show_no_mercy

I don't understand the logic here. Is there some sort of goldilocks zone in dating schemes that makes the narratives more true? What's so special about 70 CE?

The way I see it, when a narrative like the gospels was written has no bearing on its usefulness. If Mark was written in 33 CE there's still very little reason for thinking that it contains any grains of truth. Since we don't know who Mark's audience was (which determines its genre), we can't assume that he's writing to other people who might have known the historical Jesus and that they would have corrected him.

Since the legends about Nedd Ludd came about in the same timeframe as when the gospels were written, does this mean that Nedd Ludd was historical?

Juststeve

Toto:

I’ve read most of what Crossan has written on the subject and he proposes his own dates for various new Testament documents and states others estimates when they differ from his. That’s where I get the idea that most critical scholars agree on 60 to 70 for the Gospel of Mark. You could find the same on Google. I also understand that you and others on the fringe disagree. So what?

Steve

Juststeve

Mercy:

You are free to reject the Gospels as evidence if you want. I don't although I think they need to be treated with caution. That seems to be a primary difference between us. I can live with that.

Steve

Zaphod

So now we are back to using The Lord of the Rings as a proof source for Gandalf?:banghead:

It is the Gospels themselves which are in dispute! And the reason they are in dispute is:

1) They are incoherent. They contradict one another.

2) They describe events which are physically impossible as being true, such as eclipses

3) They describe events surrounding JC which are impossible if Jesus was a nobody, which is mandatory to solve the problem of historical silence about the HJ. These impossible events include the foundational precepts of the religion.

4) They describe events which are impossible for any writer to have heard, so they are self-evidently fictional.

5) They show plenty of evidence of being amended for theological reasons

In other words, not only are they off-limits as a proof source because they are not independently objective, but they themselves are completely unreliable.

They also are in opposition to the epistles, which do a pretty darned good job making the case for the MJ. Shouldn't I deal with the epistles?

Deal with the Gospels indeed!


No, I am saying that one should not make assertions without evidence.

That's right! If 100 years from now, if someone says that a person existed, despite the fact that there is no evidence (records, art works, artifacts, letters, birth certificates, etc) for that person's existence, and without an epistemic need for that existence (offspring to account for, for example), then, absolutely, the hypothesis of the historicity of that person has failed. We should not believe that such a person existed.

Do you really believe otherwise? Or do you believe in the HJ as fervently as you believe in my existence?

show_no_mercy

I have to ask, though, what methodology are you using to tease out which parts of the gospels to claim as authentic and which parts are to be treated with caution.

There are quite a few fundamental questions we have to have answers to when reading an ancient narrative before we can start determining which parts are authentic and which parts to treat with caution.

Take Josephus' War of the Jews for instance. The fundamental questions (as in, questions we ask before we do anything else with the text) are:

Who wrote it?
When did they write it?
Why did they write it?
Who were they writing to?

The answers to these questions tell us how we approach JW. Which parts we might have more reasons to accept and which parts to take with caution. These are not questions we can answer with Mark (and these are basic, foundational questions!!), thus any sort of caution towards Mark's narrative will be ad hoc. And like I said at the beginning of this thread, you'll be doing the same thing with Mark's text as Matt and Luke (and possibly John) did.

On the flip side, these are questions we can answer with much higher confidence in regards to Paul. Thus we have stronger foundations in our methodology for how we approach Paul's letters.

Toto

So what? I have not taken any position on the dating of the gospels, but it seems clear that it would be more accurate and honest to say that the evidence is that Mark was written sometime between 68 CE and 150 CE. Rather than pick the midpoint of this range, the so called critical scholars go along with the earliest date. Why? Because the more conservative faction insists on an early date to preserve the idea that Mark could contain some valid historical memory of Jesus, which keeps the hope alive that there was a historical Jesus.

The more you learn about what lies behind the scholarship, the less likely you will be to treat it as some sort of received wisdom.

spamandham

Ok. Now we just need to work on your obsession with what you perceive to be scholarly consensus.

a) How do you know there is a scholarly consensus that the date is 60-70CE? Is there a scholarly poll published somewhere that has made this determination?

b) Upon what is the dating of 60-70 CE based? The purpose of this subforum is not merely to rehash what scholars have come up with, but to question the validity as well. For example, if the date really is 60CE, then Mark 13 is simply inexplicable. How could the author possibly know what was going to happen in such detail, and how could the readers be expected to understand "let the reader understand"? Does it even make sense to try to assign a single date given our knowledge of the prevalence of editing and reworking texts?

Juststeve

Toto:

With regard to your proposed range of dates for Mark, 68-150 C.E., can you tell me what current scholars argue for 150 C.E. and what universities they are affiliated with.

Second, you propose a range that does not include the very early dates argued for by some evangelical "scholars". Why do you accept the dates proposed by fringers on the high side but not by loonies on the low side? There are some evangelicals who treat the Gospels as though they were dictation. You are as right to discount those as I am to discount the outliers at the other extreme.

Its just plain silly to speak of keeping "hope alive that there was an historical Jesus." Talking about keeping hope alive that there was an historical Jesus is like keeping hope alive that Egyptians built the pyramids without alien assistance. That there was an historical Jesus is the mainstream position held by the vast majority of reputable scholars associated with serious universities. The mythers hardly have the sort of credential that demand they be taken seriously.

Steve

Iskander

Do not quote any American Professor. Apparently it is forbidden to do that here.

Toto

No one argues for that exact date. But it is generally considered the latest possible date, based on Justin Martyr, who appears to cite passages from an unnamed gospel. Are you familiar with the terms terminus ad quem and terminus ad quo?

I assume that Mark's narrative reflects the destruction of Jerusalem. The evangelicals who date Mark very early assume that Jesus could predict the furture, but for these purposes I omit any supernatural explanations.

The scholars that you insult as fringers do not rely on any supernatural explanations.

You are turning into a broken record. Your mainstream position is just the conventional wisdom, based on shifting sand. Do you have any real arguments?