Vic333

The gospels do not claim to be eye witnesses, except for a passage at the end of John that has been shown to be a later addition.

The "multiple attestations" have been shown to be literary in nature.

If anyone is going to take the Christian literature as inherent, then they must take all religious texts from all religions as inherent or admit to being biased.

Doug Shaver

I started off thinking they were the divinely inspired word of God. I'd call that a pretty strong prejudice in their favor. Then I started looking for evidence to support that prejudice. I couldn't find any.

andrewcriddle

I think that Q existed and goes back to before 70 CE, I would date Mark around 75 CE and regard it as a source independent of Q. I think that John is largely independent of the Synoptic tradition and dates to c 100 CE. Matthew and Luke (c 90 CE) had access to ancient sources other than Mark and Q but the value of these special sources as evidence for the historical Jesus is questionable.

IIUC Bart Ehrman holds that a substantial amount of what Jesus did and said can be established from the Gospels.

Elaine Pagels is an important scholar but IMHO she gives too much weight to non-canonical texts as evidence for early Christianity.

Andrew Criddle

Johnny Skeptic

As I showed in my post #37, I believe that self-interest is the primary issue, not multiple attestation. How can billions of theists not be interested in self-interest?

Johnny Skeptic

Message to Andrew Criddle: Where did the author of Mark get his information from? How reliable was his information regarding the claim that Jesus performed miracles?

From a Christian perspective, there must be something more to it than just scholarship since skeptic Bible scholars who have Ph.D.'s in religion generally know the Bible much better than laymen do. If there is more to it than just scholarship, what is it? From a Christians, it can't be just an issue of reading one more book, or reading one more post at the FRDB.

brettpalmer

Ok.

In what language were the gospels written and why did everyone struggle with that last word from Deut. 6:5? If Jesus were speaking in Aramaic, for example, and he said, "...love the Lord with all your heart, soul and mind," why did he say "mind" when Deut. doesn't say this? Or, why did the gospel authors choose "mind" or "strength" when Deut. doesn't say this?

By the way, I never argued that Jesus --if he were a real person--never gave a speech similar to that as recorded in the stories of the Greatest Commandment. My point was that gospel narrations of these events are clearly literary inventions. Which then leads to other conclusions which I'll leave you to figure out on your own.

andrewcriddle

I'll try and explain again.

If the narrative refers to a real event then Jesus (debating with a learned scribe in Jerusalem) probably quoted Deuteronomy 6:5 in Hebrew possibly in Aramaic almost certainly not in Greek.

Therefore the original tradition about the event would have been in Aramaic and Hebrew.

However the Gospels were written in Greek. Hence Jesus's quotation of Deuteronomy, (probably in Hebrew maybe in Aramaic) would have to be translated into Greek.

The translators would likely be influenced by the LXX and would face the same problems as the LXX translators in accurately representing the Hebrew by Greek.

Hence assuming FTSOA that problems of translating Hebrew into Greek are the cause of the variations in this pericope between Matthew Mark and Luke, this is in no way evidence that the pericope is a literary invention.

Andrew Criddle

andrewcriddle

The traditions about Jesus' miracles known to Mark appear to have varied in reliability. However, the claim that Jesus performed miracles is found so widely in the Gospel traditions that it would seem to be much older than Mark.

This is supported by the fact that Mark's own theological position would seem to have opposed putting too much weight on "signs and wonders".

Andrew Criddle

JoeWallack

JW:
Oh, at least as old as Elijah/Elisha. Paul/"Mark" have a primary theme that in this world God will not protect you from suffering. Ironically, it's the opposite, belief in God will create suffering for you. Note that it is this theme more than anything else that IDs the long ending as not "Mark".

There is no question that "Mark's" theme is following Jesus will create suffering. The question is why the theme? Is this just copying Paul's theology or is it satirizing it?

Actually our two primary sources of Jesus before "Mark", Paul and Q, do not have any support for Jesus doing miracles. As "Mark's" Jesus parallels very well with Elijah/Elisha ("obsession" would be a better word I think) and the only thing we can be sure of is that there was no historical witness to miracles, there really is no good reason to think "Mark" had any existing tradition of Jesus miracles to work with. What he did have was Paul's theology that Jesus' history was in the Jewish Bible. "Mark" than was the source of Jesus' miracles for "Matthew"/"Luke" again confirming there was no other tradition of Jesus' miracles. "John's" theology is the opposite of "Mark", miracles create faith (a natural progression), rather than "Mark's" faith creates miracles. So "John" needed some new miracles.



Joseph

ErrancyWiki

andrewcriddle

See the Q passage from Luke 7 and parallel verse 21 was probably not in Q but even without it this amounts to a claim that Jesus was working miracles.

Andrew Criddle