Ben C Smith

It would be a lot easier to attribute those answered prayers, divine dreams, and miracles to Hellenistic convention if Moses, Elijah, Elisha, and Daniel were not talking to us from their graves on virtually every page of the gospels.

Ben.

jakejonesiv

Thanks Vork,

This was the kind of difference I was looking for. Contrary to jjramsey, I didn't have an agenda in this thread. I am just gathering information. The agenda will come later.

Thanks again,
Jake

jakejonesiv

Hi Ben,

I am not sure that I understand your point. Wasn't Judaism itself (esp. the Diaspora) Hellenized in the era of gospel formation? I don't see a contradiction.

Jake

Steven Avery

How could you leave out ..
"while Habrocomes has decided to sail to Italy"

Surely this was the original source for Paul's similar boat journeys.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

jjramsey

The crucifixion, for one. It makes sense that the crucifixion would be preached if the disciples were faced with the choice between two bitter pills: let the shameful death of their master be the end of the movement, or make something out of their master's shameful death and let the movement continue. It is a whole other thing to have the doctrine of the crucifixion to be entirely made up (either by one person or a community), since that means that people adopted a countercultural doctrine that was an easy target for mockery without a goad that would make them do so.

Nazareth is mostly useless to the Gospels. There is no OT prophecy for it, only prophecy that can be stretched to sort of hint at Nazareth. It is portrayed either neutrally or negatively and complicates the birth narratives. It's a rather odd thing to make up, and it looks like Matthew in particular stretched the prophecy to fit the fact of Nazareth, rather than making up "facts" to fit the prophecy (as was the case with Bethlehem).

Capernaum is a small village. It is unsurprising that a Galilean peasant would choose such a place as a home away from home, but it's an odd place to pick if one is making up a story.

That's just a start, but you get the idea. There are some things in the Gospels that are trivial to explain as things that evolved from facts on the ground, but are more difficult to explain otherwise. Paul doesn't add much to this picture, but interpreting him to conflict with this picture is a stretch.

Ben C Smith

It certainly was. (See Martin Hengel.) And there is no contradiction.

But read McDonald, for example, on how Mark invented the walking on water from Homer; then read Meier on how he (or his tradition) invented it from the Hebrew scriptures. At every step the latter is intrinsically more likely. The parallels are more direct, more apropos, and denser. Could Mark have been thinking of both Homer and the Hebrew scriptures? Possibly. But even so there is a lot more of the latter than the former.

I tend to see the same pattern with the Hellenistic fiction that Vork adduces. Look at those passages about Habrocome and Kleitophon. Do they really sound like the gospels? If we utterly lacked prototypes in Moses and the prophets we might try to draw some kind of connection, but for my money Jesus walking around Galilee doing miracles was supposed to invoke Elijah (for one) walking around Israel doing miracles.

I am leaving on a business trip for a few days, probably unable to check in. Ciao.

Ben.

sharon45

Oh, but john the baptist is certainly Elijah, he is wearing the same clothes and belt so it has to be him...

NOGO

Paul does not talk about a crucifixion. He talks about someone hanging from a tree and that he got from scriptures.

Now let see about the pills.
How does one go from a crucified man to Christianity?

Paul does not tell us that what he teaches comes from Jesus.
He tells us that his stuff comes from scriptures and everything he teaches Paul relates to scriptures and NOT to anything Jesus said.

So how did they go from a crucified man to Christianity?

You obviosuly admit that most of the gospels story is made up ...
so you have a lot to explain. Where does it all come from?

Julian

Not quite true.

Galatians 1
11 But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man.
12 For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Interpret 'revelation' as you will.

Julian

jjramsey

Ahem ...

1 Corinthians 1.23: But we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, ...

1 Corinthians 2.2: For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

Galatians 3.1: You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly exhibited as crucified!

Galatians 6.14: May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

By creatively interpreting a ignoble execution as a sacrifice. The doctrine of the resurrection, however it arose, also makes cross more palatable, though still an embarrassment in the eyes of the pagans, and adds a note of vindication.