spin

On the Apollos passage in Acts 18:
Actually, it does say that he didn't know Jesus at all before Priscilla and Aquila fixed him up. That is the whole point of the passage. Apollos seems to have known the prophecies and the teaching of John about the way of the lord (remember the citation of "prepare the way of the lord"?). So what he knew about the messiah was what John had taught. He didn't know about the christian messiah, Jesus. He knew nothing about Jesus's teaching of the baptism of the holy spirit, only about John's baptism. That is why Priscilla and Aquila had to take him aside, so that he could teach the way of the lord more accurately. Not just what John taught about the messiah, but about Jesus directly. This allowed him to show that Jesus was the messiah (18:28).

This passage shows the theological debt christianity owed to the spread of the Johannine religion after John's death and shows that there was an alternative messianism in circulation that taught about the coming messiah, that one had to prepare for. It would seem that Priscilla and Aquila took Apollos's preaching of the messiah to come as teaching about Jesus, which would suggest a partial absorption of the Johannine religion into early christianity.

Toto

No that would not be my definition.

Fiction, or storytelling, is an important social activity. It is used to provide moral instruction and vital cultural information.

spin

This is reflective of a general problem in the forum concerning divergent definitions of regularly used terms, such as "fiction", "fake", "myth", "historical", etc. It's along the lines of people on one side of the street talking Flemish and on the other side talking Walloons. There may be a lot of noise, but not much communication.

ApostateAbe

Thanks, that helps. I suppose there is an ancient Grecco-Roman work of fiction that would be closely analogous to the first gospels? Like the Odyssey maybe?

ApostateAbe

Exactly right.

Toto

I think in this context, Joe's use of the term fiction is not a problem. He clearly means "non a source for actual history" at a minimum. I don't know why Abe is trying to read more into the term.

aa5874

Of couse it refutes you. In gJohn there is no mention of the baptism event but it certainly mentions the Holy Ghost Bird and that Jesus was identified as the Son of God by the very same fiction creature.

I have refuted your fallacy that the baptism made sense without the Holy Ghost and the voice from heaven.

It is clear that John the Baptist would not have been able to identify Jesus without the Ghost bird.

John 1 Effectively, No Holy Ghost Bird there is No Jesus story.

ApostateAbe

Yeah, the definitions would be relevant for both JoeWallack and I, though maybe not relevant for anyone who thinks the historical untrustworthiness of the gospels is all that's important.

Toto

There is actually a body of literary criticism comparing elements from the gospels to the novels of the time, in particular the story of Chaereas and Callirhoe. These novels have elements like crucifixions of innocent people, empty tombs, etc. But no one claims that the gospels are exactly like those novels.

Dennis McDonald has pointed out the many parallels between Homer and Mark.

aa5874

If you are not even able to understand what fiction means then it is not even possible to discuss history.

Please, first find out the difference between 'fiction' and 'history'. It is extremely important that you do so immediately.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiction
The Jesus story in the NT is fiction from conception to ascension.