Toto

Do "dozens" of saying define a historical personage? There is no scholarly consensus that all of these sayings go back to one person, or that they define someone who was crucified under Pilate and inspired the Christian religion.

Chaucer

But all the sources have sayings of one sort or another. And the most recent analyses of both Scriptural and non-Scriptural texts seem to suggest that, while there are transcriptional connections among the Synoptics that mitigate against the full significance of double and triple attestation among them, there are OTOH no -- apparent -- transcriptional connections among Mark, the sapient sayings in Matt./Luke (sometimes termed "Q") and Thomas. Hence, the sayings that all these three have in common do, at the least, add more to this Jesus character than just "some one-dimensional guy named Jesus [who] got executed sometime in the first century". Those sayings are, as numbered in Luke --


Luke 11

21 When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace:
22 But when a stronger than he shall come upon him, and overcome him, he taketh from him all his armour wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils.

33 No man, when he hath lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place, neither under a bushel, but on a candlestick, that they which come in may see the light.


Luke 12

2 For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known.

10 And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven.


Luke 13

18 Then said he, Unto what is the kingdom of God like? and whereunto shall I resemble it?
19 It is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and cast into his garden; and it grew, and was a tree; and the fowls of the air lodged in the branches of it.

30 And, behold, there are last which shall be first, and there are first which shall be last.


Luke 19

26 For I say unto you, That unto every one which hath shall be given; and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him.


No one else has been credited -- yet -- with these sayings. And since they appear in the most widely separated and earliest layers of the tradition, it's hard to see how one agent, other than Jesus himself, could have originated them. Even regardless of where one supposes these core seven sayings originated, they form part of a unit that is as inextricably linked to this Jesus character's earliest traditions/strata as any of the "action items" like the Last Supper (also in the authentic Paul letters) or the crucifixion.

Chaucer

spin

A deep nothing-to-say response there, Chaucer old buddy.

There isn't one [a bio]. You're just making crap up.

When you assume your conclusions, you don't have to work very hard. Who gives a fig about Solon, Gautama or Socrates for that matter? It's Jesus that you have to worry about. Your job was to come up with evidence, but you have consistently failed, using this half-assed approach of showing other figures have difficulties as well. That's is not an argument. But you are following the course of all those other historicists who can't do their job, casting a smokescreen thick enough to cover their own tracks.

OK, so you've bleeted about mythcists. BFD. Why don't you act responsibly and try to do the history to support your position rather than this prolonged subterfuge of yours?


spin

spin

Oh, for christsake, unprovenanced sayings! You must be joking. You have obvious examples of sayings that were known from other sources, that were put in the mouth of your hero. "Do unto others...". Next you'll argue that Polonius was a real person because numerous sayings were attributed to him by Shakespeare.

How many other dumb put-offs can you come up with??


spin

No Robots

Besides the parables, there are the striking proverbs of Jesus. They are short, sharp and shrewd, hitting their mark like pointed darts, and, in the manner of homely epigrams and proverbs, impossible to be forgotten. Herein lies the secret why his disciples could preserve the bulk of his proverbs, almost unchanged, precisely as he uttered them. Almost all are stamped with the seal of one great, single personality, the seal of Jesus, and not the several seals of many and various disciples.--Joseph Klausner

Doug Shaver

Considered in isolation, they could. Considered together with all the relevant evidence, obviously not.

Doug Shaver

I can't speak to what you consider perfectly obvious, but that is not what I have in mind at all.

Toto

Please give a proper citation if you rely on authority.

What the hell does this string of pretentious garbage mean? Are you trying to say that these are independent sources?

Our most prominent mythicist, Earl Doherty, thinks there was some Galilean wisdom teacher at the origin of the sayings. But there was no connection originally between this person and a crucified messiah.

Somebody wrote these sayings. Why should we think the originator of the Jesus movement did? Is there anything in these sayings that would lead to a movement or make the Romans decide to crucify the man who said them, or lead his followers to seek martyrdom?

What does this show?

lpetrich

No Robots, don't make me laugh.

All that that could mean is that these sayings were passed down orally and shaped into readily memorable form. Jesus Christ would then be on the level with Homer and Aesop, generations of storytellers collapsed into some heroic ones.

Steven Carr

I guess Biblical studies really is in a total mess, if this sort of thing is not laughed at.

This is not historical reasoning. It is just pietism.