bacht

Well, Shakespeare did write about Julius Caesar, should he have included a disclaimer for his audience? The conventions of theatre and fiction don't always have to be spelled out do they?

aa5874

Shakespeare's Julius Caesar is fiction. Any similarities to real persons and events in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar are co-incidental.

This disclaimer holds true for ALL works of fiction.

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarities to known persons, living or dead, places or events are co-incidental, and not intended by the author.

And a SINGLE fictional character, like Julius Caesar, may be a combination of MULTIPLE real characters.

andrewcriddle

This dislaimer is added as a protection against libel actions.
Its truthfulness is sometimes open to question.

Andrew Criddle

Newfie

Legendary figures tend to all draw speculation as to their authentic roots. People have been trying to find the real Robin Hood and King Arthur for years and Jesus is no different in this regard. The feeling is that, if one peels away all of the layers of mythic elements from the characters, then some historical figure will be exposed. Problem is, Jesus is regarded as a being actually capable of all the outlandish feats attributed to him, unlike Arthur for example, who was never considered divine.

Another example would be the character Tarzan. In a way he conforms to the archetype of the feral child going all the way back to Enkidu of the Gilgamesh cycle, but the driving force that establishes the uniqueness of his character is the literary need to break new ground. Thus Tarzan is significantly different than Kipling's Mowgli, who debuted just a few years earlier. It is also entirely likely that accounts of real feral children could have had an influence as well, going all the way back to Enkidu, and some speculation has been made if a real-life feral child may have served as the basis for either Mowgli or Tarzan.

In much the same way Jesus has qualities, characteristics and elements in his story that seem to have been established by earlier archetypes, the original twist being his passivity, the character of Jesus himself then becomes the base for numerous characters down through the ages, some admittedly fictional, others not, until we see his influence upon such characters as Superman and Harry Potter.

aa5874

This is really bizarre.

If an author wrote fiction and declares that he did write fiction, how can the author's truthfulness be open to question?

It is in fact the complete opposite.

If an author wrote fiction and does not declare that he wrote fiction, then the authors truthfulness is open to question. And it is for the very same reason the unknown authors of the NT are all questionable.

bacht

Yes, I think this tendency is already apparent before New Testament times. The apocrypa has material ascribed to legendary Jewish figures like Enoch and Ezra, and the additions to Daniel.

Jesus is a special case I suppose because he was the one and only begotten Son of the one and only God (according to the Jews).

NZSkep

and Fat Freddy's Drop are great. everyone should buy download this album

ETA: WTF happened to the 'strike' code?

Doug Shaver

I discuss my statements with people who can discuss them intelligently. I reserve the right to ignore people with whom discussion is pointless.

Toto

mod note: the strike code has been disabled because, in the opinion of the powers that govern this board, it was being misused. You may file a complaint in the appropriate forum.

aa5874

But, you haven't really IGNORED me. You keep on replying to my post.

I have challenged your statement that "Shakespeare's Macbeth was a real person."

I brought to your attention that Shakespeare's Macbeth is NOT a true biography of any real person named Macbeth, since it is written as fiction.

I would have thought that you would have re-considered your error, based on your intelligence.

And I IGNORE no-one, regardless of what I think of their intelligence.