aa5874

Why are you pretending that you are NOT interested in 'proving" there was an HJ?

Why are you pretending that you are NOT interested in disproving mythicism?

Why are you pretending that your main interest is "how people thought back then"?

You KNOW that "people back then" wrote that Jesus was the offspring of the Holy Ghost, walked on water, transfigured, resurrected and ascended to heaven. See gMatthew if you don't KNOW and is REALLY interested in what "people thought back then".

You KNOW that "people back then" wrote that Jesus was the Word, was EQUAL to God, and was the Creator of heaven and earth.

See gJohn if you don't KNOW and is REALLY interested in what "people thought back then"..

You KNOW that "people back then" wrote that Jesus MUST resurrect for ALL of Mankind to be SAVED. See the Pauline writings if you don't KNOW and is REALLY interested in what "people thought back then".

"People back then" thought Jesus was some kind of God/man.

Now, a God/man is a Mythological entity.

"People back then" presented a MYTH as an historical entity.

"People back then" claimed Jesus was ALL Spirit and could ONLY appear to be human but was NOT.

Look at what I found from "people back then".

Matthew 1.18 Romans 10.9 "On the Flesh of Christ" "People back then" AGREED that Jesus was of a SPIRITUAL nature.

"People back then" were NOT agreed that Jesus had FLESH.


Tell me what you found in the primary sources about what "people thought back then".

You appear to me to be REALLY interested in what PEOPLE TODAY think about Jesus.

You are REALY interested in what Doherty and Achayra think about YOUR ASSUMED HJ.

You CROSS paths with PEOPLE TODAY that do NOT ASSUME HJ.

andrewcriddle

I don't think this is what the criteria of embarrassment is really about.

I increasingly suspect that the word embarrassment has misleading connotations.

What I understand the criteria to be, is not that people will not sometimes make false and prima-facie embarrassing claims. I understand the idea to be that people will not usually make-up claims that tend to weaken their case.

Eg if a complainant to the police says that "I have made these sort of complaints before against other people and wasn't believed, but I was telling the truth then just as I am now" then the previous complaints almost certainly happened. If an accused says "I've been accused of this before but I wasn't guilty then and aren't guilty now" then the previous accusations almost certainly happened.

Similarly if the claim that John the Baptist baptized Jesus causes problems for the exalted picture of Jesus the Gospel writers are presenting then they probably didn't make it up.

Andrew Criddle

spamandham

There seems to be an implicit assumption in this that the gospels are histories - that the writers were not free to include or omit any details they chose.

gurugeorge

Yes exactly. There would be no problem with the CoE, it would be quite reasonable - IF there was good independent historical evidence for a human being. That would give good reason to think that there might indeed be historical aspects the authors might possibly have felt obliged to stay true to. But without that link, you don't know whether to treat it like history or like a spiritual comic book (which involves simply "retconning" - "ooh I don't like this bit, it doesn't fit my ideas about spirituality, let's change the story like so").

spamandham

I would say it's still invalid even if you could independently establish the existence of Jesus, unless you first address the intents of the authors. The authors were not intending to record history, nor was it their intent to write biographies in the modern sense. They were writing origins stories not that much different than the stories involving Abraham. Even if there was a historical Abraham, there is no reason to suppose that the story of his sons laughing at him passed out drunk and naked has a historical kernel of truth to it.

The intentions of the authors are everything, and it's just silly to pretend otherwise. If we can't discern those intentions, then we're just stuck.

GakuseiDon

The assumption is that the Gospels recorded words and deeds of Jesus, and I think this is reasonable, given that it is thought that the Gospels fall into the category of ancient biography called "bioi". That the writers were free to include or omit details is what is at the heart of the criterion of embarrassment, or at least that is what I've been arguing: there were some things that they decided to tweak instead.

There are other assumptions involved in using the CoE to look at Jesus' baptism by John. There is also the assumption that Mark preceded the other Gospels. If a strong case could be made that, say, John preceded Mark, then the earlier analysis could not stand.

GakuseiDon

Well, there is a difference between being stuck and being wrong. Assuming the authors were writing a form of ancient biography, what in your view is the reason for why the baptism scene changes from Mark to the other synoptics, to finally being left out in John?

Toto

No one thinks that the gospels are biographies in the modern sense of the term. They are classified as bioi - "lives" - that category of writing included stories about gods.

spamandham

This is misleading. The gospels are not biographies in the modern sense, they are origins stories more akin to superhero prequels.

I know that's what you've been arguing, and I've been arguing that both the original storyteller and his audience knew the stories were not literally true, and so there wasn't *anything* embarrassing originally. If anything, the existence of such blatantly "embarrassing" details proves that the original author and his audience knew those details were not true - else they would simply have been omitted. It's only later on that these things became embarrassing. This is why Mark has no problem having Jesus baptized for the forgiveness of sin. It's why the crucifixion is not embarrassing to Mark. It's why original Mark does not depict a resurrected Jesus, etc.

The idea that Mark *had* to include embarrassing details is laughably absurd even if his work is based on oral tradition. Even modern biographers gloss over such things, and the gospels are so filled with impossible nonsense that it should be glaringly obvious there was no intent to dutifully record facts. Anyone who can get away with claiming Jesus walked on water and raised the dead can get away with not mentioning that he was baptized by John. There is no reason he would even have to record the crucifixion if he found it an embarrassment.

I'm my mind, the order is irrelevant to this discussion, since the CoE is poorly thought out quackery anyway.

spamandham

Toto already addressed this above, and I alluded to it in my previous post. You may find "What is a Gospel" by Talbert revealing. We call them "ancient biographies", but in no sense are they actually biographies as you and I use the word.

Considering how unrelated they are to modern biographies, I think it's misleading to refer to them as "ancient biographies". This isn't your fault, because that's how scholars refer to them as well, the difference being that scholars know an "ancient biography" is not a biography, whereas laymen don't. I'm not sure if this is an intentional equivocation or not, but I think it is. If I were a scholar and wished to provide a label for this genre, I would stick with the ancient Greek label in Greek so as not to cause confusion.

In regard to your question, I think it's plausible that the later gospel authors were embarrassed by these details. I think it's also plausible that the authors had different perspectives. For example, Mark's sect may have viewed baptism as being for forgiveness of sin, whereas Matthews sect viewed it merely as an initiation ritual. It's also possible that although Matthew knew Mark's story was not literally true, he was weary of dealing with antagonists who kept using Mark to prove that Jesus was a sinner and so could not be a son of God - and so Matthew scratched that phrase from his.