spamandham

That may be clear to you, but it certainly isn't to me. If Mark was originally allegorical fiction, at some point, obviously, people came to think of it as historical.

The fact that say, the author of Luke, took Mark to be historical (did he? could the historical aspects be a later addition?) does not indicate to me that Luke knew what the original genre was. Instead, it implies merely that, Luke thought it was historical. In other words, unless Luke is dated very close to Mark, it adds little if anything to the argument of the original genre of Mark. The same applies to the other 2nd century sources who assumed Mark to be historical.

I agree he does, but then again, Josephus IS clearly a historian attempting to write in the historical genre. We don't know that a priori regarding the author of Mark.

aa5874

But if you read chapter 15 of First Apology by Justin Martyr, entitled "What Christ Himself Taught", it should be clear that JM was making references to some gospel writings that appear to follow parts of the Synoptics, although he, strangely, never mentioned the names of the authors.

First Apology 15: (KJV) Matthew 5.28-29 "FA "15: Matthew 5.44 "First Apology" is littered with scriptures that appear to follow the Synoptics, which is an indication that JM was aware of the gospels, however he appeared to be ignorant of their authors, since he never mentioned Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, "Paul" or anyone else as their authors.

patcleaver

From dictionay.com

fic·tion /ˈfɪkʃən/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[fik-shuhn] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun
1. the class of literature comprising works of imaginative narration, esp. in prose form.
2. works of this class, as novels or short stories: detective fiction.
3. something feigned, invented, or imagined; a made-up story: We've all heard the fiction of her being in delicate health.
4. the act of feigning, inventing, or imagining.
5. an imaginary thing or event, postulated for the purposes of argument or explanation.
6. Law. an allegation that a fact exists that is known not to exist, made by authority of law to bring a case within the operation of a rule of law.

If Mark meets any of these definitions of fiction, or even if he meets some other definition I find in a commonly used dictionary, then its reasonable to call it fiction. If Mark is not "true" then its fiction in the broad sense of that word.

Chariton of Aphrodisias was a Greek author who wrote fiction in the Greek tradition. Mark is writing fiction from another traditon. We do not know if he was Jewish or Roman or Semarian or Alexandrian, but we know it was fiction because of all the indictions of fiction.

patcleaver

The people you call "experts in the field" are in fact "insane crackpots", and all these stories that are no more likely than "UFOs invading the earth and propping up Jesus as their fake messiah" are all far more likely than their insane crackpot belief that Mark is true.

patcleaver

I do not disagree that your suppositions are possible, but they do not seem any more likely than many other possibilities.

Assuming that the "First Apology" itself is not a later forgery, it is at least as likely that whoever wrote the Synoptics incorporated the sayings of Jesus from the First Apology. At this time the gospels were still evolving documents that were being revised to incorporate new material. Justin Martyr may be inventing saying of Jesus right here in his "First Apology" that someone later incorporated into Matthew.

Alternatively, these sayings of Jesus may be part of an oral tradition barrowed from some of the dozens, perhaps hundreds, or pagan suffering and resurrected savior cults that existed centuries before Justin Martyr wrote his "First Apology".

The Jesus seminar determined that about 80% of the sayings of Jesus in the Synoptics just paraphrase previous sayings of others before the time of Jesus so they may have been common throughout the Roman Empire.

Solitary Man

It's possible, certainly so. But the total lack of evidence for anyone thinking it purely as an allegorical fiction seriously hurts that argument.

Sure! But it's evidence. Why are you implying the absolute here?

It does not imply merely that. Remember, Luke is writing very closely to Mark. In a similar fashion, people take the Lord of the Rings as fiction. This is indicative for future generations that indeed the Lord of the Rings was intended as fiction.

I don't see your reasoning. I think you're ignoring the [strikeout]logic[/strikeout] common sense of the argument.

Well, actually, he isn't, if you want to get technical, but that's besides the point. So back to the topic, how do you know that Josephus is writing history? Isn't it fairly clear that those closest to him didn't use him as anything but history as indicative of his genre?

patcleaver

Very funny, Freudian slip, of course Irenaeus was a male - how could a blatantly misogynist religion ever consider a women to be anything more than a disgusting breeder.

Tertullian (c160-c225) explains Christianity to women as follows:

What do you mean ran - Christians are still running the greatest forgery mill that ever existed and Christian fraud is rampant. The Christian bible is still full of intentional mistranslations - even though we know they are wrong. All the people suspected of planting the Piltdown Hoax were Christians. Just look through the material on ID and young earth to see fanatics spreading lies. Look at the announcements of a scrap of Mark in the Dead See Scrolls. Biblical archeology finds Noah's arc every 10 years, and they find chariot wheels preserved from Yahweh's destruction of the Egyptian army at the start of the Exodus. Fundamentalists are rewriting early American history and inventing fraudulent quotes of the founding fathers to support their argument that this country was founded on Christianity and its laws based on the 10 commandments. Christians engaging in holocaust denial by claiming that Hitler was an atheist. The head librarian of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate Library in Jerusalem conveniently losing Clement's letter regarding the secret gospel of Mark. Evangelicals making and spreading movies that fraudulently document miracles in which people rise from the dead, are cured of all kinds of diseases, faith in Jesus turning around the lives of people who, in fact, always believed in Jesus. The miracle of 100,000 people who saw the sun dance in 1917 in Fatima, Portugal. In June 1988, in Nairobi, Kenya, 6,000 believed they saw Jesus Christ suddenly appear in broad daylight. Baptists burning copies of Harry Potter. Televangelists faking all sorts of miracles, such as Jim Jones curing people and walking on water. President Bush claiming that God told him to invade Iraq. The list goes no and on and on.

I have no reason to think that the writings of Eusebius are not also heavily redacted by later Christians to support their political and/or theological arguments.

spamandham

If he wasn't Jewish, then he was at least familiar with the Jewish scriptures, and his audience was Jews - considering that his Gospel appears to be constructed from the Jewish scriptures.

spamandham

It doesn't hurt it in my mind. Very few texts exist from the 1st/2nd century other than those that people made copies of because they were deemed important. The existence of texts biased toward historicity implies nothing other than the lineage that assumed historicity survived - something we already know to be the case. It does not imply the lack of competing beliefs early on.

I'm not implying absolutes. I'm implying that the fact Luke thought it historical is not relevant evidence in determining the original genre, unless it is first shown that Luke is reasonably contemporary to Mark. The original genre is best determined from internal evidence, not external evidence from possibly half a century later or more.

Possibly, possibly not. This is probably why we disagree. I do not assume that Luke is writing very closely to Mark. Without that assumption the argument collapses. There is a further implied assumption that Luke is NOT attempting revisionist history. I don't think that's a fair assumption either. After all, what else would be his motive for rewriting Mark, except to insert his own revisionist spin?

It's possible that Luke wrote 80+ years after Mark, and may have continued to be edited much later still. It has not been demonstrated, that the portions of Luke which indicate the writer believed Mark to be historical, date relatively close to Mark. That's the first step to be shown before there is any reasonable argument to be made regarding evidence that the original genre was history.

aa5874

Marcion of Pontus and his disciples, the Marcionites, according to Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Eusebius and other Church fathers, thought that gMark and gMatthew were fiction.

And Justin Martyr's evidence is compiled when Marcion was alive.

Excerpts from "First Apology" XXVI by Justin Martyr Excerpts from "First Apology" LVIII by Justin Martyr Justin Martyr has evidence and his witnesses were alive while he was writing. gMark was considered fiction by many, and I haven't even mentioned Valentinus and the Valentinians who presented another Christ quite unlike the one in gMark.

This is Irenaeus on the Christ of Valentinus and the Valentinians:

Excerpts from "Against Heresies" 1.2.4 So, according to the Church fathers, there is evidence that there were many people who believed that gMark was fiction, and there are more.