steve_bnk

There are no contemporary coorborations of an historical Jesus let alone the supernatural events. There is no way around that fact.

Givenbfor the sake of dscussion he did exist, some of us non believers enjoy historical speculations.

The best explanation I've heard for the gospels is that they were promtional literature intended for potential converts, and certainly embelished.
Not journalistic accounts.

In the original language the gospels conform to known literary styles of the times.

Such momentus events would certainly have been recorded elsewhere.

If an historical Jesus existed he would have been one of a number of charsimatic preachers who did not rise to the level of honorable mention of the Roman or Jewish times.

Without independent sources of the times as to his existence, you are left with essentialy arguing an historical work of fiction as fact. You also have to contend with competing writings which were somewhat arbitrarily dismissed and suppressd in the times of the selection of the Christian biblical cannon.

It is not an issue as it is in Christianity, there is no contemporay mention of the Buddha figure either.


In modern times a sea of Christian books have arisen that cite other books which cite other books which cite other books and so on. In reality, the only original source is the NT.

I think it was the 50s when a group of theolgians and biblical scholars werer commisioned to evaluate all existing documents abd scaps which ran to about 5000 picees. The result was the NSRV Oxford Bible and commentray. It is the version I use for refernce. The commentary is a large volume. It assesses the likely authorships and dates of the NT cannon, mistakes in the NT, translation issues, and the problems inherent with the historical methods.

Two translation issues I remember. In Genesis several key words do not have specific translations. The popuar interpretaion is god creatd the waters. A possible alternative is out of chaos came order.

Paul is interpreted as specifcally condemning homosexuality. According to the ciommentray the atual phrases used would in common speak refer to sexual excess in general and specifclly libertine pagans. Jews likened sexual excess to a weakening.

Point being you have translation issues accumulating over time as well as the ussue of witnesses.

If you read a story 'Witnesses see ETs in field in Montana', why would you reject that and accept a 2000 year old document?

TedM

Ok, thanks. Adam, I'm very interested in the truth too. And it would be way cool to discover that the gospels really were written by eyewitnesses.

It is still not clear to me what it is you are trying to accomplish by being here. It appears so far that you are mostly presenting your conclusions and only a few snippets for evidence. Your appeals to Higher Criticism are falling on deaf ears in my case because I want to see what those findings are.

So some clarity from you would be helpful...

Do you want us to review and critique your findings? If so, you'll get that. But, the quality of the critique will be directly related to the quality and depth of the presentation.

Do you want to share with those of us seeking the truth so that we might learn something new? If so, we need to be able to overcome our biases and objections--which again requires having all the info every step of the way that you have used to form your conclusions.

Kapyong

Gday,

So, you find passages that seem to you like they came from an eye-witness,
then you look for evidence to support that feeling ?

So -
no-one at all, except for you, is looking for the truth?

K.

steve_bnk

The quest for truth must consider the possibily one may be wrong.

Adam

Counter-argumentation above in general and not my specifics, but worthy of consideration.
1.&3&7&8.You're assuming what's at issue, that the gospels do not have seven eyewitness reports.
2.I'm not seeing warmth here towards dealing with the specifics.
5.Mementous events of public nature are not in the seven sources. I'm not a Fundamentalist.
4.&6.Seem to favor me, strange things happen without much notice. In our time Pentecostal preachers are on TV every day claiming healings and miracles, and few of you even know their names. Even S-M denies they heal anyone. Maybe they do, but who here cares to check it out?
9&10.Is there a problem here?
14.I don't necessarily deny ETs in Montana. Nor Sasquatches either--depends on the evidence.
(I didn't number #11 to #13 because irrelevant to the gospels.)

Adam

I thought in my #30 I said the reverse, also in #26 and #27.I'm open to all possibilites.

Adam

Of course. So then you'll take my #35 to heart?
But I no longer assume that the search for truth means truth can only be found from somebody else who already has it. I'm open to the possibility that I have to discover it for myself.

Adam

I'll go ahead and present my third eyewitness, once more from the Gospel of John, so that we will have more substance to deal with and less cause for complaint that I have not brought forth enough evidence. This one starts out with three paragraphs of detail about editing, which you can largely ignore if you prefer. Start at "Focusing now on the Discourses."
The above sources in the Gospel of John I rate as eyewitness testimony in that they were set in writing by the eyewitnesses John Mark and Andrew and are still found in the canonical John text in relatively pure form. This is particularly true of the Signs Source, as almost all scholars supporting this theory regard the initial literary style as preserved so well that a core of it is distinct. We can regard the selection stated above (two paragraphs up) as from the eyewitness Andrew. Beyond that core various scholars lump in other sections because of similar, but not so clearly distinct style. But by far the larger part of this additional material is Passion Narrative, and as delineated above (2nd paragraph in Post #157) can be regarded as the work of the eyewitness John Mark. There is additional material of similar style that some scholars add to their Signs Gospel, and these may be mixed passages stemming from Andrew or John Mark, but which are not so clearly eyewitness material. Some of this I will relegate to the P-Strand, largely editorial additions. Meanwhile the largest eyewitness source needs to be examined.
So before dealing with the P-Strand, another major source needs to be brought into consideration. Teeple follows Bultmann in seeing the main theological texts in John to be from a source. Many scholars see a Gnostic or semi-Gnostic strain in John, so Teeple labels this source “G”. But just as Bultmann’s delineation has been called into question, Teeple’s source separation here was criticized from the first. Robert Kysar did not see that G and Teeple’s later “E” Editor as distinct. I take a middle position, that the E material does contain much that is from an Editor, but much of it is best merged with G. I see the dividing line as between whatever can be regarded as Discourse, basically G plus the other teachings, and narrative that is contained wholly within E.
With that “clarified”, I next see some of the G text above found in S stories, particularly in John 4, 5, and 9. There are sayings in John 4 that are in S style. I interpret these facts as meaning that the Signs writer who brought in the Passion Narrative also had available to him the Discourses, did his own translation at the start, and thereafter made use of the translation from Aramaic to Greek that was later used for the rest of John. It’s also possible that the Signs in John 5 and John 9 were added in a later edition.
Focusing now on the Discourses, where did they come from? The Discourses contain the Johannine Theology that has typically been considered as written down by John (or someone later) in his old age. As shown above, this is not necessarily the case. If we look for clues within the text itself, we find (apart from the Prologue) that high theology begins in John 3, the night visit to Nicodemus. Did Nicodemus record this? Consider that we next hear of Nicodemus in John 7:50-52, in which Nicodemus argues that the Law does not condemn a man without first hearing from him. If he took it upon himself to do what he said, the words recorded in the next three chapters from Jesus seem well suited to be a record of what Jesus said that might be worthy of condemnation. Later chapters reveal more and more favor towards what Jesus had to say, concluding with John 17. In John 19:39 Nicodemus brought spices for Jesus’s burial. He had obviously become a Christian. The marked change in attitude toward Jesus shows that Nicodemus wrote all this (or at least notes) while Jesus was still alive.
Teeple displays the Nicodemus name consistently as what he labels “E” for Editor, which argues for the lumping together of his G and E strands, as I hold that G stems exclusively from Nicodemus. It does tend to argue that the Discourses were added in to John when the Editor was active, which I acknowledge as a possibility even though it goes against my belief that the Discourses were added in during the just-previous edition. On the other hand, recognizing at least some stylistic difference between G and E goes as well with my view that E added in G to the mix, but that in the process of doing so his own style got into it enough that Teeple could reasonably find that some parts of the Discourses should be categorized as E.
Even with the mentions of Nicodemus occurring in E sections, it’s still reasonable to assume that the prior edition added his writings in, but without naming him. E got more specific, and is characteristic of him, he encased it within some narration. That the Discourses only relatively later get around to mentioning actions of Nicodemus does show that the Discourses were not the building block around which John was built, even though my logic dictates that it was the first text (or notes) written.
The raw text from Nicodemus, my modification of Teeple’s G, runs as follows:
3 (in the main); 4:20-24; most of 5:17-47; 6:26-51, 58-65; most of 7:5-52; 8:12-57; most of 9 & 10, but not 9:1-2, 6-7, 13-17, 24-28; 11:1, 9-10, 16; 12:23-59; 13:16-17, 21-22; Ch. 14-17.
(As I expected, counting eyewitness evidences does not work for long discourse passages.)
As the above is almost all sayings, sermons, or debates, eyewitness status is less applicable. Indeed, Nicodemus was charged with bringing a case against Jesus, so the general tone of this source should not be regarded as representative of Jesus. Nevertheless, Nicodemus probably did restrict himself to noting down things that Jesus really said—he just omitted all the qualifications and nuances. Nicodemus is the third identifiable eyewitness.

steve_bnk

The point of 4 is that it conforms to fiction forms.

As to 6, I believe there was likely an HJ upon which the tale was spun. There was intense nationalism in Judea and political unrest. There were kmown figures who claimed the mantle of messiah. If you consider the JC of the NT as a Jew speaking to Jews about the looming failure of the Jewish state, then the story makes some sense in the times. The addition of divinity would have been an embelliushment.

The literary/mythical form was not unique. A deity who becomes incarnate through human birth, carries the weight of the world, dies in the act of saving the world, and returns to the deities. Culturally it is inconvienient to have the deity around 24/7 on Earth. Cramps the king's/chief's style. Very Greek.

There would have been numerous doom-and-gloomers, Jewish history was filled with prophets of doom.

That all being said, there are no contemporary accounts of the NT figure. Without that, it is all sepeculation.

For the Christians, it is all about the alleged witness to the resurection. Without the promise of eternal life via the NT witnesses, then Christianity is empty.

aa5874

Well, that is NOT the story in gMark at all.

In gMark, a character who seemed like a man is baptized by Jonh and after the Holy Spirit like a dove lights upon this character called Jesus he began to preach GOOD NEWS to the Jews of the Kingdom of God BUT SECRETLY wanted the Jews to REMAIN in Sin.

In gMark did NOT even tell his disciples he was Christ until Peter said so.

Incredibly Jesus did many miracles in gMark and NEVER once told his disciples he was Christ before Peter made the claim and Forbade his disciples from telling anyone he was Christ even AFTER Peter FIRST claimed he was Christ.

On the day Jesus died in gMark, he did NOT tell the Jews that his death signified the End of the Law or that his resurrection was for the REMISSION of Sins.

On the day Jesus was crucified in gMARK he was talking about REVENGE. Jesus warned the Sanhedrin that he would be coming back in the clouds with POWER.

It is EXTREMELY important to understand that SALVATION through Sacrifice and through the resurrection is a LATER development of the Jesus story.