TedM

How do you reconcile a known specific historical man in Mark's gospel to an unknown specific man in your theory about Paul's understanding of Jesus? Any way you slice it, this difference is indeed a contradiction, and of course some of Paul's converts would have a problem with it no matter what you think. So there. Now, come on down and we'll go get a steakburger.


I don't know how in the world you can think this. Of course he was worshipped: Didn't he write something like ... every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord ?

EDIT: Ok, I see you are talking about when he was on earth. Christians don't think of the "human Jesus" as ONLY human, and so when they worship Jesus, it's the whole package--even the God-man on earth. It's simply a mind-bender to try and make the distinction in worship. People don't pray "Oh Jesus--the one in heaven--not the who was on earth, thank you for your sacrifice". It's too complicated to think in compartments like that. I think most Christians when they worship Jesus aren't limiting it to the current risen Jesus, but have in mind everything they know about him--which includes the time he was Incarnated.

ted

Amaleq13

I know of no evidence that might inform us how any of the Gospels' original audiences understood them.

That is why I suggested, in an earlier post, that we cannot date acceptance of the stories as historical any earlier than the 2nd century.

As far as I can tell, the backtrail disappears when we enter the 1st century so, no. Papias is our last indicator AFAIK.

TedM

I think the subsequent narratives are evidence of what the original audiences likely also thought of them: They thought of each narrative they used as a source as history, though with some inaccuracies which the new author corrected, or omissions they added to. I can't prove it, of course. It just seems the most likely scenario. There is no suggestion within them that either the authors themselves of the audiences didn't consider the prior ones to be mostly accurate history or shouldn't or wouldn't consider their own to be history, as opposed to complete fictions. Such suggestions IMO would be expected, if ANY of the narratives were written with the intention of being fiction, or considered to have been by anyone more than the village idiot.

ted

Spincracker

Jewish in what sense? Since race is a myth and the nation of Israel did not yet exist as a Nation, that leaves us with Religion. How do we know he was Jewish by religion? Weren't there three Torahs in production in 1st CE?

I'll check it out, but I'm a bit gun shy as another poster pointed out the skewed version of Flavius.

I understand it is difficult to find a truly unbiased source.

Didymus

I'm sorry, but I don't have any idea what you're saying here. Restate?

Sounds like you've come around! The very essence of MJ is that the earliest beliefs of Christians (pagan, scriptural, messianic and otherwise) led "straight up" to the allegedly historical Jesus. (Perhaps "straight up" is a poor choice of words. I always associate it with a straight shot of whiskey.)

"Earliest strata" of which writings? The term isn't pertinent to epistles, so I assume you mean pre-Markan strata. Many scholars believe such writings may have existed with regard to the Passion narrative, but the Passion is so dependent on the OT that the discovery of such writings would be unlikely to produce evidence for historicity. And Q and Thomas don't get you there either; not only are the dates in dispute, but Paul is completely independent of Q and Thomas, and both are sayings gospels, not biographies like Mark.

And you're the one who hates labels! Again, I know what I think those words mean, but I'm not sure what YOU mean. Or what relevance those categories have to this discussion.

If you don't know about the Mystery religions, you haven't crossed the threshold of this subject. Try the Wikipedia entry for starters.

Spinning in his grave, perhaps?

But you said: "For Paul, what Jesus did was everything. It was only after a gospel had been written that people focused on the historical Jesus instead of the son of God's crucifiction and resurrection."

Obviously, what Jesus "did" involved a lot more than the Crucifixion and Resurrection.

It sounds like you're on a quest to "reconstruct" a historical Jesus from Paul's writings alone. But I've noticed that there are some large gaps in your knowledge. There is a tremendous amount of scholarship on the subject; before you spend time chasing wild geese, I strongly suggest that you delve more deeply.

Or very late first century. Again, dating is a very complex topic. A good survey can be found at http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/mark.html.

Voting is bad? Why? Ancient history is often the study of probabilities rather than absolutes, and scholarly consensus is one aspect of historical methodology. That is not to say that the majority is always right, but it's always worthy of serious attention.

I've surveyed the criticism of the Jesus Seminar; I'm sure that there are scholarly critiques by mainstream theologians, but I can only find attacks by fundamentalists. The gist is that the JS views the gospels from a naturalistic perspective, i.e., they play down the miracles and other faith-based mumbo jumbo.

And reading is bad too? Yeesh.

Why not go to the JS website, spend a half-hour, and THEN decide whether their methodology is valid? It's not a waste of time like fundamentalist apologetics; the JS people are sincere and intelligent. They are also skeptical, albeit insufficiently so.

I have yet to hear of a scholar of any persuasion who thinks Paul preceded Pilate. Once again, see Ancient Christian Writings for some clues about how ancient texts are dated. If you want to contribute to the scholarship on dating, you might consider learning koine Greek and Aramaic.

I was only referring to those in Palestine. It's a fair assumption, don't you think? The James Ossuary, for example, was inscribed in Aramaic; the latter part was almost certainly fake, but no one disputed that such an ossuary would have been inscribed in Aramaic.

Do you have any evidence to the contrary?

Thanks for the offer, but I'm not interested in taking on the responsibility of a debate right now.

Didymus

jakejonesiv

Let the Reader Understand: Reader-Response Criticism and the Gospel of Mark by Robert M. Fowler

After you read this book, GMark will never seem quite the same again.

Jake Jones IV

happygrl35

Resurrection is a Jewish concept,you can see that by reading the Letters of Paul.So yes the season Death and Resurrection the Pagan God's represent has nothing to do with what Resurrection meant to a jew.