andrewcriddle

FWIW Blackhirst's views on the Gospel of Barnabas
(which can be read here http://www.depts.drew.edu/jhc/Blackhirst_Barnabas.html )
are admittedly highly speculative and not IIUC generally shared among scholars.

Andrew Criddle

JohnHud

Atwill's book Caesar's Messiah begins with a very detailed comparison of passages in the Gospels with certain passages of Josephus that describe Roman battles. For instance, the passage in which Jesus calls his followers to be 'fishers of men' by the Lake of Galilee is compared to the Roman battle where Titus attacked a band of Jewish rebels led by a leader named Jesus. The rebels fell into the water and those who were not killed by darts “attempted to swim to their enemies, the Romans cut off either their heads or their hands� (Jewish War III,10). These events at the Lake of Galilee start out the Judean careers of both Titus and Jesus.

Next Atwill examines the case of the Gadara demoniac. The demons leave the man at Jesus' bidding and then enter into a herd of 2,000 swine which rush wildly into the sea and drown. In the Roman campaign Vespasian marched against Gadara. The rebel 'tyrant', John, was the one 'head' to which all past insolent actions were reduced (which parallels the way the demons concentrate within the demoniac). Then rushing about “like the wildest of wild beasts� the 2000 rebels rush over the cliff and drown.

Professor Robert Eisenman says that if what Atwill's findings are even parttially confirmed then Christianity and the world built upon it is "looking into the abyss"

JH

JH

JohnHud

what Bede does not understand---and he should read Atwill's book before commenting on it-- is that some systems of parallel are genuine.

This is how hebrew literature was written--using typology

JH :wave:

Vorkosigan

Well, not quite. There were some pretty nasty reviews on Amazon, as I recall.

Yup.

Clivedurdle

OK, how does this relate?

Are the Gospels Roman Plays?

Vorkosigan

I'll tell you how, CliveDurdle: because both authors make the same error, overreaching into unfounded speculation that makes their arguments into nonsense.

Sammer is an extremely perceptive commentator and sometimes has great insights, judging by his posts on XTALK. Let's suppose he had simply written: "here is a pile of evidence that shows the Passion is built out of a Roman play." Heads might nod, for it is a commonplace that Mark, at least, is shot through with Hellenistic literary and dramatic conventions.

But Sammer didn't stop there. Instead, he had to speculate that it was by Seneca, that it was the ninth play, etc, all this other stuff for which there isn't even one iota of evidence. Thus, nobody pays him much attention even though there's probably quite a bit that's useful in there. It doesn't help that Sammer's site does not list and deal with counterarguments to his position.

Similarly, if Atwill* had simply stopped at "hey, look, this gospel scene might be paralleling this scene from Josephus" heads might have nodded and his theory might have found limited acceptance and room for development. But instead he has to project a whole historical background for which there is not one iota of evidence onto the gospels. Nor, I suspect from the chapters he placed on the Net, does he interact with contrary arguments. Hence, Atwill will be dismissed as a crank, as Bede has correctly predicted. The real crime is that he might actually be onto something -- just like Sammer -- but we'll never know, because he didn't know how to present the information in a restrained and useful way that would indicate its relationship BOTH to the texts AND to previous and possibly future scholarly inquiry.

A good comparison is Dennis MacDonald's The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark. MacDonald was a recognized scholar working in a field where he has expertise. He came out with a wild theory, and then began working out parallels. His opening chapters lay out his case carefully and conservatively. His parallels are laid out point by point, and each is explained. He states principles by which judgments can be made. He references other scholarly literature. He does not make wild speculations about who the writer of Mark was or why he used Homer or engage in unfounded historical claims that overturn accepted history, without an iota of evidence. Consequently, his book was accepted into discourse, discussed, and rejected as wrongheaded (a judgment I have come to agree with).

That's the path Atwill and Sammer should follow.

Hope this helps.

Vorkosigan
*Possible bias warning: I sent Atwill $5 for file of draft version. Never got a usable version. He owes me five clams! This may be biasing my position.

andrewcriddle

How far Professor Eisenman is being quoted in context I don't know.

However his own (improbable) reconstruction of Christian origins with James the Just as the Dead Sea Scrolls 'Teacher of Righteousness' probably requires some sort of historical Jesus.

Andrew Criddle

JoeWallack

JW:
Unlike your belief in the Impossible assertions of the CB the Flavian hypothesis is actually Possible so someone with your Beliefs could not Possibly describe it as "garbage" (doesn't suit you).

We don't need to wonder in general if the Gospellers sometimes presented copies of other writings that they knew were not historical without explicitly referencing the source because we can see that this is exactly what "Matthew" and "Luke" did.

Regarding the Gadara parallel, since such an Impossible story could not possibly be history the odds that it was based on previous writing and not history increases exponentially. This would also explain why "Mark" used "Gadara" even though the real Gadara didn't fit the specifics of the story (eh Vork).

JohnHud, I would assume that Atwill's book also discusses "Mark's" use of "The son of Timaeus, Bartimaeus" as a possible reference to Plato's Timaeus? Is it Possible that "Matthew" and "Luke" excised "Timaeus" from their stories because they saw the connection to Plato and that the blind faith and dishonest scholarship of Christianity has unwittingly permitted "Mark" to survive as a clue to the True origin of the JeSuspecies?



Joseph

"It ain't no Mysteries,
whether it's Politics, Religion or Histries.
The thing you gotta know iz,
Everything is Show Biz!"

- Poster on the Coliseum advertising the new Hit Roman Musical - The Soul Producers

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Errors...yguid=68161660

http://hometown.aol.com/abdulreis/myhomepage/index.html

andrewcriddle

The disciples called to be fishers of men at Galilee and the demoniac healed at Gadara are synoptic (In fact the reference to Gadara is probably only in Matthew. Mark and Luke seem originally to be Gerasa or Gergesa).

The sparing of John and death of Simon are found only in John (and this interpretation depends on identifying 'the disciple whom Jesus loved' with the apostle John, an identification based more on harmonising John with the other gospels than on the text itself.) The synoptic pasasge Mark 10:35-45 and parallels seems to suggest the death of John but this is traditionally reinterpreted to harmonise with the gospel of John and other material.

I do hope that Atwill is not comparing the life of Titus in Josephus to a harmonised version of all four gospels.

Andrew Criddle

Clivedurdle

But this is quite normal in the building of hypotheses and theories - there were several attempts at evolution before Darwin, there is huge discussion in Physics about several subjects,

The whole point of discussion is not to go yah rubbish but to work out if there is something important by looking at it from a different perspective. Hypotheses may go to far- Newton had pages and pages of stuff that was irrelevant. Copernicus did not clearly and simply state his case!