Amaleq13

You somehow managed to completely misunderstand what I wrote.

What you should have understood is that, given my respect for Carrier's knowledge of the subject matter and my own agnostic tendencies, I intend to keep my mind open until after I've read his book.

J-D

A fair point.

The model I’m discussing is generally along the following lines. The original teacher/preacher/leader made a sufficient impression for a small following to gather around him, and to extend his personal impact by their own proselytising activities. He doesn’t have to have made a ‘big splash’ for this to be plausible. Then the movement went in a different direction, or rather was taken in a different direction, through the activities of Paul and perhaps others, whose interests would therefore have led them away from preservation and dissemination of a full and accurate historical account of the activities and doctrines of their founder. It seems to me that this model is at least possible: the direct impact of Jesus was small, but his indirect impact, as mediated through Paul and perhaps others, was great.Wait a minute. Are you saying that there were, at that time, pagan religions that worshipped divine figures from long-established myths, or are you saying that there were, at that time, pagan religions formed around newly developed/invented mythical figures? The former is obviously true, but not a close analogy. The latter I would like to see illustrated by example.Well, what reason?Which do you think is more likely, that Muhammad really believed that the angel Gabriel spoke to him, or that he made the story up? Which do you think is more likely, that Joseph Smith really believed that the angel Moroni spoke to him, or that he made the story up?Insofar as this discussion here is primarily between unbelievers, I don’t see that the stakes are high. For those who are agreed that Jesus wasn’t God, I don’t see that it makes much difference whether he was man or not. (Well, that’s not entirely true. It’s important to Muslims that he was man but not God. But in a Muslim-unbeliever debate, or in a Muslim-Christian debate for that matter, the historicity of Jesus-the-man is unlikely to be the most prominent issue.)

jjramsey

Actually, you did bring up reliability when you wrote, "It is my understanding that lists have been shown to be the most easily and reliably transmitted orally but stories tend to change quite a bit."

Like I said, the somewhat tongue-in-cheek "The Tale of Theresa Banyan" is on point. It uses modern-day urban legends as illustrations of the kind of phenomena that happen in oral tradition. Many urban legends are certainly examples of traditions spread orally (as well as by other means) that are self-contained stories. IIRC, though Crossan focuses more on the transmission of epic-length material in Birth of Christianity, even there the epic-length material is composed of smaller stories that are strung together.

Amaleq13

I am well aware of what I wrote, amigo, but it wasn't, as I've already pointed out, part of my question. Rather than answer the question, you chose to focus on something that wasn't part of it. That you persist in this tangent rather than directly respond is quite annoyingly evasive on your part. Does it really have to be like pulling teeth for you to indicate whether you have any sort of scholarly methodology to support your observation?

It was an amusing restatement of the obvious but it really doesn't answer my question in the affirmative, does it?

Yes, and if I recall correctly, he doesn't identify a methodology for reliably identifying whether a text or portions of a text originate from oral tradition.

Again, I'm asking if you are you aware of any reliable methodology that allows one to identify whether a text or a portion of a text was derived from oral tradition?

jjramsey

As far as I know, textual cues alone would not necessarily tell whether a text in general or a portion of such a text was derived from oral tradition, although they might give clues. One would have to consider the history related to the text as well. It is probably easier to rule out portions of a text as being from oral tradition. The long monologues by Jesus in the Gospel of John were probably not oral tradition because they would be difficult to transmit orally. On the other hand, the form of many of the pericopes in the synoptic Gospels is consistent with them having come from oral tradition, and the existence of variations of some of the stories, similar to what is seen in the variances of urban legends, is also something seen in oral traditions. Coupling those textual cues with the unlikelihood that Christians did not spread tales of Jesus around orally, oral tradition is at least a probable source for the contents of the Gospels.

Didymus

But that's not the question. The question is: Were they? Read Turton. Even given those many direct correspondences with the OT, do you still insist that the stories reflect mainly "oral tradition"?

If not, then how do you account for the similarities with the OT? Divine prophecy?

It seems like one would check for such correspondences before adducing that the oral tradition was the source of the stories. That's why I've repeatedly referred you to Michael Turton's commentary. Obviously you have not looked at it. (Of course, there is always a risk that such facts could conflict with cherished beliefs. )

And you assume that their familiarity included the alleged "fact" that they had been companions of Jesus. You are going in circles here.

You say that what I said "is not quite true," yet you have failed to refute it.

You seem to be basing your entire argument on presuppositions, i.e., that Christians pre-70 KNEW that Jesus had lived under the administration of Pilate and that they KNEW that Peter and James had been his companions during that time.

And your proof seems to be that they MUST have known that, otherwise Paul wouldn't have omitted it!:huh:

If Paul really thought that the Pillars had followed Jesus in Galilee for three years, that they had known his mother and the other disciples, had witnessed all the healings, feedings and other miracles, had witnessed his encounters with the Pharisees and Herodians, had received personal visitations from the Risen Christ, had been privy to all his teachings, both public and private, and which included matters which were actively in dispute (circumcision, eating companions), YES, it would have been reasonable for Paul to have mentioned some small something about all that, especially in the context of meetings with those very apostles regarding those very disputes.

(It's a side issue, but also note that Paul, when telling us about his visits to Jerusalem, doesn't even mention that that's the place where Jesus was crucified. In fact, he never mentions that presumably inconsequential fact.)

See Doherty for more on these points. He puts forth the best "argument from silence" that one can imagine.

Didymus

Doug Shaver

Yes, but nobody to my knowledge is impugning the competence of historians who say "probably not" or the intellectual integrity of laymen who think those historians have made a good case.

Not saying you've done either, J-D. I'm just posting this for those who have.

jjramsey

I've read some of Turton already, and the correspondences that he shows are either not that direct and thus more indicative of having the OT in the back of the mind of the creator of the tradition rather than a conscious deliberate reworking, or they are specious. For example, when Turton notes parallels between 1 Kings 19:19-21 and Mark 1:16-20, he correctly notes that just as Elijah suddenly recruited Elisha while he was at work, Jesus did likewise with the disciples who were fishermen, but he also makes more strained comparisons:

Not only are the numbers "twelve" and "two" ubiquitous, but the number two is not used in 1 Kings 19:19-21, which refers to Elisha driving a yoke of oxen rather than a pair of oxen, and the number twelve is not used in the recruitment account in Mark 1:16-20. Turton is reading too much into similarities that are at best accidental and forced onto the texts.

No, I conclude from the way that Paul causally refers to Peter and James that his audiences in Corinth and Galatia--and probably Christians in general--were familiar with who Peter and James were, and would thus have some idea of what their background was. Under your scenario, Peter and James were not companions of Jesus, and I pointed out that given Christians' familiarity with Peter and James, that these Christians would then know that Peter and James were not companions of Jesus. Yet if Christians knew this, why would Mark think he could get away with saying that they were? For Mark to be able to get away with it, communication would have to be so poor that Christians knew the names of the Pillars but not even have a clue as to their background, which is at odds with the way Paul causally refers to them.

No, such a discussion would be a digression for Paul and unnecessary to his point. There is also the matter that if Paul wants to portray himself as equal to Peter and James, then it would not help to remind his readers that Peter and James had followed Jesus on earth while he hadn't had that privilege.

J-D

If people share a common interest in playing poker, then they have to seek each other out to play poker, because you can’t play poker by yourself. But if people share a common interest in reading books, then they don’t have to seek each other out, because reading is something you can do by yourself. So, is ‘messiah-seeking’ more like reading or more like playing poker? Besides, even in the case of poker, a regular poker game is unlikely to be the result of a number of poker players ‘gravitating’ to each other; it’s much more likely to be the result of deliberate organisation by one or two people. Still more so in the case of a reading group. So if you’re going to posit the existence of a group of messiah-seekers, I don’t think it’s ridiculous to ask who brought the group together, and why.If the emotionally charged atmosphere is the product of somebody’s vision, then the vision can’t be the product of the emotionally charged atmosphere. One of them had to come first. And how likely is that people would respond to one or two original visionaries by coming to believe that they have had a similar vision? Is that a common pattern? As I understand it, Joseph Smith’s original followers accepted that he had had a vision of the angel Moroni, but did not assert that they too had had such visions.

J-D

Why not? I wouldn't necessarily exclude the possibility.