Ben C Smith

Whoa! Too many clauses here; is this a question? A statement? I do not know whether to debate or just surrender on sight.

The presence, at any rate, of supernatural or divine elements in the story does not change the genre of the gospels from biography to something else (see Burridge for details). Other Greco-Roman biographies have supernatural or divine elements, and indeed are based on the same basic mythic cycle that the synoptics are based on (see Talbert for details).

To be crystal clear, my main point on this thread is that the old consensus that the gospels are sui generis no longer exists, contrary to what Toto asserted (he would have been right some 15 or 20 years ago). I made the additional point that, if Burridge is correct, then certain conclusions concerning the mindsets and opinions of the authors are possible. I have not actually made any argument here that Burridge is correct (though I do think he basically is).

I can only recommend at this point that you read the book, and I also recommend the one by Talbert. These books answer most of the usual objections to the gospels being ancient biographies (including modelling on older sources, the use of more contemporary sources, the presence of the supernatural, the lack of development of character, a missing birth narrative in the case of Mark, anonymity, and so forth), and the one by Burridge also makes a positive case for the identification.

If Burridge is correct and the gospels are ancient biographies, then it seems clear to me that the notion that the authors thought of Jesus as a real entity who actually worked in Galilee is the one to beat; it is the default.

Ben.

aa5874

Now, what if Burridge is wrong?
Burridge is more likely to be wrong.

Burridge must have speculated that Jesus of the NT existed and then assumed that his speculation about Jesus is likely to be true without any external corroborative information.

The history or biography of a person believed to be the offspring of the Holy Ghost and ascended to heaven MUST be substantiated by external non-apologetic sources.

No event in the NT with respect to Jesus can be confirmed or speculated to be true.

There is no information, recorded in antiquity, whatsoever of any sighting, or rumor of a sighting of anyone who lived during the days of Pilate who was believed to be the offspring of the Holy Ghost, resurrected and ascended to heaven.
None.

The NT is a biography of God called Jesus.

No Robots

The assignment of the Gospels to the genre of Greco-Roman biography obscures their wholly Jewish essence, as Burridge himself acknowledges:

[T]he shift from unconnected anecdotes about Jesus, which resemble rabbinic material, to composing them together in the genre of an ancient biography is not just moving from a Jewish environment to Graeco-Roman literature. It is actually making an enormous Christological claim ... [while] no rabbi is that unique ... writing a biography of Jesus implies the claim that not only is the Torah embodied, but that God himself is uniquely incarnate in this one life, death and resurrection.--Richard A. Burridge / What are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography (or via: amazon.co.uk). Second Edition. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 2004. p.304

Gerhardsson disputes that the High Christology of the Gospels is a later insertion, arguing instead that it is part of the earliest layers of the Gospels:

This high Christology cannot be disconnected from the impression made by Jesus on his disciples, and furthermore it must have some original connection with Jesus' own view of his work, of his position, and of himself. The opinion expressed by so many scholars, that the Christology of the NT is essentially a creation of the young Church, is an intelligent thesis, but historically most improbable.--Birger Gerhardsson / Memory and Manuscript: Oral Tradition and Written Tradition in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity, p.325.

The Gospels are incomprehensible outside Jewish literature. Understood from within it, they are fairly simple. We have here a unique prophetic genius whose life and words are a living embodiment of Jewish literature. We see everywhere with Christ the literary device of the mashal:

MASHAL (plural meshalim): In the Hebrew tradition, a mashal is a broad, general term including almost any type of figurative language from short riddles to long, extended allegories. It denotes "mysterious speech." Some of the Psalms, for instance, are designated as meshalim. The New Testament Greek often translates the term as parabole or "parable." This translation, however, causes some problem. In Greek, parabole are always allegorical and open to point-by-point interpretation. Parabole were often used as a simple method of teaching by example or analogy. The meshalim in Hebrew, however, was often intentionally confusing or deliberately obfuscating in nature--much more like the Greek enigma (riddle). We can see this confusion in the New Testament, where Mark interprets the purpose of the parables as Hebrew meshalim. In Mark, Jesus tells his disciples: "The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables so that, 'they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise, they might turn and be forgiven'" (Mark 4:11-12). The common, modern idea that Christ uses parables for simple pedagogic purposes (i.e., "so that even a child could understand the secrets of heaven") is a creation of the medieval period, much later.

The Gospels are a fusion of Christ's own meshalim and his interpreters' midrash.

mountainman

Hi No Robots,

All this appears to me to involve the internal assessment of the text. This thread primarily addresses "Histories" and as such from the persepctive of the historical assessment we need also to explore in detail external relationships of the new testament literature to the world of antiquity..

To do this we need a date. To do history properly we need a chronological foundational structure which acts as external reference point. When did the new testament literature appear? When were the gospels and acts written and when were the shadow-side of christian literature - the noncanonical acts and non canonical gospels written? And by whom? And where? All these questions are related to the external form of the text.

What in your opinion should I do with all these questions? Are they relevant at all?

Best wishes,



Pete

No Robots

Your questions about external form are answerable only through the analysis of the internal content. Your project to arrive at an understanding of the internal content through the exclusive consideration of external form is doomed. The obsession with externals to the exclusion of internal content is the largest part of our general social sickness.

aa5874

You seem confused and doomed.

Why do you think that it is sick to ask for corroboration of internal content by external sources?

And when a person asks for external information, they do not exclude the internal information, they compare them.

It is universally accepted as prudent to consider both internal and external sources to form an opinion on any matter, only those who are "sick" would do otherwise.

No Robots

We can certainly compare War and Peace and The Brothers Karamazov, but we cannot understand them solely through comparison. We understand them on their own terms, through their own unique content. Now, this content can itself be related to other literary phenomena to assist our understanding, but it cannot be excluded.

aa5874

You would agree that it would be "sick" to accept the crucifixion story of Jesus just based on internal information.

Look at Mark 15.33, I would consider myself to be "sick", if I accepted the crucifixion story without taking into consideration external corroboration of the story, and bearing in mind that the author of Mark is not even known.

I get the impression you think that it is "sick" to question the stories from the unknown authors of the NT and to ask for external corroboration.

No Robots

What I find sick is the obsession with external corroboration to the exclusion of consideration of the significance within Jewish literature of the Gospel claim that the Messiah had been turned over by the Sanhedrin to the Romans for execution.

Toto

What does this refer to?

Except for a disputed phrase in Josephus, is there any mention in Jewish literature (the Talmud, say) of a Messiah being turned over to the Romans for execution?