jgibson000

LOL, and you accuse **me** of appealing to authority!

They fall with the genre of Helleinistic BIOI.

Jeffrey

Chris Weimer

See, this is the information I need.

But couldn't the gospels, at least, as Michael mentioned, Mark, be dependent on Paul?

I would think it suffice to say Paul alone is sufficient for some historical Jesus - I never doubted that. My problem is the who, when, and where of Jesus. And what is fiction in Mark and what is real is a very fine line and something not so easily discernable.

I never said none of it does. In fact, I'm sure that some of it does. The problem is figuring out what does and what doesn't. I've yet to see any real scholarship on this. And no, Jesus Seminar doesn't count.

I never thought the contrary.

Vorkosigan

Point is, you claim X but the reality is that many disagree.

That's a broad genre, and includes texts that are entirely fictional (like The Life of Aesop, which looks a lot like Mark in many ways). They also look like Hellenistic Romance Novels to me, since they incorporate so many of their conventions.

Michael

jgibson000

But many agree as well. And the real question is whethet the grounds on which those who disagree do so are good ones.

Fictional from our point of view. Not from their authors.

They do? Could you name them? And could you name any of the experts in the Greco Roman Novel who say that BIOI are in the same Genre as the Novel or vice versa?

Jeffrey

Lonebeatle

Casually my favorite science magazine just published an article about the agnostic gospels this month and they give five historical non-xian sources which they say that 'despite their poverty they prove Jesus' existence', something I highly doubt.

1- In his 'Annals' (110 of our era), Josefus refers to the xians being prosecuted by Nero saying that 'their name comes from Christ, who was executed by Pilatus (?) under the reign of Tiberius. He describes their teachings as 'a pernicious supersticion that was supressed temporarily'

2- In his letter to Trajanus, Plinius the Young tells about the xians 'that sing athems to Christ "as if he is god" ' (111 of our era)

3- Josefus (?) in his 'Antiquities' (62 of our era) refers incidentally to the stoning (?) of 'Santiago, brother of Jesus, named Christ'

4- In Life of Claudius (probably around 95 of our era), Suetonius afirms that the emperor 'expelled jews from Rome, since continuously they were making riots instigated by Chrestus (sic)'

5- The Talmud (centuries I & II), offers a portrait of Jesus, according to which he was illegitimate son of a man named 'Pantera' (sic), who dedicated to perform magic, ridiculized the wise men, seduced and agitated the crowd, gathered five disciples around him and was crucifixed.

All this according to what the magazine said, now I would take the first three as 'true' with some skepticism but the other two have such errors like 'Chrestus' and 'Pantera' that they must come from very misinformed sources at the best, these are my two cents.
Also if somebody knows how to say the date without writing 'B.C.' or 'A.D.' I will be grateful.

Cheers, Lonebeatle.

PS-sorry for the (?)s, I didn't knew how to write those ones in english

jgibson000

Matthew on Paul? John on Paul? I'd ike to see that demonstrated. And even if true, since Paul himself says that he is relating eye witness testimony, then what becomes of the claims of "mountain man (why do people here write under pseudonyms, and such silly ones to boot?) that we have no "eye witness" testimony to Jesus?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I can only assume you are saying this because you've read only _The Five Gospels_ but not the detailed arguments and exchanges of the Seminar members that appeared in their Journal _Forum_.

In any case, I believe Ricahard Baukham is working on this issue. And you'll find a weath of data in the Volumes that Craig Evans edited entitled _Authenticating the Words of Jesus_ and _Authenticating the Deeds of Jesus_.

Perhaps then it's not me you should be dialoging with, but Michael.

Jeffrey

Vorkosigan

Name the storytelling conventions of the Hellenistic Romantic Fictions that occur in the Gospels/Acts? Certainly. Here are a few

• Story elements

:
crucifixions
emtpy tombs
return from death/narrow reprieves from death
travel narratives
trials before local potentates
the person is innocent, but either insists on guilt and demands to be executed or does not protest
explanations of exotic customs
entering the city and being taken for a divine personage
being a child of god/like a god
crowds following the hero
restricted range of settings for the tale
recognition scenes at the end
prayers granted by the gods
protagonist has no childhood, life begins at young adulthood
religious themes

• construction elements

use of history and historical characters
episodic style
doublets and triplets
chiastic structures
creation by paralleling events from history and sacred texts
scenes that function as typologies for the story

etc etc etc. I could list more, but I'm saving it for the book. The gospels are not biography. They are greek novelistic fiction that has been taken for biography. In the case of Mark, I believe he never intended it to be history -- he was just writing a tale about his Mythical Savior, Jesus, which had religious functions -- baptism and recruitment -- as well as theopolitical functions (a hack on the Jerusalem crowd which he learned about from Paul). But there is no genuine history of Jesus' life in it, everything is driven by narrative invention one way or another. It was the writer of Luke who realized he could use the inherently historiographical elements in the story (the novel grew out of the narrative practices of Hellenistic history writings, among others) to create a faux history of Jesus that would serve crucial legitimation functions in the early Church.

No, because the experts in the Greek novel agree that it was a highly plastic form that drew on many genres, and therefore appears to mimic them. Stephens and Winkler (1995), in their introduction to their collection of the ancient Greek novels and their fragments, note how Greek novels appear to mimic and incorporate many different forms of literature:

• "Contemplating the fragmentary novels, one is often struck by the accuracy of Bahktin's observation about the plasticity of the novel form and the way in which it "fused together in its structure almost all genres of ancient literature."(1981:89). The Sesonchosis fragments are a case in point. (This is an historical romance whose protagonist is pharoah of the Twelfth Dynasty -- Senwosret, or Sesostris as Herodotos calls him.) A fragment of Sesonchosis, when first published, was identified as history. Only later was it reclassified when a new and more extensive peice of it came to light. A cogent argument was made to assign one fairly extensive fragment to a lost oration of Lysias, until proved to be from Lucian's Ass Tale. A part of Metiochos and Parthenope was originally labeled "philosophical" because it opens with a discourse modelled on Plato's Symposium, the subject of which was the power of Eros. Such examples can be multiplied."(p8-9)

Hope this helps.

Michael

Vorkosigan

Are you saying that only the rotten arguments appeared in the 5G, and they hid the good ones from public view, or what?

Why do people feel the need to comment on that, and so nastily, to boot?

Michael

Vorkosigan

Hi Lonebeatle! The date convention is BCE = BC and CE = AD (Before Common Era) and (Common Era).

You might want to search some of the discussions -- there's one on Tacitus going on right now. Read the Library too, and read Peter Kirby's excellent Early Christian Writings.

Michael

Mountain Man

If you have some proof, or evidence, then present it. The "gospels" are a religious text and not proof of anything.Red herring. Present the proof.The same tricks you tried to play here.That line is ALWAYS followed by a strawman argument. Another trick.No one is asking about those guys. Enough with the tricks. Present your proofs.