Ben C Smith

There are no pagans in Exodus 32.7-10. There are only Jews doing pagan things.

Again, examples may help.

Exactly! Exodus 32 shows Jews who are bad for adopting pagan practices, and Mark shows Jews who are bad for crucifying their messiah.

A saint? Come. Pilate is portrayed as insightful, but too weak to do anything about it.

I think you may be misunderstanding the Caesar pericope.

And Pharisees. And zealots. And women of ill repute. Again, I think you are misinterpreting these things. Jesus is being inclusive of all, not exclusive of all but the Romans.

Actually, the demons call him son of God first. And, apart from these demons, it is a Jew who first recognizes him as the messiah. And an apparently Jewish woman who first recognizes that he will rise from the dead.

Have you read N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God? You do not at all have to agree with his apparent assessment of the historicity of each pericope he discusses, but I think that Wright is right about what most of the pericopes mean.

Ben.

ETA: Missed this one:

Where in Mark does Jesus refer to God as our father? Are you sure you are not reading things from other gospels into Mark? And, as for intimacy with God, have you read the Psalms?

spin

I haven't read N.T.Wright, so how does he assess the historicity of the narrative in text and what is that assessment for the pericopes?


spin

spin

I thought there was a whole lot in 4:14ff.

When Jesus says "they will see the son of man coming in the clouds" (13:26), is that walking?

What exactly is your Jewish source for the first or second century on this issue??


spin

Ben C Smith

He rarely even talks about actual historicity; he appears to assume that most of the synoptic gospels are historical (I am not absolutely certain he is doing this, and a final verdict may have to await his supposedly upcoming continuation book, but I think it is safe to say that he appears to do this). He has been criticized on that score, of course.

My point, however, is about what Mark means, and in that regard I think that Wright gets most of it right.

Ben.

ETA:

No Robots is responding to Talbert, and the descending and ascending God in Talbert refers specifically to a life on earth. (Talbert applies this mythic structure to John, but not to the synoptics.) The parousia would not strictly count.

No Robots

There is no reference to the Logos, the Stoic spiritual principle, in Mark; but only to logia, the words of Christ.

And where in Mark is the Son of Man said to be God?

The sources I provided provide in turn references in the OT for these terms.

Toto

On the question of deriving real history from the NT, this is of interest: Acts of Impropriety: The Imbalance of History and Theology in Luke-Acts by Gerd Lüdemann (who, as far as I know, is still in the historical Jesus camp, and will be speaking at the upcoming Jesus Project seminar.) Lüdemann makes some interesting observations on Greco-Roman historiography, which he contrasts with Jewish writings.

spin

You need to be more specific. But then don't you know that the word is always singular in the passage?? Obviously it is not logia. Isn't hearing the word hearing Jesus??

Oh, Jesus isn't god?

"What exactly is your Jewish source for the first or second century on this issue??" Try again.


spin

teamonger

Well, Arnheim doesn't appear to touch specifically on the embarrassment question again. But that the crucifixion was embarrassing can be seen in Paul: his writing the the cross was a "stumbling block" to Jews and "foolishness" to Gentiles. Of course, ways were found to spin this, citing OT allusions. You are correct that the "suffering of the righteous" motif would give Christianity appeal. But that doesn't invalidate the liklihood that Jesus was a real person who did in fact suffer.


Good, I'm an atheist writer too. I only noted Arnheim's atheism because it is sometimes implied that only apologists would defend the existence of a historical Jesus.

t

teamonger

Because the Jesus myth posits that all accounts, sayings and doings of the Jesus character are fabrications, including all descriptions of followers, family, interactions with known historical figures, etc. For so many independent sources to fabricate everything of whole cloth would require quite a conspiracy, for which no evidence exists.
t

Toto

That is just silly, because a merely human Jesus who died and did not rise from the grave would be a refutation of Christianity.

But - note that Christian apologists need to show that Jesus existed as a precondition for their faith that he was also divine, and are the source of most of the lame arguments for the existence of Jesus that keep being repeated ad nauseum - the baptism meeting the criterion of embarrassment among them.