Adam

That's a leopard, spin. So that implies you think that I as a leper can be cured? Do you have the critique that can do it? Actually, the best you did was refer me to some helpful scholars. Do you now have some scholars who would refute me instead of supporting me?

PhilosopherJay

Hi Adam,

Lets look at the beginning of this eyewitness testimony.

If a person says that he saved a person from a lion attack one afternoon, we may be skeptical of the testimony. However it is not beyond the realm of possibility. However if a person says he saved a person from a lion, a crocodile, a tiger and a vampire attack, we may assume that we are dealing with a made-up story. The more fantastical the claims and elements in a story, the less reason to believe that it is true eyewitness testimony. Likewise, if a witness contradicts himself and says, "Right After the shooting, I saw X throw the gun in the river and I saw X hide the gun in a bank safety deposit box," we may also doubt the accuracy of such alleged eye-witness testimony. The eyewitness may have seen one or the other, but it is highly unlikely he saw both.

Note that one of the disciples is complaining that Mary is wasting ointment by pouring it on Jesus' feet. Since one denarius was a man's average daily wage, we can say that three hundred dinarrii equals about $30,000 in today's money. Just this alone makes the story almost certainly a fiction rather than an eyewitness account.
One can readily see why a disciple would question why Jesus needs to have $30,000 ointment put on his feet. Jesus' response makes no sense in two ways: First he contradicts himself in what he wants done with the oil and second, he does not answer the question posed.

He says "Permit her, in order that she may keep it for the day of my funeral." In the context of the story this can only mean "permit her" to continue to brush the expensive ointment with her hair on his feet. If he permits this then she can't be keeping the ointment for the day of Jesus' burial. Either you're spreading it on Jesus' feet or you're keeping the ointment for the burial. You cannot do both. Jesus is either talking nonsense or he does not means to say Permit her to keep brushing it on my feet, but rather permit her to keep the ointment for my burial. He should have said Don't permit her, but allow her to keep it for my funeral.

However, this is not an answer to the disciple's question of why she was wasting this expensive $30,000 ointment by brushing it on Jesus' feet instead of helping poor people with the money. Let us say that Mary was brushing the ointment on her dog. Let us say that a disciple complained and that Jesus had said, "The poor you have with you always but this dog you do not have with you always. He will die soon. Who would not see that Jesus was not responding to the question of misuse of funds. The fact that everyone dies is not an excuse to waste thousands of dollars perfuming someone's feet when people are in desperate need. Jesus' response is incredibly callous to say the least. Was the eyewitness trying to show that Jesus was a completely disgusting human being who did not care about the poor, but considered perfuming his feet more important than the lives of poor starving children? It is hard to imagine that anyone would quote something like this except to arouse hatred of Jesus.

We also have to ask about the idea of saving the ointment for Jesus' death. Jesus had no reason to suspect that he was going to die as his arrest is clearly an unplanned event and nobody could predict that he would be put to death. Today, ointments have an expiration date. In most cases modern chemistry has made these expiration dates two or three years in the future. Doubtless most ointments spoiled in a few months in those times. Telling someone to save $30,000 worth of ointment which probably expired in a short time would be silly if Jesus did not know about his upcoming death in a few days. This seems to be the underlying point of the story, that Jesus knew about his future death. We know that doctors after diagnosing people with illnesses can predict their death. However, it is unlikely that Jesus under these circumstances could have predicted his death. This makes it extremely likely, if we do not believe in a Jesus with supernatural powers to predict the future, that the writer made up the idea that Jesus foretold and knew about his impending death.
Since the writer almost certainly made up the part of the story where Jesus predicted his own death by saying the ointment should be saved for the funeral, why not believe the whole story was made up. It seems unlikely that indigent beggars would be able to raised $30,000 to be used to buy perfumed ointment. The whole incident seems fictional.

We should also consider that Mary was using her hair to apply the ointment to Jesus' feet. It seems to mean that Mary had applied the ointment first on her hair and had used her hair like a brush to apply the ointment to Jesus' feet. We would have to consider that this involves a kinky or perverted sexual aspect. Kissing someone's feet was and still is considered a sign of subjugation. Using your hair as a brush to apply ointment would certain be even more submissive.

While any of these elements might be considered unusual and pointing to a fictional, made up story, all four combined makes that conclusion quite solid. The four elements are 1) the ointment cost the equivalent of $30,000, 2) Mary applies the ointment in a weird sexually charged image using her hair to brush it on Jesus' feet, 3) the crazy contradiction in Jesus' words wherein he wants to continue to have his feet anointed and wants to save the ointment for his death, and 4) Jesus predicts his future that he is going to be buried soon.

Looking at the four mentioned elements, they all make sense in a fictional story, but are each highly unlikely to be a description of a real incident. These elements point strongly towards a made up story and not an eyewitness account.

Adam

Thanks for a fine study. You have a great intuitive mind, Jay.
The issues you raise have theological rationalizations that would not concern us here at FRDB. Textual issues can help, as well, but I can't get access to the proper forums.

Thus for purposes of The Gospel According to the Atheists, let's assimilate it to the preceding John 11 about the Raising of Lazarus and the Signs Gospel it came from, because names and places (Bethany) apply to both chapters. Perhaps I should retreat back to presenting the eyewitness testimony as the Passion Narrative proper. Instead of My Week with Jesus it would be My Day with Jesus. It's still strong evidence for HJ, and not controversial.

Regarding (3) and (4) above, however, preceeding events in the synoptics and sayings in gJohn should make it pretty obvious that Jesus could expect to die, soon. Nevertheless, I was trying to present the Passion Narrative as a stand-alone, so I fail at that purpose.

Adam

My Passion Narrative Source in Post #243 is remarkable for its direct narration of what just one person experienced. In John 13: 18&21 Jesus says someone will betray him, but we could as well suppose from what is next said that Peter, not Judas, is meant. We get nothing about Judas meeting the church authorities. We get nothing of what Jesus said when he drew apart from his disciples to pray in the garden. We get tiny details about Peter, the only apostle who followed Jesus after the arrest. There is no speculation about motives. The "other disciple" was there to hear what Peter said and what Jesus said. (We learn from the other gospels that the other apostles fled.) He was there for the trial, flogging, carrying the cross, the crucifixion, and the entombment.

There is no theological speculation, no retrojection of church ceremonies back to the Last Supper, and no other apologetic interests served. This Passion Narrative was written too early to serve the needs of the early Christian church. (Not to say that other sacramental and theological things may have occurred which later were added to the text as more important than the bare-bones events.) This is not an apologetic source, so it is evidence for HJ. The main argument against historicity of this text would be the night-time trial, but we have no way of knowing whether rabbinical tradition centuries later would rule out what happened centuries before. (Maybe the rule was set up just because of such an egregious exception as the trial of Jesus.)

This Passion Narrative Source set the standard for the next eyewitness records within the gospels. The early ideal was as here to state only what the writer had personally experienced. This holds for all the texts in my Gospel According to the Atheists. The other Johannine source was the discourses by Nicodemus, writing down the most dubious utterances of Jesus. Presumably the Q1 and L writers more exactly present what Jesus said, with very little included from before they personally knew Jesus. Q1 is generally thought to represent the entire ministry of Jesus, but may actually be limited to when Jesus had called all Twelve. (This may account for some of the differences with gJohn, that started earlier.) The L source says a great deal about the very late Perean Ministry, but little about anything earlier.

The later eyewitness sources include the Signs Source (unless it is regarded as mythological), which may follow the above standard. A less strict eyewitness rule applies thereafter. The uniquely Marcan material (whether Ur-Marcus or Twelve-Source) includes many healings and miracles, and this could indicate including stories so remarkable that they recorded what they had not seen personally. Even more the Editor's extensive work in gJohn could include much of what was known in the Christian community, not witnessed personally. Q2 added in from his personal experience in the last days of Jesus, but interpreted incorrectly much of what he gathered from others. There is also much in the gospels that is not directly from eyewitnesses, especially in Matthew, but also in Mark, Luke, and John.

Adam

I forgot to add a major implication of my Post #254. The gospels first grew by adding on more direct personal eyewitness experience. The next stage was eyewitnesses adding in what they knew at second hand. Before the gospels were completed, some additional materials were edited in of particularly remarkable or meaningful (sacramental, apologetical) materials. However, the pattern had been set. Non-gospel writers knew to write from their own experience, not rehashing what they knew at third hand that their readers already knew anyway. Thus it is irrelevant that the epistles do not duplicate what we find in the gospels. John 16:13-14 states that the Paraclete would guide what Jesus's followers would say in the future, and they had had this guidance since Pentecost.

I have not proven that the NT writers knew they were not supposed to repeat what was already in the gospels, but my seven written gospel eyewitness theory does mean that the absence of gospel material from the epistles is not evidence for MJ.

Adam

No response to this and my post immediately preceeding it. For that matter, there has been no real response to my OP, nor to the three threads where there was no response to major issues I brought up. I may have to repost the OP.

Toto

Please don't. You have not really responded to the objections to your approach.

Adam

Namely....(person, post, and thread)? Responding to which of the issues in my OP here?
(Don't leave it to Toto, people, I've been hearing this before but not finding refutations that I have not refuted.)

Or more widely....any scholars that refute my major points? (Granted, the Consensus does not support me, but it does not support anyone here, either. But I mean has anyone disproven my case in advance?) Certainly no academic scholars have been mentioned, but how about other scholars or blog posters? Has anyone tried to contact anyone who might have the knowledge, and what has been the result?

Huon

Adam, why didn't you mention Joseph of Arimathea as another eyewitness, exactly as you did with Nicodemus (gk Nikodemos) ?

AdamWho

1. While I care nothing for this topic, I just wanted to point out that 'eye witness testimony' is really only evidence that the witness has eyes. Such testimony has LONG been debunked as reliable in court cases and cannot be used to establish anything supernatural. Written eye-witness testimony from 100s or 1000s of years ago should be treated as 'a nice story' unless there is hard (objective) corroborating evidence.

2. The tactics being used by the OP are the same used by many 'true believer' posters in the pseudoscience forum. Such tactics include; restating claims that have been previously refuted, claiming that 'nobody is listening' after long discussions, opening many identical threads to try to fish for more favorable responses, attack people who don't agree with you, post-flooding (the practice of writing many posts in a row to flood the thread with points so to claim nobody can refute your claims). There are many others but I don't have enough interest in this literally-dead topic.

3. I would hope that the OP poster doesn't follow the same path of getting frustrated and resorting to rule-violating behaviors. There are easy methods to avoid such problems. Such as; state exactly what you believe and back up that belief with real evidence (and letting the dominoes fall where they will), take a break from posting, or drop the subject until a later time.