Bernard Muller

to Grog,
I have a webpage on Q, where I explained the minor agreements.
http://historical-jesus.info/q.html
I take Q written, for the most part, with full knowledge of gMark, in Greek and Aramaic, by different authors, compiled in one document by another and the Aramaic parts translated by others, and therefore differently.

ApostateAbe

OK, cool. What do you think of my evidence for my premise #1?

andrewcriddle

Could you expand on this a little ?

Which legendary and mythical figures other than Nikolaos lie behind Santa Claus ?

Andrew Criddle

outhouse

part of that depends how the teaching of the "kingdom of god" was really taught.


I dont think theres any chance it started out as a doomsday movement, not even with paul and mark do we see that.


where you get it from is beyond me, i think you have to take the whole picture out of context

ApostateAbe

OK, Mark 13:30 says:

Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.

It is a quotation of Jesus, who was apparently referring to things like:

But when you see the desolating sacrilege set up where it ought not to be (let the reader understand), then those in Judea must flee to the mountains; someone on the housetop must not go down or enter the house to take anything away; someone in the field must not turn back to get a coat. Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing infants in those days! Pray that it may not be in winter. For in those days there will be suffering, such as has not been from the beginning of the creation that God created until now, no, and never will be. And if the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would be saved; but for the sake of the elect, whom he chose, he has cut short those days.

What do you make of that?

spin

The bolded text is infuriating. It has nothing to do with history at all. The historicity of Jesus has nothing to do with anything other than the evidence available that reflect on his being accepted as having existed. This is not a horse race. If it were, the race would have but one horse and the challenge is for it to get home.

If one is going to attempt to answer the question "did Jesus exist", there are only three possibilities, "yes", "no" and "can't say". To get a "yes", one has sufficient evidence to say so.

There is almost no mythicist case. It requires knowledge that is not available to us, for christian traditions appear already formed when they first appear in literature. If there were a mythicist origin, it would have happened before the first literature, which places Jesus walking around in a specific time, that of Herod Antipas.

We know that once a figure enters traditions s/he is reflected upon and expanded upon by the traditions' community. It doesn't matter if that figure was real or not. The mythicist cause seems to hit a wall: it can't get any further back than the earliest Jesus traditions which in themselves don't support a mythicist approach.

Mythicism is argued for on its own merits and, as the evidence stands, it remains unsupported. Historicity is argued on its merits and we arrive at a similar conclusion. The tradition is a bit like the Blob (Steve McQueen fans?): it absorbs everything, so you cannot say from its current state what it was first like. If that makes sense, then you call yourself agnostic. If you want to mumble about the evidence that we all have seen, you're a punter and I can suggest a good nag in the fourth on Friday.

outhouse

biblical jesus fluff, added by the authors who never knew or met him, nor did they live within the same culture, nor did they even come from the same place.


the author of Mark knew nothing of the real jesus and relied on oral tradition, before he hellenized the legend for a roman audience.


when people realize the authors of he gospels would have been jesus direct enemies, will they start to get a clear picture of the gospels.

look at paul, a roman jew killer who popularized the legend in roman myth.


jesus would have been pauls blood enemy

jesus hated the roman infection to judaism


but thats not what were left with is it????????

ApostateAbe

One of the mistaken claims that Ehrman corrects in his book is the fallacy of thinking that all gospels were singularly sourced from Mark. If all of the apocalypticism of the gospels came from Mark, then you can imagine that Mark got it wrong and Jesus was actually something else. Not so. Ehrman asserts that there were seven independent traditions that compose the gospels: Mark, Q, M, L, and three more traditions for John. The arguments for the claim are developed in detail in Ehrman's undergrad textbook The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings (or via: amazon.co.uk). Jesus is apocalyptic according to the four earliest gospel traditions: Mark, Q, M and L (pages 299-300 of DJE? (or via: amazon.co.uk)). The earliest New Testament source of all, the set of authentic epistles of Paul, is likewise apocalyptic.

outhouse

I dont follow all of Ehrmans work toe to toe thats for sure.

the different sources I do follow.


the author of Mark didnt create biblical jesus, he just edited together what he knew as the legend reached where he lived.


oral trdaition is one thing and it can be accurate, but we have cross cultural oral tradition. history has showed us from examples in the past, that a historical core gets harder to find after the story changes with different cultures.



If this same story stayed in judaism as it was originally created within judaism, i'd shake your hand admit im wrong and bow out.



I dont get hung up on words or phrases, its the context of the big picture im trying to learn

EarlDoherty

For now, I am going to limit my comments to what others have said about Ehrman’s book, as I will not tackle the book itself until I have my new lens to properly read it. As such, these comments, then, will be as much about what those others show about their own views and arguments in reporting on what they take from Ehrman.

The multiplicity of sources for James and Peter? Is this in the epistles or in the Gospels, or in both? If in the epistles, that ‘multiplicity’ of sources relates only to apostolic figures known to and mentioned by Paul and other writers. If those writers make no connection of such figures to an historical Jesus, as disciples or followers of such a man or as owing some kind of special status and authority to such a connection, then those references, no matter how multiple, are worthless as evidence of an HJ. Otherwise, Ehrman is reading the Gospels into the epistles, a notable fallacy.

Does Paul or any other epistle writer style the crucifixion of their Christ Jesus as something that was “against messianic interests”? I would take the latter phrase as referring to the expectation of what a human messiah would do on earth, namely overthrow the foreign overlords, create an upheaval in society which would reverse fortunes of the poor vs. the rich and powerful, and (in some cases) conduct a general judgment. Do any epistle writers apologize for or otherwise explain why their messiah Jesus did not do any of these things while on earth? Do any seek to explain why their messiah was crucified instead of accomplishing these things? Off the top of my head, I can’t think of a single instance. Does Ehrman supply any?

What does “the multiplicity of sources attesting to ‘it’ ” refer to? Paul and other epistle writers’ references to the crucifixion of their Christ Jesus? In how many instances do they place such a crucifixion in a time and place in history at the hands of human agencies? Well, we know of one—virtually the only one—in regard to an agency: “the Jews who killed the Lord Jesus” in 1 Thess. 2. No wonder Ehrman chooses to question the strong opinion among critical scholars that this is an interpolation. He’d have nothing else! The reference to Jesus making his testimony “before Pilate” in 1 Timothy 6:13? No one has reported it so far, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Ehrman chooses to dispute common mainstream judgment that the Pastorals are second century products and not by Paul or anyone else in the first century, making the reference to Pilate likely dependent on one or more Gospels. Without these two passages, his cupboard is bare, no matter how great the multiplicity of sources referring to the crucifixion in the epistles amounts to. If Ehrman simply claims that such references must refer to an historical crucifixion in a time and place known to these writers (as all apologists have done simply because they want it to be so), then he is again reading the Gospels into the epistles. If he has not taken into account a strong tradition of interpretation even among mainstream scholars (I enumerated some of them in my books, as well as ancient commentators) of 1 Cor. 2:8’s “rulers of this age” as referring to the demon spirits, then he is ignoring and suppressing good argument that the crucifiers of Jesus are said to be non-human agents.

Is he referring to “multiplicity” in the Gospel references to the crucifixion and their Passion account? He is surely not regarding each Gospel as independent and corroborative of each other, rather than a chain of redacted accounts based on the first one written. (And no one claims, that I know of, that the later Gospels are “singularly sourced from Mark, so that’s a straw man.) Even the sources behind the Synoptics, namely a Q document and similar oral traditions which Mark would have been a party to, have nothing to say about a crucifixion, with Q’s 14:27 acknowledged as not a necessary reference to Jesus’ own cross and death, but simply a common expression about the risk which sectarian members must face in challenging the establishment. Surely Ehrman does not ignore such an interpretation as put forward by more than just mythicists. (Or maybe he does. He apparently accuses me of an “ad hoc” argument in regard to 1 Thess. 2:15-16 as an interpolation; does he rope in in the same dismissive fashion all those in his own discipline—with proper credentials, no less—who have the same ‘ad hoc’ opinion? No? He conceals that from his readers?)

As for “M” and “L”, no one has demonstrated that such material was not simply the creation of Matthew and Luke themselves. Besides, what does this material itself demonstrate about the existence of the character it has been attached to? The same question can be asked about his “three traditions for John”. If Ehrman wants to claim evidence and argument for an already demonstrated existing HJ as an apocalyptic prophet, fine, but that’s not what we’re here for.

Shades of Anthony Flew’s famous 1953 article about the unseen gardener alleged to take care of a garden which shows every sign of neglect and no evident caretaker at all! He shows how no argument against the unseen gardener put forward by believers is allowed to stand; all are rendered ‘irrelevant’ and inapplicable on the basis of some ‘ad hoc’ explanation or other for the state of neglect, no matter how forced, remote or unlikely. On no account, it seems, will Ehrman acknowledge a good working argument on the part of mythicism. Of course, he’s not alone.

What’s “new” about that?

Whew! If that’s representative of the quality of Ehrman’s deductive abilities, what a waste of good trees! It might have some merit in the context of an historical Jesus already demonstrated, ascertaining the nature of such a Jesus. But it in no way counts, as Abe maintains, “as the best argument for an historical Jesus”! First of all, John the Baptist must be demonstrated as historical. Let us assume that he is, he was a remembered (in both Q and Josephus, assuming the latter’s passage about him authentic) prophet. It’s not so clear from Josephus that he was apocalyptic, and we cannot automatically trust Q or the Gospels as portraying him accurately (actually the Gospels’ portrayal is probably dependent on Q’s).

But the entire atmosphere of first century Palestine was apocalyptic, across multiple preaching sects and individuals, as found in both Josephus and Jewish sectarian writings. An invented or fictional prophet character in a sectarian account is virtually guaranteed to be portrayed as apocalyptic. Ehrman’s argument is that because the Gospel character is apocalyptic, this makes him historical? No consideration that the Gospel character could be fictional and symbolic of the activities of a sect as a whole, especially when not a single element in that account applied to this character can be shown to be ‘history remembered’? When not a single instance can be found in the entire epistolary literature which makes out its Christ Jesus to have been an apocalyptic prophet?

(Should we make an exception for 1 Thess. 4:15-17? A passage which speaks of the arrival of the Lord from heaven—not a ‘return’ by someone already having been on earth—a purely mythological event? Does Ehrman really believe that his Jesus as apocalyptic prophet could have prophesied his own return out of the sky as a divine judge? Does he ignore another strong thread of mainstream scholarly interpretation which sees the four “words of the Lord” put forward by Paul as personal revelations he has received from Christ in heaven, a practice seen to be common to early Christian apostles?)

Abe’s rendition of Ehrman’s argument above is loaded with other undemonstrated assumptions. Jesus as a “link” between the Baptist and the Gospels/epistles which allegedly proves Jesus to be historical is dependent first of all on the Gospels and epistles as clearly referring to an historical figure, rather than a symbolic one or a heavenly entity. And it is dependent on such a link being necessarily historical, something not even argued. Ehrman might as well claim that James Bond is historical on the basis of real MI-6 personnel being historical, and the existence of literature allegedly by secret agents (or their secretaries) writing memoirs about their careers, career accounts moreover fashioned out of ancient spy mythology.

Surely Ehrman himself does not regard such an argument as Abe has reported, to be “the best argument for an historical Jesus”!

That’s all for now.

Earl Doherty