Steven Carr

I was astonished by James D.G. Dunn's 'The Evidence for Jesus'

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=h...age&q=&f=false

On page 7, he looks at the similarity between a passage in Mark, and a passage in Matthew and concludes that these traditions existed in Greek *before* they reached the evangelists.

And this means there is a 'likelihood' of a 'solid base of historical information'

This is incredible.

Because Matthew and Mark have a lot in common, this fact alone means there is a 'likelihood' of a 'solid base of historical information'?

This wild illogical leap is mainstream Biblical scholarship?

I really can't trust my own eyes here.

Could somebody have a look at those pages for me please and check if I have made a mistake in reading?

Does Dunn, one of the most respected mainstream Biblical scholars, really make the bizarre claim that if something is almost identical in two Gospels, then there is a 'likelihood' of a 'solid base of historical information'?

The next sentence after that is 'However it is important to realise that the evangelists were not simply recorders of tradition'.

How do you get from Matthew and Mark have passages which are very similar to a 'likelihood' of 'historical information'?

And then move seamlessly from a 'likelihood' into claims that we now have to build on the evangelists being recorders of tradition and also more than that?

Vinnie

If Luke wasn't dependent upon Mark he'd have one hell of a case. I understand everything he writes on page 7 until that last paragraph where he loses me.

Vinnie

Steven Carr

I'm glad it wasn't just me he lost, as I thought it must have been me misinterpreting him.

mountainman

On pp 96-97 he deals with emergence of "Gnostic Christianity" as part of a three way spectrum of emergent christianities with "Jewish Christianity" and "Gentile Christianity". These all get taken over by "Catholic Christianity".

These conjectures are also quite astonishing.

On page 91 he appears to have avoided bringing in the Essenes.

DrJim

"Two biblical witnesses cannot lie" is pretty much standard fare for a lot of biblical scholarship, or at least has been in the past. I think in the OT field that might not get as easy a time as it does in NT scholarship.

On a related front, I heard Craig Evans talking in a church this past winter on Scribal Errors in the New Testament. He claimed that the fact that 99.9% of the original New Testament can be recovered accurately, it is true. He knew damn well there was at least one guy in the audience with a PhD in New Testament (my friend who actually worked with Evans years ago), and he still made that assbrained claim more that once!

Rick Sumner

As an aside, I saw Evans here in Calgary a couple years ago. Babbling something about the Jesus Seminar being a bunch of fools who had been completely rebutted. Specifically that no credible scholar believed that Jesus was not apocalyptic.

Now, I think the Jesus Seminar is almost comical. And I quite emphatically think Jesus was, in fact, apocalyptic. But "no credible scholar?" Really? There was actually a thread on XTalk about it.

Good to see you still around Jim.

Rick Sumner

DrJim

Best wishes to you too, Rick! I come around here every once in a while, a lot more lately. I hang out mostly on my blog where I'm currently picking a fight with the theology laden SBL and another with the the alberta creationist museums...

Getting back to the OP, I would not consider a book called "Evidence for Jesus" scholarly. I skimmed through the pages on the Google preview and it seems to be, in the long run, apologetics lurking in the great blurry, fuzzy theowaffle mind-meld between theology and "academics" (which theologians tend to mean academic contexts into which the have ingratiated themselves), that so many believing biblical scholars operate. When they try to translate the already theologically infused "academy" into books for the hoi poloi in the pews (as Dunn's book seems to be), what is important is to preserve the atmosphere of critical scholarship, if not exactly the standards. His audience for that book will, for the most part, simply trust him because he is fighting the good fight. How can he let them down and really make them think?

Celsus

It is good to see you! What's your blog?

squiz

I found this with google: http://drjimsthinkingshop.com/

dog-on

Of course, the standard B.S. (Biblical scholar???) ASSumption that these are independent sources has nothing to do with his position...