Toto

The internal details of John are the best argument against its historicity.

Showing that John is dependent on the synoptics removes John as an independent source, that's all.

For the details of John's reliance on the synoptics, try Critical Readings of John 6, p. 63

mountainman

No its not just you. I for one do not buy any of this probably safe independence because we are dealing with a tangled ball of string. By tangled, I mean we are without authors and without an explicit chronology. Also by tangled, I mean we are dealing with two separate academies of authors: those who authored and preserved the NT canon through to Eusebius in the fourth century, and those who authored and preserved the early rounds of NT apocyrphal stories through to Eusebius in the fourth century. (NB: The NT apocrypha were continued to be authored during the fourth century and beyond). These two academies were not the same, and in fact if we are to believe the orthodox canon academy and its Eusebius, the authors of the NT apocrypha are to be considered vile insignificant unworthy heretics. And the apocrypha were burnt by the orthodox and were literally buried for their preservation by certain parties whom we must suspect were related to the academy of the NT apocrpha authors and preservers. Enter Pachomius.


The chronology for the new testament canon and the new testament apocrypha are tangled together in what appears to be at best described as an utterly conjectural assembly, based on a sketchy framework supplied by the first and foremost christian "historian" Mr. Eusebius.

Elijah

Thanks for the link. I must remember to never ask a question I don’t want to read a hundred page response to.

I didn’t see anything that convinced me that John was based on Mark but the book cut out early. The argument that him feeding and then walking on water is an example of telling the same basic story but it doesn’t demonstrate that it’s coming from Mark. I was thinking more along of the lines of textual similarities that showed they obviously were using Mark in parts of John. Them telling the same basic story is expected if they are both trying to tell the story of a historical figure without one necessarily being reliant on the other for his source of information.

The temple cleaning and Barabbas scenarios being non historical is begging the question and again doesn’t demonstrate that it’s Mark that is the source of this story.
Lost me sorry. What are the details and why does Mark get allowed and John dissed?
Story similarities don’t really show dependence on Mark if they are coming from a historical setting. There doesn’t seem to be enough from what I’ve read to prove he was aware of Mark, much less, depended on him for the story. I’m ok with the idea that John came after a reading of Mark but it hasn’t been shown with any evidence that John was reliant on Mark for his take on what happened. As in something you can look at from both works and go, yea someone is clearly copying from the other one, not that they have similar plots going on.

dog-on

Perhaps Mark is an explanation for a.) why no one ever heard of Paul's Christ and b) why the Jews seemed oblivious to the same.

show_no_mercy

How exactly is it "begging the question"? Do you understand why the Barabbas scenario can't possibly be historical?

aa5874

Was not Paul a preacher and an evangelist that travelled all over the Empire before a single word was written by the author of Mark?

GMark is not an explanation why Paul's Christ was unheard of.

The evidence indicates that the Pauline characters wrote nothing, preached nothing, and started no churches during the first century.

Elijah

You are starting with an unproven assumption to support your position, which begs the question if that assumption is correct. Even if I did agree with the reasoning behind why you consider the two events complete fiction (which I could) it would still be begging the question to apply that position as evidence to support another theory without first proving (which we can't) that the initial position of them being fictional is correct.

show_no_mercy

I'm not "assuming" the Barabbas scenario is fiction, so it's not begging the question.

Elijah

You were assuming it was fictional to start off your argument in post #10 which is why I claimed you were begging that question. You may think you can support that assumption but in that actual post you are begging the question if your claim of them being fictional is correct.

dog-on

Perhaps not, but I didn't say anything about the first century.