Amaleq13

Actually, you "missed" providing a coherent and relevant response to either my question or observation and you "missed" answering Ben's very reasonable request that you clarify exactly what you mean when you say the evangelists were "historians".


Since you did respond, though inadequately, to my post I have to assume this refers to Ben's despite the fact that his post was neither "poorly stated" or "bad questions".

What do you mean when you say the evangelists were "historians"?

How did you determine they were "historians"?

These are simply basic questions any reasonable person would ask in response to your assertion.

If that is your intended attitude, I can only hope you obtain the same treatment.

Welcome to IIDB!

Nice first impression.

paarsurrey

Hi

I will try to look into the "The Bible Unearthed" as suggested by you if it is available on line.

Would you please elaborate further for me as to what do you refer to by "camels" ?

Thanks for your response.

I am an Ahmadi peaceful Muslim

paarsurrey

Hi

Thanking you for opening or introducing to me a new chapter relating to history which I was hitherto unfamiliar; and then I don't claim to be a scholar, I am just a humble student.

I have just read a write-up on the book " The Bible Unearthed " from wikipedea . The book , I think, is not available online on the internet; kindly therefore send/PM me the specific pages mentioned by you, if possilbe .

Regards

I am an Ahmadi peaceful Muslim

Toto

It is not a canard. It is not an insult to the author of Mark to say that he wrote a complex literary work full of allusions and symbolism.

The insult to the author of Mark comes from those who think that he was too stupid or semi-literate to make anything up, so that what he wrote must be plain observations.

And the only question is whether every element can be traced to the HS, or only most of the elements.

Solitary Man

It's not an insult to Mark. It's an insult to historical studies.

Why must you persist in strawmen? The majority scholarly position does not hold that view. Only the Christian fundamentalist hold than view, and they're believe it or not a small minority. Even Bauckham's book, widely applauded by Evangelicals, did not hold that view.

As far as I can see, no "JM"er or anyone similar wrote anything even trying to establish a set of criteria to establish whether it came from the Hebrew scriptures or whether it was harmonized with the Hebrew scriptures or whether it only looks to us like it came from the Hebrew scriptures or whether it only looks to a few people like it came from...etc...

All I see from you and others is assertion assertion assertion lacking ANY evidence.

Toto

Name one current historian who thinks that Mark is a source of history.

It is a view that gets repeated with some regularity here. It was CS Lewis's view, and he still has a big following.

What is this?

You know that Vorkosigan kept asking for a methodology to identify the historical elements in Mark. Do you think it is that easy to just turn it around and claim that an apparent literary allusion might still have some historical core and that the mythicists need to prove that it doesn't?

spin

When you draw an analogy you are supposed to try to make the points of contact convincing. You have failed to do so.

To start with there is no "historical record supporting the 1st four books of the NT". (But see below.)

When you do the footwork to introduce those books as historical sources for the period you want them to be for, then you can use them. Evidence cannot be assumed, as you seem to want to do. If the gospels are to be considered as evidence for the specific period then you have to show that they are. You cannot simply guess or assert.

"[P]redeposed"??

Whatever you intended, the job of history requires you to show that what you are purveying is in fact based on evidence. If you want to understand what happened in a particular event, you go to someone who saw the event. You don't listen to anyone else for evidence. Supergrass didn't supply evidence, but the means of obtaining evidence. Bernstein and Woodward had to procure it. It wasn't sufficient to report what Supergrass said. He could have been spouting rubbish, until they got the evidence.

Obviously you can say that the gospels are evidence and there is some truth in that statement, but the truth is opaque. When I ask you what it is evidence for, you won't be able to say, because you'd have no way of justifying your claim. You don't know when the gospels were written, how long a process the writing was, who wrote them, how many hands were involved, what if anything in them is historical, and a host of other problematic questions you won't be able to answer. In short, a historian wouldn't and couldn't touch the gospels with a bargepole, hoping to deal with the period ostensibly covered by the gospels. To understand the problem, how would you use the letters between Paul and Seneca as a faithful reflection of the middle of the first century?

Do try to spend the time to think of how you would argue the gospels as a faithful reflection of the early first century. (Not perfect reflection, but that they contain a tangible quantity of material derived directly from the period. Obviously a few historical names is insufficient. Remember, Seneca existed.)


spin

Clivedurdle

If he existed, he is not portrayed as such!

The social liberals at the time were the Pharisees, who he is alleged to have gone out of his way to have attacked!

Look at the gospels, everytime you read the term servant replace it with the correct term - slave, and ask how is it Jesus is a moral improvement when the Torah repeats - remember when you were slaves in Egypt.

OK they were not in Egypt but that shows the underlying mythos of Judaism was pro freedom. Xianity and Jesus are portrayed continuously as a reversion to magical solutions and sacrificial thinking.

Sin of ommission? Where is the explicit condemnation of slavery by this social liberal? He does not even make the common judaic standards and in fact condemns them!

schilling.klaus

this is a lie spread by the Ebionim and Crossanists.
Jesus is a representation of a concept from Hellenistic syncretic philosophy of religions, and those who deny this are absolutely incompetent w.r.t. Christian origins.

Klaus Schilling

Solitary Man

With pleasure. Michael Grant to start off. In fact, the only "historians" I know who think that there is absolutely no history in Mark come from the Dutch radicals and the Jesus Mythers - all fringe, dare I say even crank, scholars.

C. S. Lewis was not a Biblical scholar, nor are 99% of the people who post here.

Could you point me out specifically where Michael Turton established what I asked?

You set up the question. The problem is two fold - not only does he have to show that it is in fact a literary allusion, but also that it was a fabricated event.