Jeffrey Gibson

Excuse me, but what is you evidence that Christians in NT times thought Jesus was a "God-man"?

There is nothing in the NT, even in the passages that assert that highest of high christologies including Jn 1 or Phil 3 or Col., that presents Jesus as someone who was part god (let alone the god as Yahweh was god) and part man or any combination thereof, or shows that this is what early Christians believed he was.

Your premise is grounded in gross anachronism.

Jeffrey

neilgodfrey

I'm not sure the implications are necessarily as strong as you suggest. It does not follow that the genre used can inform us what the author was thinking about the historicity of his subject, as I think you acknowledge by implication. Ancient letters were a genre employed to relay thoughts and messages of real people and happenings. Yet this genre also served other authors well as a vehicle for fictitious entertainment (Rosenmeyer). The gospels are theological instruction rather than popular entertainment, and the first one may well have decided upon using the βιοι genre as the most apt for his purpose, whether that was "parabolic" or whatever.

But I have not yet read Burridge. I have read several point by point synopses of arguments for relating the gospels to biography or history, but have found them all wanting in some respects so far. Will have a look at Burridge in the next few weeks if possible.

Neil

gurugeorge

What sort of thing would you accept as evidence Jeffrey?

To me it looks like the whole NT is about that. Sometimes he seems more like a human being, sometimes he seems more Divine, but throughout the NT both aspects seem to be shown. How about Corinthians 8:6?

Is that not divine enough for "god-man" to be reasonably appropriate? Doesn't the sly reference to "Shema Israel" give us a clue?

Are you sure? How about Colossians 2:9 -

Looks pretty god-mannish to me.

Regardless, my post was meant to draw attention to the gulf between the evidently mythical Joshua Messiah of the NT and the historical entity proposed by some moderns to be at the root of the myth, and to remind everybody that the modern sense of the word "historical" implicitly assumes that the kind of entity depicted in the NT cannot possibly exist (or is vanishingly unlikely to exist) - whereas, clearly, the NT authors thought such an entity could exist, and thought they were providing good evidence that he existed.

Whether the appropriate term for this mythical entity is "god-man" according to some strictly circumscribed usage of the term you and your favourite academic authors prefer, is kind of tangential, don't you think?

JoeWallack

JW:
Ookay, time to make like Sweden in the Thirty Years War. Ben tried so hard to limit the Assertian that the Gospels are Greco-Roman biographies to merely the consensus of Authority but ultimately was successfully tempted by satan to go beyond the line and Assert the conclusion that they are Greco-Roman biographies.

As usual, the question of whether the Gospels are GRB (Greco-Roman biographies) is Misleading. There is a huge difference between the style of "Mark", the original Gospel, and "Luke", which is the closest to GRB. "Luke" has exponentially less evidential value since it uses "Mark" as it's primary source and significantly Edits it. "Mark" may be reacting to Jesus' history to some extent. "Luke" is reacting to "Mark".

The late, great Raymond Brown tells why the Gospels are not GRB, but Gospels (surprise) and rightly divides "Mark" in An Introduction To The New Testament:

I can go beyond Brown and list other even more significant differences:

1) In the Christian Bible most of Jesus' actions are Supernatural.

2) The Christian Bible was maintained for a long time by an institution that had motive and opportunity to change it.

3) The Christian Bible accounts have significant dependence within.

My point and Brown's is that the Gospels are primarily evangelistic tools designed to persuade as opposed to ancient biographies designed to present history. Evangelistic tools are much more tolerant of historical error than ancient biographies.

For an example of GRB online see The Life of Apollonius

"Mark" is actually Anti-GRB:

1) Circumstances of Birth = Exorcised

2) Early Life = Exorcised

3) Development of Character = None

4) Fearless acceptance of Fate = See Gethsemane

5) Noble behaviour during mistreatment = Gives silent treatment except for a few wise guy sayings

Most reMarkable is that "Mark" is completely and unapologetically Anonymous:

1) Written 3rd person

2) Information through Revelation

3) Discrediting of Historical witness

4) No witnesses at end

5) Lone remaining promoter of Jesus is unknown

To assert that "Mark" is GRB is comical. As demonstrated in Mark's DiualCritical Marks. Evidence Of Intentional Fiction In The Original Gospel "Mark" also deliberately presents Fiction. As has also been demonstrated in Mark "I Am IronyMan". How Much Ironic Contrast, Transfer and Reversal Did He kraM? "Mark" has an overriding Literary style of Irony that everything is subject to including "Mark's" Jesus' character. These observations indicate that "Mark" knew he was writing Fiction. Christians like Ben want to argue by Association that "Mark" has History. "Mark" is a biography so the author intended history so it has history. This line of reasoning is relatively insignificant compared to the Impossible consideration. Since "Mark" primarily consists of the Impossible, the original author did not have any historical witness for it and therefore likely knew that it was Fiction. This is in Opposition to subsequent Gospels, not the original author, who may have thought "Mark" historical.

Considering that "Mark" is not a GRB and is intentional Fiction, a better question is is "Mark" primarily a Gospel or a Greek tragedy such as Oedipus Rex? Right now I Am inclined to think Greek Tragedy because of the overriding Ironic style and apparent refusal of orthodox Christianity to notice "Mark" until the Forged ending. Like they say, "A son of man knows what he is looking at."



Joseph

EDITOR, n.
A person who combines the judicial functions of Minos, Rhadamanthus and Aeacus, but is placable with an obolus; a severely virtuous censor, but so charitable withal that he tolerates the virtues of others and the vices of himself; who flings about him the splintering lightning and sturdy thunders of admonition till he resembles a bunch of firecrackers petulantly uttering his mind at the tail of a dog; then straightway murmurs a mild, melodious lay, soft as the cooing of a donkey intoning its prayer to the evening star. Master of mysteries and lord of law, high-pinnacled upon the throne of thought, his face suffused with the dim splendors of the Transfiguration, his legs intertwisted and his tongue a-cheek, the editor spills his will along the paper and cuts it off in lengths to suit. And at intervals from behind the veil of the temple is heard the voice of the foreman demanding three inches of wit and six lines of religious meditation, or bidding him turn off the wisdom and whack up some pathos.

http://errancywiki.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

andrewcriddle

The problem with the historical Romulus is that if he existed he apparently died before 700 BCE.

Our surviving sources for Romulus are much much later and although they presumably depend on earlier (non-surviving) writen texts these earlier sources are almost certainly later (probably much later) than 400 BCE. Hence there is a gap of well over 300 years (probably over 400 years) in which the Romulus story was transmitted orally.

This prevents any real knowledge of the historical Romulus (if he ever existed)

Claims have been made by scholars such as Dumezil that the early kings of Rome (Romulus Numa etc) correspond to basic Indo-European mythical figures
http://www.culturesfrance.com/adpf-p...umezil_eng.rtf But these ideas remain very controversial.

Andrew Criddle

aa5874

This claim is baseless and unsupported with respect to the Gospels.

This statement is not factual. There is no information presently available to support the claim that the Gospels originated as oral literature and in the same place as the Talmud.


These are the facts.

The authors of the Gospels are unknown.
The origin of the Gospels are unknown.
The date of writings of the Gospels are not certain.
The actual time of circulation of the Gospels are not really known.


The two prominent Jewish writers of the 1st century, Philo and Josephus, made no comments about a Jewish tradition for Jesus of Nazareth.

Josephus made commentaries on the books of the prophets like Isaiah and Daniel and made no mention of any prophecies by any of the prophets regarding Jesus of Nazareth.

And further, there are no extant writings, external of apologetic sources, that mention any stories about a Jewish tradition for Jesus of Nazareth.

Your beliefs or imaginatiive speculation about the Gospels are actually unsubstantiated.

Clivedurdle

Or a brilliant war strategy to prevent your Jewish enemies fighting you by converting them to a new Judaism, pro slavery, rendering unto Caesar, not fighting the Legions - good Roman Citizens - it did mean giving up on Jews as soldiers but they must have thought it was worth it. It went badly wrong when the centurions started converting and becoming useless soldiers - like the one who assassinated Julian.

A fictional story modelled on a Greek Tragedy would be an excellent form of ICBM. I favour a team working for Hadrian, a Roman equivalent of the Manhattan Project, of course absolutely secret.

Clivedurdle

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/...ogical-warfare

Clivedurdle

http://www.classics.und.ac.za/reviews/0044bar.htm

Clivedurdle

http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=205276

I see this all as an attempt to build a new heaven and earth, with an eternal perfect emperor built on a Jewish model.