archibald

Hey man, mine was meant to be a joke too! (smiley and exclamation mark salvaged from original).

Trust me, DC, I was aware from very shortly after ariving that a sense of humour has got to be integral to most of the posts one reads in here. :]

I've nothing against stephan. His points were interesting, just completely off topic.



If this is referring back to your previous use of the phrase 'highly nuanced', you may recall that my jibe about it referred to you trying to explain spin's ....er....highly nuanced reading of Irenaeus, not your posts.

This, I am struggling to make any sense of. Could you elaborate?

DCH, what exactly is your point about the frequency of my posts, not all of which by any means were made in the religion forum, in any case). And what is your point about other posters joining? Who are they by the way? This distasteful phenomenon of which you speak must be investigated with all due rigour, to safeguard standards initiated and maintained by longstanding club members. I shouldn't be surprised if it wasn't an organized conspiracy. Imagine. Orthodox explanations. One could just spit.

Yours sincerely,

Peter Puzzled.

Iskander

Senator Joseph McCarthy lives on!

Daleks exterminating the fellow traveller and Christians under the beds


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Or-epXMvTM8

DCHindley

My dear old dad used to tell me, the volume of advertising occurs in inverse proportion to the quality of the product. In discussion boards, the volume of posts is usually related to a need to prove what they believe is right. If they can't do it by well researched and carefully worded posts, they make up for it with a multitude of posts that sound like playground taunts.

To be honest, your posts are actually better than average. Maybe all the posts on Rational Skepticism have honed your post writing skills to a keen razor edge. I also realize that you claim to be an atheist, but there are atheist apologists as well as Christian ones. Exactly the same types of rhetoric, just dedicated to a different kind of truth. You've used put downs numerous times, and the spate of others recently joined (also athiests from what I can tell) have been doing it too. I suppose Mythicists (which predominate here) don't adhere to the right kind of atheism for the newcomers.

Slow down, take in the ambiance, and shine. You don't have to agree with someone else to respect their opinion. Spin and I just barely tolerate one another, as we don't see eye to eye on the issue of the historicity of Jesus (I think there was a real person behind all the myth). If you don't appreciate someone's POV, just don't reply to it. You don't have to be putting folks down.

Hey, I'm as sarcastic as they come, but I don't put folks down. Oh, I do chide folks who just don't use their (excuse my phraseology) god-given brain. Folks do not have to be a rocket scientist to gain an appreciation for Biblical Cricicism & History and form informed opinions. Throwing slogans about and putting down other positions doesn't get us anywhere.

DCH

PS: FWIW, I did offer to reopen the thread on "Interpolations in 1 Cor 15" and look at whether Irenaeus is simply omitting vss 5-11in one place because they were irrelevant to his point, but does refer to them in another passage, and not citing a Marcionite and a proto-orthodox version of Galatians. or a short and a long version, respectively.

archibald

Thanks for the advice and analysis DCH. Can't say I agree with your perspective entitrely, but I don't think there's much to be gained quibbling about it, certainly not with you, since you are not someone I generally take exception to.





I think it's been pretty well covered. Unless you want to reopen it and add something I am not appreciating, the way it is sitting with me is that it's not a warranted reading of the texts. In fact, it appears to be downright obtuse. I am always open to being put straight.

mountainman

What about the example of the "Historia Augusta" which is regarded as a 4th century "mockumentary" in which sources are fabricated in large numbers, with over 160 completely forged documents, and further invented sources who disagree with the earlier sources. It is written to appear as though the "Historia Augusta" was written by 4 separate "scriptores" but academic analysis has argued the claim that there was just one author/editor.

For further background see:
http://www.mountainman.com.au/essene...ia_Augusta.htm

Adam

Oh, Joe, you've stopped reading my thread on "Gospel Eyewitnesses" in which I display seven written sources, of which only one (by my analysis) would not have existed when Matthew and Luke wrote.
The Passion Narrative existed so early that it was in fact used in all four gospels. It was used in the early version (Ur-Marcus) of Mark that was used by Luke. The latter was used in the (basically the canonical) version of Mark that was used in Matthew. Q existed so early that some of it was used in Ur-Marcus and almost all of it in Matthew and Luke. Luke even had an earlier stage using Q and the eyewitness testimony of its author, whom I argue is Simon of Cleopas.
That there were other gospels available is not so easily provable, because they were used as sources only in John. The Signs Gospel is well recognized by scholars, however. As for the Johannine Discourses, these are not late developments as conventionally thought, but are from a very early source (by Nicodemus, in which he mostly misunderstood Jesus).
See my basic analysis in my thread in Posts #1, 18, 38, 52, 74, 132, and 153:
http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=306983

Ktotwf

None of this strikes me as a particularly hard jump to make.

Mark is written as a fleshing out of the idea of a Messiah revealed via the Scriptures as Paul taught. It spreads around the (already established) Christian community, becoming something of a standard text. Within ten to twenty years of it being circulated and relatively well known, it is altered by certain factions of the Christian community to suit their distinctive theological needs. Later, John is written to suit a more fully developed Christian theology with a more exalted Christology.

Seems plausible and common sense-ish to me.

The stories would match in large part because the different gospels were factional riffs on a popular, beloved story that had already been circulating for a time. Mark was, presumably, a successful attempt to write literature based around the idea of a Messiah revealed by different details in the scripture.

Sheshbazzar

That would be quite understandable, given the ridiculous quality of its content.

archibald

Yes. Or stories. Maybe even stories which had been circulating before Mark. Maybe even more than one version of a story about someone feeding a crowd of hungry people. If you're writing an entirely OT-based allegory, why would you repeat that element twice?

aa5874

Please, read gMark. Please do not accept what people say without FIRST reading gMark. They will LEAD you astray.

1. gMark does NOT even establish that Jesus was recognized as a Messiah.

2. gMark ESTABLISHES that Jesus did NOT have human flesh.

It is the COMPLETE opposite.

gMark is about the UNKNOWN Jewish Messiah who did NOT tell his own disciples that he was the Messiah until Peter FIRST made the suggestion on which he IMMEDIATELY RESTRICTED from the public.

It is ESTABLISHED that there was some OTHER person who was Called the MESSIAH during the very same time Jesus in gMark BARRED his own disciples from tell anyone he was Messiah.


Mark 8 Mr 9:38 - gMark did NOT use the Pauline writings at all.

Jesus as a Resurrected Messiah and corroborated by OVER 500 persons was PREACHED all over and in Major Cities in the Roman Empire by Paul.

The Jesus of Mark was UNKNOWN, abandoned, denied and rejected.

It is UTTERLY erroneous that gMark fleshed out Jesus when It is claimed Jesus WALKED on water and was BELIEVED to be a Spirit AFTER which he TRANSFIGURED.

Mr 6:49 - It is VIRTUALLY impossible to FLESH out Jesus by stating he was WITNESSED walking on the sea.

gMark CONFIRMED that he was WRITING about a character that was NON-human.

Mark 9:2 - It is virtually impossible to show that the MARCAN Jesus is different to the MARCION Phantom.

gMark's Jesus COULD NOT have human flesh.

The SPECIFIC GRAVITY of a human body does NOT allow a human to WALK on water.

The Biological make up of a human body does NOT allow for a Transfiguration.

Again, gMark ESTABLISHED that Jesus had NO HUMAN FLESH in Mark 6.49 and 9.2.