Bede

Well (c) is OK but the first two criteria are designed to be narrow enough to prevent counter arguments. First, it is totally outrageous to let Doherty define major when he has clearly defined it to mean "someone who doesn't mention HJ". Second, as the issue with pagan intellctuals was neo Platonic metaphysics, the insistence that the apaolgist must be talking to them only is also too convenient. It's like demanding evidence of Bertrand Russell's atheism from the Principles of Mathematics.

So sorry, Jacob, you are twisting the rules to suit yourself which is just not allowed in historical enquiry.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Ted Hoffman

In other words, you are arguing that Doherty's argument is so specific that it cannot be cracked open to create a foothold for a counter argument.

Unless you are arguing that I am inventing the criteria?

Cite the page and the paragraph where he provides this definition please.
And we are not defining "major" what is of interest is "major apologist". Or better yet, "five or six major apologists up to the year 180". How many clues do you want in order to understand the argument?

People who don't mention a HJ are dozens in the second century. Doherty goes as far as stating that the people he is referring to are not more than six.

He is very specific. Now, repeat after me: He is very specific. Once more: He is very specific.
Good.
You mean too specific? It denies you any room to wriggle in a counter-argument?
I can understand your frustration but in that case, argue that Doherty's argument is too narrow: don't yank it wide open under the cover or red herrings then claim that it is wrong yet what is wrong is your creation.

Like all serious scholars, Doherty makes very specific arguments. He doesnt thrive very well in the sea of ambiguity - the province of hacks, apologists and pseudo-historians.

False and ambiguous analogy.

I am sorry Bede, but I am just trying to see to it that you and like minded apologists refute exactly what you claim you are refuting, not what you are imagining it to be.

Bernard Muller

Jacob Aliet:
First, you are not addressing my comments. This is not my argument you are paraphrasing. Just what you believe.

For starter, Paul said his Son of God was "incarnated" in sinful flesh from a woman and a father from Israelite's descent. This Jesus was a Jew, humble, poor and dealing with other Jews. He (as the Lord, a later title) had brothers, one of them called James, whom Paul knew in person. He was crucified in weakness as Christ. Paul even indirectly indicated the place of crucifixion, Zion, that is Jerusalem.
'Hebrews' confirmed Jesus was, "for a time", a flesh & blood human. That Jesus was heard speaking about salvation and again was from Jewish origin & crucified in shame.
And because, both authors were very much in the heavenly re-existing and post-existing, they were not about giving trivial details, more so that the early Christians might already know them from other sources.

That all of that, one by one, has been harrassed by Mythicist or Jesus' Agnostics, certainly does not mean the evidence is not existing.

Of course, the described earthly Jesus here, is the one I would qualify as HJ, not the gospels Jesus with all the add-ons. The highly embellished gospels came later, so the I would not expect the glorious tales to appear as early.

You are interpreting the so-called silence as a proof no-one knew the facts. I know the facts about my late father: did I write his biography? No, because it would be of little interest. So was HJ.

Best regards, Bernard

the_cave

Spin--you seem to be arguing for an agnostic position. Am I correct?
Well, no, not entirely arbitrary...for example, even if you dispense with a town called "Nazareth", it is not entirely arbitrary to assume that a historical Jesus came from Galilee, since Nazareth was supposed to be in Galilee.
But then there is also no objective way of separating "bad" content from "good"...which is why I assume you are arguing from an agnostic standpoint on the question.
Considering your previous comments on the ubiquity of oral gospels, what does this prove? I am curious.
Which...I guess would be evidence that they believed in a historical Jesus...yes?

Bernard Muller

Spin:
The same coins were used in Corinth, as I recall reading, and Corinth had a large minority of Latin-speaking immigrants from Italy. One argument against the gospel being written for a Roman audience is it was written in Greek, not Latin. I agree with you the gospel does not seem to be written in the near East, despite some details only existing there, such as the flat roofs.

It look to me you are looking only at the external evidence. According to your criteria, then 'Daniel' should be dated well after 165BC, because the first external evidence comes around 100BC (and it is rather slim).

There are a lot more than Mk13:1-2 relating to the destruction of Jerusalem. And I am still waiting for a reply.

It is amazing how such a minor detail can give you so much problem. Aristion is one of two named in the same category. The other is presbyter John.

I do not think that the gospel was about literature. Actually "Mark" was not gifted in this domain. Why would "Mark" had Jesus prophecy the destruction of Jerusalem and soon after, the second coming, if he wrote 80 years after the facts. That would be suicidal for his cause, which was obviously to keep control over his flock. I cannot imagine David Koresh, the late leader to this highly apocalyptic sect, determining, through his "studies", that the End/Kingdom would happen right after the first world war. His sect would have disbanded in a jiffy. Actually, do you have one example of a prediction on the date of the Parousia/second_coming told to happen before it was claimed? As somebody writing in 2000, that the "End" will happen in 1930?

We differ considerably on this issue. However, I agree with "Jewish tradition very often rehashes contexts in later writings making them reflect new and newer historical contexts" (bolding mine), but I would add, for a purpose, not just to make literature.

As the last major apocalyptic event before the second coming & cosmic happening associated with it. The fall of Jerusalem is implied to be even more important than the big flood.

The text speaks for itself. It does not make human sense, then or now, to make so much of Jerusalem destruction, then claim the second coming will happen very soon afterwards, if the text was not written "urgently" in 70-71. "Matthew" and "Luke", writing some 15-20 years later, did specify reasons/pretexts for the delay (relative to 70) in the arrival in the Kingdom.
'John" chose not to mention the events of 70.

Best regards, Bernard

spin

The reason why many Greeks were in Rome was so that they could teach their patrons/owners to speak (good) Greek. Josephus wrote to his specifically Roman audience in Greek.

The quality of the Greek suggests that it wasn't written by a Greek, yet there were lots of Greeks in Corinth. Is there anything in the Greek to suggest Corinthian dialect?

We use the external evidence to give a terminus a quo date to the text and we use them to supply what we can of a terminus ad quem. We have almost nothing to supply a reliable terminus a quo let alone an ad quem.

Your acceptance of conventional datings for early church fathers means that you are not doing the basic work on which you build much of your dating mechanism.

It is what relates the passage you are analysing to the gospel narrative. Without that anchorage, the passage could be about any situation, such as the hardship that believers are going through, given a hard time by local authorities and in synagogues. The message is simple: persevere, you can make it to the end times . . . well, perhaps you can't, but now you have some hope, don't you? now run along and be martyred.

What else do you want me to forget about, Bernard?

I don't think it is wise to confuse prose style with literary merit.

Well actually, it wasn't Jerusalem, but the temple. The overthrow of the Jewish religion by xianity, wasn't it?

I'm not using "literature" in a purely aesthetic sense. It's just that we only have the text, ie literary material, which has its own literary features, hence adheres generally to the category literature.

Our problem with the "new and newer historical contexts" is our ability to recognize these new contexts.

It's not about the fall of Jerusalem -- this is only your assertion --, but ostensibly the fall of the temple, which is quite a rich symbol in itself. When you get into the heart of the apocalypse, it has nothing to do with the temple or Jerusalem, but about the experiences believers are having and that they just need to hold on.

As I have already indicated your assumption is just an assumption.

As the destruction of Jerusalem is not there, what is it again that you use for your end?

And it probably wasn't.

15-20 years, huh? Did you read that or invent it? A community could write a gospel say a few months after deciding they didn't quite like the one they received, so a copy of Mark hot off the press and reaching another community, could stimulate the production of a new improved one in less than six months. There is no way to gauge. For me there is far to much guesswork and conventional knowledge that doesn't reflect anything other than convention floating around.

I guess you can only play a game for so long. And that's the story. It depends not on history, but how long the idea had been doing the circuit.


spin

spin

In the sense that much of this is unknowable.

Once you have shown that there are problems of credibility, I see no coherent way of deciding what is savable in any meaningful sense. An example I gave a while back, say I'd made you a sandwich, but dropped it on the dirty floor and I then picked it up and picked out all the dirty that could be seen, giving it to you. Would you eat the sandwich? I don't think you would, because you would still have the doubt. It is functionally arbitrary.

I don't accept the notion of a historical Jesus based on the evidence we have and I find nothing about the position historical.

I can separate observable bad from the text. That doesn't say much about what is left.

This is as far back as we can go regarding the production of gospels.

Could be. Personally, I'm not too bothered about what people believed so much as what we can demonstrate about the past. People believed that the world had corners and was flat, but that doesn't mean that the world was that way back then.

People got invented and then got believed to be real. The classic example was the eponymous founder of the Ebionites, known to Tertulian as Ebion and developed on by later fathers, yet the name "Ebionite" comes from a Hebrew word meaning "poor" and there was no Ebion. This may also be the case with Jesus. It may not. But there is nothing historical about this, for us -- you and me --, totally literary figure.


spin

Bernard Muller

Spin:
"Mark" obviously did not qualify as a Greek teacher, in view of his poor command of that language. Are you saying there were so many Greeks in Rome just to act as teachers?

Ya, but why not an originally latin speaker who was struggling with the Greek tongue? That could have happened in Corinth. Is there anything in the Greek to suggest Roman dialect? And I do not think that Corinth, planted in the middle of Greece, would have much of a dialect.

As I see it, you are clueless, but opted for a dating as late as possible.

It's all from my own studies. And I do not have any reason to doubt that Papias wrote as early as 110. And the early church fathers were not advocating a post 70 dating for the gospels (as I do), as far as I know, but pre-70 dating. My dating is not dependant on Eusebius. Even if Aristides wrote later than Eusebius said, the impact is minimal.

Where does it say "well, perhaps you can't"? For the faithful who stay the course, that goes against what "Mark" wrote. The elects, alive at the destruction of Jerusalem, will get in the Kingdom. No if or but. And yes, this anchorage exists, and is well documented.

I did not ask you to forget anything. I am just amazed on how many items, some otherwise trivial, you have to fight against to keep your ideas afloat.

Temple, whole city, that's not the point. You missed the second coming to come soon after. And then, the Jewish religion was not overthrown among the whole of Palestine and among Diaspora Jews.

Regarding GMark, and studying it in situ, the context jump at you in a big way. Yes, we can recognize the context. That requires some work, mind you.
Same for text like 'Daniel' and many others. A "cannot do" attitude is no excuse.

First, there are other items in GMark which relates to the massacres (such as the parable of the tenants, and the call for those in Judea to flee in the mountains). Then, from where do you interpret "about the experiences believers are having and that they just need to hold on". Are not the destructions of 70 also mentioned as a catastrophic event, immediately beginning the great days of distress, which allegedly would be shortened for the elects?

Let me guess what you mean. "Mark" mentioned the destruction of the temple but not of Jerusalem. But both happened at the same time, according to Josephus. So either "Mark" was writing before 70CE, and "Mark" guessed right about the temple (but was clueless about Jerusalem) (or did Jesus himself prophecy?)
OR
written later, why would "Mark" still insist the second coming will happen very soon after the temple destruction (and did not know about the massacres and other destructions).

Please clarify you position.

First, again, the dating was according to my own study from the internal and external evidence, and not some invention. I did not mean to say those gospels had to wait that long to be written after GMark was. Actually, those 6 months may be realistic, in the case of GLuke and the original GJohn, which were written a short time after GMark was known in their community. But that does not mean right after GMark was written. The diffusion and acceptance of GMark were very spotty, according to my observations.
Anyway, you did not answer why "Matthew" and "Luke" introduced a delay after the destruction of 70, but GMark did not.

Best regards, Bernard

Ted Hoffman

False analogy. Your father is a historical person. And if you are assuming Jesus was a simple peasant Jew, you are also smuggling in historical assumptions into your argument to explain away the lack of mention of historical details concerning him.

Its not an argument of silence. Its an argument of the best explanation.
They werent just quiet about historical details of Jesus' life: if we take Hebrews and Paul's letters, we cannot construct a historcal Jesus.
And if we put together Paul's letters, Hebrews etc, with the works of the apostolic fathers like Didache, Shepherd of Hermas and 1st Clement, we get a "son of God" who is Christ Logos.

If we look at the Ignatian epistles (forged as they were) and the Gospels plus the work of the early Church fathers, we get a historical Jesus plus an apostolic tradition.

Its inescapably clear that a HJ was created from a mythical Jesus.

spin

No, I'm talking about thetraining of a Roman audience to deal with Greek.

Is there anything which would suggest a Latin substratum to Mark's Greek?

History requires methodology, Bernard. One starts with the known and tries to work backwards from the clues. Justin Martyr and the gospel of Marcion are my starting points, though I'm only assuming that Justin's gospel knowledge was from written sources.

I don't irresponsibly force conclusions that have no basis.

The material you are using comes from Eusebius whose veracity we have been questioning. This is the same guy who gave us Abgar and Constantine being a convert at the time of his battle with Maxentius and apparently even the freshly born TF. Do you have any reason for accepting that Papias was around then? Beside Eusebius we only have Irenaeus.

Have you got any references in the early church fathers for this early dating for the written gospels?

Directly from me, as an irreverent aside.


Your hanging on to this triviality is more a reflection of your defensiveness.

For you it's not the point. You have decided a priori what the point is. I didn't miss the second coming soon afterwards. The significance of what is being talked about is not the straightforward destruction of Jerusalem at all. What did the writer mean by the destruction of the temple? The detruction of the temple was at the time of the writing a literary trope, given the various destructions.

And yes, the Jewish religion was not overthrown.

I don't believe you.

Umm, wasn't Jerusalem in the mountains? Wasn't Mark written outside Palestine and didn't know Palestinian geography? Looking back on what happened to the Jews can be done at any stage, so the usurpation of the Jewish god by gentiles could have been written at any stage. You are not doing history.

Your dilemma is based on erroneous assumptions.

What is the significance of the destruction of the temple? Are we dealing strictly with a literal destruction of that building? Would the xian writer of a gospel be too interested in the physical destruction of that temple especially writing his gospel somewhere else (probably in Rome, but certainly in a Roman culture) to a non-Jewish audience?

The gospel may easily have been written long after the destruction of Jerusalem and not interested in the destruction at all, but in the struggle of the xian community to survive, while vying with Jews for maintenance of identity as worshippers of the same god, which the xians had appropriated from the Jews. It is only with the ideological victory over the Jews, perhaps our destruction of the temple, that the community could stop feeling 2nd class to the original owners of the religion.

Uh-huh.

Answer already given:

spin