bacht

The 'evidence' we have is written narratives. The best explanation of their contents is as embellished history or pure invention. Until other evidence appears there's no way to know for sure how much, if any, of the Christian story as written can explain the early history of Christianity.

We also have apocryphal/non-canonical material, and a few non-Christian references. There may be some clues here, maybe not.

ApostateAbe

You say, "pure invention," much like Toto claimed that all of the elements of Mark can be traced to Jewish scriptures, and I don't know if that is hyperbole or if you literally believe it. I wonder such a thing because the narratives can not possibly be "pure invention" if they incorporated people who are attested historical people, such as John the Baptist, Pontius Pilate, Peter and John. Yes, I know that the counterpoint is made that plenty of fictional accounts incorporate real people and real events, but that means that even such fictional accounts are not "pure invention." If the gospels really are a mix of non-historical myth and genuine history, then it seems like the perspective that almost everything in the gospels are basically made up is at a disadvantage from the start. It is not an impossibility, so maybe focus on the details.

Let's keep focus on the baptism of Jesus. What is your explanation for the four JtB and Jesus narratives in the four gospels? Why was JtB so ridiculously humble, in Mark? Why did JtB claim that Jesus should baptizing JtB instead of the reverse, in Matthew? Why was JtB in jail at the time of the baptism of Jesus, in Luke? Why was JtB part of the story but the baptism was skipped, in John? Whatever your explanation or set of explanations may be, do you believe that such explanations are better than the explanation that there really was a historical baptism?

EDIT: You did consider the possibility that the narratives are "embellished history," and I apologize for overlooking that.

Steven Carr

Could you repeat where 'Mark's' Gospel shows the result of 30 years of Christians trying to spin away Jesus being baptised by John the Baptist?

Mark does portray John the Baptist as Elijah returned to earth,to proclaim the Messiah to come.

Obviously this is fiction, and not an 'undeniable fact'.

As Mark needed an Elijah-figure, why could he not invent John the Baptist as being that figure?

A fictional meeting between Jesus and the Elijah-figure would work just as well as a real one, so the whole criterion of embarrassment fails.

You have to show that Mark was embarrassed when he wrote about how rival religious figures humbled themselves before his religious figure.

If he had been embarrassed by the baptism, he would never have written it, but there is a very good reason why he would take the opportunity to knock down other religious figures by inventing fictional scenes of them making grovelling speeches of 'Not worthy.Not worthy.'

ApostateAbe

OK. You asked, "So what happened to those 30 years of spin before Mark wrote?" And I answered:

There actually seems to be abundant spin in the baptism story of Mark, which is easy to miss if you gloss over it because you have already heard about it dozens of time in Sunday school and sermons. Mark quotes John as saying, "After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie." It is an absurdly humble thing to say that makes sense only if Christians wanted to emphasize a very strong point that John is inferior to Jesus, which makes sense if people may be led to believe that the baptizer is superior to the baptizee. The baptism itself is spun into a miracle story, with God saying to Jesus, not John, "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased." Nobody can read the story in Mark without being left with the impression that Jesus is superior to John, regardless of who baptizes who.

We both agree that the role of JtB representing "Elijah" is myth, little to do with the history. But, the thing I concluded to be an "undeniable fact" of the time and place was that Jesus was baptized by JtB, that is the baptism event itself, not that JtB represented Elijah. That seems to be the best explanation for the four accounts in the four canonical gospels. Tell me your explanation for the accounts of the baptism event, and we can contrast our explanations.

dog-on

Abe, if Mark held an Adoptionist theology, as in Jesus became the Christ at his baptism, do you still need to see this as a historical event for it to make sense in the story?

Toto

This is not an error - see his section on Mark Q overlaps. Michael Turton put this together after reading everything on Mark.

I do not ask you to automatically accept the arguments on any website, but that website is a useful compendium of the sources of Mark, with detailed footnotes. You could at least read the arguments and the facts that they are based on before you decide to reject them.

If John the Baptist is historical, Mark recasts him as Elijah. The portrait of Pilate in Mark is not based on any history that we know of.

There are some elements of Mark's story that can be traced to Greek mythology or to the works of Philo, so it is hyperbole to say that all elements go back to the Septuagint. And I assume that there is some role for imagination. But there is nothing left that has to be historical because there is no other explanation.

ApostateAbe

For sure, because an apparently-embarrassing baptism account is not required or even much expected of an Adoptionist theology. Something like the Transfiguration is all that is needed for God to adopt Jesus. That isn't to say that Adoptionists didn't use the baptism account as a means of adoption--they apparently did. It sort of reminds me of the modern uses of vestigial organs, like the human appendix being used for minor digestive functions that a less-faulty organ could just as easily fulfill. The secondary ad hoc modern uses for it does not do much to undercut the explanation that it had a much more relevant origin.

dog-on

Embarrasing to who, Abe?

Your apologetic fails because you are assuming something that the story itself does not support based on reading later stories into it.

ApostateAbe

OK, so maybe it wasn't so much an amateur blunder as it was a faulty generalization, that the argument of one scholar or small set of scholars represents the "majority of scholars"? I am at least fairly certain that the majority of scholars do not argue that Mark sourced Q, but I suppose that such a mistake is more forgivable. Thank you for that.
Yes, you are right, thank you.
Great, thanks for the clarification.

ApostateAbe

The embarrassment is as explicit as it can be in the account of Matthew, and there is at least a fair interpretation that embarrassment can be discerned in the account of Mark. Since Matthew sourced Mark and both authors belonged to the same religion with presumably the same religious rivalry with the followers of JtB, I would say that the winning interpretation of the baptism account of Mark is that Mark found the baptism account to be somewhat embarrassing and he spun it into Jesus being the superior of JtB. Now, maybe to you, that is "assuming something that the story itself does not support based on reading later stories into it," but I actually find nothing wrong with that, especially if there is no better explanation for the extreme humility of JtB in Mark, which means that the "story itself" really does support the explanation. If you have a better explanation, then that is what will count the most.