andrewcriddle

Rightly or Wrongly I'm uneasy about these type of mathematical calculations of probability. IMHO they provide an apparent objectivity which blurs the degree to which they depend on the exact way in which the prior probabilities are calculated.

What I was trying to say is that IMO in order for mythicism to be an interesting explanation for the absence of historical details about Jesus in Paul at least one of the following claims must be true.

a/ Non-Mythicist writers will be highly likely to mention such details
b/ Mythicist writers will be highly unlikely to mention such details.

If one accepts GakuseiDon's argument that those 2nd century writers who have few historical details about Jesus are (at least mostly) non-Mythicists then this undermines claim a/ ie being a mythicist is not a necessary condition for lack of historical details about Jesus.

If one regards Mark as a mythicist text then this undermines claim b/ ie being a mythicist is not a sufficient condition for lack of historical details.

The failure of a/ and b/ would not prove Paul was not a mythicist but it would weaken the degree to which mythicism is an interesting explanation for his treatment of Christ.

Andrew Criddle

andrewcriddle

Assuming, purely for the sake of argument, that Mark has based the great majority of his narrative on the OT rather than on historical tradition, it would not need to mean that he did not believe in a Historical Jesus or even that he lacked historical traditions about Jesus.

It would be quite possible for Mark to genuinely consider reconstructing the life of Jesus on the basis of the inspired OT as more historically reliable than basing it on fallible human oral tradition.

Andrew Criddle

TedM

I like that. For the argument of silence in Paul's writings to have strength we would expect either (a) or (b) above, yet Don has shown that (a) doesn't exist, and mythicists claim that (b) doesn't exist with Mark. As such, mythicists have to get into issues of expectation based on differences in TIMING of those writings with Paul's. I'm not so sure they do so effectively..

Yes. It may seem like fabrication to us, but can we determine Mark's sincerity? How can we tell if Mark was intentionally writing things he didn't believe literally happened or 'filling in by revelation' details on a life he truly believed existed, based on inspiration he truly believed in?

ted

GakuseiDon

I'm not sure what you mean by that, but it sounds interesting. Are you saying that, even if there were a historical Christ, Luke wasn't interested in the question? Does the same apply to Mark?

Is there any way of knowing whether he was a HJer or not, IYO? He certainly makes HJ statements in some of his letters, though not in all of them. In his letter to the Romans, Ignatius doesn't refer to any historical details about Christ, and refers to Christ thusly:

[I wish] abundance of happiness unblameably, in Jesus Christ our God...

...But when I suffer, I shall be the freedman of Jesus Christ, and shall rise again emancipated in Him...

Now I begin to be a disciple. And let no one, of things visible or invisible, envy me that I should attain to Jesus Christ... let all the dreadful torments of the devil come upon me: only let me attain to Jesus Christ.

... I desire the bread of God, the heavenly bread, the bread of life, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became afterwards of the seed of David and Abraham ...

Jesus Christ will reveal these things to you, [so that ye shall know] that I speak truly. He is the mouth altogether free from falsehood, by which the Father has truly spoken...

Are these the words of someone who was probably a HJer, IYO?

The gnostic writers were an outgrowth of Paul's "mystery religion". "Mithras killed the cosmic Bull and from its blood the earth was renewed". That is the style with how the outer-mystery was presented, and understood by the pagan public, and that is the style in which Paul presented Christ. IMO the inner-mystery was 'Christ as bodhisattva', the historical man who became the first-fruits of a new humanity, and through whom we can obtain the same.

The gnostic writers would support this view (assuming I am correct), in that they appeared to have developed from the 'inner-mystery' idea (mixed in with ideas from other sources). Either they got this directly from Paul, or this view evolved from Paul's ideas, influenced by the 'mystery religion' mindset of the day.

So Mark is either contemporary or even postdates the Epistle of Barnabas. 'Barnabas' appears to place Christ on earth. Did a belief in a historical Christ predate Mark, IYO?

GakuseiDon

Yes. Furthermore, if someone was trying to present Jesus as the expected Christ, the only way that could have been done would have been trying to tie him back to the OT, either in actions or in words.

If someone came to the Jews today and claimed they were the Messiah, I think we'd see the same thing.

Peter Kirby

Not that I know of.

best wishes,
Peter Kirby

Vorkosigan

Thanks! That's useful information.

Yes, well this simply reinforces my point about Mark being fiction, doesn't it? The fictional Mosaic frame for Hillel's life is not quite what Mark was doing. In Mark the details all appear to be invented off of the OT as well, and the plot dictated by the conventions of fiction and the parallels that Mark had chosen. At every level Mark is fiction.

All options are equally possible, except 2, which is ruled out by the nature of scholarly methodology and the fact that there is no supernatural. Additionally you left off more complex options, such as that Jesus was a real man but Mark knows nothing about him. A fictional Mark is compatible with each option you listed above. A fictional Mark simply says that nothing about the HJ may be known from Mark, except what we know from Paul (my position, BTW).

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

In German, here

http://www.klassphil.uni-muenchen.de...hist/hist.html

This link supposedly has it in English, but I can't get it to come up

http://magna.com.au/%7Eprfbrown/a_tyana0.html

Here's some parts of Coneybeare's 1912 translation

http://www.mountainman.com.au/a_tyana0.html

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

Sure, but then how are you going to prove that? Your position is like Don's -- it struggles to claim that Mark's Jesus has some link to history while conceding that there are strong reasons not to think so, assuming that my thesis about OT paralleling is correct, as we are doing here. One could argue on exactly the same evidence that Mark knew that Jesus was Titus and covered it up with the OT. If one begins by assuming facts not in evidence, then one can prove anything.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

Luke is essentially a corporate publicist, skilled and polished, but with no real depth, whom Mark sometimes baffled. His goal is largely political -- to historicize Jesus and to reconcile the Petrine and Pauline wings of proto-orthodoxy.

If you look at the Gethsemane scene, Luke knows that Mark got it from the tale of Elijah's sojourn in the wildnerness as Jezebel was pursing him. Luke adds more detail -- the angel, and additional language from the Septuagint. If Luke understood Mark as something that had actually happened, why did he fill out and expand the parallel? Clearly Luke knows that Mark is nonsense, because he knows where to look for the parallel. What does that tell you about Luke's attitude toward his source and toward Jesus?

The Ignatia are familiar with the gospels, especially Matthew. How can one specify the beliefs of a forger without pertinent evidence? In any case he refers to a Church in Romans, and he knows that Jesus was of the seed of David and Abraham. <shrug>

I am not sure. Barnabas looks like Matthew (the robe of scarlet, gall and vinegar) but it is hard to say which way dependency flows. It looks like we have the usual deduction of "historical" details from scripture. is Barnabas from a single hand?

Vorkosigan