bacht

I like the Mark = satire theory - this also relates to the crucifixion-as-embarassment idea:

Mark's depiction of Jesus was exactly the opposite of what Jews were anticipating: instead of a priestly or warrior leader, Jesus was a lowly anonymous nobody, misunderstood even by his own followers, and executed as a criminal at the request of his countrymen - his career as messiah didn't start until after he was dead, and he had no interest in the political fortunes of Israel proper

A universal saviour perhaps, but only after his own country and people had disappeared (1st and 2nd revolts) - it's not hard to see why Jews had no interest in this kind of messiah

ApostateAbe

My theory is that the gospels were originally advertisements for Ace Roman nails, the toughest for your execution needs.

bacht

skepticdude

I said they use the exact same reasoning behind the criteria of embarrassment, and you didn't refute that point. You must either refute it, or explain why courts of law think the reasoning inherent in the criteria of embarrassment is a good standard by which to measure the truthfulness of testimony, if in fact the criteria is worthless and gets nobody anywhere.

False distinction, since testimony is routinely admitted as evidence, and testimony is what the criteria of embarrassment specifically deals with.

probably because he figured you graduated third grade.

In a court, a defense witness is presumed to tell the truth if the prosecutor cannot figure out how the witness's embarrassing admission about herself would help the defense.

The reasoning is obvious: people don't lie to look bad, but look good. Since the defense witness admitted something embarrassing about herself, and nobody can figure out how such admission would help the defense win the case, then it is more likely the embarrassing detail was a truth.

If you are so sure the criteria gets us nowhere start pulling your own weight in the debate, and demonstrate why a witness would purposefully lie to make themselves look bad, when this result would not further their interests.

aa5874

You have missed the most fundamental part, the author depicted Jesus as the son of the God of the Jews, and called his message to the Jews "the gospel" or "good news".

So, Mark's Jesus was NOT a lowly anonymous nobody he was, according to the author, the Christ the Son of the Blessed.

As soon as you think the author of Mark propagated a Jesus as human, then Jesus becomes a complete disaster, he has no good news, he makes no sense whatsoever. Jesus would just be a madman whose body was probably dumped or left for the dogs and scavenger birds after he was crucified.

But, when you realise that the author presented Jesus as the son of the God of the Jews who had power and authority on earth, sanctioned by his Father, the Creator, to confront the local authorities and to forgive sins, to become a direct alternative to the Mosiac Laws, then the author's Jesus, the son of the God of the Jews, begins to make sense.

Mark 14.60-62 That is Mark's Jesus.

skepticdude

Irrelevent, the court, as you admit, already determined that statements against interest are sufficiently reliable. That's independent of the jury.

Now why do you suppose the courts hold to this general rule, if as you say, that rule (which is basically the same as the criteria of embarrassment), gets nobody anywhere? "sufficiently reliable to be an exception to the hearsay rule" gets us nowhere? Why does that rule exist then if it gets us nowhere?

Irrelevent, the criteria of embarrassment deals strictly with whether a testimony was embarrassing to the giver, and whether the giver did or didn't benefit in some way thereby. If they benefitted, the testimony fails the criteria of embarrassment.

You are unable to determine whether the first person to promote the legend told it because he believed it true, or because he knew it was false and wished to spread false rumors. The criteria of embarrassment requires analysis of the original witness's motives, it cannot apply to urban legends whose originator is unknown.

The benefit of entertaining others would then cause the legend to fail the criteria of embarrassment, even if the entertaining bit of news was otherwise embarrassing to the originator.

In your experience, why do people lie? More to benefit in some way, or wreak unnecessary havoc on their own integrity?

Which provides a benefit to the ancient historian. His benefitting causes his claim to truthfulness of the story to be less probable than had the story caused the author some sort of embarrassment which he wouldn't benefit from.

Perhaps the deathblow to the criteria of embarrassment is the fact that an ancient author can falsely admit to some embarrassing action, to benefit via making his readers think he is objective.

The embarrassing detail, which appears not to benefit the author, may indeed be a lie generated only to make himself look objective. And looking objective is a major benefit!

The rebuttal is that we typically understand embarrassing admissions to be a sign of objectivity, which is why courts of law do too, therefore, the fact that some clever author can con his way into a readers trust doesn't suddenly mean this general rule is hopelessly futile.

ALL rules of historicity, because they only speak about how to gauge probable truth, can be shown to have exceptions if one looks hard enough.

Does that therefore mean that all historiographical rules bite the dust? Not even aa5874 would be that stupid.

Therefore the generalized rules remain effective in spite of the fact that situations can arise which defeat their purpose.

skepticdude

But fools certainly think that the criteria of embarrassment bites the dust just as soon as the crucifixion is proved beneficial to the NT authors' cause.

I'm an atheist, and I'm still puzzling over why other skeptics have said the crucifixion is probably historical since it was embarrassing, since it is clear, as you pointed out so well, that the crucifixion was central to the goals of NT authors to proclaim a resurrected savior. No resurrection from the dead if there's no dead messiah.

However, the fact that you found something which would benefit the NT authors' agenda, does NOT argue that the critiera of embarrassment is ineffective.

I'll take this opportunity to chart a new course for this thread:

The reason the criteria of embarrassment seems to fail so consistently with regard to the New Testament is because the New Testament is religious propaganda, which by nature is a near guarantee that ALL of it's testimony will benefit it's cause.

But other ancient histories are a different monster.

You probably aren't going to find religious propaganda stating too many things that are embarrassing to it's authors!

However, the criteria of embarrassment would fare far better when applied to historical works that don't radiate the extreme level of self-serving testimony which plagues the New Testament. (keeping in mind the exceptions I listed of Paul's reluctant admissions in Galatians 2, and how reports of church division like Acts 15 don't benefit the author as much as leaving them out.)

Are all ancient authors as equally biased as the New Testament authors? Most of us would say no. Well then, outside the obvious extreme propagandizing of the New Testament, the criteria of embarrassment has a better chance of successful application.

Don't clap, just send money :notworthy:

skepticdude

But in the context of that quote, Paul equates those who are "on the road to destruction", not with Christians but with Gentiles as distinct from Christians, the distinction shown also by the contrast between those Gentiles and the "we" (Paul and the largely Gentile Corinthian church):

However, if it could be shown that other original Christians did not hail the crucifixion, this would isolate Paul still further from the orignal discples. I believe I have shown that in other posts where I defend Baur's thesis, in part, by citing Acts 21, where tens of thousands that compose James's congregation, maintain their zeal for Mosaic ceremony and law after their Christian conversion. It is absurd to think they'd give heed to sacrifices like this if the gospel they converted to, preached by James, had said Jesus made those laws obsolete by his death.

Therefore, the death of Jesus may indeed have been something embarrassing to original Christians.

Sacrifice was not just practiced but hugely ritualistic., hmmmm.

That's true, but it doesn't change the fact that the embarrassment must relate to the original testifier to be used properly. In my experience, black people call each other the n-word, not in reluctant admission of something they think is true, but in defiance of those who think the word signifies something wholly rotten. As such, the black person who says that word is benefitting because he knows his black friend (these days it may even be a white friend) will approve of such classification.

The trailer park down the street from my house is full of single white mothers who call each other "nigga" with about every 5th word they speak. The term of derision is used by them to benefit themselves (speak in a way accepted by the other party). I never go there unless i wear extemely baggy pants and turn my baseball cap sideways. Sometimes I also lift up my sports shirt and stroke my stomach for no apparant reason while I'm there so the tenants will think I hate cops and would steal a radio in a heartbeat if I could find a buyer.

skepticdude

Wouldn't you say that characterizing Mark's view of Jesus this way is overstating the case?

Does Mark really tell us about a Jesus that is an "anonymous nobody"?

aa5874

But, there is a little problem, those who you think would use the CoE do not, that is, outside of propagandizing of the New Testament, the CoE has no users.