Vinnie

Just so we are all clear, this question has to be asked from within a certain source stratification. My source strtification leaves absolutely no room for mythicism.

The problem for me is all the overlapping material.

I view the Twelve as being independently attested by Paul, Mark, John, Special L, and some might throw in Q but this is disputed. This has 4-5 fold attestation.

Let us now List Some Specific Followers of Jesus and their attestation:

Peter 5x-6x (Paul, GThomas, GMark, GLuke's List of Twelve, GJohn, Special L (5:1-11)).

John 3x-5x (Paul with Acts confirming, GMark, GLuke's List of Twelve, and GJohn cofnfirming Zebedee).

Mary Magdalene 3x-5x (GMark, GJohn and GLuke 8. Also Paul and GThomas mention an unspecified Mary)

Mary 1x-3x (GMark and Paul and GThomas mentioning an unspecified Mary

Salome 2x-3x (GMark, GThomas and GEgyptians

Matthew 2x-3x (GMark, GLuke's List of Twelve and GThomas)

Thomas 3x-4x (GMark, GLuke's List of Twelve, GJohn and GThomas)

Andrew 2x-3x (GMark, GLuke's List of Twelve, and GJohn

James Zebedee = John's brother 2x-3x (GMark, GLuke's List of Twelve and Zebedee confirmd in GJohn)

Levi 1x-2x (GMark and GLuke's list of Twelve. Levi is also an toll collector potentially fitting the EmCrit.

Philip 2x-3x (GMark, Guke's List of Twelve and GJohn)

Judas Iscariot: 3x-4x ( or more) )GMark, Luke's List of Twelve, GJohn, Stray trdition behind Judas' death found in M and L. The EmCrit also factors in here.

Philip 2x-3x (GMark, GJohn and GLuke's list of Twelve

Now some may of course disgaree with my use of Luke having separate listo f the twelve, some might think John is dependent and others might think GThomas late and dependent.

That is a completely different stratification. However, in my onw, there is considerable overlapp i na host of different sources and forms throughtout the firts three stratums which attest to the fact that Jesus had followers.

I finished an article on this for my site. This was a small excerpt. WIll post the full link soon.

Vinnie

Amaleq13

Paul refers to an apparent subgroup of apostles as "the twelve" but lists Cephas separate from this group. The others describe "the twelve" as disciples of the living Jesus. Q contains a promise from Jesus to his followers that, upon the arrival of the Kingdom, they will fill the twelve seats (connected to the twelve tribes).

While all of these references mention a group of twelve, it is misleading to lump them together as though they all describe the same group of twelve.

How do you determine that Mark has independently acquired his knowledge of "the twelve" rather than working from the tradition Paul repeats?

Paul never identifies Peter (or anybody) as a follower of the living Jesus.

Would you please specify the passage in Paul where he mentions a "Mary"?

When does the dating of the texts mentioned become relevant to your argument?

mike_decock

There's an allusion that the source is "the Lord" although the attribution isn't explicit. He couldn't explicity make that attribution because "we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep" isn't something he could put into Jesus' mouth. It's a response to the expectation that Jesus would come within their lifetime.

Did Paul originate that expectation or did it originate elsewhere?

-Mike...

mike_decock

By HJ, I mean some individual who is turned into a messiah by mythmakers whether or not he claimed to be one. Some individual at the root of some/many/most myths surrounding the persona.

By "mythicist", I mean "someone who believes there is no individual at the core of the Jesus myth" or "someone who believes they made everything up out of whole cloth".

Differing definitions, definitely.

-Mike...

Vinnie

Re Mary: Romans 16. Also note verse 7b. I am not sure if that covers Mary or not though. I defer to those knowledgeable in Greek and will consult a few commentaries later.

Re indepdnence: Mark was composed indendently of the Pauline corpus. There is no evidence for depdnence of Mark on any Pauline epistle. I share the consensus view that they were composed indepdnent of one another.

Paul listed two or three words on the twelve. One wonders why you would even dream any details Mark and Paul share he has them from Paul when a) Paul has so little and b) Mark has so much. Further, Mark has names withoverlapp with others which show there were other sources available. Ergo, his info is independent of Paul who has no names of the Twelve as does Mark.

But we need more clarification. I think its all the same tradition because it fufills my methodological criteria and goes back to the HJ. MA shows that a tradition simply predates both authors who use it. We know that from Paul alone. Mark reinforces our point and supplies us with some additional details.

Toto tried this very bad argument a very long time ago. That Peter is listed apoart from the Twelve does not mean Paul did or did not think he was a member. The sense very well could be "appeared to Peter and then to the Twelve [which his audience would know included Peter]. This is found in Gospels isn't it? That Paul only makes a passing reference to the Twelve assumes they --his audience that is--have a degree of background knowledge.

So Jesus called separate groups of the Twelve? The overlapping names in Luke, and Mark with minor disagreement?

This is not good skepticism.

Vorkosigan

It seems it must have originated elsewhere. But Paul does not link it to some spoken promise by Jesus. So if Paul is the first stratum, then Paul is good evidence that this was a general belief and not a promise of Jesus'. Which undermines any argument that you might want to make about this going back to an historical Jesus by "against the grain" or some similar criteria.

Besides, that criteria assumes that Jesus=X. How did you make the determination of "the grain" so that you knew what went against it?

Vorkosigan

mike_decock

Okay, we can agree that it was a general belief but how does it follow that it was therefore not a promise of Jesus?

Even if a general belief can be traced back to before Jesus' time, that doesn't mean it isn't something Jesus didn't express at some point during his lifetime.

My impression is that late dating of the gospels and epistles is one of the foundations of the mythicist argument. If this myth was created a generation after the supposed Jesus lived, I think saying that Jesus was supposed to come to the previous generation is against the grain. Perhaps I simply don't understand the mythicist case well enough.

I'm not really trying to argue for a HJ or trying to reconstruct one, I'm just trying to understand why mythicism better explains the spaghetti bowl of evidence we have than attribution to a historical figure does. Why not believe there is a Saint Nicholas somewhere in there who is at the root of the Santa Claus mythology?

-Mike...

Amaleq13

"But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept." (1Cor15:20)

I don't know if the concept of "firstfruits" preceding the general resurrection exists in the OT or any pre-Paul Jewish writings but this concept seems to be the origin of Paul's belief that The End was near.

mike_decock

In the OT, the "firstfruits" is the first gathering of the harvest which was designated as an offering or sacrifice. Paul seems to be drawing a parallel between the firstfruit offering/sacrifice and resurrection. Christ's resurrection is the "firstfruit" of the resurrection of those who are "asleep".

It still looks like Paul is addressing an existent expectancy of the parousia rather than proclaiming it.

-Mike...

Amaleq13

So, all you are looking for is the name? It seems quite a stretch to assume that the Mary Paul mentions should be understood as a reference to any of the Marys named in the Gospels. Too much of a stretch, IMHO.

Independence from Paul's letters does not imply or require independence from the traditions to which he refers in those letters. Paul speaks of a subgroup of apostles called "the twelve". As you appear to agree, the way he uses it, essentially as a title, without explanation suggests he assumed his readers were familiar with the concept. If the existence of "the twelve" was known in Corinth, why should we assume Mark had no knowledge of it?

Perhaps because I am taking into account that Paul's description was written several decades before Mark's. That chronological relationship suggests Mark's depiction should be understood as an elaboration of the earlier tradition. You appear to be reading details from Mark's depiction backwards in time into the text of Paul's letters and then claiming multiple attestation. That is not legitimate.

If you understand that Mark's additional details are independent of Paul, why do you think it is legitimate to read those details back into Paul's depiction?

Paul doesn't describe "the twelve" as disciples of the living Jesus, Mark does. This does not constitute "multiple attestation" for anything except the existence of a group called "the twelve" prior to Paul. If that is all you are claiming, then I withdraw my objection. However, I got the impression you were claiming multiple attestation for the Gospel depiction of "the twelve" and that is clearly not true. You cannot, by any legitimate methodology, read Mark's "additional details" back into Paul and declare they are both talking about the same group.

Sorry, but that doesn't seem very credible to me. What you are suggesting is that Paul is saying something like this:

"And that he was seen of Antonin Scalia, then of The Supreme Court"

Unless you have an argument based on the original language, that seems pretty awkward and in need of some extra words to avoid the obvious implication. Anyone ignorant of the membership of the Court would assume from the way this is stated, that Scalia was not a member. Otherwise, it would read "then the rest of The Supreme Court".

Not really. When the resurrected Jesus initially appears in the Gospels, there are only 11 disciples and Peter is never identified as the first to see him. According to Matthew, Mary sees Jesus first and then she brings back an unspecified number of disciples. Luke has Peter visit the empty tomb but the initial appearance of the resurrected Jesus is to two people (apparently followers if not disciples), one named Cleopas, on the road to Emmaus. Later that same night, Jesus appears to "the eleven". John agrees with Matthew that Mary is the first to see the risen Jesus and that he later appeared to the gathered disciples. Peter is never singled out for his own appearance. The closest the Gospels get is Luke and that is only if we assume the guy with Cleopas was Peter. Even then, Paul has apparently ignored poor Cleopas entirely.

I agree but we cannot assume details from Mark were part of that background knowledge unless Paul mentions them.

No, Paul identifies a subgroup of apostles called "the twelve" but he says nothing to suggest that any apostles were called by the living Jesus. According to Paul, they were apostles for the same reason he was an apostle (i.e. via the Risen Christ). Paul also identifies men named "Cephas", "James", and "John" as the leaders of the Jerusalem group.

The author of Mark puts the tradition of the names of the leaders, the tradition of a group called "the twelve", and the idea that the living Jesus had disciples into a single narrative.

Given that Paul offers no support for the elaborations offered by Mark, there doesn't appear to be any good reason to assume he knew them to be true. Likewise, there doesn't appear to be any good reason not consider Mark's efforts to be a creative reworking of Paul-era traditions as he developed his narrative.