Toto

You guys amuse me. If this is the best the historicist camp can come up with, mythicism may win sooner than I thought.

Kapyong

Gday,

If you actually think there IS such evidence,
why don't you cite it?

Instead of these endless appeals to authority ?

You could instantly show you are correct, and show Toto et al is wrong simply by producing the evidence - but you conspicuously fail to do so.

Why?
Could it be because there IS no evidence?



K.

Kapyong

Gday,

Oh, so there is NOT a consensus like you claimed, after all ?
But of course - that "small minority" are not "serious scholars", right?

Translation -
JMicism = evolution denial

This is the meme of the month - it's all over the 'net lately.
Endless repetitions that denying Jesus is like denying evolution.

Which is total nonsense of course, because the evidence for evolution is vast and obvious and clear. Whereas the evidence for Jesus amounts to some anonymous books and claims to unknown persons.

Soon, the MJ argument will be likened to Moon Landing Denial.


K.

Kapyong

Gday,

Well -
if YOU think there is evidence for 1st century provenance, then YOU are free to present it.

But you refuse to do so.
Why is that?


K.

Juststeve

Kapy:

I don't publish the evidence for several reasons. First, well recognized scholars already have. Second, there are a lot of issues I care a lot more about and know a lot more about that consume my time. Third I am no more an expert on the issue than you are.

Steve

Toto

You are confusing two issues: whether there is a consensus on a date for Mark of close to 70 CE, where there is something of a consensus; and the issue of whether there is actually any evidence that would show that Mark was written in the first century, where, if there were any evidence, you could score a coup by writing it up and publishing it. That's why I think you don't understand what's going on here.

It's not rocket science. If you don't care enough about it to do a little background reading, why do you care enough to post on it?

Doug Shaver

Where? I've spent hours searching for that evidence, using not only Google but also the academic journal database at my university library. I have yet to uncover a single fact that constitutes clear evidence of first-century authorship for any of the canonical gospels.

It has become quite clear to me that no such fact exists. If it did, then in all the debates I've had with apologists, at least one of them by now would have produced it, but none ever has. They have nothing to offer but dogma and arguments from authority.

I may be no expert, but I know how to search the literature written by those who are, and I've done it.

Doug Shaver

I've seen references to that theory before. I take that the theory acknowledges the existence of both kinds of societies. To your knowledge, has anybody well versed in the theory undertaken whatever research would be needed to determine whether first- and second-century Christians were a high-context or low-context society?

OK. We've accounted for and Socrates and Papias. Is there any evidence that would tell us whether this was the prevalent view among early Christians in general?

By the time we get to Origen, the gospels have been circulating long enough for Christians in general to be familiar with them. What do we find from that point onward?

Unless you correct me, I'll construe that to mean "just one or two of them."

Doug Shaver

Reputable journals don't publish stuff that the scholarly community already knows.

ApostateAbe

Doug Shaver, on Google Scholar, if you search for gospel date composition, there seems to be a bunch of scholarly sources that I strongly expect would contain arguments for the dating of the gospels, though I can only read the abstracts for most of the articles. The best argument for the date of the gospel of Mark, in my opinion, is the maximum reflected by the apocalyptic deadline and the minimum reflected by the prophecy of the destroyed temple of the Jerusalem. Matthew and Luke source Mark and contain the same evidence, though Luke shows a little more revisionist embarrassment of the apocalyptic deadline, so I would be inclined to date it to the late 80s. The gospel of John shows maximum embarrassment, so that gives a minimum date (90), but I am not sure about the maximum date.