andrewcriddle

There is always in historical studies a trade-off between the risk of error and the certainty of silence.

However in modern history one can use strong criteria in order to exclude possibly erroneous, (biased mistaken etc), sources and still be left with a great deal of interesting and reliable information.

One can't do ancient history (in general) like that. Using these criteria would exclude lots of true information (because it was not definitely reliable) and little would be left.

Sometimes we have better sources than others. Neil Godfrey speaks of Julius Caesar and Hadrian. For Julius Caesar we have genuine solid primary sources. However our data for Hadrian is more problematic. Writers about Hadrian find it difficult to avoid using really dodgy material like the Augustan Histories.

Andrew Criddle

Juststeve

Andrew:

I think the point you make in comparing Julius Caesar and Hadrian is a cogent one. Now ask the question, if there had been an itinerant preacher from Nazareth with a band of peasant followers who was crucified by the Romans, what kind of contemporaneous records of his existence would we expect to find? That's why I have so little patients with the demands for contemporaneous eyewitness reports.

Steve

spamandham

None of course, but there is no good reason to think that the historical Jesus - if there was one - was an an itinerant preacher from Nazareth with a band of peasant followers. All you've done is subtract everything but your preconceptions, including the aspects of the story that indicate a different historical Jesus.

He dined with tax collectors and whores - could a poor itinerant preacher really have such an opportunity in the hyper-classist Greco-Roman world where overt deference to wealth and power were the norm? You ignore passages that suggest he was wealthy and concentrate on your preconceptions.

He is referred to as rabbi, he his name is the same as the title used for the chief priests.

Pilate would never have given some peasant a second thought - but someone of status, someone like that really might have received the special treatment we see Pilate giving jesus.

If there was a historical Jesus that the gospels are loosely based on, he was almost certainly of the idle class - and possibly in line for the chief priest position, or he never could have gone on walkabout preaching in the first place, and never could have attracted a following.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Steven,

The detective novel "Farewell, My Lovely" (1940) by Raymond Chandler was his second novel featuring Phillip Marlowe. The story was first brought to the screen in 1942 in "The Falcon takes over." The Falcon was a detective character named Gay Lawrence, created by Michael Arlen. This was the third in the Falcon movie series and the main character in the series, Gay Lawrence, (George Sanders) simply replaced Philip Marlowe in the role of the hero.

Two years later, the same plot and story was used again for "Murder, My Sweet." This time Phillip Marlowe was actually the hero detective. Song and Dance man Dick Powell played Marlow.

So, essentially we have the same plot twice with the only the heroes being changed.

Phillip Marlowe was played by Humphrey Bogart two years later based on Chandler's first Phillip Marlowe novel, "The Big Sleep." So we have the same hero but two different plots.

Twenty-Four years later, Robert Mitchum played Phillip Marlowe in a new version of "Farewell, My Lovely," this time named "Farewell, My lovely."

A good question to ask is did George Sanders ever play Phillip Marlowe? since he did do the same plot as "Farewell, My Lovely" and basically acted the same role except for his character having a different name one could argue that he did.

In the same way, we may say that John the Baptist and Jesus are really the same character acting out the same plot, but with different names.

To make matters more confusing, the plot of "Farewell, My Lovely," was apparently put together from three short stories that Chandler had published in the early 1930's. He called the process of putting his short stories together in a novel "cannibaliziing." The detectives had different names in the short stories. When he republished the short stories, in 1950, he changed the detective's names to Phillip Marlowe.

Was the story of John the Baptist cannibalized to create the story of Jesus the Nazarene?

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Juststeve

Spam:

Jesus is described in all four gospels as an itinerant preacher. To be sure by the time the gospels were written the picture of the itinerant preacher had been embellished with aggrandizing details, but under those details there is still an itinerant preacher. Does your agenda prevent you from recognizing this as fact.

We have gospel descriptions of the early followers of Jesus. Who other than Matthew was more than a peasant fisherman or other person of low status? And as to Matthew himself there is no reason to think his status as a tax collector was anything more than a local collector for the Romans. Reviled by the peasants from whom he collected but hardly a grand figure.

The word Rabbi means teacher. Coming from his followers it denotes a Master/Disciple relationship, not the status of the high priest who in any event was a Sadducee and would not have been addressed as rabbi.

I agree that the claims about the Trials of Jesus and the involvement of Pilate are unlikely to be true. I tend to agree with Crossan who says based on his knowledge of Roman History that it is more likely that Jesus was crucified on the orders of a rather low level military official than that Pilate took a hand in the matter.

Steve

Juststeve

Jay asks:

"Was the story of John the Baptist cannibalized to create the story of Jesus the Nazarene?"

Steve answers:

Don't think so although I guess anything is possible.

Steve

Toto

What is your agenda? Does it prevent you from recognizing that the four gospels are not independent?

aa5874

The problems with other characters mentioned in ancient history are far less problematic than the problems posed by the NT and Church writings about Jesus where even supposed contemporary writers only wrote about the RESURRECTED LIFE of Jesus or events surrounding the RESURRECTION.

And further one cannot assume anything in the Bible even represents history without any external source.

In the NT, the offspring of the Holy Ghost, the Creator of heaven and earth, was crucified. Why is that history?

Plutarch's Romulus buried Remus, surely that is not history.

No man called Jesus was crucified under Pilate in the NT only one who was God incarnate.

Why is that history?

aa5874

What Gospels do you read?

Please STATE exactly what you see in the Gospels and NOT what you IMAGINE.

Read this description FIRST.

Mt 1:18 - Your lose credibility when you make blatant misrepresentations of the Gospel.


You produce FICTION and call it facts. The very things that are NOT certain you are sure of. No author of the NT claimed Jesus was just an itinerant preacher. For sure you MADE UP that itinerant preacher stuff.

In the Gospels, Jesus was the CREATOR. How can the Creator be an itinerant preacher?

The NT is not EMBELLISHMENTS of Jesus they are BLASPHEMY. In the very Gospels Jesus was condemned to be guilty of death for claiming to be the Son of the Blessed and that he would be coming in the clouds of heaven.

Matthew did what? Are you seriously suggesting that An actual follower of a MAN who was crucified for BLASPHEMY described the Blasphemer as the offspring of the Holy Ghost in Judea?

Matthew was dishonest, wasn't he?

Where is the historical source that can show that Jesus was crucified by the orders of a low level military official?

You are just a PLAUSIBLE MYTH story teller. You like to re-tell MYTH stories to make them appear PLAUSIBLE.

Tell me how the offspring of the Holy Ghost, the Creator of heaven and earth was PLAUSIBLY crucified by Pilate. Don't use the NT or Crossan.

By the way Superman was an itinerant post-man? You know the story?

spamandham

An itinerant has no permanent home. That is not what the gospels describe. They describe him as purposefully traveling to a few key places for specific reasons - not as a vagabond panhandling his way around Galilee.

Mark 1 tells us that Jesus starts off in Nazareth - specifically referred to as his home town -and then goes to Galilee because of the imprisonment of John. After that, he goes to Capernaum where his buddies Simon and Andrew live. He travels around nearby a bit to perform some mircales, and then in Mark 2, he returns to Capernaum. He then stays in Capernaum for all of Mark 3 and 4, and finally crosses the lake to the region of Garasenes for the purpose of making a bunch of pigs commit suicide, and returns again to Capernaum, and then in Mark 6 returns to Nazareth.

Jesus then went around teaching in villages near Nazareth, and Mark 6 begins again talking about the lake area of Capernaum. There are a few other locations mentioned after that where Jesus went for the purpose of performing miracles.

This is not an itinerant preacher. It's a man with a home town who also likes to hang out at his friend's house in Capernaum...and they go off to perform miracles from time to time. But he definitely has a home in Nazareth, and his buds Simon and Andrew have a home in Capernaum where they all like to chill.

I say they are untrue because the entire gospel is concocted. But if you start with the assumption that the gospels contain actual history about a man Jesus of Nazareth, then there is no longer any valid reason to reject the interactions with Pilate. It was commonplace for men of status to receive the special type of treatment that Jesus is depicted as receiving.

In addition to his special treatment by Pilate, Jesus is also described as authoritatively walking into synagogues and teaching. Do you think a nobody could get away with that?

Further, several of the places Jesus goes, the people already know him and crowds seem to recognize him by sight. Does that sound like a nobody?

Jesus walks up to people out of the blue and says "follow me", and they do. Does that sound like a nobody?

What is your basis for the presumption that Jesus was not a man of status - consistent with his treatment by Pilate, consistent with his ability to simply walk into synagogues as he saw fit and start preaching, consistent with his ability to live a life of leisure doing nothing but occasionally preaching, and consistent with his crowd recognition?

What is Crossan's basis for believing Jesus was not a person of status?