andrewcriddle

It is in general very difficult to approach ancient historical sources in the way you suggest a historian would. Eg I don't see how one would test the reliability of Thucydides using this criteria. I have real doubts whether ancient history would be possible if one accepted only the evidence that would survive your criteria.

FWIW Eusebius may be one of the earliest historians where this sort of source analysis is really possible.

Andrew Criddle

PaulK

Neither are my comments aimed at supporting a mythicist position (I'm not a mythicist). So that's a red herring.

And this is exactly the position I am criticising.

Remember the argument does not seek to directly argue for a prior source - it instead argues about what the author of Mark would do. But it would be absurd to say that he would use an authoritative source if there were no such source. And in failing to consider what the author of Mark would do in the absence of an authoritative source the argument is fatally weak.


You're wrong about my views. I don't know what the author of Mark had but I doubt it was a written account. I'd guess that he had a collection of oral accounts, which did not have the same authority his work would achieve (the divergences in the post-Resurrection appearances in Luke and Matthew suggests that that was the situation in that case - and I would be surprised if there were no similar problems with other parts of the story). I would also doubt the reliability of many of those account even before whatever reworking the author or Mark may have done.

Toto

digression into "hate speech" split off here

andrewcriddle

I'm sorry I misunderstood your position. (Your post deserves a fuller response but I don't have time now and may be off-line for several days.)

Andrew Criddle

spamandham

Andrew, this seems to be a recognition that the field of ancient history is in dire need of the scientific method.

In all legitimate fields of study, if we do not have enough information to draw conclusions, we are obligated not to draw them. But in regard to Biblical history, that isn't what we see at all. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of diametrically opposed speculations presented as if they were fact by well qualified scholars.

That's just wrong, and as long as it continues, the field will not be legitimate.

Steven Carr

Dunn says Wells is wrong.

That was too brief.

Actually Dunn expands and says Wells is wrong because the reason Paul does not mention all these details about Jesus is that everybody already knew them.

In short, Dunn has no idea how to refute Wells.

rlogan

Right. I think it can be dismissed by dating things correctly in the first place.


Always suspect things that can't be stated simply and positively. Lucidly. If you can't do it, there is something wrong.

Is Matthew copying Mark evidence that Mark copied from someone else?

No.

Is there some statistics going on that give admission to the word "probability"?

No.

Just more begging of the question at the heart of it.

andrewcriddle

I think the problem here is the assumption that Mark is an "authoritative source" for Matthew and Luke. Mark (like the other gospels) certainly eventually became such an "authoritative source". However when Matthew and Luke were written say c 100 CE it was probably a different story. Mark was not yet an "authoritative source" but was used by Matthew and Luke as a convenient collection of material about Jesus.

Andrew Criddle

PaulK

And this simply exposes another weakness in the argument. We don't even know why the authors of Luke and Matthew both closely followed Mark. How then can we reliably extrapolate back to what the author of Mark did ?

dog-on

The "mud" was simply the byproduct of the action.

The Romans took an ancient culture and used it to give the weight of a history to their new religion.