Diogenes the Cynic

Text crit is as hard and methodical a science as historical scholarship. The study of the physical manuscripts is an empirical, historical endeavor. The paper and the ink, the handwriting, the languages, the paleography, the archaeological context - all hard science. How is it any less valid a historical discipline than studying pottery or walls? Ehrman is not a lit critic or a theologian. Manuscript scholarship is not a soft discipline.

spin

No, it is not a historical endeavor. It works solely in texts. There is no necessary perspective to relate texts to the real world, which is essential in the pursuit of history.

True, but it's not history. And much of what Ehrman is doing is not manuscript scholarship, but philology: he's making judgments on parts of texts, using literary and language methods.

Adam

spin dismisses other scholars as mere philologists. He trashed Maurice Casey as such in his Post #294 in my thread Gospel Eyewitnesses. "Casey is a philologist who doesn't know linguistics. His dismissal of Latin is endemic of his approach."
http://www.freeratio.org/showthread....306983&page=12

Meanwhile I was learning from spin and had written there in my Post #286:
Following up on Spin's lead about Maurice Casey (whom I had only encountered before as a book reviewer) led on to James G. Crossley as well. His book The Dating of Mark's Gospel (2004) refutes conventional scholarship and the usual dating of Mark to 65 to 75 CE. He proposes mid thirties to mid forties, based on Mark 13 (developed by the early church in response to persecution) and details of Jewish law. (p. 3, 37, 43)
Date of Mark's Gospel: Insight from the Law in Earliest Christianity ( via: Amazon UK )
He summarizes Maurice Casey as showing gMark came from literal Aramaic from eyewitnesses, dating gMark to about 40 AD. (p. 56)
He cites Adolf Harnack in detail for dating Acts to 64 AD, hence gLuke before that, and hence gMark before that. (p. 45, citing Harnack, Dates, p. 100)
I was not relying on current scholarship to start up this Gospel Eyewitnesses thread (my first here), but I certainly had good fortune that now is the time that top scholars are actively trashing current presuppositions (both on the liberal and Evangelical sides) and giving very early dates for the Synoptics.
So it pays to be a contrarian, as I am? (Or is a broken clock correct twice a day?)
Looks like the joke's on you, spin.

See also what I wrote there in my Post #285 and #295

The above shows that my Post #121 in Bart Ehrman's new book - did my prophecy come true?
http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=312749&page=5
failed to recall that Casey and Crossley are top scholars who date the Synoptic gospels very early. I at least should have remembered this, but FRDB mythicists know nothing of this. What's surprising is that Richard Carrier apparently knows nothing of this in his trashing of Ehrman's Huffington Post article. Ehrman is simply relying on cutting edge work published only in the last decade that mythicists like Carrier ignore.
Lucky for me, my erroneous post stood for ten days, allowing me to correct my own mistake. The good news for me is that with Ehrman, Casey, and Crossley I am in synch with a developing consensus at least as regards the Synoptics. I'm not alone anymore in asserting dates in the 30's and 40's.

Steven Carr

It is like somebody who has made a thorough , scientific study of the transmission of the folios of Shakespeare's plays analysing 'The Merchant of Venice' to see what sources Shakespeare used when writing the play.

Diogenes the Cynic

Do you believe it's not possible to identify multiple authors within a given text? Do you think it's not possible to tell if an author is copying another author?

Steven Carr

We can tell the authors of Luke, Matthew used Q.

Can Biblical scholars tell us if Q existed?

Bart can produce as many hypothetical sources for his gospels that he wants. But he can't magic provenance out of thin air for them.

Nor can he use hypothetical sources as evidence.

Just as evolutionists can produce hypothetical transitional forms, but can't put them in display cases as evidence for evolution. They have to use things which actually exist.

Bart literature bombs mythicists in his book 'Did Jesus Exist?'. But the literature he bombs mythicists with doesn't exist.

In fact, Ehrman is simply rewriting history, putting the Gospels before Paul, because he cannot cope with mythicists arguments based on a time line where Paul predates the Gospels.

tanya

Nope. The Greek word messias, from which we derive our English word, Messiah, is coming from the Hebrew word Moshiah, not Mashiakh.

The MEANING of the English word, Messiah, "saviour", soter in Greek, corresponds AS WELL, to the meaning of the Hebrew word moshiah, not anoint, mashiakh.

I find this passage crystal clear:

The Greek word messias, English Messiah, is inconveniently applied to Jesus, of course, hence the bellicosity directed against those attempting to explain the phonemic similarity to moshiah, coupled with the singularity of meaning, "saviour", between the two words moshiah and messias. Jesus was not a moshiah, riding a big white horse, leading an army to expel the Romans, but, according to the "writings", "grafas", he had been anointed (mashiakh) by YHWH himself.

Of course, the absurdity of employing mashiakh, anointed, to Jesus, is confirmed as well, by the fact that there had been no public acclaim for him, during his lifetime. On the contrary, the ancient texts call for stoning of anyone committing such blasphemy, as did Jesus, asserting familial ties to YHWH.

Here are some comments from earlier threads on this question, Sheshbazzar in particular, expresses some thoughtful words of wisdom, well worth reviewing.

http://www.freeratio.org/showthread....moshiah&page=2


http://www.freeratio.org/showthread....moshiah&page=3
post 69

http://www.freeratio.org/showthread....oshiah&page=11
post 256

JonA

Did you read the book?

aa5874

The notion that "Paul predates the Gospels" was NOT derived from mythicists at all.

Secondly, Paul claimed he was a Persecutor of the Faith and Apologetic sources also make the same statement.

Belief in the Jesus story or Jesus PREDATES the Pauline letters.

A Pauline writer even claimed OVER 500 people SAW Jesus BEFORE him and that he was LAST to see Jesus.

It is people who attempt to place Paul BEFORE the Jesus story who are trying to re-write history.

There is NO history of the Pauline writer in any non-apologetic source BEFORE the Fall of the Temple and to show that Paul was a FRAUD---there are forged letters between Seneca and 'Paul'.

Remarkably, every source that mentions Paul is questionable or has been found to be fiction or manipulated.

The claim that Paul persecuted the Faith is based on the fictitious event on the Day of Pentecost WITHOUT which there would have been NO acts of the Apostles.

The Pauline writer had NO history before the Jesus stories.

The Pauline Gospel of Universal Salvation by the Resurrection of Jesus was FORMULATED AFTER the short-ending gMark was written.

The author of the short-ending gMark was NOT aware that Jesus was a UNIVERSAL Savior because of the crucifixion and resurection.

The crucifixion and resurrection of the Markan Jesus was to Fulfill prophecy---the Fall of the Temple.

The crucifixion and resurrection of the Pauline Jesus was to ABOLISH the Law and for Universal Salvation.

The Pauline Gospel WAS LAST in the Canon.

Solo

I think the problem was best described by Alan Watts: 'It is one thing to eat a steak and quite another thing to eat a page of a restaurant menu with the word "steak" printed on it.


Best,
Jiri