Iasion

Greetings all

Thanks for your comments Roland - yes, I think the table shows the chronology of the data quite clearly.

And thanks Vinnie, I would be pleased to hear any suggestions for improvement or additions.

Readers will note I have chosen to date Ignatius rather late - I agree with Bernard's analysis on this issue.

Iasion
(Quentin)

NOGO

I don't buy the embarrassment you see but I am willing to be convinced.

The way I see it the story in Mark closely follows the anointing of David in the OT.

These are the elements in common.

Water is poured vs oil is poured
By men of God - Samuel vs JBapt
Spirit of God descends on David vs Spirit of God descends on Jesus.
David is henceforth guided by Spirit vs and the spirit guides Jesus into the desert.

Where is the embarrassment?

Why do you think that John suppressed this?

Semblance

Mark worked historical material into an apologetic.

How do you determine whether the material was "historical" or simply reflected the "embarrassment" of rival sects at the time of writing?

Roland

The embarrassment, I imagine, comes from the idea that Jesus would have to be baptized for the forgiveness of sins when he, Himself, was sinless. Apparently Mark isn't embarrassed by it since he includes it in his account. I think it is just another example of Jesus setting an example for others to follow, just as he washes the feet of the disciples and hangs around with sinners. Far from being an embarrassment, I think it shows Jesus as a "cool" guy who can get down and dirty with the sinful populace without himself getting tainted. I admit that the later writers try to smooth over the scene a bit, but that may simply be because they didn't understand Mark's purpose in devising the scene.

Regardless, Mark is clearly NOT embarrassed and if Matthew, Luke and John are that doesn't necessarily make the scene itself true. They could have been just as embarrassed by it if Mark made up the scene as they would if it were true.

The Tiny Saint

To Roland:
Actually, none of the evidence that you presented proves the Gospel as being Fiction. If anything, it re-enforces the Bible's prophetic accuracy. McDowell [mcDowell, J., 1972. Evidence that Demands a Verdict, Vol.1, Campus Crusade for Christ, San Bernadio, CA] documents 61 prophecies regarding Jesus alone. Many of these, such as His place, time, and manner of birth, betrayal, manner of death, burial ,etc., were beyond His control. [The Updated and Expanded Answers Book, AiG, p.7] Many of these predictions were made well before Jesus was even born!

So the fact that the Bible is consistant over such long periods is a requirement for Divine Authorship of the Bible.

I always thought that the Gospel's account was written within a hundred years of Jesus dying on the cross. This is because many of the writters of the Goespels were alive when Jesus was dying on the cross, take Matthew (the tax collector) and John for example. I do not know how long the Christian sources have been using it for. If you could provide another site (to be sure to be sure) that says similar information I would be eternally grateful. But even if the numbers are correct, it is an amazing propheticly accurate. So you have not proved the Gospels as "fiction", just that they appeared in Christian material sometime after Jesus actually died. Btw, the earliest Christians were not "silent" on this issue (to my knowledge), the talk about Jesus being resurrected would have been the "talk of the town" for some time after that event. Just because it wasn't written at that time in a book doesn't really mean anything. The events would have still been fresh in their minds.

But thanks for the link anyway!

catalyst

You should maybe do a search on the title of this book. It has been discussed at quite some length here in various fora.

Also this may be of some interest to you.

Roland

The problem with "prophecy" is that it can work both ways. It can also be used to create a story out of whole cloth, devising incidents to match up with the so-called predictions. Isaiah 53 provides a template for any reasonably clever fiction writer to use as a starting off point. As a former member of Campus Crusade for Christ myself (I actually "came to Jesus" through two of their members), I am very well aware of Josh McDowell's work. Painfully aware I might say.

Vinnie

I also included an article which points to some sayings material on GJohn for those reading about baptism.

"""""How do you determine whether the material was "historical" or simply reflected the "embarrassment" of rival sects at the time of writing?"""""

Historical Methodoly based upon stratification and source evaluation.

Vinnie

gregor

Tiny Saint

You should soon realize by reviewing this forum that the intellects here don't suffer light weight apologetics like McDowell gladly. His books (ETDV and NETDV) are, charitably put, unpersuasive.

Given the fact that the authors of the amalgam of stories we now call the gospels are unknown, given the varying and conflicting themes in the gospels, and other higher criticism discussed herein, I think all on this board would agree that the gospels contain fictionalized parts. The debates tend to focus on whether the amount of fiction is some, most, or almost all.

Amaleq13

Mark's story is beyond "isn't embarrassed" since he makes no effort to prevent the reader from making the obvious assumption that Jesus considered himself to have sins in need of repentance. You are entirely correct that there is no trace of Vinnie's repeatedly asserted yet unsubstantiated "embarrassment".

I consider it another example of the author of Mark using the Jewish holy men with whom he was familiar as a template in his depiction of a living Jesus. This is why Mark's Jesus is the most human of the bunch.

Exactly!