Steven Avery

Praxeus
> While my dating is much earlier, I just want to point out that "around 70CE"
> really begs the prophecy question

Oops... but that is precisely begging the issue. That is exactly where believers and skeptics disagree. If prophecy and miraculous healing, and raising the dead, and the resurrection of Messiah are "ipso facto impossible" then the Bible research is over anyway, to the believer ... everyone is just playing an arcane game, or could go and play an arcade game.
Understood, but not very relevant.
Yes. Either the second part is happenning , during the life of Jesus, or the NT is falsified.
You conclusion here loses me completely. The construct of the believer is..
a) supernatural prophecy through Messiah
b) Temple destroyed . by God's sovereign hand.
So I have no idea what you want to "rule out" if not a true New Testament.

In other words, if I understand, the words have a right "feel" or style, of an apocalytic prophecy, with Hebraic (foreboding) covenant language, something that would be awkward to dramatically create in a post-facto fabrication. I would agree, but only as a very minor confirmation :-)

Perhaps I totally misunderstood part of your thinking or construct ? or perhaps not ?

Shalom,
Praxeas
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic/

Amaleq13

miracle: "An event that appears inexplicable by the laws of nature and so is held to be supernatural in origin or an act of God"

inexplicable: "Difficult or impossible to explain or account for."

supernatural: "Of or relating to existence outside the natural world."

People cannot magically see into the future. People cannot magically heal others. People cannot magically return from the dead. People cannot turn into animals. Snakes cannot talk. People cannot magically fly. These things are impossible because magic does not exist.

Considering the Bible from a rational standpoint is no more a game than doing so with any other collection of texts from antiquity. OTOH, I don't know how someone who relies primarily on magical thinking in their understanding of a given collection of texts can genuinely engage in a rational discussion of the evidence when that evidence is ultimately not actually relevant to the individual. That seems more like someone playing a game to me since they must pretend that the evidence is important to understanding the texts.

I agree that Bible research is an activity that only makes sense if it is conducted without a belief in magic.

Peter Kirby

I haven't. The date of the subject matter in GMark is circa 30 CE.

What technical issues are you thinking of with respect to GMark?

"Tremendous inertia" attribution is poisoning the well--and in my case, false; I've bounced all over the place on these issues.

"Christian dogma" is also poisoning the well, warning people "that could potentially be used in support of Christian dogma--so stay clear." It's also false to call the views of atheists who propose HJ models "Christian dogma."

"Big Bang" was a pejorative label when used in cosmology, and it is also one here. I suggest that its use be discontinued.

When you say that "everything falls neatly into place," have you demonstrated it? Everything + neatly? If so, what's the demonstration?

I think we've gotten used to seeing this kind of sloganeering for JM views going unchallenged, and I've largely acquiesced. If somebody says, "If you postulate a HJ, everything falls neatly into place," she soon finds half a dozen opponents here.

"If you propose a gospel of such astonishing character appearing in the 70's it would have had absolutely zero credibility because it alleges events for which thousands upon thousands of living witnesses or sons and daughters of witnesses would still be surviving."

Can you explain this? Are you presupposing that there was no historical Jesus here?

best wishes,
Peter Kirby

Clivedurdle

Do we actually have any real evidence of this date?

All the "under Pontius Pilate" stuff sounds to me like ritual incantation, to go with the Virgin Birth stuff. I think it was invented for poetic, story telling and ritual reasons, as a line in a hymn.

We have words like synagogue and rabbi. Can we date first use of these terms, are there others we could use? If these terms are later it is like finding the term technicolor in the American civil war, unless HG Wells or Back to the Future were involved!

These terms do give us an earliest possible date, do they point to the 130's?

(Of course, we haven't mentioned a possible pre 70 author - Seneca!!!!)

Diogenes the Cynic

Your quotations are incorrect. Luke says "Gerasenes" and so does Mark. The TR is just flat wrong on this.

Amaleq covered the Josephus question.

Some of the more faulty passages in the TR (which is all based on 10th century manuscripts or later...mostly later) include the last six verses of revelation (all imported from the Vulgate), Acts 9:6 (ditto from the Vulgate) and the fraudulent insertion of the Trinity into 1 John 5:7-8.

It is pretty universally acknowledged in NT scholarship that the TR is extremely problematic and inaccurate and the KJV even more so. Anyone who claims to be educated in these matters should know that.

Peter Kirby

What do you mean?

Your comments are subjective and impressionistic, not substantiated.

Do the search first, then claim a date.

best wishes,
Peter Kirby

rlogan

Hi Peter. Thank you for responding.

The electricity went off here, a common occurrence in a remote area. I lost a more substantial post, and am sending a somewhat abbreviated one.


I must not have been clear enough that the subject matter I was referring to was the destruction of the temple and "nearby" history alleged in the argument such as famine, false prophets, etc.

Those events cannot serve as anything more than earliest date of possible authorship under the implicit agreement I think we have that Mark is putting words in Jesus' mouth retroactively.


None that will individually pass muster with you Peter. I address the matrix of data below.



I have a tremebdous amout of respect for you Peter, and most especially that you have the sense to allow new data and arguments to influence your thinking.

There are a large number of studies that, for example, place a subject unknowingly in the midst of a group that is "in" on the study. Two objects are placed before them of obviously different sizes. Only a very small minority of subjects are capable of stating that the objects are of different size when the majority around them is alleging them to be the same. And even they state that it is with great discomfort that they disagree.

In sincerity I urge that this social science fact be considered carefully by the researcher. It is not poisoning the well. It is a fact that the great mass of opinion for two thousand years weighs on the mind of the researcher and influences his deductions.


I'll try not to use inflammatory language, Peter. But Christian dogma is not only quite real - it is something that we have to refer to often. That some portion of it is subscribed to by athiests is a valid point and I would distinguish between them when necessary.

Gosh Peter - I don't agree that it is pejorative in Cosmology. It is the reigning paradigm, and I am aware of the initial "slight" that was intended with the phrase, but it is not treated so now.

I don't use it as pejorative in either case. I think it an elegant description for both. But if you have some alternative terminology I will consider it.

Not in my last post.

My priorities are first that there is no contemporaneous mention of the super hero. I dismiss the TF as an obvious fraud.

That dismissal is also buttressed by the frauds of Ignatius, Clement & etc., not to mention the plethora of silly "Jesus letters", alternative gospels, and material not making it into the "canon" of the state-sponsored terrorists. All of which takes place in a mileu of fraud stretching as far back as Moses authoring the Pentateuch.

I take the Gospels themselves as Prima facia evidence of myth by virtue of the extensive HB quote-mining in their construction, the ridiculous miracles, and the theory of "sacrifice/absolution" contained therin.

And of the earliest material? In a word: Doherty. There is no HJ in those letters of "Paul".


Heh. Quite true. There are ardent defenders of the TF, the fabricated Neronian persecution & etc.

Not a presupposition Peter. I came from a background as a gospel singer. Campus Crusade for Christ. Campus Bible Study. Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

My journey through HJ research has led me to a rather astonishing conclusion given that background.

I understand now that the extant gospels and other frauds were a method of consolidating power by credentialing a central church authority as the linear successor to God.

I readily admit that all of us have a working paradigm in our minds as we correspond. You see mine. It is my "argument from best explanation".

All of the evidence collectively that I see is for no HJ, and the scenario I described of invention for consolidation of power.


I do strongly believe that a very straightforward issue is overlooked by those who pour over texts:

A gospel such as Mark containing astonishing miracles, performed allegedly before more than ten thousand, invovling high officials, covering so much area - it is simply not tenable within a lifetime of the events described.

Thus, late authorship and no HJ fit in best with all of the other evidence.

- Cheers.

Julian

A few points, if these have been covered I apologize in advance.

To Praxeus, the idea of prophecy violates the criterion of analogy and are therefore merely based on faith and thus irrelevant to this discussion.

If we agree that Mark refers to the destruction of the temple either during the first revolt or bar Kochba I see no way that Mark can ever be dated prior to 70CE. I see a few problems with the 130s dating. There is no way that he would place a prophecy in around 30CE that disaster would happen while that generation was still alive, if he was writing in the 130s. I mean, the prophecy would obviously be proven false the moment he wrote it. Dating it to the 70s would still be within the generations that might have been around in the 30s, much more plausible.

As for the persecution issue, Vork mentioned earlier that "hated by all" and such statements did not fit in the 70s. I beg to differ, at least a little, on this point. It would seem that christians did suffer some sort of persecution, not by the romans (I agree the Pliny's lack of knowledge about christians is telling and profound), but by the Jews and/or various schools of philosophy. Paul seems to indicate that maltreatment is happening when he is writing, e.g. 1 Thess. 2:2. Although Mark says 'all' he may just be exaggerating or having some idea of what is to come. It is also worth noting that Mark's christology differs to such a large extent from the other gospels, making me wonder how isolated he might have been from the greater christianity.

To my mind we have to place it not too far after 70CE for the generations not to passed away when Mark was writing.

Julian

P.S. Can someone direct me to a good website about the TR versus the Alexandrian texts versus Vaticanus and so on? I know very little about this issue.

Steven Avery

Whatever. Just be aware that you have set up your underlying structures in such a way as to not even consider or contemplate aspects of the most germane and signiificant aspect of NT historicity claims. You essentially assume the book is false, ergo it is not surprising when you end at a result claiming or "proving" falsification.
Shalom,
Praxeus
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic/

Vorkosigan

That's fine, but not relevant for scholarship. Scholarly work is based on methodological naturalism in which miracles play no role.

Or, the NT is a fictionalized account of real history. Or, it is a narrative never intended to be history. Or..... believe it or not, there are other options.

The supernatural origin of the speech is ruled out, for the whole thing is a "death speech" of the kind common in Hellenistic literature. Its origin is literary, not historical.

No, you don't understand. The framework for the setting is probably the Elijah/Elisha/Jehu tale in 2 Kings, for Mark has been paralleling that since Mark 1. The individual verses appear to be taken from the Old Testament and Maccabees. Hence, the construction is literary and novelistic, not historical. It doesn't mean that Jesus didn't prophesy about the Temple's destruction. It does mean, however, that the words we have are not his, and that proving he did prophesy about it is probably not possible.

Vorkosigan