rlogan

Hi back at ya! Flew over your place a few days ago. I hope my thoughts were being sent over the air waves.



You know what?

Not well enough, apparently.

dog-on

The examples given in those threads lend no support to your position. Unlike Mark, those authors tell you that they are writing history. Whether or not everything or anything in their story actually happened is another story.

Get it?

Let's cut to the chase, you wrote:
Simply "conveying truth", by using fiction, when no indication is given by the author that the work is intended as anything else, still makes the work, prima facie, fictitious.

Aesop conveyed a lot of truth, you want to argue that he is writing history or that he thought that he was writing history?

What about Homer?


So , why don't you provide, what you consider to be an example, to support your position?

Do you even know of one?

Amaleq13

I'll give you credit (blame) for the warm weather!

My driveway is an experiment in frictionless surfaces.

Kids today just don't think they have to do any homework.

Amaleq13

I get that you aren't really interested in challenging your own assumptions and don't think it is significant that even folks who share your conclusion consider your approach flawed. You'll keep thinking the evidence leads to an easy and obvious conclusion and continue being plainly wrong. :wave:

Seitsuman

There may be history in Luke even though it is written in a definite literary style with speeches attributed where nobody could have been around to hear and the birth of Jesus is balanced rather too neatly against that of John.

Essentially I think Jesus is similar to King Arthur. There probably was somebody it was based on but it has been built into a much more elaborate story intended to provide a morality tale and we'll no more find the real Jesus than we will the real Arthur. Because what does that mean? If there was an warlord who for a time united the post-Roman Celts from a base somewhere in Northern England is he Arthur? Arthur is placed in a great city the South with additional elements set in western France. Even if we found the warlord we have not found Arthur because we haven't explained the origin or meaning of the Grail Cycle and other features of his legend.

Likewise, maybe we can find an ex-Zealot peacenik who believed in converting the attitude instead of smiting the heathen and probably lived between the years 6 to 36 (and maybe after if his crucifixion was rigged). Is that Jesus? Then we need to explain everything else in the Jesus story because that everything else in a sense is what really matters about the Jesus story, just as it is Camelot and the Grail that really matter in the Arthur story, not 5th century squabbles between (probably) Romanisers and Cetlic restorers.

We should remember too that there are any number of Gnostic Gospels which are just alleged wisdom sayings of Jesus. It is thought that the Gospel of Thomas may contain actual Jesus sayings but gospel writing appears to have been an aspect of many sects.

Jayrok

Is it possible that Matt and Luke's use of Q supports the idea the authors knew they were writing fiction?

For instance, Matt 8 and Luke 9 both contain the same sayings (The costs of following Jesus) but in different contexts.

Matt 8 sets the exchange between Jesus and a teacher of the law after Jesus said he was going to cross to the other side of the lake. "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the son of man has no place to lay his head." Another disciples asked him if he could first bury his father. Jesus replied "Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead."

Then they go out onto the lake and next is when Jesus calms the storm.

Contrast that with Luke 9, who places the scene on the road to Jerusalem. A man approached Jesus and said he'd follow him wherever he went. Jesus replies with "Foxes have holes......" And then told another man to let the dead bury their own dead.

Does this indicate the author only had the quoted sayings and knew he was writing fiction by putting the sayings in an exclusive scene? The common source for Luke and Matt didn't contain it so they each made up something to fit the quotes in with their own story.

Is this evidence of fiction or is it possible Jesus really did say those exact words at each different scene at two different times with Matt and Luke unaware of each other's scenes for the quotes? Sort of like Jesus cleansing the Temple of money changers with a whip every time he visited Jerusalem, as has been explained to me on these boards, no less.

Amaleq13

To anyone else who has completely missed the point, I would like to avoid leaving this to stand as though it were a legitimate point.

When one is wondering whether something is an indication an ancient author was writing fiction (as opposed to assuming it is and running with it blindly), the wise course is to see if the same sort of alleged indication can be found in works that are clearly not intended to be fiction.

When one finds examples of ancient authors who were intending to describe actual events or people (odd how that used to be just my "opinion" ) utilizing the alleged indication, it should be obvious that the alleged indication is not, in fact, a reliable indication at all.

Amaleq13

That seems a reasonable conclusion and, IIUC, the one many scholars tend to favor.

The question then becomes "Did Jesus actually speak those sayings but the original context has been lost or did a group of like-minded individuals gather together quotes that they felt reflected their beliefs and this collection was subsequently attributed to a founder (real or imagined)?"

dog-on

My approach is flawed?

I have asked you, repeatedly, to provide an example that, in your opinion, supports the position you have taken.

You have repeatedly failed to do so.

Amaleq13

As it is based on ignorance of the relevant contextual data, obviously so.

You've been given more than enough information to reach the correct conclusion and your recent objection to the data you apparently have read has been shown to have entirely missed the point. I find your newfound curiosity to be disingenuous at the very least. It is up to you to either continue on your blissful path of willful ignorance or start doing the work necessary to reach an informed conclusion.