Solitary Man

I've seen a couple of your posts on several threads, but I've yet to see you once substantiate any of your claims. Care to, or did I miss it somewhere?

youngalexander

Geez SM, much as I am reluctant to agree with you - :wave:

Jane H

N.T.Wright NTPG p.391 referencing R.Burridge “What are the Gospels” and S.Schulz “Mark’s Significance for the Theology of Early Christianity”.
Darrell Bock “Studying the Historical Jesus” p.213-4
Thiessen “The Historical Jesus” p.27

However I accept that “generally agreed that Mark has written a Hellenistic 'bios'” is maybe too strong. It is clear that there is no consensus about the specific genre of the gospels. But there is general agreement that the gospels do not represent a unique literary genre. The gospels must be interpreted in the context of ancient biographical literature. The thematic dominance of the passion narratives in each gospel indicates that the gospel writers did not blindly adopt available literary conventions. Rather they adapted existing genres to communicate their Gospel message.

patcleaver

As far as we can tell, among the apocryphal and non-canonical writings Mark is uniqly original fiction.

We know that Mark was writing fiction because Mark is midrash. Midrash is the reworking of ancient theams into a new context. Mark is creating a story based on explicit and implicit references to ancient literature.

In the last few years, we have found that dozzens of story elements in Mark that are actually explicit or implicit references to portions of the Jewish OT, the book of Enoch, and the epics of Homer (see for example Robert M. Price, The incredible Shrinking Son of Man).

I can not imagine that its possible to create a story by taking theams from ancient literature and believe that your doing anything else except writing fiction.

Mark knew that Jesus of Nazerith was not a real person becuse he invented him. It is possible that some of the authors of the apocryphal gospels thought they were writing history when they copied Mark's ideas, but I do not think that Matthew, Luke or John thought that Jesus was real. We know that they knew that Mark was midrash because they improved on Mark's midrash and even added their own midrash to their gospels.

If you have some evidence that Mark thought that Jesus was real then you should present it. Otherwise we should presume its fiction because most books are fiction.

When Rowlings wrote Harry Potter she did not think he was real.

I have no reason to believe that Mark's original audience (his family and friends) thought his story was anything else than fiction. They probably knew that it was midrash and that such works are fiction. It was only when Mark's gospel got out of his original community that understood midrash, it was mistaken for history.

patcleaver

Yes, or course all the epistles of Paul may be forgeries especially since most of Paul's epistles are alredy known to be forgeries. Christians agree that his apocraphil and lost epistles were forgeries.

The apocryphal epistles ascribed to Paul include a third epistle written to the Corinthians after II Corinthians, an epistle to the Alexandrians, and the epistolary intercourse between Paul and the Roman philosopher Seneca. In addition three passages in the connacal Epistles clearly imply the former existence of Pauline letters now no longer extant. "I wrote to you in the letter not to associate with the immoral" (I Cor. 5: 9-11), "see that. . . you yourselves read the letter, from Laodicea" (Col. 4:16), and "to write you the same things indeed not irksome to me, but it is necessary for you" (Phil. 3.1). Yet nothing more is known of a letter which Paul wrote to the Corinthians prior to I Corinthians, or of one "from Laodicea," or of any other letter to the Philippians besides the canonical one.

I just think it is at least as likely that Paul was a pagan who believed in a pagan Jesus Christ that had nothing to do with any historical Jesus of Nazarith. Paul denies that he learned about Jesus Christ through history. There is no evidence in Paul's writings that he ever even heard of any Jesus of Nazarith.

God Fearing Atheist

patcleaver,

When you're using someone else's words, it's good form to give them credit.

angelo

I 'v come in late, so forgive me if this has been already mentioned.
There is a strong possibility that Mark had in front of him when writing his version of events, a document that biblical historians have labeled ''The Q'' document. A collection of sayings supposedly by Jesus, but could be sayings of almost anyone, including a charismatic Rabbi who lived around that time.
Not all scholars agree this Q document existed. But the consensus seems to be that because all 4 gospels agree on certain sayings of Jesus, that it did exist. And may have been destroyed by the early church for reasons only known to them. It adds another dimension to the discussion, I believe.

Geetarmoore

I think that it's generally thought that Mark did not have access to the hypothetical Q source...... Which is why he didn't use any of it.

patcleaver

There could have been a Q, but it may have been written after Mark.

I think it is more likely that there was no Q, and Luke had information from an early Matthew, or more likely Matthew had access to an early Luke. i.e. Marcion.

angelo

It's generally accepted that Mark was the first gospel to be written, because of it's more primitive nature. It is likely that it was written around the early seventies. The last, [ John ] around the end or just after the first century.
Mathew and luke were written around ten years after Mark, according to my sources, which of course could be slightly wrong.