Jedi Mind Trick

Hello again.

How does this theory mesh with the observations that some have made regarding the structure of Mark and it's parallels with other Greek literature? I think it was the Iliad or some such... Sorry for being a neophyte.

GakuseiDon

It's parallels were with Homer. So what we have is that the Gospel of Mark was written:
1. Using a complex chiastic structure
2. As a midrashic development of the "Risen Christ" that inspired Paul
3. Using references drawn from the Old Testament
4. Following the structure of Homer (including its inverse at times)
5. Drawing on the writings of Josephus
6. And drawing on key events in the lives of Caesar and Titus (including its inverse at times).

(Did I leave anything out?)

Surely this is proof of Mark's Gospel being an inspired creation by God??? :huh:

rlogan

Vork, thank you for your kind responses.

I see Joe has responded kindly too. Thank you Joe. John Deere? heh. Nothing runs like a Deere. Been to the plant in Iowa.

Then the TF is irrelevant with one provision:

The purpose is strictly to alert the reader to the parallel. I realize I'm the junior varsity scrub here, Vork. But I do not find this compelling. Joe is starting to address that in his post, and I will have to read that carefully and think about it.

Admittedly, I am influenced by also having a darned good explanation already.

The presence in Josephus has been of immesurable import for the Christian Church. It's placement makes perfect sense given the period (Pilate) being discussed. It can't be placed anywhere else. This version of the TF is the most Christian-apologetic of the ones we know of too.

Spin has done some writing at IIDB on how this does not fit in with the rest of the text, and I found that material well written. I need to see a theory that isn't superior to no theory, but rather one that is superior to my working hypothesis.

If you want to advance the argument that this is a literary device of Josephus, then you need to marshal evidence that this is the way Josephus would do this sort of thing. For example, literary conventions of the time, other examples from Josephus' writing and the like. Joe is doing that in his response.

That is what I am getting at with the issue of the need to consider the entire character of Jesus - at least the principle features, and put them side-by-side with Decius.

I can take features of many characters and arrange subsets of them in such a way as to make a "case" for mirror-opposites or parallels, or whatever I want. When you are leading the agenda it is easy to bring an audience along with you in such a thing.

If instead we sit down and rank-order the complete characteristics of each independently and then map out the correspondences after we have done so, then we are on more solid methodological grounds than just taking note of parallels or opposites that fit our thesis.

Since I have only read your blog, Vork - I can't evaluate to what extent he is doing one or the other.


I appreciate that you have disagreed in a dipolomatic tone. Thank you.

Overstating there, buddy. That is one of the reasons why I want a "rank order" of characteristics. When, just as an example, you are pairing up some insignificant characteristic of one found in the recesses of a forgotten passage with the very essence of another, then it is a parallel without merit.

I am not accusing Atwill of doing invalid parallels, but rather that to be convincing to me I want this kind of methodology. I need to study the character of Decius carefully for something like this.

I take your point, but I have not seen any of these. I had a satellite for a few months there, but i found it just wasn't worth it. I've been without a TV for many, many years and don't watch movies.


When I was writing my response I thought I should have made a more detailed statement.

First, I'm an econometrician by trade, Vork. Been doing that for nearly 30 years. Have taught statistics from undergraduate through graduate university levels.

You hear all kinds of "probabalistic" or "what are the odds" type statements from people that have no foundation whatsoever in making a bona-fide test of hypothesis.

It is very easy to construct spurrious associations that fool the untrained. Here, the associaton smacks of "the only two batters who used 28" clubs on a Tuesday after 6 pm on an odd day of the month when the temperature was between 85 and 90 degrees..."

By claiming we should "take note" of the side-by-side presence and the alleged delcarations of God/Not God we are to what, exactly?

Reject that it happened by random chance? And accept the Atwill thesis in its place? Why is random chance even the slightest bit reasonable as a null hypothesis? That's a pretty stupid and easily defeated hypothesis. The fact that the words are arranged in coherent sentences defeats random chance as a hypothesis.


I still disagree that Christ declared himself God and require that you show now the precise "parallels" in writing instead of handwaving. One of the reasons I demand so is that I think this is relying on an anachronistic application of later canon and not contemporaneous textual evidence.









That was my recollection. I googled "Osiris rose on third day" and got lots of hits. I will cite this one that looks to be from Rejection of Pascals Wager citing another work in footnote 9:

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:c...hird+day&hl=en

If that is in error, I am happily corrected. Maybe someone here with a decent command of the area can comment.


"Back-to-back" is again an arbitrary and meaningless distinction as far as parallels go. You picked parallels for me that were not shown in the cinemas in tandem or appearing in a book in tandem. It is not a necessary nor a sufficient condition logically. It has not been shown that statistically, parallels come in tandem whereas non-parallels are in random sequence.

Forgive the professional statistician for demanding some rigor here. But given the above, "noting" two third-day rising stories back-to-back is of no statistical significance.

I want to look at this more closely on my own before further comment.

Quite so. I think I have addressed this with the issue of a complete rank-ordering of the primary characteristics

rlogan

A big welcome to you there, Joe.

It is a handicap that I have read only Vork's blog and this thread. But it is not the first time I have seen the idea in the most general way.

Let me first say that I am sympathetic to the hypothesis of a Roman creation of Christianity. (I think the first time I ran across this was the "Piso" theory.)

And I am most especially sympathetic to the satire and mocking undercurrents. That would be SO rich. har!


I agree that the HB was quote-mined for the construction of Jesus. That is what the Jesus character is all about, in fact.

now here is a real problem for me, joe:


It is a real problem for me that the parallels are notbeing drawn between the TF and the tales that follow. From what I am seeing, and note vork's response, the parallels are between Jesus from the gospels and the material after the TF.

Why has Josephus only given a few sentences in the TF if his intention is to compare a gospel Jesus to the next story he tells? It makes no sense to me. He would refer to a gospel if he wanted to make the comparison, or he would write out the parallels in the TF itself.

I apologize for not being sufficiently familiar with your work, and do encourage exploratory thinking. Good gracious, the "big bang" theory of Jesus and then Christianity is ludicrous.

John Deere

Riogan, I must disagree with your statement:

"the parallels are not being drawn between the TF and the tales that follow. From what I am seeing, and note vork's response, the parallels are between Jesus from the gospels and the material after the TF."


The TF and the Decius tale both have 'third day divinity declarations' and an unusual use of the word 'hedone' - malicious pleasure. Further, if one accepts that the "Jew at Rome" in the third tale is a spoof of Paul - which is difficult to dispute - this links clearly to the TF but not - within the surface narration - to the Decius tale with which it shares so many other concerte parallels. The three tales are an example "pedimental composition", the Hebraic writing technique whereby three stories are linked to exchange information, for example Leviticus 18 - 20. In this technique the center story operates as a central column - is longer in length - and the two shorter side stories provide information through parallels to the central story that creates shades of meaning and context.

If you read Caesar's Messiah you will see that this technique is used throughout the Gospels - as it is with the TF - to inform posterity of the fact that the Flavians invented Christianity.

Joe

Amaleq13

None of those seem to require divine intervention. They aren't even technically incompatible if accepted as influences in the construction of the text rather than complete explanations on their own. Surely one can deconstruct Star Wars or LOTR and find a similar plethora of influences.

Can the same be said of any known record of history?

Amaleq13

Joe,


I don't want to speak for DramaQ (though I do originally come from a small town in Illinois ) but there are two points that I think haven't been adequately addressed.

First, I think the question was not about the negative attitude toward the Jews but toward the original Disciples. Mark's author makes them look like idiots. If the intent was to attract believers, why would one make the original followers look stupid?

Second, how did the Romans make sure that only these four versions of the story were canonized? Is that addressed in your book?

Thanks for your participation in this forum!

rlogan

Thanks, Joe. I am finding this very interesting.

here is what I wish for, Joe:

Place them side by side here. The very text upon which you are making this assertion. I don't mean your inference. I mean the evidence. You may think this absurd, but indulge me.



this was quite interesting, and I am wondering if Spin wants to weigh in on this.

Opening the issue of linguistics is a can of worms that casts doubt on Josephus as the author of the passage.


I'm not quite willing to take that leap without mulling it over more. Seems to me that in the religious mileau such characters would be more common than you would allow here. There are "Jesus" candidates within and without Josephus' writing too.



Now here you are getting some traction, and I appreciate having attention called to the matter. I'm not the one who should be evaluating the data, but on methodological grounds, this approach is what I was requesting from Vork.

My opinion, as unlearned as it may be, is that were someone to do this they could not help but leave clues for other "worthies" to see how clever they were.

______________

Joe, Vork mentioned but did not elaborate on something that is also important to me.


We have had lengthy threads here on the TF, and we have hashd out the evidence on why this "long" version of the TF is a later interpolation. Origen, for example, states that Josephus did not believe Jesus to be the messiah.


The thesis of Roman origins for Christianity does not rise or fall on this point.

I am of the persuasion that the whole thing is an interpolation, along with the doctoring of the James passage.

John Deere

Riogan,

I believe that the TF and the two following tales were created during Domitian's reign. This is because in the Decius Mundus story the Roman puts on a mask of Anubis to fool Paulina and Domitian was also famous for putting on a mask of Anubis to fool people. Domitian was showing that, like his brother, he could be 'Jesus'. This date should at least be considered because it was, after all, the time that Josephus claimed to have written Antiquities.

It is possible it was created later, however. This would not effect my analysis. Bear in mind Constantine was a Flavian.

If I can coax into reading the book - where the context of my interpretation of the TF and the two following tales is established - I am confident that you will find the linkage I posit between the three tales easier to swallow.

Joe

John Deere

Amaleq13,

All of the Gospels portray the disciples as idiots. This simply reflected the authors attitude towards messianic Jews. I do not see how it weighs against my theory however. I would say it supports it.

I cannot answer your second question, though it is an important one.

Certainly, if my thesis is correct, someone maintained strict control over the canon until it was fixed. Perhaps this is what led to the persecution of 'heretics' during the era.

This is my first attempt at blogging and I find it a real pleasure. With easy access global communication there is no excuse for scholars not to engage in open discussion concerning their ideas. In this way the public can see which ideas have merit and which do not.

Joe