aa5874

Why would you assume that no-one in antiquity could have investigated the veracity of the resurrection story of Jesus if gMark was written close to the supposed resurrection?

It must be obvious that people of antiquity were aware of people who wrote fiction and that some stories, even if plausible, were not true.

The author of gMark introduced the character Jesus Christ as though the reader already knew about him.

Mark 1:1 - The very first verse of gMark refers to a gospel of Jesus.

The reader must have been expected to know that there was a gospel of Jesus prior to gMark.

The first verse claimed Jesus was the Son of God, there must have been some other source that had already claimed or believed Jesus was the son of God.

jon-eli

To quote Robert Price: "How are they supposed to get the time out, and the money to pay the fare to the holy land for a fact-finding junket?"

I don't understand why oral tradition isn't a good enough explanation.

aa5874

Are you implying that in antiquity no-one travelled at all?

Josephus claimed he travelled to Rome. Even the writer called Paul claimed he travelled all over the Roman Empire and to Jerusalem.

And, there may have been Roman soldiers in Judaea in antiquity that could have read gMark, if it was written early.

I don't understand why oral tradition isn't a good enough explanation.[/QUOTE]


But how can you prove oral tradition? The author of Mark presented Jesus as a miracle-worker who had thousands of followers, yet no well-known non-apologetic author of antiquity wrote a single word about this 1st century phenomena, his followers or his teachings.

Oral tradition is not a good explanation.

jon-eli

Are you implying that Josephus and Paul are analogues to the average Christian? Josephus was a successful author and was born into an upper-class family. And Paul received funding from the church to continue his itinerant preaching.

I don't think oral tradition needs to be "proved," per se. I think it's the most parsimonious explanation. The principle of Occam's razor suggests that we should avoid complicating our explanation if a simple version satisfies the data.

Mark's representation was not necessarily factual. In fact, it can be demonstrated that Mark used the idea of "crowds" as a literary device.

I'm still not convinced. It's the simplest explanation, and it seems to satisfy the data.

aa5874

So, it is your position that soldiers and mercenaries were from upper class families. It is not necessary to be have been successful, from an upper-class family or a Christian to have travelled or to be living in Judaea.

Why must a person be a Christian to investigate or just to inquire about a character that simply appeared to be implausible?


It is just not good enough for you make an assertion and just think that is simple so it is true.

You do not know whether or not there was any oral tradition, so it may be that there was no oral tradition.

Now, what data do you have for oral tradition?


So, how can you find out if gMark's representation was factual.

Now, it is not logical to think that a simple explanation is true.

You have no data for an oral tradition, therefore your explanation did not satisify anything.

jon-eli

I'll state my argument more clearly, since I've probably been a little washy in the way I've presented it so far.

I don't believe it makes sense for non-Christians to have made any real effort to investigate these things, since Christianity was such an insignificant sect at the time the first gospel was written. Cults came and went in antiquity, and I'm not persuaded that Christianity made claims any more outrageous than any other religion did. It would have been a full-time job to factcheck every religio-historical claim that got whispered in your ear, and I just don't see the motivation that a non-Christian would have had in this regard. If they were potential converts, once again it just doesn't make sense for them go to all that effort, quite apart from the fact that they probably couldn't have afforded it. People are generally not converted on the basis of the historical acuity of a religion, but are brought into it by friends, family, charismatic preachers, or the mere fact that its philosophical elements appeal to them. We're talking about people who were mostly uneducated; don't get carried away by the notion that 21st century skepticism might apply here.

There's a reason why I tend to prepend my comments with "I think." It's that I simply don't take myself seriously enough. I'm open to the idea that I might be totally, stupendously, and egregiously wrong. If that bothers you... I just don't care. I'm here to have a chat, because the subject matter makes my heart warm.

True. I don't know. If I knew, I'd be a published author and wouldn't be rubbing pennies together to buy cigarettes. But short of actually knowing something to a certainty, I think I can be pretty sure, on the weight of probabilities. And remember, that's all historical argument has ever been about. Probabilities.

I don't have data for an oral tradition, and I never said I did. There is a lack of data for any kind of tradition at all... and sure, we can postulate written source after written source, ad infinitum. But I fail to see the point of doing that when oral tradition is a simpler mechanism.

Uhm... time machine? Seriously, you could write a book on that question. The whole field of historical inquiry has yet to reach consensus on how to sift fact from fiction. All we get to play with are probabilities.

What explanation? I don't remember explaining anything. If I thought I knew the answer, I would have said Q.E.D. already.

maryhelena

I'm happy to go with the "allegorical crucifixion".......

My basic position is this: The mythicist position on Jesus of Nazareth does not require that the historical dating in the gospels, in this case the dating of Pontius Pilate to AD 26 until 36 AD, has any historical relevance for the early history of Christianity. This time period is of interest only because it relates to a mythological Jesus and the story line of that mythological Jesus - which from the gospels themselves, is clearly a story line to fulfill OT prophecy. To assume that this historical dating is also relevant to the early beginnings of Christianity is to play the historical Jesus game.

How far back the 'sayings' in Mark go - who knows for sure - but stopping at around 29/30 AD is to curtail not further the debate.

The mythicist position can work from a wide canvas - it is not restricted to the narrow time frame of the historical Jesus camp.

maryhelena

I would imagine around the time Jesus of Nazareth became a historical person.......

Another example of the gospel writers composing a past and present story line is Matthew' dating for the birth of Jesus - usually given as prior to the death of Herod in 4 BC. There is no historical killing of infants by degree of Herod around that time. Go back to 37 BC and we do have Herod at the siege of Jerusalem - with its notorious slaying of infants.......(and of course, 70 years forward brings one to around 33 CE - the gospel story line for the crucifixion...).

jon-eli

Heh. I'd say they don't go back any farther than Mark, actually. But I do see what you're saying; we could easily take the Pontius Pilate business to be a later addition to the story. But that, however, doesn't seem to benefit us in any way. If we were to date Mark, or atleast portions of it, decades earlier than we currently do... what explanatory benefit would this provide? Are there things that just don't make sense unless we date Mark earlier? Or things that make more sense? In theory, we can carry the Jesus myth back as far as we like, but to what avail?

Jesus of Capernaum, please. Be a rebel. Buck the consensus. I know I certainly will.

Which is clearly even more allegorical than the crucifixion. As if Matthew would even know when Jesus was born... Seriously, did he interview Mary, or what? I'd sooner be smoking crack than putting stock in the birth stories.

maryhelena

True, we can carry the mythological part of the story back to whenever.....The interest is in how far back the early history of Christianity can be traced - and I would maintain that by adhering to the historical Jesus time frame that one is curtailing the investigation. How far back? That is something for historical investigation - plus any indications within the gospels, and I think they are there, that there is an element of condensing history in their story line. In other words, the gospels can themselves be read as inferring an earlier time frame for the beginning of Christianity.

Jesus of Capernaum? I'm a mythicist - hence look upon Nazareth as playing a role in the Jesus Mythology.

True, 4 BC, 1 BC, 6 CE - clearly a case that involves not a historical man but a mythological one! And clearly a case that we are not dealing, in the gospels, with an actual historical account of Christianity's early beginnings.