Freethought & Rationalism Archive

DCHindley · 01-15-2009, 02:39 PM

So THAT's what happened to Jan Sammer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

http://www.nazarenus.com/

Quote:

The hero is defeated in a struggle.
He is killed in a sacrificial ritual.
A messenger arrives, announcing his fate, and the chorus responds with its lamentations.
The body is brought onto the stage and is buried.
There follows a recognition that the hero is not truly dead, but has gained immortality. He appears to men as a god, and mourning turns into a joyful celebration.[9]

dog-on · 01-16-2009, 12:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

Quote:

Originally Posted by dog-on

Wasn't Seneca purported to have written these types of works? Only one I ever read, (years ago), was called 'Octavia', I believe.

http://www.nazarenus.com/

Quote:

Ever since the Enlightenment, when the gospels began to be studied in a rationalistic frame of mind as literary works within their ancient context, parallels have been drawn between the passion of Jesus and the rituals and mysteries of the dying and resurrecting gods such as Dionysus and Osiris. The death and resurrection of Osiris was enacted annually in a dramatic performance. Greek tragedy evolved from sacred plays in honor of Dionysus. Did primitive Christianity, too, begin as ritual drama?

The economy of the Gospel narratives is related to the ritual commemoration of the Passion; taking them literally we run the risk of transposing into history what are really the successive incidents of a religious drama,

so wrote Alfred Loisy, one of the most perceptive New Testament scholars of our time.[2] J. M. Robertson went even further, claiming that the story of the passion is

the bare transcript of a primitive play... always we are witnessing drama, of which the spectators needed no description, and of which the subsequent transcriber reproduces simply the action and the words...[3]

Even theologians who are less daring in framing hypotheses continue to stumble upon traces of some ancient drama that appears to underlie the passion narrative.[4] S.G.F. Brandon is impressed by the superb theatrical montage of the trial of Jesus[5] ; Raymond Brown finds that John’s gospel contains touches worthy of great drama in many of its scenes and suggests that our text may be the product of a dramatic rewriting on such a scale that little historical material remains.[6] But none of these scholars has succeeded in reconstructing this drama or identifying its author. They came very close to the truth but missed a crucial elementthe drama that constituted the kernel of the passion story was not a primitive ritual performance, but a tragedy of considerable subtlety and sophistication.
The gospels themselves contain evidence that the creator of this tragedy was someone imbued with the cultural values of the early Roman Empire, a playwright of unusual abilities, who used drama as a vehicle for expressing specific philosophical concepts. The gospels of Mark and Luke originated in Rome in the late fifties or early sixties A.D., a period that coincided with the last great flourishing of Roman tragedy in the work of Lucius Annaeus Seneca (3 B.C.–65 A.D.). Seneca was the author of at least nine tragedies, all modeled on other, more ancient dramas. His philosophical writings are still admired for their elegant exposition of the Stoic view of life. Was it Seneca who wrote the tragedy on the passion of Jesus that the evangelists used in constructing their narratives? A question such as this can never be answered with certitude. It can be, however, adopted as a working hypothesis, whose success can be judged by the extent to which it helps solve the innumerable enigmas of the passion narratives.
Seneca’s choice of Jesus as a tragic hero may at first seem surprising; but we must remember that there was a whole gendre of Roman tragedy that dealt with historical events from the recent past (the so-called fabulae praetextae). Moreover, Seneca had a lifelong interest in oriental religions and wrote several books on the subject.[7] That Seneca had received some information about the founder of Christianity may be inferred from the allusion in one of his works to an unnamed individual who had aspired to royalty, but instead was condemned to suffer a cruel death upon the cross.[8] Seneca encountered, in the trial of Jesus, a subject worthy of his aspirations as a philosopher and dramatist. His treatment of it was strictly within the conventions of the ancient theater, since it corresponded point by point with the original cultic tragedy of Dionysus, which every subsequent tragedy tried to emulate:

The hero is defeated in a struggle.
He is killed in a sacrificial ritual.
A messenger arrives, announcing his fate, and the chorus responds with its lamentations.
The body is brought onto the stage and is buried.
There follows a recognition that the hero is not truly dead, but has gained immortality. He appears to men as a god, and mourning turns into a joyful celebration.[9]

Thanks Clivedurdle, that's where I saw that, originally.

Clivedurdle · 01-16-2009, 01:04 AM

Before we attack the author, let's look carefully at the argument.

Quote:

I. The Dramatic Mood.-It is somewhat simpler to trace a distinction both in content and in method between novelistic and dramatic fiction, because the latter is produced under special conditions which impose definite limitations upon the author. A drama is, in essence, a story devised to be presented by actors on a stage before an audience. The dramatist, therefore, works ever under the sway of three influences to which the novelist is not submitted :—namely, the temperament of the actors by whom his plays are to be performed, the physical conditions of the theatre in which they are to be produced, and the psychologic nature of the audience before which they are to be presented. The combined force of these three external influences upon the dramatist accounts for all of the essential differences between the drama and the novel.
1. Influence of the Actor.—First of all, because of the influence of his actors, the dramatist is obliged to draw character through action, and to eliminate from his work almost every other means of characterization. He must therefore select from life such moments as are active rather than passive. His characters must constantly be doing something; they may not pause for careful contemplation. Consequently the novelist has a wider range of subject than the dramatist, because he is able to consider life more calmly, and to concern himself, if need be, with thoughts and feelings that do not translate them-selves into action. In depicting objective events in which the element of action is paramount, the drama is more immediate and vivid; but the novel may depict subjective events which are quite beyond the presentation of actors in a theatre.

Is it not agreed that in GMark we are looking at the script of a play? It does not have novelistic features as noted above, there is not the development of characters, there is the bang crash wallop of the theatre.

It is also an epic play - about the relationships of the gods and humans, with a good dose of apocalypse and end of the world - we're doomed!

A bloody good rollicking enjoyable time, with a myriad brain teasers.

As with the best films and plays, something for everyone! The comparison is with Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell - which actually are evidence of the theatrical nature of the gospels because they very successfully repeated the trick.

Clivedurdle · 01-16-2009, 01:11 AM

And on the alleged poor Greek of Mark, is it? Or are we assuming literary styles for the record of the spoken word of a play?

dog-on · 01-16-2009, 02:25 AM

Quote:

Who are you, to criticize her?

Who are you, to despise her?

Leave her, leave her, let her be now.

Leave her, leave her, she's with me now.

If your slate is clean, then you can throw stones.

If your slate is not, then leave her alone.

You mean like that?

Clivedurdle · 01-16-2009, 02:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dog-on

Quote:

Who are you, to criticize her?

Who are you, to despise her?

Leave her, leave her, let her be now.

Leave her, leave her, she's with me now.

If your slate is clean, then you can throw stones.

If your slate is not, then leave her alone.

You mean like that?

Exactly

aa5874 · 01-16-2009, 07:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

Is it not agreed that in GMark we are looking at the script of a play? It does not have novelistic features as noted above, there is not the development of characters, there is the bang crash wallop of the theatre.

It is also an epic play - about the relationships of the gods and humans, with a good dose of apocalypse and end of the world - we're doomed!

A bloody good rollicking enjoyable time, with a myriad brain teasers.

As with the best films and plays, something for everyone! The comparison is with Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell - which actually are evidence of the theatrical nature of the gospels because they very successfully repeated the trick.

But, if it was a play, would Judea be the place where it was performed? During the days of Pilate, the Jews might have burned down the theatre and killed all the actors on account of its blasphemous content.

I think pagans or perhaps the Romans would have enjoyed the performance, and liked the script, if it was indeed a play.

dog-on · 01-16-2009, 07:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

Is it not agreed that in GMark we are looking at the script of a play? It does not have novelistic features as noted above, there is not the development of characters, there is the bang crash wallop of the theatre.

It is also an epic play - about the relationships of the gods and humans, with a good dose of apocalypse and end of the world - we're doomed!

A bloody good rollicking enjoyable time, with a myriad brain teasers.

As with the best films and plays, something for everyone! The comparison is with Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell - which actually are evidence of the theatrical nature of the gospels because they very successfully repeated the trick.

But, if it was a play, would Judea be the place where it was performed? During the days of Pilate, the Jews might have burned down the theatre and killed all the actors on account of its blasphemous content.

I think pagans or perhaps the Romans would have enjoyed the performance, and liked the script, if it was indeed a play.

They used to run a matinee at the Coliseum, while warming up the lions, of course.

aa5874 · 01-16-2009, 01:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dog-on

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

But, if it was a play, would Judea be the place where it was performed? During the days of Pilate, the Jews might have burned down the theatre and killed all the actors on account of its blasphemous content.

I think pagans or perhaps the Romans would have enjoyed the performance, and liked the script, if it was indeed a play.

They used to run a matinee at the Coliseum, while warming up the lions, of course.

It would seem then, that Pliny the younger did not see the play or never heard of the actors, since he ordered the execution of Christians and tortured some, possibly not realising that they were rehearsing the script.

It may be that Jesus believers of antiquity were very good actors.

bacht · 01-16-2009, 02:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

Quote:

Originally Posted by dog-on

They used to run a matinee at the Coliseum, while warming up the lions, of course.

It would seem then, that Pliny the younger did not see the play or never heard of the actors, since he ordered the execution of Christians and tortured some, possibly not realising that they were rehearsing the script.

It may be that Jesus believers of antiquity were very good actors.

Isn't there a general problem with lack of attestation for Mark? Robert Price says that Mark was soon forgotten as both the first written gospel and as a model for the others.

Maybe once Matthew & Luke were written their popularity made it easy to discard Mark, who is after all rather negative in comparison. Whatever Mark's original intentions were may also have been blurred (eg was he a Paulinist?)

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01-16-2009, 01:11 AM	#184
Clivedurdle Contributor Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: London UK Posts: 16,024	And on the alleged poor Greek of Mark, is it? Or are we assuming literary styles for the record of the spoken word of a play?

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