DramaQ

You're kidding, right?

People LOVE speculation and rumors. Look at the so-called Roswell incident. Has that been dispelled by bringing the "truth to light"? Nope, it just keeps growing and growing into a major UFO cult.

How about the JFK assassination? How much more elaborate are the tales and "eye witness" testimony in later years than those given right after the incident?

It's the intrigue or popularity of the story that drives it. People always want MORE. That's why we have so many sequels and prequels.

People have imaginations. That’s why a simple little 6 page story called “The Greatest Gift” about a man who wished he’d never been born can be expanded and fleshed out into a full length motion picture called “It’s a Wonderful Life”.

Get simpler with time? Maybe, but not as often as the other way ‘round, as near as I can tell.

Is that story itself an expansion of an earlier one? How much more “detail” is in the Noah version of the Gilgamesh story?

I’m with WishboneDawn here: “It is a known fact” raises the warning flags. How “known”? By whom? And documented where?

DQ

aa5874

So out of the millions of solved cases, where rumor and speculation have been dispelled by facts, the JFK assassination appears to you to be standard.

You are confusing anamolies with reality.

I ask you to show me one story in the Bible that has been expanded today, after the story has been researched for its veracity.

WishboneDawn

Weren't we talking oral tradition? The Bible today is the Bible, a book.

DramaQ

Um... I cited an example. And from that you got “appears to you to be standard”.

A quick google of “Lindberg kidnapping” and I find dozens of references to works of people expanding on and expounding on the story.

Ditto “Lizzy Borden”.

Check out some of the “9/11” conspiracy stuff right here at iidb and see how far fetched the ongoing rumors and speculation have become.

You apparently ignored my reference to Roswell: would you like specific links to some of the cult pages? You will find all sorts of imaginative expansions on the original events.

You also ignored this comment: “It's the intrigue or popularity of the story that drives it.” Most of your “millions of solved cases” are utterly uninteresting to people. The ones I mentioned (and plenty more) have captured the public imagination. Thus fodder for the imagination.

Really? Perhaps you could show me the statistics by which you determined what was an anomaly and what is "reality".

Well, I'm not sure how far we'll get with "researched for it's veracity". If we did that we'd probably have to exclude most of the text.

However, forgoing that for the moment, and just off the top of my head:

How about all the traditional tales? Peter and his martyrdom. Mary and her life. Mary as found in the Koran. The acts of various apostles.

How about subsidiary characters who are featured in other works? Like the Russian tale of Babushka who meet the wise men or similarly “Amahl and the Night Visitors”

How about “The Da Vinci Code” which gives you all sorts of expanded information and imaginative reinterpretations of biblical characters?

How about the novel and film “The Robe” which fleshed out the crucifixion story?

Do I need to go on? You only asked for one story that has been expanded on.

Tell you what: How about if YOU show ME some examples of the reverse: popular stories that are based on earlier tales with the details cut back out of them.

dq

aa5874

What oral tradition? If a person writes fiction, he does not need any oral tradition.

The prophecies, the virgin birth, the miraculous acts, the trial, the crucifixtion, the resurection and the ascension of Jesus could have been fabricated by anyone with a vivid imagination and a pen.

There is no contemporary evidence to show that the authors of Mark or John received any oral information to compile their works. There is evidence however that they copied from either one another or from the same source.