PhilosopherJay

Hi ApostateAbe,

I do not think 2 James 3 relates at all to what is being said in Mark.
The stoics believed that the world would be destroyed by fire. Here the writer is comparing the flood destruction of the world with the future destruction by fire.

Mark is talking about the coming of the son of man and the gathering of the elect. This is more likely to be the establishment of the kingdom of God on Earth than anything else.

James does not talk about the tribulations which are the sign of the apocalypse. Rather, he suggests that there will be no signs. He says, "the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night." A thief doesn't give signs that he is coming. So if they are both talking about the same apocalypse (doubtful) James leaves out everything about the tribulations/signs and then directly contradicts Jesus and his prediction of signs. However it seems more probable that they aren't even talking about the same apocalyptic events. The gospel of Mark seems more likely to be talking about the Lord establishing his kingdom of God on Earth, not the fire-caused destruction of the earth that James is predicting.

Likewise the John passage you mentioned seems to be about a specific rumor about the beloved apostle rather than have anything to do with Mark's Little Apocalypse.

I think what you are missing is that the coming of the son of man is supposed to be a joyful event. It is God calling his elect on
Earth and Heaven together. In other words, it is good news. This is in opposition to the bad news of the tribulations that are the signs of the event. Look at the analogy in Mark 13:28

Summer coming is a good thing. He is comparing the coming of the son of man to the coming of Summer.

What this viewpoint entails is that the destruction of the temple, one stone not on one stone, is a good thing. It will be God's judgement on the vanity of men who built such great architectural wonders to promote their own vanity. (Remember that it was the Romans who built the temple at Jerusalem). When will this good thing happen, well only after many bad things, suggests the writer of the passage.

Imagine that I am a follower of the preacher Billy Sunday who died in 1935. I tell people that Billy Sunday predicted things before he died. He predicted that the world would be at war in Asia and Europe at the same time. He predicted the growth then rapid death of the Great Russian bear and then more wars in the middle East. Then he said a great hurricane would wipe away a great American city in the south. Finally a small isle would be devasted by an Earthquake.

Only after these signs, said Billy, would he and Jesus return to Earth hand in hand. But of that exact hour nobody knows.

Obviously, all the terrible signs have come to pass, (World War II, Growth and Fall of the Soviet Union, Middle East Wars, Hurricane kathrina and the Haitian Earthquake), the only event left is the good thing, the great apocalypse of the return of Billy and Jesus. This is how the synoptic writers wanted their audience to feel, the tribulations we have gone through were just predicted signs of the great and glorious apocalypse that will be coming any day now, even if we can't say the exact day.

The synoptic writers weren't making excuses for failed predictions. They were recording real and recent historical events as correct predictions, in order to reassure their followers that the great apocalypse, the coming again of Jesus and the subsequent Lord's coming to Earth was about to happen. This was the gospel (birth announcement) they preached.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Rick Sumner

The stoics also believed the world was composed of fire. I'm not sure that the point holds as well as your over-simplification implies.

Zaphod

By scientific underpinnings I am referring to the use of the Scientific Method as the best possible way to gather evidence in such a way as to minimize the human mind's propensity to fool itself.

Obviously, we can't do double- blind experiments on ancient texts, but there are general pretexts that the Scientific Method uses to determine the burden of proof needed to draw conclusions about evidence. Some of these have to do with the context of the conclusions drawn from interpretation of the evidence, some have to do with confounding factors, etc.

To posit a HJ, the burden of proof must necessarily be very high because:

1) There is a resounding lack of expected historical artifactual evidence for such an important person.

2) The accounts (Gospels, etc) from which HJ'ers attempt to derive evidence to support their hypothesis are not coherent - they contradict themselves. Additionally, they are not original material, and we know that they are corrupted by insertion, deletion. We also know that they are likely not exemplars of the total literature of the period, because of a directed campaign by Christendom to expunge contradictory texts. We also know that the remaining texts are not trustworthy because they treat physical impossibilities as facts. Most importantly it seems to me, is that the accounts of the very cornerstone events of the Christian religion are untrustworthy. How can such a source be relied upon in even trivial matters id such is the case?

The scientific Method relies on certain principles. There include a reliance on the best available evidence, whether that evidence itself is believable, and whether the conclusions drawn from that evidence comport with what we know about the real world. Results and conclusions must be believable in the face of other evidence.

The HJ does not have a source of reliable evidence to support the hypothesis. The evidence it has in its favor has aspects which are believable, but there are also numerous aspects of the story which are not believable, and they are discussed here at this forum on a daily basis.

IMO, the HJ does not offer a rational explanation for the lack of artifactual evidence. The common argument is that the HJ was a minor character, not noticeable enough to garner mention. Yet, the HJ main proof source describes his activities as garnering large crowds, his activities causing sensations. The Sermon on the Mount - an aforementioned cornerstone event - is described as as being attended by hundreds if not thousands of people. It is very difficult to explain the HJ as an unnoticeable preacher based on these accounts - the proof source of the HJ itself, and it is equally difficult to square this account with the complete lack of attention by contemporary scribes who leave us accounts of much more trivial affairs.

And so, IMO, the existing evidence for the HJ is not reliable at face value. It also may or may not be believable in the context of the real world, which here means two things. It may not be believable in terms of the world at that time in history, again for reasons discussed here every day. It certainly is not believable in the world as we know it today, which does not recognize the reality of miracles. Like it or not, miracle-working is a part and parcel of the HJ and MJ stories, and is simply another element of the HJ proposition which works against it.

What are left with? A hypothesis of a HJ who was unnoticed but caused a sensation. A man worshiped by a people who rejected such an idea, and a hundred other seeming non sequiturs. A man of such redeeming human qualities that he started a cult which nonetheless needed to ascribe to him the Godhead of a miracle-working Messiah.

These are some of problems with the HJ proposition. One really must add to the list the attributes of competing hypotheses which buttress their own case - generally here at the forum that amounts to the MJ case, things like the very typical attributes of mythical heroes which make up the Jesus Story, the fact that much ascribed to JC has its roots in previous scripture, etc.

Now, the HJ may be correct. Or maybe he WAS a god-like entity capable of performing miracles. Or perhaps the MJ is correct.

But my whole point is that the Scientific Method tells us the HJ hypothesis has NOT satisfied its burden of proof to allow us to say that it is reliable. Jesus H. Christ - it has not a shred of evidence to support it! :grin:

In the absence of evidence to support it, any hypothesis must be deemed to fail. And so must the HJ. Just as a lack of evidence of a global flood, or other credentials, precludes the historicity of Noah, so must we preclude the historicity of JC.

Jesus Christ, until further evidence is uncovered, MUST be assumed to be non historical, at least if normal precepts of the Scientific Method are to be utilized.

Chaucer

This doesn't tell us diddly-squat about the method and discipline of peer-reviewed historical research. That's something that I learned about at my father's knee -- who was a tenured history professor, got published through a peer-review process duly tied to an academic institution, and was an atheist all his life.

If you want to know about disciplined historical research, the professional historical method deals in probabilities, not certainties. So try again. Rick Sumner's point happens to be spot-on.

Chaucer

Zaphod

Here's a deal - you agree to read my post all the way through with comprehension, and I won't call you deliberately inattentive.:banghead:

aa5874

But, what other people's fathers and the knees of other people who were atheists all their lives?

Please tell us about your own methodology so we can determine if it is diddly-squat.

And who said that professional historical methods deal with certainties?

Chaucer

I have read your post, thank you. Nowhere do you reference the concept of ascertaining the more probable versus the less probable in so many terms. Nowhere do you reference the implications of the references in non-Christian sources to Jesus of Nazareth without attaching the knee-jerk pretense of all good little mythers that -- aw, shucks -- they don't really count, you know (or, so goes the myther mantra, they're discountable, you know, or they're dismissable for any of a number of other glib reasons, usually flirting with outright sophistry, etc., etc.).

Chaucer

Zaphod

My post was about whether the HJ - or, for that matter, ANY hypothesis about the historical Jesus - justifies its hypothesis yet. Unfortunately, most of the HJ'ers feel that JC deserves to be considered historical until proven otherwise. I can tell you as someone with a minimum of scientific background such an assertion would be considered completely ludicrous in any scientific endeavor. It's not about how the research is done, it's about making claims without justification. What I'm trying to indicate is that the HJ'ers claim of default historicity may or not be unjustifiable ( IMO it clearly is not) by historical research standards, but, more importantly is antithetical to the standards of scientific objectivity.

The "the concept of ascertaining the more probable versus the less probable" is irrelevant to this point.

The "the implications of the references in non-Christian sources to Jesus of Nazareth" are the subject of thousands of pages of dispute, and by the mere fact that these disputes have merit, they do not buttress the case of the HJ beyond that of any other. To say the least.

Can I put it context for you again? The mere fact that you and ApostateAbe cling so stubbornly to the veracity of Josephus' "Brother in the Lord", for example, is documentation of how bereft your position is of evidence.

Rick Sumner

I'm aware of what you meant by it. I'm also aware that statements such as "lack of expected. . ." preclude your sentiment, which is why I snipped the rest. The "expectation" isn't grounded in "scientific method," it's grounded in post hoc, subjective, value assessments.

History isn't science. It isn't grounded in scientific method, at least on the textual end.

Let me give you an example. On another thread I recently investigated Augustan statuary. Scientific method can tell us an awful lot about such statuary. It can be helpful dating if there is no inscription. It can help us locate the material used. Given the right circumstances, it can even tell us if a sculptor was right or left-handed.

But once I point out that Augustus' representation as Pontifex Maximus has his head covered to emphasize the traditional Roman method of sacrifice that's not scientific method anymore.

In the same thread there was some discussion on recent criticisms of history, and its effort to straddle both science and art, and consequently dodge the criticisms of both. While the caveat might be right, it hasn't done much to effect applied historiography anywhere.

Textual interpretation isn't science. It isn't scientific method. It isn't even in the ballpark. And that holds for the mythicist as well as the historicist. Scientific method requires us to forego our value statements.

So far as the HJ/MJ debate goes, scientific method can only lead you to one conclusion: Agnosticism.

Chaucer

You are confounding "evidence" with "proof", a typical idiocy of many an amateur untrained in historical research. In fact, our position does have "evidence" behind it. That evidence does not only have one stray reference in Galatians behind it. It also has a reference in Josephus, in Hegesippus, in Tacitus, in Origen, and a number more. Now, none of these singly constitute "proof". But TOGETHER, they constitute persuasive evidence, and that is all too frequently all we have in ancient history.

If you're looking for "proof" like a scientist, then the Pyramids, the Parthenon, the achievements of despots and their armies, various law codes, and such like are all you're going to accept in ancient times. As far as you're concerned, 99.99% of the great literature from ancient Greece can only come from Arabic countries in the Middle Ages and must all be forgeries since most of it cannot be traced much earlier. Is that realistic? -- Well, maybe to you.

If you're happy with that kind of minimalist result, hey, stick around. But if you're not, then go back and stick to science, build yourself a time machine, make tape recordings of your travels attending the world premiere of Aeschylus's Oresteia, Socrates's defense at his trial, Cicero's first dictating of a letter, Jesus's Sermon on the Plain, and Josephus's consultation of his sources. Until you can do that, better get used to probabilities around here, because that's practically all that ancient history's got.

Chaucer