andrewcriddle

I think that what you say could be taken in more than one way.
I'll illustrate the two extremes without implying that you hold either.

a/ Even if Paul and the "pillars" in Jerusalem and many other Christians believed, during the reign of Claudius, that a controversial religious figure called Jesus had been crucified by Pontius Pilate at Passover just outside Jerusalem, this would not imply that any such event had actually happened.

b/ Nothing in the Gospels beyond the explicit statement about Jesus in the original text of Paul, (our current text being interpolated), is likely to go back to the time of Paul, it is in all probability a later development of the tradition.

My response to a/ would be that it seems prima-facie implausible, (maybe it is just my position as a believer that makes me say this but I don't think so), and that it is not clear whether it can be profitably discussed. It seems to be moving away from the specific problems of the origins of Christianity towards a general scepticism about the possibility of doing ancient history as normally understood.

My response to b/ would be that the suggested development of tradition between Paul and Mark appears too large to be likely. One could get around this by holding a very late date for Mark or by making Mark an extremely creative writer but both these options have their problems.

Andrew Criddle

aa5874

Again, you are not making much sense.

In gMark, the disciples WITNESSED Jesus as he WALKED on the SEA, surely that event resembles a fable, perhaps some kind of legend or was simple made up by the author.

Why do you ASSUME the information in gMark is PRIMA FACIE evidence of historical events?

A FICTION story about a character called Jesus who was crucified by another character called Pontius Pilate can have the very same information as gMark and would NOT be prima facie evidence.


What are the EXTERNAL corroborative sources of antiquity for gMark?

Why did you ASSUME you know how gMark was developed WITHOUT any external corroborative sources from antiquity?

It is evident that gMark contains NON-historical events and that the unknown author did NOT claim he was writing history.

And further, if one supposes that parts of the story about Jesus the Messiah are true when one compares the Gospels that the Church writers claimed were written by disciples called Matthew and John then those two Gospels appear to be PRIMA FACIE evidence that the information in the Gospels about Jesus are UNRELIABLE, and may have been fabricated by the unknown authors themselves.

Surely, if Matthew and John were disciples then they would not have "transmission" problems, yet their Jesus stories are virtually different in all respects.

spin

I need to clarify here. I don't support the notion that the "pillars" knew anything about Jesus other than what they could glean from Paul. Your scenario may be right in that respect, but Paul doesn't indicate such a position. He didn't get his gospel from people and we don't know what the pillars actually believed. Paul shows no knowledge of Pilate, so we cannot assume he knew anything about him in context of Jesus.

You know that my view of your frequent comments on plausibility and probability is that they are not based on enough to allow you to make such judgments. Scratch them and one seems to find mere untinged opinion.

Again I don't know what you gauge your understanding of how long in respect to how much has any meaning. I reject the simplistic dating of Mark based on the assumption that it must have been written at the time of the fall of the temple. In fact we don't know when Mark's gospel was compiled. How many years do you need for the range of stories in a fertile tradition to develop into what can be seen in Mark? We know for example that the oral tradition had separated long enough for two distinct versions of the feeding of the multitudes to have developed. How long did that take?

In both instances I'm just calling you on your unstated assumptions. I don't see that you have any meaningful reason to hold the views you've espoused here. We need something more than your opinions, don't we?


spin

aa5874

We have a recent example where a Religion was developed without any prior oral tradition of "Golden Plates."

Joseph Smith developed his Religion based on information translated from INVENTED "Golden Plates" and now there are Millions of Believers.

It is likely that the Jesus character, the Son of God, was just an invention and that people of antiquity simply believed the INVENTED character was plausible sometime AFTER the Fall of the Temple.

JoeWallack

JW:
Oh Andrew, how many times do the parallels to Paul need to be illustrated on these unholy boards?:

"Someone called Jesus" = Paul

"crucified" = Paul

"by Pontius Pilate" = Paul's "rulers of the Age". Why limit "Mark" to Pilate here? He mentions "chief priests with the elders and scribes, and the whole council".

"Passover" = Paul's "our Passover".

"just outside Jerusalem" = Jerusalem would be the location for Passover.

I'll also throw in "betrayed/handed over" as Paul's. What major detail does "Mark" have here that does not have a strong parallel to Paul? In comparison we have clear parallels to the only known significant Christian writings before "Mark" (Paul) and no extant evidence that there was any oral tradition that contributed to "Mark's" Passion. There's really no comparison here. Choosing the non-existent evidence for oral tradition over the existing evidence of Paul as source is not going to fly on these Boards. It's actually only the overall uncertainty due to lack of any quality source that even makes oral tradition a possibility here.

Note than that "Mark" is not very good evidence for the crucifixion by itself since all major details have clear parallels to Paul. The best explanation than is that it is dependent on Paul to a large extent.


Joseph

ErrancyWiki

judge

But you yourself admit that these examples aren't much good. You had indicated that you thought them good enough to put into a peer reviewed paper, but then following discussion on this very forum conceded that that weren't that strong.
It might be better to bolster your case with other examples of evolving tradtion than with your own examples that you have abandoned as too weak (for any serious work anyway).
In other words you have convinced yourself , but think that you would not convince those who would examine a paper put forward for peer review.
What might this tell us?

aa5874

What details are in the Pauline writings about the crucifixion?

There are virtually NO details in the Pauline writings about the crucifixion of the Pauline Jesus.

The author of gMark did NOT even use Hebrew Scripture found in the Pauline writings to fabricate his details about the crucifixion of his Jesus.

The author of gMark used out-of-context passages as fulfilled prophecies to invent the DETAILS his crucifixion scene of Jesus and even the writings of Josephus.

This is DETAIL from Hebrew Scripture, NOT from "Paul".Mark 15.28 Isaiah 53.12 This is DETAIL in gMark from Josephus, NOT from "Paul"

Mark 15.27. The Life of Flavius Josephus See http://wesley.nnu.edu

More DETAILS in gMark from Hebrew Scripture, NOT from "Paul".
Mark 15:24 - Psalms 22:18 - More Details in gMark from Hebrew Scripture, NOT from "Paul".
Mark 15:34 - Psalms 22:1 - There are virtually NO details in the Pauline writings about the the crucifixion of the Pauline Jesus OR the the author of gMark did NOT use his details.

Consider the Pauline crucifixion scene in Galatians 3.1. The author of gMark did NOT write that his Jesus was crucified BEFORE the eyes of the Galatians.

The author of gMark wrote about GOLGOTHA.

Mark 15. 22 No DETAILS in gMark are from the Pauline writings.

But, a Pauline writer did ADMIT that he got some information according to the Scriptures how Christ died, was buried and resurrected on the third day.

1Co 15:3-4 We have a CONFESSION.

It is NOT the author of gMark who used the Pauline writings. It was the Pauline writer who USED the Gospels.

According to the scriptures of the Gospels, including gMark, NOT Hebrew Scriptures, it is found HOW Christ died, was buried and rose again the third day.

Doug Shaver

I won't comment on how much creativity Mark needed, but what is the problem with a late date, say early second century? What undisputed fact would that be inconsistent with?

spamandham

...I would up the ante and say more like middle 2nd century, say, post bar Kochba.

JoeWallack

JW:
My problem with this is Marcion. Supposedly he is using original/unoriginal "Luke" well before Justin and enough time has passed from the original Gospel narrative "Mark" that Marcion has no idea who the source of his Gospel was. Strangely this argument is the best one for an earlier dating of "Mark" but never used.

The explanation may be that when subsequent Apologists referred to Marcion and his Gospel they either meant what his followers used or wrongly projected what his followers used to Marcion.

The puzzle with Marcion is that he correctly concludes that the God of the Christian Bible is not the same as the God of the Jewish Bible. Therefore, his Paul must have had the same belief. So who's Paul was original?



Joseph

ErrancyWiki