Chris Weimer

We have multiple accounts, not "one" account. Gospel 1 (Mark), Gospel 2 (Matthean sources), Gospel 3 (Lukan sources), Gospel 4 (Johannine and related sources), Paul, Josephus...

angelo

[QUOTE=Chris Weimer;4826287]All had the gospel of Mark in front of them. Apart from Paul and Josephus. Then there is the question of the ''Q'' document, if it existed. There may have been one source and a multitude of interpretations for all we know.

Roland

I realize that Jesus was a very common name. It's still suspicious that Christianity's savior figure just happens to have that name.

Your last comment seems to be making the mythicist case for me: that the "story" comes after Paul.

Roland

Again, this seems to be making my case for me. Not one of these "independent" gospel accounts records a Jesus who DOESN'T perform miracles, doesn't get himself executed during Passover in time to be the Lamb of God and doesn't rise from the dead.

Hence, I'm trying to figure out at what point secular historians stop throwing the baby out with the bathwater and come up with what they believe is a "true" Jesus. With historical figures like Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, I would say that less than 5% of what we read about them is implausible or rooted in the supernatural. With Jesus, that percentage goes way up, so much so that the implausible and the supernatural become utterly entwined with the few "naturalistic" elements of his life. It's not like we have any rationalistic accounts of his life on which to base a plausible biography.

It seems to me that when ALL the accounts of a person's life are this steeped in the fantastical and the absurd, perhaps that's an indication that no real person lies at the root of the story.

chrisrkline

Is there any evidence that there were more crucifixions during passion week?

Clouseau

Why would anyone want to do that?

Chris Weimer

Matthew and Luke share a source - whatever that source is, it's Q. Goodacre does not have me convinced of Luke using Matthew, and its nearly impossible the other way around. Therefore that's yet another source. Also, Matthew and Luke have other information other than what's in Mark - the mere fact that two independent traditions both mention a virgin birth (and got there in a different way) while the earlier traditions don't means that there was a line of tradition going on.

And do you have evidence that John used Mark? Some scholars support that notion, but I don't think there's too much to that - I could be wrong.

Chris Weimer

Ever think it may have been the other way around? You should know from logic that correlation does not equal causation.

Well, only in their current forms. Some scholars think Thomas goes to pre-Paul or at the same time of Paul, and likewise with Q, and not many scholars at all are convinced that the gospels modeled themselves after Paul. Coming later does not mean that they borrowed from. Their traditions lie elsewhere.

Chris Weimer

Thomas?

What's your point? So its more infused with legend - we've done that before. Alas, the name escapes me, but there was this monk...

Thomas? Layers of Q?

angelo

Scholars date John in the late 90s and see it as evidence for a distinct Christian community that developed it's own views of Jesus more or less independently. I read somewhere that the Gospel of John should not have been included with the synoptic gospels, because he speaks of Jesus being God himself made flesh. ''In the beggining was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. Nothing was made without the word''[or similar] He described Jesus as the bread of life.
All told, John's story seems to be about the manifestation of a god, not about the historical Jesus of the synoptics. It's so different to Mark, that I doubt he acknowledged it's existence. If he knew of it's existence, he ignores it.