aa5874

Well, your statement is plainly WRONG and show that you cannot even repeat what I have argued. There are many, many other factors which strongly support the argument that Jesus had NO real existence. .

If it was stated in gMatthew and gLuke that Jesus was human with a human father then HJers would have used that information to argue for an historical Jesus.

These are some of the Major problems of the HJ argument.

1. Jesus was described as the Son of a Ghost and Acted non-human.

2. No Contemporary author of the supposed Jesus claimed to have personally Met him or saw him.

3. No recovered Jesus story or Pauline letter have been found and dated to any time in the 1st century.

4. Passages in Josephus to place Jesus in the time of Pilate have been deduced to be forgeries or questionable.

5. Letters to place a supposed Contemporary [Paul], in the 1st century has been deduced to be forgeries.

6. The sources that mention Jesus are Discredited by HJers.

7. The authors of the NT are FAKE.

8. Non-Apologetic sources did NOT mention any of the supposed Family of Jesus.

9. Non-Apologetic sources did NOT mention any disciples of Jesus.

10. There were people called Christians who did NOT mention Jesus.

11. An human Jesus played NO role in the Commision of the Gospel.

12. The Preaching of the Gospel did NOT require any Act of Jesus---Everything Jesus did in the Gospels was NULLIFIED when the disciples had to FIRST get the Holy Ghost in Acts.


PLease, the HJ argument is a disaster. As long as I am posting the HJ argument will be EXPOSED as heinously flawed.

LegionOnomaMoi

Once again, there are levels of "unprecendented". The underlying theory behind computers was developed before these "unprecedented" machines. And the basis for these theories came from set theory, Boolean algrebra, and over a century of formalism and logic. Of course new things are developed all the time both in and apart from art. But the issue isn't about novelty but the extent of that novelty. We can track developments within greco-roman literature over time. We can track developments within Western literature over time. It's one thing to see certain types of narratives (like ancient biographies) eventually turn into proto-novels, or what had been oral poetry later set in writing turn into poetry which was composed in writing first, or any number of similar examples. But we don't see jumps from folk music to death metal, or short silent film clips being replaced with two hour blockbusters. Same with the Luddite literature. There were precedents decades before, and it didn't end with Ned Ludd.

Likewise the author of Mark was working within a literary framework. The extent to which the work is novel is debatable, but like everything else there is a limit to how novel it can be. This is further limited by the time period (which lacked the widespread literacy and lengthy literary traditions consisting of ever growing categories of genres and subgenres of the past few centuries) and the ability of the author.


I don't know who that is. Most of what I've read is on Greek literacy, but I've read a fair number of monographs and papers on literacy during the Roman period. For example, Orality, Literacy, Memory in the Ancient Greek and Roman World (Orality and Literacy in Ancient Greece, Vol. 7), Politics of Latin Literature : Writing, Identity & Empire in Ancient Rome, or even Guardians of Letters : Literacy, Power, and the Transmitters of Early Christian Literature. We have a number of indicators for literacy rates. There are descriptions within extant sources describing the making of papyri and parchment and references to the scribal profession, education, and other relevant issues. Then there are the manuscripts themselves, which include comments from scribes on the inadequacy of others, or tend to indicate that the scribe couldn't actually read (but was just copying the letters). We also have references from the golden age of Athens until long after the first century of disseminated works being read to others. Even our records of receipts, stock parchment sizes, and the acquisition of educated greek slaves by roman elites who were used as educators for those who could afford it all help us understand the extent of literacy (the issue of orality is another but related matter). So when even professional scribes couldn't always read, and most depended on the ones who could for even short letters, apart from anything else it's fairly safe to say most people were illiterate. Combine that with our other evidence, the fact that there was no formal schooling and no "middle class" (just an elite class, a merchant class which was small, and the majority who lived in relative poverty), and it's hard to believe that literacy rates for this period were somehow higher than in the early modern era (still a period of widespread illiteracy). Finally, as literacy rates increased, and more people wanted access to texts either because they could read or because they knew someone who could, we start seeing changes in the manuscripts. The majuscule script and words without spaces and barely any punctuation began to shift to the more readable form of later manuscripts which (in addition to breaks and "lowercase") included ever more reader aids such as chapters, diacritics, and even aids specific to the person reading the text to others.


How does a reference in Paul which is an almost identical (with the exception of the final word) to the LXX (and ἀθετήσω may actually have been in a copy Paul knew of) say anything about Mark?



Except Paul's use is totally different (and rather unique). You can't exactly defraud someone via an agreement/mutual consent (sumphonou). So while the word is the same, this is Greek (in which lexemes frequently have well beyond the cross-linguistic norm or average in terms of polysemy). While they use the same word, Mark's use is closer to the commandment not to desire what belongs to another than to Paul's meaning.



Actually we have no idea if that's true. We don't know what took place in order to go from a procession to a stage.


That could be done, yes. But apart from anything else, if the author of Mark was capable of constructing a narrative allegory, he had plenty of models to use which were actually allegories. The construction of theological texts designed for such purposes, or even moral or philosophical texts designed for similar purposes, were already around. Yet instead of a "once upon a time" type of allegory we have what appears to be an account of this Jesus Christ set in a specific time and place. This alone makes theological interpretations or allegorical readings more difficult (which is why those who wrote allegory wrote allegory, rather than hide them in what is more or less a Life), but there is also the nature of Mark's narrative. If the author is somehow capable of this novel form of literature, why is he so bad at it? That is, if he is adapting narrative style for allegorical and theological purposes (obviously Mark is theological, but under your reading it is purely for such purposes and does not seek to tell about actual events or the actual ministry of a real, historical individual), why is he so poor at both narrative and allegory? It's not just that the author is apparently almost completely incapable of transitioning from one component of his narrative to the next without kai + euthus or + verb, no other attempts are made to smooth the transitions. So on the one hand, the author is this literary master, responsible for combining the narrative of ancient accounts of the past with allegorical theology, but at the same time this author is somehow incapable of basic stylistic techniques.

How would this serve as such a test? Initiations into such cultic groups had been going on for the past few centuries. And the closest thing to such a "test" is the only extant latin novel, but the main character isn't Isis, and the literary quality is superb.

aa5874

Again, you present BS. Written sources of Greek and Roman Mythology PREDATE gMark.

The Myth Fables of Romulus and Remus PREDATE gMark.

Greek/Roman Myth Gods and Sons of God were worshiped and offered Sacrifices LONG before gMark.

The very Greek/Roman MYTH GODS and Sons of God were made in the IMAGE of Men.

Please, you seem to think that people here do NOT read about ancient Greek/Roman Mythology.

Your posts are filled with horribly erroneous and mis-leading information as if you have no intention of presenting any historical facts.

Please, let us do history.

aa5874

Toto, you sound like a Broken record.

THOUSANDS of people around the GLOBE read my posts so you are WASTING your time.

I have a WORLD-WIDE audience and have ALREADY resolved the HJ/MJ argument in favor of MJ.

My argument cannot be contradicted and is SOLID--It is based on Hard Evidence.

Jesus, the disciples and Paul had NO real existence and ALL the authors of the Canon are 2nd century or later.

The NT Canon is a compilation of Myth Fables written sometime after the end of the 1st century.

Tell me of your "sosphisticated or nuanced" argument that the Pauline writings are early.

Do you use Acts of the Apostles as history for Paul in your "sosphisticated or nuanced" argument for early Paul???

Please, I am not the one who claimed Jesus was crucified in the Sub-Lunar, use Acts of the Apostles to date Paul and Myth Fables as the history of an Historical Jesus.

The Sophisticated and Nuanced need a more productive argument.

I PRODUCE the evidence, the written statements from antiquity, without the need for "sophistication".

I don't need "sophistication" just HARD EVIDENCE from antiquity.

See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...stament_papyri

Toto

That could only be because you won't accept any evidence that anything was intended as ahistorical.


What is the evidence for this??
See Richard Carrier's essay (written when he believed in a historical Jesus) Kooks and Quacks of the Roman Empire: A Look into the World of the Gospels
For example, Leucippe and Clitophon (or via: amazon.co.uk)



I don't see these factors as disproving the ability to historicize a legend.

Ha ha. You think "Paul" was his real name?


Most of this is within the scholarship. :huh:

There were a few elite scholars who wanted to know what happened. But then there was Plato's Royal Lie.

And you are claiming that any written work that shares some vague resemblance to a historical work has to be regarded as an attempt to recount the past. This seems like an extraordinary claim, and I don't see any evidence for it.

stephan huller

I'm just throwing this out there but how unlike the gospel is apuleius's golden ass?

stephan huller

Mi dispiace, ma mio figlio stava usando il mio telefono

LegionOnomaMoi

It could be, were that true. It isn't.




I've read it, and I largely agree. In fact, I've been trying to say this for some time. Biography and history contained myth and legends. I explicitly used the examples of Alexander the Great and Apollonius of Tyana. Just about every source we have for Alexander claims he is descended from divinity. Yet he is historical. The point isn't that Plutarch, Diogenes Laertius, Philostratus, Polybius, and so on were writing novels, but that virtually all historiography in the ancient world incorporated myth/legends. Carrier compares the gospel accounts with the Lives of Plutarch (among others).

The point is not that because Plutarch, Livy, Polybius, and other ancient historians were content to attribute miraculous wonders to the individuals they were writing about or to relate their divine lineage they are therefore neither writing histories nor interested in recounting the past. It simply reflects the fact that although centuries before the gospels Aristotle (among others) discussed what history was, historians lacked the materials and the template to entirely seperate this new genre (or genres) from story-telling and legends.


The main problem with Carriers analysis is that he's either dealing with obviously historical people, or with those like Apollonius whom most believe did exist, but we aren't sure because the time period between Philostratus' account and Apollonius' life was over a century. And it is the only one.


Note the author's discussion of genre and "whether it makes sense to talk of the ancient novel" at all. Also, you can compare the liteary quality, style, and type of narrative of Leucippe et Clitophon yourself, and then tell me how it resembles Mark.

They aren't meant to. How is this so difficult? I referenced a modern messiah and acknowledged that with one exception the use of that individual against the mythicist hypothesis is baseless. Yet you go from "it's possible to historicize a legend", utterly ignore the context, and the project 19th century labor conflicts with the increase of machinery into the first century. You also don't seem to realize that this wasn't historicizing a legend, but the deliberate creation of a fiction for protection and unanimity. You could do the same thing now by setting up a blog, facebook page, a website, and so on, all centered around a fictitious character you created, and fool people until someone bothered to check into. This doesn't demonstrate anything other than under certain circumstances people generally react in certain ways.

I don't understand. Are you refuting his roman citizenship and therefore his roman cognomen which he had in addition to his semitic name? Or is this something else altogether?


Not most of the dates later than the first half of the 2nd century.



It started from natural philosophy and travel narratives, especially Herodotus, but quickly became something else and remained so. And anybody who could write was an "elite scholar". The entire point of the development of historical narratives is to tell stories about what happened in the past.


No, I'm not saying anything of the sort. You're making a distinction between "histories" and a bunch of other narratives. I'm saying that this distinction is completely misguided. Narrative accounts of people and events fit under the nebulous "historical" genre or something which at least had the goal giving an account of what happend. The novels you refer to were not only later and of a different type, they are a different sort of narrative because they aren't stories about the past, they are just stories.

aa5874

Please, you need to take a time out. You are exposing yourself as promoting mere propaganda.

The gMark Jesus story is SET in an unknown or an uncertain time period.

There is real NO indication of when Jesus was born or the time he died.

Please, read gMark before you make absurd statements.

In gMark, All we have is a name Jesus Christ WITHOUT any physical description at all.

The author of gMark NOWHERE mentions that Jesus had a human father.

In fact, in gMark there is NO way to dertemine when any event with Jesus took place from the Baptism to the Empty Tomb.

When was Jesus in Nazareth based on gMark alone????---Once upon a Time.

At what age was Jesus Baptized??? Once upon a Time.

What year did Jesus WALK on water???--Once upon a Time.

What time period did he Feed 9000 HUNGRY men with a few fish and bread???Once upon a Time.

When did Jesus transfigure in gMark???Once upon a Time.

When did he CURSE the Fig tree??Once upon a Time.

When did he cast the demons in the Pigs??Once upon a Time.

The is REALLY No known time for the Jesus story in gMark because the events NEVER did happen in the first place.

gMark is TOTAL FICTION or Total Implausible.

Now, in gMark, Jesus was crucified under PILATE.

But, who is PILATE in gMark???

The author simply introduced Pilate with no other name or description.

Again, the author NEVER did claim Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate Governor of Judea uder Tiberius.

People ASSUME so.

This is unacceptable at any level.

gMark is a Myth Fable WITHOUT an internal trace of history of the main character called Jesus.

Everything that Jesus did in gMark MUST have happened only ONCE upon a TIME.

LegiononomMoi, please read gMark because you don't seem to know what you are talking about.

gMark's Jesus was considered the Son of a Ghost by his AUDIENCE Once upon a Time.

stephan huller

The Fortunes of Apuleius and the Golden Ass:
A Study in Transmission and Reception
Julia Haig Gaisser