Solo

Mark 1:1-16:8, for example.


Jiri

Solo

Evidently, that is false. E.g., the hugely embarrassing belief of Jesus family in Mark that their kin 'was out of his mind' was expunged by Matthew and Luke. But why was it not embarassing to Mark ? Because it was more historically true to Mark than his redactors ? Not necessarily.

My take on it is that Mark was writing his gospel (or rather Paul's) as an allegory and the astounding revelation of 3:21 was paraded in Mark's pericope (3:21-30) as part of allegorical play on Paul's teaching of 1 Cr 1:18-31 (which I consider the cornerstone of his faith). Paul not only admitted that he was looking like a demon-possessed lunatic; he was positively using the memory others had of himself non-compos mentis, as argument for the reality of his communications with Christ (1 Cr 2:2-5, Gal 4:13-14, 2 Cr 5:13).

So I would say the 'general knowledge' of Jesus would have likely been next to nil, and we have nothing more than an historical probability of him rooted in a historical probability of his execution which (to my mind) best explains sectarian groups arguing about the meaning of his martyrdom in the years immediately after his proclaimed existence.

All I am saying is that the paucity of actual historical information about Jesus may have been given by the historical leader deliberately obscuring his bio data as charismatics are historically known to do.

Best,
Jiri