No Robots

Here is what it Midrash is:

'Midrash' is based on a Hebrew word meaning 'interpretation' or 'exegesis'.

This is what irritates me about mythicists: They make bold declarations that contort definitions into meeting their own polemical objectives. The absurd thing is that these contorted definitions are easily refuted. In effect, discussion is stunted into being nothing more than the correction of laughable errors. Why don't you just check on the meaning of midrash before claiming that it is basically synonymous with fiction?

The whole of the Bible is essentially midrash. The goal of the reader of midrash is to identify that which is being interpreted.

The mistaken spelling of "Chrestus" for "Christus" and "Chrestianos" for "Christianos" is common. The context and tone of the notice in Suetonius make it evident that he is referring to dissension within the Roman Jewish community regarding the new way.

An equivalent cause is one that equals its effect. It is Newton's third law: For every action force there is an equal, but opposite, reaction force. Now, this is a universal law: it applies to all phenomena. So when we look at the grandiose effect of Christ, we have to assume a grandiose cause. If we eliminate the supernatural, all that is left is genius.

I object to "incomprehensible." The unique Spirit of the genius is generally misunderstood, but there are those who are able to discern its true nature and are able to reproduce its effect.

It seems to me that mythicists are quite willing to assert the reliability of the Gospels where this suits there purpose. For example, many mythicists see the Gospels as reliable evidence of syncresis.

Niall Armstrong

Will get back to rest later.
I hope you, for the sake of the argument, can take my word for it that the primary foundation block for MJ theory is the unreliability of the Gospels. It is kind of a necessity, since the Gospels refer to an HJ.
Now I'll make another statement: There is no mention of fishermen, tax-collectors, sinners or harlots in the Epistles. There is also no suggestion that any such, or any consummate peasant poets, composed any of the Epistles. (Paul's learning is obvious and bragged about; the writer of the letters of Peter is generally considered to proficient in Greek to ever have been any fisherman; the writer of the letters of John has both excellent Greek and a solid grasp on Philo's theology)
So why am I stating the obvious?
Because Constantin Brunner doesn't get it!
He imagines that HJ theory necessitates that the am haretz; the fishermen etc above, created the figure of Jesus. (Seven times he lists up his rhetorical list of fishermen, tax-collectors, sinners or harlots, in addition to countless references to am haaretz, so I'll not disdain from repeating it here. Seven times!) This is a silly construction of an absurd strawman, not worthy of Brunner. MJ theory does of course NOT claim that these fishermen etc constructed Jesus. Those who constructed Jesus, according to MJ theory, are the inheritors of those literate, cosmopolitan figures composing those earlier documents, the Epistles. But this discussion would be more interesting to pursue under the banner of Brunner's concept of Genius.
All I wanted to say in this post, is that Brunner's critique of MJ theory is either intellectually dishonest or preposterously naive. Or would anyone claim he had a gigantic tongue in cheek all the time?

Niall Armstrong

Sorry, No Robots, if I’m starting to hog this thread. But I thought I’d have to take you up on Birger Gerhardsson.

I’ve accessed chapter 1 of Gerhardsson’s “The Reliability of the Gospel Tradition” at http://www.hendrickson.com/pdf/chapt...36678-ch01.pdf. Its part VII embarks upon the attempt to find tradition about Jesus in the Epistles (specifically Paul). He finds a few of possible references in 1 Cor 7:10,12, 25 and ditto 9:14. Strangely enough all of these references are to Jesus as “Lord”. And it is just the other day I saw, here on the IIDB, our own spin tear apart “Lord” as a reference to Jesus in the Epistles and 1 Cor specifically (see post at 4152738; use “search” on the menu bar above). I cannot be sure that spin’s reasoning is correct, but I see his point: “Lord” was after all the title of God in the (LXX) OT, so there can be no assurance that Epistle references to “Lord” are to Jesus. (Though in the Gospels and Acts, composed later, this title has been fully appropriated by Jesus) Attributing the concerned teaching to God is not difficult, since it is surely the traditional Jewish interpretation of Deut 24:1-4. There is also no need to see the “Lord” of 1 Cor 9:14 as necessarily being Jesus, and not God, just because the later Gospels interpreted the statement thus.
As to Gerhardsson’s interpretation of Paul’s Last Supper in 1 Cor 11:23–25, I do find Doherty’s interpretation follows closer to the text. “For I received (paralambanein) from the Lord what I also delivered (paradidonai) to you, that…” does sound more like another vision granted by God, rather than Gerhardsson’s convoluted metaphorical delivery of “my body” and “my blood” (via the unmentioned, yet supposedly central disciples) to Paul himself.
Lastly we have 1 Cor 15:3–8, with what we may call the original Apostolic Credo. It is a much discussed passage. I, too, like the idea that Paul here is retelling a tradition, and appending himself at the end of the list. This is of course not a Jesus-quote, but an apostolic tradition, and hardly any evidence of any life of Jesus. Note particularly that this early “credo” does not include of the distinctly earthly elements of later credos, like the Virgin Mary and Pontius Pilate.
Gerhardsson’s discussion of parenesis (exhortation, as in the Epistle of James) is interesting, but then his conclusion there is pretty close to MJ theory: “For my part, I cannot see how parenesis has any claim at all to be the basic Sitz im Leben for the words of Jesus. The Jesus traditions were a part of the traditional material which one merely built upon and alluded to in parenesis.” And since none of these exhortations are provenanced to Jesus in the epistles, we may assume they had some other origin (just like the Q material)

Gerhardsson’s query regarding the loss of the vision of Cephas is worthy a thread of its own: “But even so, not all of the traditions which he points to here by using brief association-words (e.g., “he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve”) have been preserved in the Synoptic Gospels. Particularly amazing is the loss of the tradition concerning the appearance of the resurrected Jesus to Cephas, the fundamental, first appearance of the resurrected One”
This vision is well explained by MJ theory (see Doherty’s TRANSFIGURED ON THE HOLY MOUNTAIN, supplementary article no 7 on his website. This is perhaps not the thread to discuss it in depth) That is just one more mystery solved by the use of MJ-theory, showing its explanatory power. (And, regarding Gerhardsson, we notice that he defines Gospel Tradition exclusive of the Gospel of John, as it is particularly difficult to integrate. This is also a problem easily solved by MJ theory, as the diversity of early Christian “reaction” is a part of the theory)

So after reading what I found relevant of Gerhardsson I find all his points are answered by MJ-theory, and that the issues he finds intractable are likewise solved.

No Robots

If you discount a historical Christ, then you have to assume someone else is responsible for the portrait that the Gospels provide. Further, you must assume that this portrait was drawn by the greatest of literary geniuses. Now, no literary analysis would maintain that the Gospels originated anywhere than among the ammé haaretz, the common fishermen, tax collectors and harlots who followed Christ. So mythicists, in arguing that there is no Christ, are arguing that the literary character described in the Gospels was created by people of the very lowest sort. Now, it may be said that Brunner never imagined that anyone would propose that the epistles constitute the actual literary origin of Christ. The reason is that this is simply absurd. No one with the least insight into the research methods of history would ever maintain such a position. But even if we were to do so, there is nothing within the epistles that would give the meat to the characterization in the Gospels. This meat had to come from somewhere, even if it does postdate the Epistles. And, again, based on literary analysis, the source would have to be the ammé haaretz.

No worries. They ain't exactly queuing up around here.


The point is that Gerhardsson makes clear that in no way can Paul be considered the originator of Christ. This is a problem for some flavours of mythicism, including Doherty's.

jakejonesiv

Many someone elses. We have many sources incorporated into the Christ Myth, evolved over time.

I would say religous fantatics.

Literary analysis shows just the opposite. The dependance on the LXX for supplying details for the alleged Life of Christ eliminates eye witnesses as a source. It is a literary dependance.
The gospels are like fairy tales, once upon a time. You are confusing characters in the story with authors and redactors writing for theological purposes decades after the alleged fact.

Why do you keep putting these people that you call the ammé haaretz down? People of the very lowest sort would be illiterate, and incapable of writing anything. The gospels were written in Greek, not some back woods yokel language.

In order to produce the gospels, we need people who are literate, well versed in the Septuagint and other ancient writings, and consumed by religous fanaticism. There is no need to presume that they would be idiots or geniuses.

Yet you said he is familiar with Arthur Drews. He noted almost 100 years ago that there is no historical Jesus apparent in the Pauline Epistles.

Do you mean something else?

How so? I don't understand the absurdity you are pointing to.

Now we are getting somewhere! That's right! Gospel Jesus is not to be found in the Pauline Epistles. Nor can the gospel stories be extrapolated from the episltes.

Again , you are correct.

But here you go wrong. We don't have a single written gospel produced by these allegedly ignorant country folk. We don't have any written report of Jesus contemorary with the events which your "hill billies" could have authored.

I took that as an invitation to cut in.

Christianity is a syncretic religion. It is a combination of many sources.

Jake

No Robots

Ah, a committee of hillybilly geniuses.

Always nice to hear from you, Jake. I even call my son "firepup" from time to time.


Analysis shows the Gospels to originate from ammé haaretz oral literature.


We owe these people everything we call meaningfully human. I honour and adore them. I get down on my knees and thank them for giving us this wondrous account of this wondrous man.

Exactly, and so they didn't. Their oral literature was eventually written down.

The style, structure, vocabulary and content all point towards the humble origins of the original Gospel strata.

First off, all Jews were familiar with at least the basics of their own sacred writings. But the important thing in the Gospels is the characterization of the man Christ. It would indeed have taken a genius to create such a portrait. The fact is that these people could only understand this man in the context of their own scriptures, and so that is the context into which they placed him.


Indeed, and Brunner criticises Drews for saying that Paul derived Christ from the Mandeans. But at least Drews never went so far as to say that Paul pulled Christ out of thin air.


I hoped you would


Indeed, but Christ is 100% pure Jew.

Niall Armstrong

If you are going to go on stating that literary criticism shows that the Gospels are based on oral tradition passed on by amme haaretz, you’ll have to come up with some examples, preferably good ones, that may override the many arguments for the opposite. Until then I must stand by my statement that Brunner is being intellectually dishonest in not recognizing that ditching the Gospels also means ditching the fishermen etc as being the originators of the figure of Jesus.

As far as I know, there is only one argument for the claim that Mark is based on oral tradition: the distinct pericopes are supposed to be units of tradition passed on. But I’ve never heard this claim used upon the similar style of the Icelandic family sagas. Is there any reason, apart from wishful thinking, to believe that the pericopes testify to amme haaretz oral tradition? I am truly virtually ignorant about pericopes, and would love to learn more about that style of writing.

I thought I’d try to google “Gospels literary analysis”, and see what I’d find, merely as a random exercise in what such work has to say about the Gospels. Maybe I was lucky, but this is what I found at the top of the list:

http://www.religion-online.org/showa...asp?title=1565

It is an article by Robert M. Fowler (including a nice description of the development of gospel criticism in the 20th century), which shows how the author of Mark uses his consistent irony to mock the disciples of Jesus, especially in regard to the “Feeding the Multitudes” stories. This irony is a tool to engage the readers, as they and the writer become complicit in understanding Jesus, while tut-tutting at the stupidity of the disciples. The central point of Fowler’s is encapsulated in the following: “But what is one to do when he finds instead that the evangelist has composed an entire story? That is, what is one to do when one finds that Mark was not simply an editor of tradition, but a fine storyteller in his own right?” (Oh, and btw, this also seems to show how the pericopes function as literary devices in their own right)

So we have a theologically sophisticated writer of Greek, composing a story with many an ironical twist to lure the reader into confidence (both “Feeding the Multitude” and “Peter’s denial opposed to Jesus’ trial”), probably familiar both with the epistles and Q (and perhaps even the Gospel of Thomas). And you’re saying this author necessarily does not have the Genius to transform Paul’s celestial Jesus Christ into his own Jesus of Nazareth? But wait, no, Brunner says it is beyond the amme haaretz to invent such a Jesus, while you have already admitted that the writer of the gospel is not of the amme haaretz. Consequently, neither you nor Brunner actually argues against this thesis. And therefore, neither you nor Brunner has argued against the MJ-theory, but against straw men.

As to Gerhardsson, I have in my earlier post, IMHO, shown how he fails to find any dependence in the epistles upon an oral tradition of Jesus’ activities (as is hypothesized to be the “missing link” between actual life of Jesus and the Gospels). But I agree that there is evidence in Paul’s letters of tradition inherited from others. The discussed “credo” is one such. The others include the so-called pre-pauline hymns (Phil 2:6-11; 1 Cor 8:6; Hebrews 1:2-3; Colossians 1:15-20; Ephesians 3:14, and more?) And what do we find there? Not any amme haaretz stories; not anything regarding Jesus’ supposed activities on earth (as defined by Doherty’s MJ-theory). This is uncontroversial (and naturally, no current MJ-er would state that Paul created Jesus out of thin air). But it also proves Brunner wrong (as he states that it was Paul who invented the divine Jesus. This is also impossible as Paul found Christian communities and apostles ahead of him during his missions), and it also shows, yet again, that there is no trace of this so-called amme haaretz oral tradition. Paul was bearing a tradition, yes, and probably subtly altering it, too (though not in deifying Jesus), but this was an incipient Christ-tradition, deriving at least in part from Philo.
And this was a perfectly “reasonable” religion (as religions go) that had Jesus now appearing in visions, a phenomenon testifying to the imminent parousia (not “return”) and the end of the world. This is a lot closer to standard Jewish thought of the time, and only in certain details (like “the Lord’s Supper”, the concepts of paraclete and soter, the mystical union with God, and probably more) showing the influence of Hellenistic religions. Therefore Brunner’s flailing attacks about what the Jews of the time might believe actually strike back on himself. No Jews, not even the amme haaretz, would accept such blasphemy as Jesus proclaims (esp. in John’s Gospel, of course…). That Christ, the heavenly Son of God, sacrificed himself (as God bade Abraham sacrifice his son) to save those who believe (thereby earning the name “God saves”) when the Day of the Lord comes (soon), is a set of beliefs fundamentally Jewish (especially as the interpretation of OT meant that the Messiah was necessarily of David’s seed.)

Btw, stating that Jesus was Jewish makes about as little sense in a discussion about MJ-theory, as saying that the Gospels were written by amme haaretz. As far as MJ-theory is concerned, Jesus was Jewish, since he was of David’s seed. But that does not mean he walked on this earth.

Let me try to defuse my lambasting of Brunner above by stating that literary analysis had not in his time come as far as it has today. His mistake in presuming a simple transfer of oral tradition to the writing of the Gospel is understandable when you take into consideration how the issue pericopes used to be interpreted.
I shouldn’t comment on Drews, not having read him, but reading Brunner I’m struck by how often the latter’s arguments fit well with Doherty’s theories. If Brunner is not just attacking straw men (and occasionally there definitely are whole armies of straw men), then one might say that the relevant arguments have, albeit utterly unintentionally, been taken heed of by Doherty. This would include Jewish reception of the original Christianity; how Mark’s Gospel was created; more mainstream Greek cultic influence instead of obscure Mandean influence and a more thorough mining of Jewish eschatology. Why ask Doherty to answer Brunner when, in many cases, he already has?

The one issue he hasn't addressed, though, is Brunner's "Equivalent Cause". (Though as it is a seldom used philosophical concept, I don't see why he should.) I keep wanting to get on with "EC", but I keep finding these other issues not fully attended to. If you reckon EC to be the central issue for Brunner, then perhaps we should lay these other concerns aside for the moment. I imagine the debate about EC might become long and dirty, and you’re probably even keener than myself to discuss it.

No Robots

Scholars acknowledge that the earliest Gospel strata are oral:

It is generally conceded that the material that made up the gospels was originally transmitted orally—that is, by word of mouth.—from here.

They also acknowledge that Christ's earliest followers were ammé haaretz:

The vast majority of Jews in Israel were not aligned with any special group. They were ordinary farmers and fishermen, craftsmen and merchants, trying to eke out a living. They no doubt believed in the God of Israel and tried to follow the primary laws of the Old Testament faithfully, offering sacrifices in the temple in Jerusalem for the forgiveness of sins when they were able to make the trip there. But they did not concern themselves with the numerous oral traditions and additional legislation that had grown up around the Bible. They probably longed for the redemption of Israel, and it was from this group of ordinary, faithful, at times even impoverished, Jewish folk that Jesus found almost all of his first followers. Ancient Jewish sources refer to this group at times as the Am-ha-Aretz ("the people of the land"). The special groups probably comprised no more than 5 percent of the population in Jesus' day.—Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey (or via: amazon.co.uk) by Craig Blomberg, p.47

For confirmation of the low literary status of even the written Gospels as we have them, see What Are The Gospels?: A Comparison With Graeco-roman Biography (or via: amazon.co.uk) / Richard A. Burridge, Graham Stanton:

The style and apparent social setting of the gospels are more popular than most of the bioi studied.—p. 235

Brunner is, to my knowledge, the only writer to state definitively that the obvious and inescapable conclusion from the above is that the Gospels originated among the ammé haaretz. This is proof that he still stands at the forefront of literary analysis of the NT.

Why is that you are so eager to rob these humble people of their magnificent achievement? Is it because, if you acknowledge the origin of the gospels in the common people, then you must acknowledge the living Christ of which they tell?

jakejonesiv

If the details of the supposedly most important event in the career of Jesus, the Crucifixion, are created from Psalm 22, there is no room left for eye witness testimony passed down by tradition.

I think it was in the Patchwork Gospels that it was said that the idea that the [gospels] are based on oral tradition is almost as silly as the idea that they fell out of the sky on golden tablets.

jakejonesiv

Illiterate people can come up with a load of nonsense as easly as those more educated. It just didn't happen that way in the case of the gospels.

But I am interested, can you put forth a couple of examples that IYO best supports the thesis the gospels originated in oral tradition among common people at the supposed time of Christ? Chapter and verse, please.

Jake Jones IV