Ben C Smith

Is that a conjecture? Or do you have evidence?

Peter Kirby has recently written an interesting piece on how the gospels were received by their readers.

Ben.

Gamera

Interesting article. Let me suggest that the pagan critics of early Chrisitianity also shed light on how Christians took the gospels. Since one of the recurrent criticisms was that Christians were superstitious, it suggests that the pagan critics took as fiction what they percieved Christians took as fact, supporting the idea that the gospels were not written in the fabulist tradition, but as history.

Here's a summary of contemporary pagan critiques of Christianity:

http://www.pinn.net/~sunshine/book-sum/xtian1.html

Gamera

[QUOTE=JoeWallack]:
Except for Luke 2, which begs the question. Again, your exclusion of a possible variant usage in establishing the rule, only to then apply the rule to the variant is a common error of bad philology. Editions of Beowulf, now discredited, are filled with such attempts at normalizations. Grammar just isn't always normal, even in the best writer.

And it is a bit odd that you give Luke the attribute of a perfect grammarian but the imperfect historian. You would think that the education level to make him so perfect in one would keep him from being the other.

Since I'm not interested in inerrancy, your pompous bravado is misplaced. Perhaps if you stop attacking strawmen you'll have to argue a little bit more rigorously. The issue is not inerrancy but in interpreting this curious segment of the text, that seems to conflate two distinct historical events. You conclude it's just bad historography (by the perfect grammarian, but sloppy writer or a fabulist). I conclude that it's more likely garbled history, with some event or tradition conflating two actual events that took place around Jesus birth.

Your conclusion depends on a normalized grammar and a claim that Luke was either extremely sloppy or purposely indifferent to historical fact because he was writing fiction. Your conclusion assumes Luke couldn't come up with a better alternative to the ornately inaccurate details to the narrative.

My conclusion depends on an aberrant grammatical usage, and the claim that Luke was neither sloppy nor writing fiction, but derived the narrative from some oral tradition about a Judean census, which he felt compelled to use, despite it being garbled, because he felt he was writing history.

You have the upper hand on the grammatical argument, and I think I have the upper hand on the genre/origin argument.

Gamera

[QUOTE=Vorkosigan]Probably? Probably? Typical of detractors, you tendentiously place works that help make your point as early as possible, and date NT works as late as possible. Please be consistent. I'm willing to accept a late date on NT works and in applying the same standards place a late date on the GR novels. You can't have your baclava and eat it too.

There is nothing so unpersausiave as literary comparisons. I can literally show that a Diet book parallels the myth of Osiris. The human mind can come up with all kinds of patterns.

The fact remains that nobody, nobody, nobody would ever mistake Acts for a GR novel. Ever. The later are execrable and tedious.

Hmmm, you think maybe because the panoply of literary techniques is rather limited and show up in virtually every written work? I bet I can show that Gilgamesh has many of the same techniques of GR novels. Do you conclude from that the Gilgamesh derived from GR novels!

Yeah, I saw the post and addressed it. You're making an argument from absence. But in fact, there are many contemporary critics of Christianity and they do comment indirectly on their views of the gospels. See my post below. The indication from the superstition charge is that the critics didn't like the fact that Christians took the texts to be history right from the start.

Gamera

No conspiracy, just lack of common definition for this curious and ill-defined genre. Read the Satyricon and the Golden Ass. They have nothing to do genre-wise with the works detractors claim are the basis of Acts. And that's the critical issue.

It doesn't offend me that a survey class would lump these together (there aren't that many to lump). But it doesn't change the fact that the Satyricon is a recognizable satirical work and the Golden Ass a picaresque magical mystery tour. I don't think the genrists attempt to use these as an influence on Luke.

Vorkosigan

[QUOTE=Gamera]Gamera, will you GET WITH THE SCHOLARSHIP! A fragment of the novel Ninos was discovered on a dateable piece of papyrus. I am not being "typical of detractors." I'm informing you of relevant scholarly information. Which you should know, since the fragment of Ninos that dates from the third year of Trajan (100-01 CE) was the first such fragment for a Greek novel ever published. The papyrus was used on both sides; one side has a document with its date to the third year of Trajan, the other a fragment of Ninos. Ninos was probably set on it sometime between 60 and 90. See the discussion in Stephens and Winkler's collection of Ancient Greek Novels, beginning on p23. The Greek novels are early, and their antecedents in the ANE and in Greece even earlier.

Nobody has ever done it, except, of course, all the scholars who are doing it right now. Nobody is claiming that Acts is a Greek novel, though Pervo comes close. Rather, that it incorporates many of their story elements and techniques.

I suggest you get on Amazon and order up a passel of recent scholarship by Ronald Hock, Dennis MacDonald, Richard Pervo, Christine Thomas, Mary Ann Tolbert, and others who have noted the many affinities between the ancient novels and the Gospels.

Maybe, but you don't know this. No one knows the initial reception of Mark, for example. We only know about receptions that came much later.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

I have only some small evidence. What is the response of later intelligent and educated readers like Lucian and Celsus? Was Christianity popular among educated males of the upper classes?

Ben C Smith

Celsus accuses Christians of passing off inventions and legends as fact; I do not think he accuses them of misinterpreting the genre.

Here is an example of his approach:

Moreover, his Jew charges the disciples of Jesus with having invented these stories, saying: Although you lied you were not able to plausibly conceal your fictitious tales.

The Jew in Celsus charges the evangelists with lying, not with writing an amusing fiction that their readers later mistakenly took as nonfiction.

That I do not know statistically, though of course many of the church fathers were quite educated. OTOH, Celsus appears to regard Christianity as a superstition of women, children, and the uninstructed.

Ben.

JoeWallack

JW:
The proseason is finished here I think and now on to the Proof of Error:


The Basic Contradiction:

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Matthew_2:1

"Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, Wise-men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying," (ASV)

vs.

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Luke_2:2

"This was the first enrolment made when Quirinius was governor of Syria." (ASV)


JW:
"Matthew" connects Jesus' birth story to Herod the Great while "Luke" connects it to Quirinius' ruling of Syria. We have Multiple and Quality evidence though that the life of Herod the Great and Quirinius ruling Syria were Separated by a noticable time period:


Sources of Evidence That The Life Of Herod The Great And Quirinius Ruling Syria Were Separated By A Noticable Time Period:

1) Josephus

2) Cassius Dio

3) Justin Martyr

4) Extant coins


Josephus:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin...ut=&loc=17.342

"HOW ARCHELAUS UPON A SECOND ACCUSATION, WAS BANISHED TO VIENNA.

[339] WHEN Archelaus was entered on his ethnarchy, and was come into Judea, ...

[342] But in the tenth year of Archelaus's government, ...

[345] ...

[349] ...

[354] ... So Archelaus's country was laid to the province of Syria; and Cyrenius, one that had been consul, was sent by Caesar to take account of people's effects in Syria, and to sell the house of Archelaus."


JW:
Per Josephus, Archelaus succeeded Herod the Great and ruled for ten years. Archelaus was removed by Caesar and authority for the area given to Quirinius.


Cassius Dio:

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/.../55*.html#27.6

"6These were the events in the city that year. In Achaia the governor died in the middle of his term and instructions were given to his quaestor and to his assessor (whom, as I have stated, we call envoy) for the former to administer the province as far as the Isthmus and the other the remainder. Herod of Palestine, who was accused by his brothers of some wrongdoing or other, was banished beyond the p467Alps and a portion of the domain was confiscated to the state."


JW:
Cassius Dio confirms that Archelaus (Herod of Palestine) was removed and rule was given directly to Rome.


Justin Martyr:

http://www.earlychristianwritings.co...stapology.html

"CHAPTER XXXIV -- PLACE OF CHRIST'S BIRTH FORETOLD.

And hear what part of earth He was to be born in, as another prophet, Micah, foretold. He spoke thus: "And thou, Bethlehem, the land of Judah, art not the least among the princes of Judah; for out of thee shall come forth a Governor, who shall feed My people." Now there is a village in the land of the Jews, thirty-five stadia from Jerusalem, in which Jesus Christ was born, as you can ascertain also from the registers of the taxing made under Cyrenius, your first procurator in Judaea."

"CHAPTER XLVI -- THE WORD IN THE WORLD BEFORE CHRIST.

But lest some should, without reason, and for the perversion of what we teach, maintain that we say that Christ was born one hundred and fifty years ago under Cyrenius,"


JW:
Justin places Jesus' birth under Quirinius' governorship. Of course Justin's weight here is light since he's an Apologist and not a historian and he's simply choosing to go with "Luke's" version most likely. He is a presumably early witness though.


Extant Coins:

http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...inius.html#3.5

"For corroboration, coins minted in Judaea by Roman officials begin in A.D. 6 (Burnett, Roman Provincial Coinage, 1992, no. 4954: note that his supplemental volume corrects a typographical error: the coin in fact reads "Year 36 of Caesar," i.e. the 36th year after Actium or A.D. 5/6)."


JW:
Extant coins indicate that Rome took control of Judea at the time Quirinius is otherwise thought to take the Governorship of Syria and thereby control of Judea.

As the coins are physical evidence and therefore not witness testimony, they are potentially the best quality evidence here as to the dating of Quirinius' Governorship. I would like to see Richard Carrier expand on the value of the coins as evidence here.

I have Faith that I can use my Jewdie mind powers to persuade Richard to answer a few related questions here. If anyone here has a related question for Richard let me know or ask it at my related ErrancyWiki site. The Moderators at ErrancyWiki, me, Peter Kirby and Robert Stevens, will pick what we think are the best questions and ask Richard to answer them.

This post is only meant as a brief outline of the major Sources of evidence for Contradiction between "Matthew"/"Luke" as to When Jesus was supposedly born. Any objections from Inerrantists/Apologists at this point? Someone, anyone, Buedelleur?



Joseph

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page