jakejonesiv

The disciples are as fictional as the rabbits.

Jake

Damian

Honestly, sometimes it seems ridiculous to even attempt to discuss the gospels in a historical light. I mean, at the core, the bible is myth. In its present form, it is combined with other stories that are intended to be historical, but are clearly not (such as the Exodus). We have a collection of texts that all purport to be historical without being historical. Why should the gospels be treated any differently? The garden of eden did not exist, the exodus did not happen, the parting of the red sea did not happen. Why change the criteria/methodology for determining the historicity of the NT mythology?

Ben C Smith

Jake, I am confused. Help me out.

1. J. J. compared cutting away the miracles in Jesus to cutting away the impossibilities in Watership Down, impossibilities which would extend to a human author knowing what a rabbit was thinking and saying:

2. You then asked:

3. In keeping with the theme of cutting out impossibilities, I answered:

I even further explained:

4. Now you respond:

Even if I were to grant your point completely (which I do not), what has that to do with taking clearly impossible elements out of the story? Having disciples is not impossible.

Ben.

Damian

I can answer for him. People keep replying with logical fallacies. Instead of removing the rabbits, why not (gasp!) change the rabbits to humans (stripping out the impossible element), so then you have actual, possibly real characters? I can see why one would respond out of frustration as he did with the disciples/rabbits both being fictional comment...because the counterpoints are intellectually inconsistent. The counterpoint is "rabbits are fake, so the analogy is gone." That's bullshit. Proper logic should be removing their implausible attributes, meaning make them human instead of rabbits. Instead of making them human and allowing that the story could be true and based on real characters, you say "rabbits can't talk, remove the rabbits, no story."

By your logic, we should be able to say "Jesus could not have rose from the dead, been born of a virgin, and have been part of a holy trinity of immortality, so remove him completely from the story." I.e., Jesus = rabbits.

Be consistent.

Ben C Smith

Can you do so politely?

I presume you meant intelligent rabbits. Beyond that point, the tone turns sour. I will be happy to converse with you under circumstances less stressful than these seem to be for you.

Ben.

jjramsey

Except that's not one of the arguments that is in play here. We are all in agreement that falsehoods do get passed off as fact. Rather, the point is that if embellished history is commonplace, then it does no good to say, "Well the gospels have fictional elements, so they must be fiction." One has to make a positive case that it makes more sense to interpret the Gospels as wholly rather than partially fictional. So far, I'd say that this positive case is hampered needing to explain away various bits of prima facie evidence pointing the other direction.

Changing the rabbits to humans is not stripping out the implausible elements, but changing the elements in place. It is a bad analogy for removing embellishments.

If the Gospels are second-century documents, then they would describe a failed prophet, since by this point, Mark 9:1 would be an obvious falsehood, unless one resorted to rationalizations to route around its plain meaning ... and then, why not write it in a way that such rationalizations would be unnecessary? This obviously poses a problem for them being authored in the second century.

If the Gospels are first-century documents, then you are right in the sense that they do not present Jesus as having failed in his predictions, but they do present him making predictions which we now know are wrong.

Strictly speaking, this is incorrect. An apocalyptic Jesus does not require the Gospels to be wholly accurate; actually, all it demands of them is that they are correct in indicating that the gist of his teaching was: "The final judgment is coming soon, so shape up so you'll be rewarded as righteous, not punished as wicked." This is certainly indicated by the Synoptics. We do have some confirmation outside the Synoptics. Even in Paul, who emphasizes salvation by faith, says things like "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" (Phil. 2:12), and he certainly believed that the end was coming Real Soon Now(TM). We see backpedaling from predictions of a soon-to-come end in 2 Peter and the Gospel of John. (Yes, John is a gospel, but one could say that 2 Peter confirmed John on this point.) Also, apocalypticism certainly fits with the Jewish milleu in which the Gospels show Jesus.

Damian

Impolite? Crazy, i thought it was impolite to be inconsistent and feign ignorance in discussions such as these. To each his own.

Ben C Smith

1. No, it is not impolite to be inconsistent.
2. Yes, it is impolite to feign ignorance, but I did not do so.

Your point was worthwhile, and deserves comment. I recoil, however, at the unwelcome manner in which you made your point, especially in a first post to me; and a circle of angry water buffalo could not keep me in a conversation to which I know my input is not welcome.

Ben.

Damian

You gathered up all that because i used the word "bullshit?" That took quite a bit of gymnastics.

It's not all about you, Ben. Don't take it personally.

jakejonesiv

The words of Mark 9:1 (and 13:26) are address to the audience. It is their generation that will see these things come to pass, more fully expounded on in chapter 13. There again, Jesus nominally seems to be addressing the disciples, but it is really the reader who will understand (Mark 13:14).

The "generation that shall not pass" (13:30) and "some of them that stand here who shall not taste death" (9:1) are those people alive at the time that these things start to come to pass.

So, unless you argue that Jesus really did forsee the future, the question resolves to, when did these things start to come to pass? This gives a clue to the time of composition.

The best fit is the Bar Kochba war (132-135 CE). See THE SYNOPTIC APOCALYPSE (MARK 13 PAR): A DOCUMENT FROM THE TIME OF BAR KOCHBA by Hermann Detering.

Jake Jones