No Robots

I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who would say that the NT isn't essentially about the life and thought of the central figure.

Plato's Socratic dialogues are similar to the NT in that they present the life and thought of a genius.

No Robots

He does more than hint here, where he writes about "midrashic fiction," and states that, if we accept that the Gospels are midrashic, then the early Christians, "did not find it strange to worship a recent historical man through a completely fictional rendition of him."

Doherty's complete lack of understanding of Midrash is apparent when he writes:

If this "insightful and inspiring teacher" had such an impact on those around him, why does the Gospel response to him, this midrashic interpretation of the man, surface only half a century or more following his passing?

This utterly ignores the oral origins of midrash:

Thus midrash is an oral form that found its way into writing when it was no longer practical to keep it oral.— The Classic Midrash: Tannaitic Commentaries on the Bible By Reuven Hammer, p. 22.

Doherty goes on to state that "there is no sign of any clash or accommodation with an already existing "story of Jesus." Again, this shows laughable disregard for all kinds of evidence of an existing story of Jesus that was very difficult to accomodate to a synoptic presentation:

• his bastardy
• his difficulties with his family
• his inability to work wonders in all situations

Chris Weimer

Trust me, I don't want a fight. I think I'll just ignore you then.

Btw

Toto bolded the word every himself. Emphasis not mine.

Gamera

Bultman considered Jesus' death and resurrection as "historical," (which he claimed was sufficient for Christianity to be Christianity) to the extent that the term "history" had any weight to a radical phenomenologist like him.

No Robots

It is important, too, to make clear how the NT differs from midrash:

He [Christ] is the great prophetic darshan, quite independent of scripture, tradition, and every convention of his time; and the New Testament has no halakha and would be nothing but a midrash like other midrashim, did the personality of Christ not live in it.


[ed. note: Halaka, literally "Way (of life), from halakh = to go; the normative part of the "oral law," the religious law, especially the so-called "ceremonial law." Opposed to it is the haggada (or aggada), from hagged, to narrate; likewise, the originally oral narrative literature, especially the Midrashim—fables, legends, parables, etc.—from darash, to lecture, preach. Hence, also darshan, preacher, lecturer. On halakha and haggada, (cf. page 328)]

--from Brunner, Our Christ, p. 217-18.

As for extracting the core from the NT, Brunner writes:

The am haaretz literature of the New Testament, with all it contains that is superstitious and absurd, is still the best of the good Book. For in it lives the spirit of prophecy, in it lives Christ with his fearless, fierce and sublime lion-heart. With all their tastelessness, the evangelists had the right taste and the best style, because they had to speak of him who was the Best: they relished Christ, they had to tell of the person of Jesus Christ. That is the best of the Bible: the person of Jesus Christ.

mountainman

There is not a skerrick of information about either Jesus
or the gospels in the Talmud. Perhaps this is a conspiracy
of the Jewish writers of the end of the second century?

Without any corroboration from the "Traditional Hebrew texts"
by what imaginitive device is "midrash" to be associated
in an exlusive and ancient historical sense to the NT gospels?

Is this yet another conjecture and/or argument from silence?

Pass.



Pete

George S

I am reading Kugel's How to Read the Bible.

He makes the claim that makes total sense to me that: The Bible has always been what the then-current interpreters make of it.

Some of these interpretations (midrash) have been written down over the centuries. Much of the Bible is commentary on prior Bible.

Is the New Testament 'mere' commentary? It is certainly interpretation. OT events are often taken as foreshadowing. A lot of the NT is "prophecy" fulfilled (if you bend the prophet's words far enough). And what is written down is written by someone who both knows the prophecy and the events. The Latin is vaticinium ex eventua (pseudo-prophecy of events already known).

No Robots

Wrong

Our Rabbis taught: When R. Eliezer was arrested because of Minuth they brought him up to the tribune to be judged. Said the governor to him, 'How can a sage man like you occupy himself with those idle things?' He replied, 'I acknowledge the Judge as right.' The governor thought that he referred to him — though he really referred to his Father in Heaven — and said, 'Because thou hast acknowledged me as right, I pardon; thou art acquitted.' When he came home, his disciples called on him to console him, but he would accept no consolation. Said R. Akiba to him, 'Master, wilt thou permit me to say one thing of what thou hast taught me?' He replied, 'Say it.' 'Master,' said he, 'perhaps some of the teaching of the Minim had been transmitted to thee and thou didst approve of it and because of that thou wast arrested?' He exclaimed: 'Akiba thou hast reminded me.' I was once walking in the upper-market of Sepphoris when I came across one of the disciples of Jesus the Nazarene Jacob of Kefar-Sekaniah by name, who said to me: It is written in your Torah, Thou shalt not bring the hire of a harlot … into the house of the Lord thy God. May such money be applied to the erection of a retiring place for the High Priest? To which I made no reply. Said he to me: Thus was I taught by Jesus the Nazarene, For of the hire of a harlot hath she gathered them and unto the hire of a harlot shall they return. They came from a place of filth, let them go to a place of filth. Those words pleased me very much, and that is why I was arrested for apostacy; for thereby I transgressed the scriptural words, Remove thy way far from her — which refers to minuth — and come not nigh to the door of her house, — which refers to the ruling power.—Abodah Zarah, folio 16b-17a

mountainman

Your source is very late No Robots (end of the 4th century)
Too late to have any bearing on the matter (according to
my theory and the mainstream theory). And there are no
earlier citations in any Talmud.

According to this source:

Tradition ascribes the compilation of the Babylonian Talmud in its present form to two Babylonian sages, Rav Ashi and Ravina. Ashi was president of the Sura Academy from 375 to 427 CE. The work begun by Ashi was completed by Ravina, who is traditionally regarded as the final Amoraic expounder. Accordingly, traditionalists argue that Ravina’s death in 499 CE is the latest possible date for the completion of the redaction of the Talmud. However, even on the most traditional view a few passages are regarded as the work of a group of rabbis who edited the Talmud after the end of the Amoraic period, known as the Saboraim or Rabbanan Savora'e (meaning "reasoners" or "considerers").

The Babylonian Talmud (if this is what you are citing) was
first prepared after christianity existed in the fourth century.

The earliest component of the Jewish Talmud is the Mishnah
which is dated to c.200 CE. There is no generally accepted
references in the Mishnah to either Jesus or christianity.

Best wishes,



Pete Brown

No Robots

I was responding to your statement:

This statement is completely false. The matter of the dating of the Talmud is another matter entirely.

Now you are splitting hairs. The Mishna is the Oral Law, and the Gemara is the commentary thereunto. What I quoted was the Gemara. But you did not specify the Mishna in your original statement: you said the Talmud, of which the Gemara is part.