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Previous thread: Abe's Case for the Historical Jesus (Part 2: Nazareth)
Baptism by John The four gospels each tell a story of the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist (JtB), but each with their own unique spin. From earliest to latest:
How do mythicists explain this? The spin and embarrassment of the gospels (especially the later gospels) is much too plain to ignore, so they may grant at least the point that Christians were embarrassed by the belief in the baptism. It is still possible that it is a mere myth that somehow came about and it became embarrassing only later. It is not so often that mere myths become embarrassing to the cult, however. Rather, it is the rule for historical realities. No matter. Robert Price floats the idea that the character of JtB could have been inspired by the Semitic fish god Dagon (as does Arthur Drews), and possibly the baptism was inspired by Zoroaster immersing himself in water and being met by an archangel. The possibilities are endless, and Robert Price is indiscriminate with them. Next thread: Abe's Case for the Historical Jesus (Part 4: Doomsday Prophecies) |
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#2 | |
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#3 | |
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Is your primary argument here an Argument from Authority? Joseph ErrancyWiki |
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#5 | ||
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"It is the consensus of modern scholarships that it is "fact:" that John baptized Jesus" Not a explanation. |
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#6 | |
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![]() I don't think we really know enough about JtB doctrine to state this with certainty. Where do these sources come from? exactly, a different culture far removed from the actual events who had their own theological motive and could not play John as a equal teacher, could they? Quote:
Are you that sure Jesus just didn't take over Johns work in a fashion that would not result in his head being cut off? |
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Authority is the only category of External Evidence you have referenced. If it is not your primary source of evidence than Internal Evidence must be. Your Argument from Embarrassment is a Literary Criticism argument. If you are looking at Literary Criticism than you also have to look for evidence of fiction (which has been explained to you in detail many times here). The extent of the Impossible/Improbable specifically in the Baptism story and in "Mark" in general is exponentially better evidence for fiction than your Argument from Embarrassment. So only considering Literary Criticism, the better explanation is fiction. You need the supposed External evidence to try and help you here. You keep trying to proof-text HJ despite the types of corrections above. You have to look at ALL categories of evidence for AND against history. You have been shown this so many times that I have to wonder if either you do not understand what a proper Methodology would be or are incapable of doing so. Instead of trying to give answers and arguments you should be giving questions and researching what a good methodology would be. If we do not know the Provenance of "Mark", who wrote it, why was it written, when was it written, etc., Literary Criticism has relatively little weight, exponentially so, with all the Impossible/Improbable. You also can not ignore that "Mark" is anti-historical witness. History may still be a better explanation than fiction but that conclusion would be so weak that it may be misleading to make it. Why not just say that the evidence is so weak, it is uncertain if it was history? You seem to be afraid that that is evidence for MJ. It's not, that would still have to be proven. Joseph ErrancyWiki |
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#8 | |
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At least he is making a stand and forming his own hypothesis <edit> Its where my hat goes to Earl for being one of the few who provides a complete replacement hypothesis. Even though I don't agree with him, I respect him. |
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#9 |
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but its not a hypothesis - its a mix of poorly related premises. Not even a decent formal argument
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There is no claim whatsoever in any Gospel in the Canon that the baptism story is an historical account or was intended to be historical.
It is already known that parts of the baptism story must be fiction. The Holy Ghost bird and the voice from heaven were made up. Now, without the Holy Ghost bird and the voice from heaven the baptism would not make much sense. There is no corroboration of the supposed baptism without the Ghost bird and Heaven's Voice. |
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