Antipope Innocent II

Grant is actually quoting someone else there and I don't recall if he footnotes that quote. I'm at work at the moment, but can check my copy when I get home.

youngalexander

Perhaps you might also consult Responses to Critiques of the Mythicist Case

A typical example is historian Michael Grant, who in Jesus: An Historian’s Review of the Gospels (1977), devotes a few paragraphs to the question in an Appendix. There [p.200], he says:

Malachi151

Perhaps it depends on what the meaning of "is is" eh?

The claim being made here is total bunk.

What "historical material" is there in the "Gospels" (really we should focus on a single Gospel, the Gospel of Mark).

What historical material is there in the Gospel of Mark?

The names of a few places, the name of Pilate, perhaps the name of John the Baptist, the names of Peter, John, and James. What else? There is no other "historical material", since nothing else in the Gospel is corroborated outside of the Gospels.

Claiming that anything else is "historical material" is an assumption.

This level of "historical material", a few names and places, it also found throughout Greek and Roman mythology. Is he now claiming that we take all of the gods and heroes of Greek and Roman mythology as real people because some of the myths contain the names of real places and a few real people?

His claim is clearly absurd and doesn't apply any kind of meaningful methodology.

Its like saying "The Iliad contains historical material, therefore we know that Achilles, Paris, and Helen were real people."

And even if these were "real people", what would we know about them? Well, nothing, because the Achilles, Paris, and Helen of the Iliad and other legends are all fictional characters, even if they were loosely based on some real persons. The deeds that these character do and things that they say in the stories can in no way be relied upon as telling us anything meaningfully accurate about them, even if there were some real figure behind the character, so regardless, the Achilles, Paris, and Helen of the Iliad aren't real, even if those characters were based on real people.

Its like saying that Robin Hood "is a real person", or that King Arthur" was a real person.

Even if the legends of King Arthur were based on some real king, the King Arthur that we know of is purely fictional. The things that this character says and does in his stories aren't historical accounts, even though these stories are set in historical settings.

So even if King Arthur "were real", the King Arthur that we know is "a myth".

This is, at best, all that can be come up with in regard to Jesus.

The discussion becomes completely whether or not there was a man behind the mask, but it really doesn't matter much, becuase all we have is the mask anyway.

Camio

It reminds me of the little talk we had over your first text, before it was published. Your position is still the same: you are interested in the theological mask, not in the historical buddy (provided there was ever one) behind this mask, to use your terminology. So, AFAIC, you are clearly fighting a theological battle here, not a historical one, if I may say. I imagine you are surrounded by Evangelicals trying to convince you that the Gospel events truly took place, and I can easily understand why you take this particular stand.

Jeffrey Gibson

On what do you base this claim that it was "quite likely"? Because mime plays were popular in Rome among Roman audiences? Do you have any evidence that mimes were popular in Judea and among Jews, even Hellenized ones? Shouldn't we, given our absolute lack of knowledge about what plays, let alone what types of plays, were performed in theaters in Judea, admit that such using such evaluations as "quite likely" when we make assertions about what was done there, not to mention going on to reify this question begging assertion into an historical certainty upon which an historical claim can put forward as true, is unwarranted, logically indefensible, and goes well beyond what the evidence allows?

And may I ask about another assertion about mimes that you've made elsewhere? You have stated that:

"We know that mime plays dealt with crucifixions, crimes, seemingly
dead people coming back to life, and contemporary political events."

Can you please provide me with some examples of extant 1st century (or earlier) Greco-Roman mimes (or ancient reports on the subject matter of pre 2nd century mimes) that show that mime plays did indeed deal "with crucifixions, crimes, and seemingly dead people coming back to life"?

I am unaware of any. But that may be because I am not sufficiently familiar with the primary sources or the scholarship on mimes as you apparently are and implicitly claim to be. So, would you please provide me with what I ask above?

Jeffrey

David

You leave numerous direct questions relating to statements/claims you made in another thread unanswered, but show up here asking another poster questions?

PhilosopherJay will no doubt decide if he wishes to answer (perhaps for the sake of those reading/lurking) but no one owes you anything at the moment Dr. Gibson.

Toto

SPECTACLE AND THEATER IN JOSEPHUS’S BELLUM JUDAICUM PhD dissertation by Honora Howell Chapman lists several mimes that included crucifixions.

Jeffrey Gibson

Thanks for this! Though I do wonder whther Jay was aware of this work or of the mimes you say this text mentions.

BTW, where in this work are these mimes listed?. This PDF document is not searchable and I don't have the time to read the entire work to find out find out.

So what on what pages are these mimes with crucifixions mentioned?

Jeffrey

Toto

Jeffery -

Every version of Adobe that I have seen has a search function. Do you see the little icon that looks like binoculars? Try clicking on it. Do you have some technical support or maybe a teenager or someone who could help you?

Why did you challenge the idea that mimes included crucifixion scenes? You can see that other posters are starting to get annoyed with your tactics.

No Robots

While you can count me as annoyed as everyone else, this is an image scan, not a text scan, so searches don't work.