JonA

I would enjoy looking over the references where Jesus is described as 'a literate Hellenistic wisdom teacher with rich followers'. (You might be able to make a case from the gospel of John, but even that will take some work; I'm prepared to be surprised, though.)

Well, this is an interesting bit of irony. Is there any reason we should think them unique?

Jon

Toto

I am not prepared to put that much work into it, but consider that in Luke Jesus preaches at the Temple at age 12, that he never puts in a day's work, that he is anointed with expensive nard by the unnamed woman who uses her hair. It's not that controversial an idea.

What irony?

In the endless discussion of genre, you will find experts who say that they are a unique form. Of course, there are similarities - similarities with Hellenistic novels in particular. There are those who have argued that there are similarities with Greco-Roman theater.

In any case, you claimed that it would be inconceivable for early Christian literature not to contain oral traditions, because otherwise they would be unique. This is just an argument from personal incredulity. I find it easy to conceive of early Christian literature that contained only references to the Hebrew scriptures or other literature, plus some creative input from the author's imagination where needed.

Toto

You have lost contact with the original argument.

It is not about any old oral traditions. The specific claim is that the gospel writers relied on oral traditions of the historical Jesus which can be traced back to eyewitnesses or his original followers. No other oral traditions need apply. This claim has been subject to so much discussion that debaters can refer to "oral traditions" and most other debaters will understand the reference.

If you want to claim that as a generality, the gospel writers used some other oral traditions of no historical import, you are not stating anything of interest about the historical Jesus.

JonA

I made no such claim.

An author cannot pass his story off as being true if his audience cannot even recognize the major parts.

But, I've started a thread on this; more can be said there.

Jon

Toto

You said "For sure, though, the gospel writers made use of all three of these sourcing techniques in the writing of their gospels; assuming that they made use of only one or two of them would be to set the gospels off as being truly unique ancient documents, which we have no reason to believe them to be."

You wish to differentiate this from "you claimed that it would be inconceivable for early Christian literature not to contain oral traditions, because otherwise they would be unique."

Please explain the difference.


You seem to be making some assumptions here that I do not recognize.

Do you think the gospel writers were trying to pass a story off as "true"? Why? Do you think that anyone remembered anything about Jesus when they were written? Why?

I can split these posts off and merge them into the new thread if it goes anywhere.

mountainman

Jesus also makes pointed comments about the necessity of his rich taxable associate apostles and followers of paying the Romans their customary taxation tribute, as demanded by Caesar of all his subjects.

Render unto The Lord God Caesar the things which are the Boss's like gold and tax payments,
and after that we'll talk a little bit about the other God."

radius

I am not sure how/why it would be significant if the gospels did share characteristics with ancient bioi (and it would hardly be surprising if writers of that period had read Plutarch) - or if we could say that they belonged to the same 'genre' - but FWIW I can't really see any point of comparison between the gospels and, say, Plutarch's or Suetonius's bioi, that is not superficial.

The points of dissimilarity are on the other hand very substantial.

ApostateAbe

OK, what are those points of dissimilarity, in your opinion? There may be some such points, but the relevant challenge is to make the case that those points of dissimilarity are great enough to make a case that a different genre makes for a better fit.

And, welcome to the forum.

radius

The points of similarity are very generic: both the gospels and bioi cover a person's birth, career and death, and are written in prose. Among many rather obvious observations (often a characteristic of PhD theses!) Burridge reports that person to be the subject of many verbs. (At this generic level one might more usefully note a significant dissimilarity in word-count).

The points of dissimilarity are more fundamental matters of texture and content: most notably in the bioi there is a strong sense of the person. They focus on the individual as a player in history, they are up-close and personal. The early attempts to describe the subject's physical appearance is just the most obvious example of this. So, for example, we learn from Suetonius that Caesar was "said to have been tall, with fair skin, slender limbs, a face that was just a little too full, and very dark, piercing eyes". Plutarch adds that he was slightly built; and of course contemporaneous sculpture and coinage also show us what he looked like. Plutarch tells us about Cicero’s smiley face, the faint dent at the end of his nose, what languages he spoke, and how he sounded. I remember the first time I read Plutarch being struck by his description of Sulla's pale complexion and glaring blue eyes – and the before-he-was-famous tittle-tattle: I was able to imagine the person behind the terrible tyrant of the history books. This sense of the person appears to be fundamental to the ancient bios – and completely absent from the main character of the gospels.

This is in line with Plutarch's own declaration that "it is not Histories I am writing, but Lives" – that he is interested in personal shows of virtue and vice, in slight things like jokes or phrases that might show the character of the man.

The bioi are also explicitly conscious about being historical bioi - commenting frequently on whether something is likely to be true or not, distinguishing between what is said and the author's own account, referring to sources etc; and likewise about their subject, depicting their characteristics and attitudes in some detail. We are given precise dates for the subject's birth, and other significant events. There is for example a precise date-by-date account of Alexander's final illness and death – for which Plutarch gives a written source. We are given incidental detail and relatively trivial anecdotes (e.g. conversations about the weather) – purely out of interest in the character or his colleagues. The approach and content are entirely different from that of the gospels.

Also significantly different - the bioi use a thin layer of the supernatural on top of specific historical detail, while the gospels' primary content is predominantly supernatural topped by a thinner layer of disjointed events and historical characters in unlikely roles. The bioi may report mythical elements attached to the births and deaths of emperors (e.g. Suetonius' Divus Iulius refers briefly to the fact of his deification and that the common perception concurred with it), while the supernatural content of the gospels is both central and pervasive. In this respect the gospels are more similar to an ancient novel such as The Golden Ass (Burridge might also find that Lucius is the subject of a lot of verbs there, and that a lot of space is given over to significant periods in his life!).

It is interesting, BTW, that the elements of ancient bioi which are clearly mythical are often passed off under cover of arguments from authority: Plutarch knows that Alexander was descended on his father's side from Hercules, mother's side from Achilles because "so much is accepted by all authorities without question"!

In any case the matter of genre has no bearing that I can see on the historicity or reliability of the gospels. Something presented as biography is no more or less likely to be either factual or fictitious than something presented as, say, a romance, or an adventure.

Thank you. I actually joined up a couple of years ago, but never got round to doing much about it!

ApostateAbe

Thank you so much for explanation, radius, I very much appreciate it.

I think the main challenge is to find a genre for the gospels that is a better fit that Greco-Roman biography. We can find a set of variations between the gospels and most of other biographies, presumably just like we can find a set of variations between any other Greco-Roman biography and the majority. The issue is what genre should the gospels be properly placed in, if not Greco-Roman biography. Do the genres bear a better fit to that other genre than Greco-Roman biography?

For example, you pointed out that the gospels don't describe the physical appearance of Jesus, as would be typical in Greco-Roman biographies. It doesn't strike me as an especially relevant dissimilarity, because obviously the gospels describe many other aspects of the life of Jesus--his birthplace, his hometown, his family, his close associations, his sayings, his acts, his travels, his trial, and his death. Do you think that the difference in genre (whatever that genre would be) would help to explain why the gospels don't describe the physical appearance? Do you think that such an absence would be much more expected of a different genre? Such considerations would be important for determining whether the absence of the physical appearance of Jesus is significant to the genre classification or not.

You said:

Also significantly different - the bioi use a thin layer of the supernatural on top of specific historical detail, while the gospels' primary content is predominantly supernatural topped by a thinner layer of disjointed events and historical characters in unlikely roles. The bioi may report mythical elements attached to the births and deaths of emperors (e.g. Suetonius' Divus Iulius refers briefly to the fact of his deification and that the common perception concurred with it), while the supernatural content of the gospels is both central and pervasive.

I figure that this point may carry the illusion of significance merely because modern people draw stark distinctions between the "natural" and the "supernatural," but there were no stark distinctions in the ancient period--the living world, the environment, life, death and the heavenly bodies and natural cycles could only be explained in terms of the "supernatural." If a narrative integrates more supernaturalism than what is normal for that same genre, then I think it follows merely from the religious/cultish adherence of the writer--especially if it is believed that the subject fits an essential role from the most powerful God. Do you think an ancient person would think, "This book contains too much supernaturalism--it seems like some other kind of book, not a biography"?

You said:

The bioi are also explicitly conscious about being historical bioi - commenting frequently on whether something is likely to be true or not, distinguishing between what is said and the author's own account, referring to sources etc

Two of the four canonical gospels--Luke and John--do cite their sources, albeit ambiguous sources, and they do place complete trust in them.

Luke 1:1-4 claims:

Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed.

John 21:24 claims:

In any case the matter of genre has no bearing that I can see on the historicity or reliability of the gospels. Something presented as biography is no more or less likely to be either factual or fictitious than something presented as, say, a romance, or an adventure.

If we think Mark and Matthew belong in the same genre as Luke and John (and that would be an extremely probable conclusion, though some disagree), then maybe it isn't such a relevant criterion.

You said:

In any case the matter of genre has no bearing that I can see on the historicity or reliability of the gospels. Something presented as biography is no more or less likely to be either factual or fictitious than something presented as, say, a romance, or an adventure.

You agree, though, I take it, that ancient biographies were written with the intention to be believed as fact by the readers. To give you my perspective, the bearing is indirect. I don't place trust in an ancient source for being a biography, but I do take their seeming intentions as biographies (intended by the authors to be believed by the readers) as one of the essential ways to plausibly fit it into a historical theory. For example, I argue that all myths of doomsday cult leaders are based on historical doomsday cult leaders each of the same rough profiles as the myths, as the pattern of history and the present day shows. This argument wouldn't be so relevant for anyone who thinks the gospels are actually intended as tragic plays or fictional novels (as some members of the forum really believe or suspect), since I would guess that some fictional characters of doomsday cult leaders are really nothing more than pure fiction.

You don't need to respond to any of this--my counterpoints give up enough ground that maybe a successful case for an alternative genre can be made, if that alternative genre fits the gospels closely enough, which is the essential point. I am grateful for your time and trouble.