No Robots

You have to look at the entire literary context. If you do so, it will be evident that the composers of the Gospels are in no way on a level with the figure that they depict.

No Robots

You have to understand the place of memorization in oral societies. The Talmud was wholly oral until the end of the 2nd century, and it comprises many bound volumes.

Ben C Smith

Or just listen to the song version.

Ben.

spin

A simple daughter of an English clergyman who lived in the back of nowhere and whose only education was with her family... You might be right. I merely supplied a text whose narrator was clearly not too bright in relation to the protagonist.

OK, not Sanders. Still useless conjectures.

But then I think you're full of shit, talking about spiritual anythings. If you are talking to another person, you accept the notion that there is the possibility of logical communication and an objective reality (maybe rather obfuscated to us, but real anyway). The spirit part of spirituality is not something objective thus far in the conversation and if you want to introduce the idea you need to demonstrate it to some degree of objectivity. If it is merely an unsupported opinion, then you should know that the content of that opinion doesn't seem to communicate anything as is.

I agree...

...This I don't. Behavior can be changed through certain types of education.

These texts were not written in Hebrew or Aramaic, but in Greek. Your am ha-aretz spoke a Semitic language, so we are at least one step away from any am ha-aretz. Your explanation is not rational in that it ignores data for no apparent reason. Mark was clearly written in a Roman context, as indicated by its linguistic clues and textual signs, written in Greek with a Roman audience. This is a long way from any hope of an am ha-aretz connection. Repetition of things like "I can claim that this is the only explanation that makes any rational sense" won't make them sound any less unsubstantiated.


spin

No Robots

To my mind, it is completely irrational to deny that the gospels as we have them are derived from ammé haaretz material. It reveals a willful refusal to examine these texts in any kind of disciplined way.

spin

Naaa. Misses all the juice. Kate Bush can only look at the romantic thing between the protagonists in a song. You need to appreciate Nelly Dean and her relationship with Heathcliff. It's her story of events, horrid to her, unnatural, but compelling. She doesn't understand, but gives us enough to.


spin

spamandham

Sorry, but I disagree.

It's true the gospels are far from literary masterpieces, but at the same time, Jesus is a ridiculous one dimensional character. It's trivially easy to imagine a mediocre character invented by a mediocre author.

Birth rates are sufficient to account for Christianity's growth up until Constantine, and Constantine is sufficient to account for the explosion of Christianity after that point.

You're looking at a world where Christianity was spread by force for about 1500 years, totally ignoring that historical fact, and assuming instead that the spread of Christianity was due to genius in the gospel. Then you project that back 2000 years. There isn't a single aspect of your argument that's valid.

spin

But then you are a spiritual automaton, incapable of analyzing evidence and changing... your opinions. That's not irrational: that's inflexible, though I see no way for you to be able to make meaningful comments as to what is or is not rational. That requires elucidation of evidence. And I mentioned evidence above which you have simply -- as you usually do -- ignored.

As you don't even deal with the source texts, you won't win any hearts here with your hollow rhetoric. Discipline requires methodology. Methodology requires evidence, not opinions.


spin

spamandham

You have to understand, that you've left no way for all the magical nonsense to end up in the gospels.

You claim the gospels are merely records of oral histories, which were dutifully and accurately memorized and passed on.

If that's true, then how did all the magic and nonsense end up there, and why do the versions of the gospels contradict eachother on several important points?

No Robots

No other literary figure commands the devotion that this one does: this fact you do not account for.

You haven't explained how Christianity had so penetrated the Roman system, including the army, that Constantine felt compelled to embrace it publicly. This is hardly attributable to birth rates, by which I assume you mean that Christianity was spread primarily within families that were already Christian. I do not see any basis for this opinion, and certainly today we see that Christianity is often embraced without family approval.

You have not accounted for the fact that, even hundreds of years after the breaking of church hegemony, Christ's influence never ceases to grow.