JoeWallack

The Papias Smear, Changes in sell Structure. Evidence for an Original 2nd Century Gospel - Part II

JW:
I've decided to resurrect my famous Thread:

The Papias Smear, Changes in sell Structure. Evidence for an Original 2nd Cent Gospel

which had long since fossilized in the FRDB Hall of Fame in honor of the HJ claim, currently championed by BE and seconded by AA, that the promotion of a crucified Jesus in the first half of the first century, is so unlikely that it is likely.

Fans of the Thread will remember that the best evidence for a second (century) first (gospel) is the anachronisms. For those who need points sharply explained:

1) Use of Josephus

"Mark's" Fourth Philosophy Source (After Imagination, Paul & Jewish Bible) = Josephus


2) Parable of the Wicked Husandmen

3) Synagogues in Galilee

4) Use of "Rabbi" as a title:

5) Use of linen shrouds:

6. The Rolling Stone:

7) Ritual Hand Washing:

8) Synagogue Beatings:

9) Prediction of Temple destruction:

10) Pharisees in Galilee:

Honorary contribution from Neil Godfree

Regarding the anachronisms, some are better placed in 1st century and some are better placed 2nd century, which together, means that they support 2nd century. Also remember the key as to a scenario for authorship. Going with the irony that the destruction of the Temple is destroying the historicity of the Christian Bible by demonstrating anachronisms, the f-a-r-t-h-e-r one is from c. 70 the more likely the anachronism as there is gradually loss of memory and evidence for the pre-70 setting. For those who need points sharply explained = A mature author writing shortly after 70 CE would remember the setting pre-70 and not have the anachronisms. Remember this point when considering the cumulative anachronisms.


11) The Common Passover Dish:

Samuel Lachs points out in A Rabbinic Commentary On The New Testament (or via: amazon.co.uk) that the common Passover dish of Mark 14:20:

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php?title=Mark_14
is an anachronism based on the Mishnah:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/etm/etm068.htm

While the Temple existed than, everything was to be placed before an individual with the implication that there would be no common dish.


JW:
Is there another possible anachronism with the crucifixion? The late great Raymond Brown, in his classic The Death of the Messiah, observes that:

Page 946 (italics = Brown)

In the big picture we know that Roman crucifixion is a punishment in a political context and the natives of Israel do not get politically restless until the 2nd half of the 1st century. So generally the average Jew is unlikely to have gotten crucified in the 1st half of the 1st century. Even in the relatively more likely 2nd half, it is still unlikely for the average person to die that Way.

Specifically for Jesus, there is no supporting evidence for his supposed crucifixion that provides a likely context for why he would have been crucified. Add to this that the initial extant claim that Jesus was crucified was from Paul who lacks credibility. If we look at the timing of Paul's crucifixion claim:

c. 30 = Not a promoter of Jesus

c. 51 = First Thessalonians = No mention of crucifixion

c. 53 = Philippians = Mentions "stake" (noun) but never the related verb

c. 53 = Philemon = No mention of crucifixion

c. 54 = First Corinthians = Claims a crucified Jesus but main/only source is Revelation

Note especially that at the same time Paul is claiming that Jesus was crucified, historically Jews are being crucified in Israel.

So, the question of this post is which side should the supposed crucifixion of Jesus be on? Is it evidence for HJ or is it evidence for MJ?



Joseph

ErrancyWiki

Diogenes the Cynic

What do you mean by this statement. What do you mean by "supporting evidence?"

The Synoptic Gospels themselves provide a perfectly adequate reason for why the Romans would have crucified Jesus. They say he created a disturbance at the Temple during Passover. That is a completely plausible context for why he would have been crucified.

I don't think any of those other anchronisms mean anything because the Gospels themselves are fiction written decades later, but that doesn't mean nobody was ever crucified. Historical Jesus doesn't have to be Gospel Jesus. He could just be Tacitus Jesus.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Joe,

This is an excellent listing of probable/possible anachronisms in the NT gospels.

These would not mean much if we had writers from the Second century quoting the gospels. It is the fact the we do not have Christian writers quoting from the qospels in the Second century that makes these anachronisms important.

We are told that Irenaeus around 180 quotes from the gospels, but it is only on Eusebius' say so that we place his "Against Heresies" around 180. Since other writers like Lucian, Celsus, Miletos of Sardis, Athenogorus, Appelles etc. don't know a thiing about any gospels, it is much more reasonable to place Irenaeus with Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian who seem to be the first ones aware of the NT gospels in the early 200's.

This suggests that the four gospels were put together around 150-200. This hypothesis would fully explain the anachronisms.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

PhilosopherJay

Hi Diogenes the Cynic,

Mark and Matthew are very vague about the charges brought against Jesus, just saying there were a lot of them.

Luke gets specific:

So the charges are:
1. Misleading our nation
2. Forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar
3. Saying he is Christ, a King.

The Jews constantly accused each other of misleading the nation. That would hardly be a charge a Roman governor would care about. Likewise a Jew calling himself King of the Jews would not represent any kind of threat to Roman rule. A man without wealth or an army behind him would hardly be considered a real king in those days. The only charge of interest to any Roman Governor would have been leading a tax revolt. However, the tax collectors themselves had the authority to force people to pay taxes. If the tax collectors were not complaining, and allegedly Jesus was a friend of the tax collectors, this too would be an uninteresting complaint for Pilate.

Anyways, Pilate finds him innocent of all these rather harmless charges. After sending him to Herod, Pilate sums up the charges:

Thus the charge against Jesus is the very vague and generic "incitement to rebellion." Since this was a first time charge being made against Jesus, a man he did not know and had never heard of, Pilate had a number of options. He could embarrass him by publicly denouncing him, he could arrest Jesus and put him in prison, he could whip him or hurt his body in numerous ways, he could fine him and take away his property, or he could even sell him as a slave. All of these would have been rational and logical reactions to the situation. Instead, the narrative becomes completely irrational.

Since Pilate did not find Jesus guilty of anything, why should he offer to release Jesus at some kind of annual ritual meant to release a criminal? Pilate's action would only have made sense if he had found Jesus guilty.

The narrative seems to want to be a "Bad Oath" story. This is one of those stories where someone promises something, and then has to follow through even when the consequences are different than expected. An example of this type of story is when all the Greek Kings promise to defend Menelaus' honor if any one tries to take Helen. It was supposedly to protect Helen against one of the other Greek Kings stealing her. It was not meant to keep Helen from running off with a foreign prince. The result is that all the Greek Kings ended up wasting their lives and fortunes having to sail to faraway Troy to get Helen back.

The Barabbas story is a fairy tale made up to explain how Pilate ended up crucifying a man he thought was not a criminal.

The charges against Jesus are fuzzy and not clearly presented because it is a fictional story. Nobody cares about them. In the same way, the book and Movie, "Love Story" has the female lead dying of a fuzzy and not clearly presented disease because it is just a story and what she dies of is not important, only that she dies is essential to the plot. In the same way, in the gospel fictions, the treacherous Jews killing their Messiah is essential to the plot, but exactly how they do it is inconsequential.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

Diogenes the Cynic

I don't think any of the passions have any historicity, so why are you asking me to defend them? Pilate didn't offer to release anybody, There was no such practice. There was no Barabbas. The Gospels are fiction...

BUT...

A ruckus at the Temple during passover would have been sufficient to get him killed by the Romans regardless anything else said by the gospels. So would claiming to be the King of the Jews.

aa5874

The Gospels are fiction and your story is INVENTED

You are doing EXACTLY like the NT authors. They all INVENTED stories about Jesus.

Just look at gJohn 2.13-16, he placed the Ruckus at the Temple at the START of the Jesus story and you are ALSO changing gMark's Ruckus.

You don't like gMark's Ruckus so you want to change the story with your imagination just like the author of gJohn.

In none of the Gospels was Jesus arrested because of the Temple ruckus but you want people to believe you know what happened or what was likely to be true in admitted fiction stories.

How absurd!!!!

PhilosopherJay

Hi Diogenes the Cynic,

Sorry, I was just supporting Joe Wallack's point that the gospels don't even give us the answer to the very basic question of why Jesus was crucified. Crucifixion was reserved for slaves generally. There is no evidence that Jesus was a slave. There is no evidence of the Romans crucifying free men at this period of time. Later, during the war after 66, Romans did crucify Jews. However it is certainly an anachronism to have them doing it in the 30's.

I'm not even sure if calling yourself King would have gotten you more than a few laughs from a Roman governor.
The attack on the temple would have been a serious crime. However, as a first offense, it is unlikely that a Roman official would have done more than
require restitution for the damaged property and a harsh whipping.

Governors needed to keep peace in their provinces. Executing people willy- nilly without knowing the backgrounds of who you were executing could not work. How did Pilate know that Jesus was not an important man in Galilee? He could have had important family members and hundreds of followers in Galilee. His execution could have led to riots in Galilee for all Pilate knew.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

aa5874

Please, are you NOT aware of Josephus' writings??

Roman Governors KEPT the PEACE by KILLING PEOPLE.

When Pilate ORDER the Jews to KEEP the PEACE and they did NOT--HE SIMPLY had them KILLED.

Pilate was ordered to Rome by Tiberius on a charge of GENOCIDE or Slaying people. See Antiquities of the Jews 18.2 and 18.4.

John the Baptist, Theudas, and the Followers of the Egyptian prophet, the Samaritans and the Jews were SLAIN to KEEP the PEACE.

JoeWallack

JW:
The two supposed key witnesses for Jesus' supposed crucifixion are:

1) Paul

2) "Mark"

The assertion of a historical event is supported by a reason for it. The better the reason, the better the assertion. Paul is the more important of the two since he was first and "Mark" has some dependence on Paul. Paul gives no reason for Jesus being crucified. Ouch! That's gotta hurt (historicity) more than the supposed crucifixion. If we expand the discussion to Paul's setting (context) so that we can try to find a reason rather than find Paul's reason, we still find...nothing because Paul's HJ is on a need to know basis and no one, including Paul, needs to know.

So we move onto "Mark". What is "Mark's" reason for Jesus' being crucified? The Jews used a Jewdie mind trick on Pilate. Unlikely. Let's expand to us trying to find a reason within "Mark" understanding that we are now at our "likely" limit with the lesser witness and broader scope.

JW:
"completely plausible". Assuming you want to leave the "completely" there, that is not the same as "likely", is it. So do you want to confess that there is no reason to be found in "Mark" (the only important Gospel here) that would have likely merited crucifixion or do you want to upgrade "completely plausible" to "likely"?

JW:
"Mark" is chock full of anachronisms, a point you confess, yet you do not see this as any type of evidence for Jesus' supposed crucifixion being anachronistic. You are really struggling here.



Joseph

ErrancyWiki

Vorkosigan

Not only that, but it shows how the Historical Kernel works, in realtime. No matter how deeply you show that at every level Mark is a constructed fiction, the stubborn faith in the historical kernel will be maintained. It is impervious to evidence and argument, purely ideological commitment to an Establishment ideology of reasonableness.

Vorkosigan