Freethought & Rationalism Archive

ApostateAbe · 04-14-2011, 08:17 PM

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Originally Posted by hjalti

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

It would follow from the plausibilities that the contents of the gospels reflect early Christian beliefs, and that the early Christian beliefs originated with Jesus and his disciples (evolved from there). The gospel of Mark is the earliest gospel telling of the death of Jesus, and it does say at the very end that women discovered the empty tomb. The earliest manuscripts stop short before telling that any of the disciples found out, but it isn't about relying on the claims of the accounts so much as making the best sense of their contents, and it would be much more difficult to make sense of those beliefs of the women at the tomb if the original disciples didn't share that belief. I would not use the phrase, "complete certainty," as Ehrman does, but I am not sure exactly what is reasoning is, either.

Right, so if something is reported in the gospel of Mark, we should assume that the disciples preached it, because christians wouldn't believe stuff that the disciples didn't preach. This doesn't seem very rational.

If the disciples preached about the empty tomb, then why did the earliest mention of the story say that the disciples weren't told about it? How do you make sense of that?

I think both of these points have the same explanation. We certainly don't trust everything that Mark wrote, but the critical scholars use criteria to sort the historical from the mythical. The account that women discovered the empty tomb counts for dissimilarity. Women in that culture were of a lower class, they would be much less likely than men to be trusted, especially on claims that are extraordinary. The fact that Mark wrote that the women didn't tell anyone seems to be best explained as Mark implicitly telling the reader, "I am not actually trusting the testimony of these women on this... just trust me that there are good reasons for believing the empty tomb," which of course the author of Mark didn't get into.

Toto · 04-14-2011, 08:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

... The fact that Mark wrote that the women didn't tell anyone seems to be best explained as Mark implicitly telling the reader, "I am not actually trusting the testimony of these women on this... just trust me that there are good reasons for believing the empty tomb," which of course the author of Mark didn't get into.

I have to admit that I have never heard that explanation before, so you get credit for imagination. But your explanationjust doesn't make any sense at all. If the women didn't tell anyone, Mark seems to be implicitly explaining to his readers why they haven't heard anything like this before.

I think that mainstream scholars are more likely to speculate about a lost ending of Mark, that was replaced with the obviously tacked on ending that is on some but not all manuscripts. There is also speculation that there was an original ending of Mark that ended up in John when some pages of a codex were shuffled around.

Sheshbazzar · 04-14-2011, 08:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

Women in that culture were of a lower class, they would be much less likely than men to be trusted,

You lived in that culture? How do -you- know women were much less likely to be trusted?
Evidence please, not sexist assumptions.

.

hjalti · 04-14-2011, 08:38 PM

This argument about nobody inventing women witnesses has never made any sense to me, since in the gospel of Mark, the earliest source, the womens are said not to have said anything to anyone. Nobody is asked to trust them.

Sheshbazzar · 04-14-2011, 08:39 PM

Or perhaps there originally was an ending of Mark that the church did not want to hear, or ever hear repeated.
Chop Chop; End of problem.

ApostateAbe · 04-14-2011, 08:39 PM

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Originally Posted by hjalti

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That is wonderful. Price does use arguments about probability, as long as such argumentation serves his purpose about having no knowledge.

Price seems to think that it's more probable ("knows") that Jesus being from Nazaret is a later addition.

Yeah, so I am willing to meet part way.

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Originally Posted by hjalti

Is that really the "established hypothesis"?

It is, and I don't have the evidence handy, except there are multiple sources that do say that Nazareth was a small obscure village, and the expectation that there would be many spellings of "Nazareth" would of course directly follow from that.

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Originally Posted by hjalti

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I don't know if you caught this or not, but his conclusion, following two paragraphs later, is:

Right, if Jesus is said to be from towns A and B and both can be shown to probably be later traditions. Then we just don't have any information of where he was born. What's the problem with his statement?

There is nothing wrong with that conclusion, given that we accept the premises. Robert Price has a style of arguing that very much tends to leave out the established and sensible scholarly explanations so that his conclusions of ignorance (always of ignorance, never of knowledge) more easily follow.

Sheshbazzar · 04-14-2011, 08:46 PM

In other words Robert Price dosen't just recite 'the established' Christian apologetics 'explanations'

hjalti · 04-14-2011, 08:59 PM

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It is, and I don't have the evidence handy, except there are multiple sources that do say that Nazareth was a small obscure village, and the expectation that there would be many spellings of "Nazareth" would of course directly follow from that.

I think the gospels are the first we ever hear of Nazareth, but I haven't looked into the case for the non-existence of Nazareth, so I don't really know enough about that.

So, Luke and Matthew (and John?) each made exactly the same mistake, and later we had a whole sect that called itself by that unfortunate spelling error.

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Robert Price has a style of arguing that very much tends to leave out the established and sensible scholarly explanations so that his conclusions of ignorance (always of ignorance, never of knowledge) more easily follow.

On the contrary, Price seems to think that we know a lot of things.

ApostateAbe · 04-14-2011, 08:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

... The fact that Mark wrote that the women didn't tell anyone seems to be best explained as Mark implicitly telling the reader, "I am not actually trusting the testimony of these women on this... just trust me that there are good reasons for believing the empty tomb," which of course the author of Mark didn't get into.

I have to admit that I have never heard that explanation before, so you get credit for imagination. But your explanationjust doesn't make any sense at all. If the women didn't tell anyone, Mark seems to be implicitly explaining to his readers why they haven't heard anything like this before.

I think that mainstream scholars are more likely to speculate about a lost ending of Mark, that was replaced with the obviously tacked on ending that is on some but not all manuscripts. There is also speculation that there was an original ending of Mark that ended up in John when some pages of a codex were shuffled around.

OK. I don't think there is much implausible about Mark ending the way it did. It was an early gospel, and its myths were not as well developed, so we really don't necessarily expect an ending that elegantly rounds up the whole narrative. As an example, Q was even less developed as a mythical narrative. And we don't plausibly expect that someone got their papers mixed up or whatever. They were extremely valuable material, not TPS reports.

I also think that my explanation has the advantage of explanatory power. Since Mark sourced from evangelistic myth, we can expect him to be acquainted with the problem.

"I am telling you, the tomb was empty."

"How do you know that?"

"Mary Magdalene and Salome, they saw it."

"Two women? You're joking, right?"

spin · 04-14-2011, 09:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

It is, and I don't have the evidence handy, except there are multiple sources that do say that Nazareth was a small obscure village, and the expectation that there would be many spellings of "Nazareth" would of course directly follow from that.

You don't have any evidence on the issue, but you are willing to use it in argument. You are willing to make statements that have no basis whatsoever about something you know nothing about, then include it in your claims tells you what your claims are based on.

The spellings of Nazareth are all based on literary causes, but ApostateAbe wouldn't know that. He hasn't looked into the issue at any depth.

I challenge ApostateAbe to a debate on the issue of Nazareth. That will allow him to get the evidence handy to defend his apparently ludicrous view on the issue.

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04-14-2011, 08:38 PM	#84
hjalti Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Iceland Posts: 761	This argument about nobody inventing women witnesses has never made any sense to me, since in the gospel of Mark, the earliest source, the womens are said not to have said anything to anyone. Nobody is asked to trust them.

04-14-2011, 08:39 PM	#85
Sheshbazzar Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: On the path of knowledge Posts: 8,889	Or perhaps there originally was an ending of Mark that the church did not want to hear, or ever hear repeated. Chop Chop; End of problem.

04-14-2011, 08:46 PM	#87
Sheshbazzar Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: On the path of knowledge Posts: 8,889	In other words Robert Price dosen't just recite 'the established' Christian apologetics 'explanations'

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