spin

Tarting stories up doesn't mean that the story is inherently outside reality.

When you make substantive claims, yes, you do have to support them.

No, unverified stories are unverified stories. Marco Polo's stories were pretty fantastic, so stories appearing to be fantastic in places, is a not sufficient criterion to treat them as you wish.

Many people here are happy to discount the extraordinary claims.

Is it unbelievable that a guy from Galilee romped around Galilee before going off to Jerusalem, where he gets done in?

Did I say that I did?

Such a simplistic dichotomy is in no way useful for dealing with the material in the bible. Are books of proverbs fact or fiction? Neither. Are politico-religious harangues such as the major prophets fact or fiction? Neither. Does much of the content of Paul's letters fit into either category, true or false? Neither.

You're merely waxing rhetorical.

Ummm, much of the bible content is tradition.

Try to understand what you say. Every claim, including yours, is subject to verification.

Sadly not all factuality is demonstrable. When traces of the past are only preserved in traditions, they become nigh on impossible to demonstrate.

You're ducking and weaving between unsupported value judgments and pseudo-scientific rhetoric. You find it easier, it seems, to badmouth the literature in the bible than to show some analysis of it.


spin

spamandham

While I agree that to say "the Bible is fiction" is way too broad of a stroke, there are parts that from an outsider's perspective really do have the fingerprints of intentional works of fiction.

For example, John 21:4-12, the story of the 153 fish. IMHO, this is clearly a fictional story written intentionally as fiction to harmonize Pythagoreanism with 1st century New Age Pisces mysticism, and early Christianity. The heavy mystical symbolism makes it unreasonable to have been the result of ordinary myth making. Sonmeone constructed this story with intent.

There are other New testament stories, such as the first 2 chapters of Matthew, that also are too contrived to be the result of mythmaking, and almost certainly were written with intent, aka, works of fiction.

spin

As a forensic scientist these days deduces what must have happened in the context they are examining, we have signs of writers "deducing" what must have happened based not on science, but their own understanding of the world, be that the belief in prophecy. The Matthean writer placing Jesus not on one animal in the triumphal entry, but on two, because that is what the source material seemed to read to him. The birth of the messiah had to have happened in Bethlehem because that's where the stump of Jesse was to stem from.

We often come across christians these days who are willing to advocate positions not based on the bible in order to bolster their arguments from the bible. This sort of advocacy is certainly not intentional fiction, but the probably misguided conviction that their position must be correct in order to explain whatever it was that was needing explanation.

Why did the Matthean writer change individuals in the Marcan source into twos? I can't see any intention to fictionalize. The writer was probably convinced about some necessity.

I haven't looked long and hard at your example, but it may be just another example of the sort of thing I see elsewhere about one being certain of what must be, or must have been, the case.


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mountainman

A general comment, about postings in this forum about "the bible is fiction",
or about "the bible is non-fiction". People here IMO need to specific about
what they mean about "the bible", because it has two separate and distinct
parts --- presumed (highly inter-related) --- the new and the old.

In all these discussions, I think it is important for posters to state
whether they are addressing both parts, or just one part. Some people
appear to deal alot with the old testament, others deal alot with the
new testament, others move between.

For example, it is possible that the old testament is a record of the
Judaic tradition BCE, and semi-factual but that the new testament
is a fourth century fabricated "fiction of men composed by wickedness".

One earlier poster simply addressed the old testament, while the
above is specific to the new testament, and worthy of note.

Steve Weiss

How many factual stories can you identify in the Old Testament? If even one story is not factual what can be said of the claim that the bible is the sacred word of god? "Is it unbelievable that a guy from Galilee romped around Galilee before going off to Jerusalem, where he gets done in?" And how do you know that such an event happened? Evidence? Numerous credible eyewitnesses? How do I know that you don't beat your wife? Can we just speculate, or do we need to provide evidence that would be both necessary and sufficient to separate fact from fiction?

The stories about Marco Polo are very questionable, by the way. There is very little evidence that there was such a person. I suppose that you believe in King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, Merlin the magician, King George and the Dragon, Robin Hood and his merry band of men, etc. Got any facts that will stand up to scrutiny? Or do you just believe it because you want to?

spin

There is no point in trying to shift the burden from your substantive claims about biblical fiction onto any efforts I may make regarding the factuality of biblical stories. Either your claim of fiction has some evidential basis or it doesn't.


spin

dog-on

I asked this on another forum, but the respondents felt the need to parse.

Is the following passage fact or fiction?

Could this be considered evidence of fiction?

spamandham

You may be right in the case of the birth story (although I still doubt it, because it appears the author knew he was writing a mystical interpretation....but I'm just a layman, what the hell do I know), but I can't see how that would be the case for the 153 fish story.

Such a story is not found nor alluded to anywhere in the OT or nonBiblical Jewish scriptures that I'm aware of. It appears to be a deliberate attempt to appeal to Pythagoreans. Even if the writer of that story in John was a Jewish Pythagorean, your approach wouldn't explain it I don't think.

spamandham

I am not aware of any such signs.

To me, the Gospels appear to be intentional fabrications designed by one or more mystical Jews (which I have heard were very common at the time - can't provide any references for that).

The abundant allusions back to the Old Testament are not there to show the fulfillment of prophecy, but rather, because Jesus is a mystical interpretation of the Old Testament, and the original author(s) invented him deliberately for that purpose. I won't deny evidence that later redactors took him literally and added to the stories as you imply.

I suspect that if someone who had never heard of Christianity before began an in depth study of the history, they would conclude that Jesus started as a mystical interpretation of the Old Testament designed with intent for that purpose, to promote the idea that the new age of Pisces was the prophesied kingdom, and that members of the group are thus heirs to that kingdom, and that the Messiah is the mystical fulfillment of those prophesies rather than the literal fulfillement. I think even the very name "Jesus" was selected for this purpose. Hell, even Paul admits as much when he uses the word "Logos" to refer to Jesus. Why is this so universally ignored even among secular historians?

The idea that there was a historical Jesus, and that later these myths grew up around him that so closely match a mystical interpretation of the Old Testament, does not satisy Occam's Razor, IMHO.

spin

How else did Matthew move Jesus from Nazara to Capernaum? Why did the Matthean writer correct Mark so often for content?

I have argued that Mark was written in Rome. It uses Latin words and references, contains a few Latin "loan translations", ie idioms from Latin translated into Greek which from the Greek alone doesn't mean what the writer wanted, though Latin was certainly not well diffused throughout the Mediterranean. Mark also shows a not very good knowledge of the geography of Israel. If Mark was written in Rome, where might you get the notion that Mark was written by a Jewish mystic?

In fact, what makes you think that there are any intentional fabrications in the christian texts at all? What do you know about the text that most other people who study it critically don't? I would tend to think very little.

I don't know if there was or was not a Jesus behind the gospels' central character, but I also don't know how you could justify the above statement with any evidence to bolster the certainty you evince.

I would urge you to step back from any silver bullet means of dealing with these texts and the religion with which they have had an incestuous relationship, and aim for more modest targets for your analysis. This would seem to offer a better hope of coming up with something meaningful in your analysis, unless of course, you have truly found the silver bullet and not revealed the fact.

Why would you say that earlier redactors didn't take him literally?

I would very much doubt that such a person would come to the conclusion you'd want them to come up with. But then, me being an agnostic in such matters would want them to return an agnostic verdict, because I can't see enough evidence to make hard and fast conclusions as you seem to want to make.

Ya reckon? If there was no real person, there are a number of reasons why the character might have been called Jesus. So, what's yours?

Am I supposed to be able to get what's in your mind from what you've written here? I don't think you've said what you are alluding to.

I don't know anything about a historical Jesus. He's not part of my thoughts, but then I know nothing about a fictional Jesus either. I do know a Jesus of tradition though and I don't think you can derive his historicity or his fictitiousness from that tradition.


spin