Vivisector

This is another interesting passage. Based on Paul (1 Cor 1:12) says, there were those who perceived differences in what Paul, Apollos and even Cephas taught. I don't find much in Paul to indicate that Paul considered the differences between himself and Apollos to have been great. "Luke" seems to be explaining that the difference was in regard to the significance of baptism, which might have been helpful had he not tied it to JtB. My question is, what do you think was the situation in "Luke's" time that led him to explain things as he did? Related, do you think there was any kind of authentic Apollos/JtB connection, or is Luke killing two birds with one stone (reinforcing the primacy of Paul to Apollos and the superiority of Christian baptism to JtB's baptism)?

While I think JtB might indeed have baptized Jesus, even if he did, I have serious doubts as to whether JtB considered Jesus a person of any consequence - if he remembered him at all.

I think so, and it seems this would have been natural if (big "if," I know) (a) Jesus at least partly considered his work to be a continuation of JtB's and/or (b) there was a strong association of James with the Nazarenes.

I think there's a good case to be made. Do you think that Paul himself was active in the work of adapting?

Cheers,

V.

Rick Sumner

I've often wondered about this myself. Certainly we can state with some confidence that he didn't consider him to be the greater of the two--if JBap was really telling people to follow Jesus, everybody would have stopped following JBap, but we can safely infer that they did not--numerous passages in the gospels hint to an existing JBap movement.

I think it depends on two things: Firstly, how late in the Jesus movement was JBap executed, and secondly, how strong was the Jesus movement before the execution.

Since I don't think we can answer either of these with any degree of certainty, I suppose all we can ultimately do is hypothesize and see how well it fits, but we'll never be able to tell for sure.

I'm also not sure that Jesus necessarily saw his work as an extension of JBap's. That could just be in the mind of the later evangelists.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Ben C Smith

Were differences in teaching what made the Corinthians align themselves with different apostles? The context (1.14) may indicate that it was rather which apostle one was baptized by; sort of a baptismal initiation hero worship. But I do need to look at the issue in closer detail.

Not great enough, apparently, to prevent Paul from encouraging him to visit the Corinthians again (16.12).

Ben.

Ben C Smith

I think the saying in Matthew 11.7b-9, 11 = Luke 7.24b-26, 28 has a pretty good claim to authenticity. That is, it appears to have been spoken by someone other than John the baptist who was a contemporary (based at least in part on the Antipas reed coin; I find it easier to believe that a contemporary connected Antipas with a reed based on this coin than that a later evangelist, probably in the diaspora, picked up on this pretty obscure connection many decades later).

If this saying is genuine to Jesus, then it shows that he thought of John as a prophet, or at least as someone superior to that palace-dwelling reed-weak Antipas.

Ben.

Vivisector

Agree completely.

Personally, I think things fit better if JtB was executed (perhaps some years) before or at the beginning of Jesus's movement. I see the Gospel accounts more as trying to reconcile the two movements decades after the fact, rather than reliable indications that the movements were contemporaneous.

I guess we're all doing the best we can with what we have!

True enough, and it's certainly no 90%/10% proposition in my mind. I just keep coming back to the question of, why connect Jesus to JtB in the first place (including the baptism episode) rather than presenting him as something totally new? And there's also that Nazarene business that just won't go away. Maybe the entire Jesus/James/JtB/Nazarene nexxus is just a mirage, but it was one that the Gospel authors felt compelled to address.

Cheers,

V.

Vivisector

This would work also, though Paul appears to have gone to some lengths to avoid just this situation (v. 13), and this explanation would seem to have required a visit by Cephas as well (or at least the presence of some who were baptized by Cephas).

Cheers,

V.

Rick Sumner

I think the qualifier in Mt.11.11//Lk.7.28 has all the earmarks of an apologetic, and could probably be stricken pretty safely from the saying.

It does seem unlikely to me that this represents the later evangelists though. An argument could be put together as such (that the entire saying represents a rhetorical attack against the Baptist movement), but I'm not sure that I would find it persuasive.

VirtualBox died on me with the last update, so I'll have to create a new VM before I can check some commentaries (I'm naked without Libronix) and look at in in more depth. In the meantime, I'll have to mull it over more.

I'm not sure that that necessarily shows that Jesus thought of himself in continuity with that though. I think a point against that comes with the defining aspect of JBap: Baptism for the remission of sins. This was, as near as I can see, unique in antiquity. Other groups offered baptism as a form of purity. Nobody, to my knowledge, offered it for sin. John is frequently compared to the DSS in this regard, but they were explicit in denying that sin could be remitted in this manner.

Jesus does not seem to have followed this. Even in the early movement, as near as I can glean from Paul, while sin remission may have been part of the rite, it does not appear to have been central to it, rather it was being "baptized into Christ."

This looks to me a lot less likely continuity than appropriation--it looks suspiciously like an early Jesus movement grabbed baptism and adapted it to its own needs, rather than one that always had it as a part of it.

Which, at the end of the day, makes me suspicious about how closely the Jesus movement (in Jesus' life) was actually linked.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

TedM

These quotes by you illustrate the problems I have trying to discuss things with you:

Why must you? In everyday life there are lots of things that don't have external corroberation that we accept as true or at least don't feel we must reject as fiction. Even a pathological liar speaks the truth sometimes...


That may be true to some extent, but what I did here was present a specific argument for discussion. Your answers appear to be based on your decision to reject the whole cloth, thus making any analysis that might lead to a different conclusion irrelevant.

Rick Sumner

If baptism as a rite was appropriated early enough, it might have become necessary to correlate the two. Or simply grabbing on to the popularity of JBap. Or perhaps Jesus had started his own baptist movement, inspired by, but not continuous with, JBap's movement.

I could probably come up with a dozen plausible scenarios. I just don't think we have enough information about JBap to say for sure.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

aa5874

Once a person is considered a pathological liar, external credible sources MUST be used to CORROBORATE words of the pathological liar.

A pathological liar is not regarded as credible or trustworthy, even when he truthfully gives you his real name, unless some other credible person/s can vouch for him or can produce documentation to confirm the name of the pathological liar.

I find the authors of the NT need external sources to corroborate their outrageous stories.

I understand that it is likely that no-one named Matthew, Mark, Luke or John wrote any gospels, or wrote them before the death of Nero as claimed by Eusebius. I understand that there were more than one person claiming to be Paul, yet the Church writers never knew.

I don't trust the NT, unless there are external sources to support their stories, just like I don't trust the pathological liar,even when he tells me his name without external verification.


I cannot deal with imagination in such a serious matter. Anyone can imagine anything and think their imagination is plausible so it must be true.

I cannot look at known fiction and then imagine that is is true.

The authors of NT wrote blatant fiction about events surrounding John the Baptist, I must reject them just like I reject the pathological liar if there are no external sources to corroborate their stories.

On the other hand, you seem to think people only lie about the implausible. But, you know that a lie about the plausible can be really deceptive.