being shot by Cupid's arrow
Acting as if one is Moses down from the mountain
Wearing a crown of thorns
Being a Judas, a Judas goat
Being a sacrifical lamb

Hard to not imagine the gospel writers not being influenced by Greek literature and mythology, aong with other myths and stories.

I can hear a joke I heard 40 years ago, changed in names and conetext, but the same joke. Gospel parables could easily have been common stories told and retold.

Tolkiens complex mythology came out of being steeped in European myths and stories.

If you don't see the human element of history , what is the point?

stephan huller

This analysis is worse than the video. This gets us absolutely nowhere.

steve_bnk

How so, do yiou argue that then as now ancient metaphors and stories/parables would not be in common usagen

Academic analysis without a human connection gets you nowhere but arguing other people's analysis.

An open mind can temporarily go down the path of a differing view, we call that having a converstaion.

So far you have made two comments that say nothing about my analysis. Refutaion? All things in human civilization grow by an evolutionary process. Like today, writers back then would borrow and modify from the culture of the times and trhe past.

A Greek based morality play set on a Jewish stage.

Ever see West Side Story? Romeo And Juliet set in 1960s Spanish Harlem.

Look at the gospels as what they are, literature. Forget histrical accuracy or the question of an HJ.