Roland

The following elements, well known from the gospels, are found in Christian writing ONLY ONE HUNDRED YEARS OR MORE AFTER Jesus’ alleged death and resurrection:

Virgin Birth, Nazareth, Bethlehem, Herod, John the Baptist, Judas, the empty tomb, gospel quotes, miracles

Why are all the earliest Christian writers silent on these issues if they were all elements of Jesus’ life on earth?

And why, once we get to the writers in the 2nd half of the 2nd Century, do these issues show up with great regularity?

Info taken from the following site:

http://members.iinet.net.au/~quentin...ity/Table.html

lpetrich

Another good site for Jesus mythicism: The Jesus Puzzle.

And some books to check out:
Earl Doherty's The Jesus Puzzle
Robert Price's The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man

Vinnie

The Birth and Passion Narratives are largely fictional. Also in support of your point is that Mark ended at 16:8 and we have more divergence at this point in the Gospels. So much for popular passion memory.

The passion narrative was composed from passion prophecy. Individual units and whole frames are so linked to prophetic fulfillment that there removal leaves only brute facts behind. The two goats!

Thats why there are no independent versions of a linked passion narrative outside the Gospels and most see a single source for the passions (either Mark, or a premarcan passion narrative or the Cross gospel now embedded within GPeter). The only potential candidates are Mark and John but even so, if this was so important, and there was such popular memory, why do we not have more independent versions of it or early knowlede of it?

Several lines of argumentation, and not mere silence alone (which admittedly, is somewhat strong here), come forth and converge against historicity. There are also numerous contradictions and the portraits have sharp theological divergences. Popular memory of the linked passion is extremely difficult to find.

At any rate, for the other details, why would anyone want to mention Nazareth, JBap or Judas when the first century texts all saw these events as embarrassing and apologized them? Mt and Lk tried to get Jesus out of Nazereth and into bethlehem and GJohn shows common sentiments about "Nazareth" (can anything good come from there?). The betrayal of Jesus is likely to be historical. Jud is MAed, embarrassing and not only accorting to the scriptures, but also predicted by Jesus. Plus there are three or four indepdnent versions of this figures death. The argument that this all stems from Mark wil lcompletely fold.

And does Ignatius in Ep 19 not mention the virgin birth?

Also, Ignatius mentions John the baptist twice. In one instance a "matthean redactional element is used" in essence to "fulfill all righteousness" and also Ignatius offers Jesus as purifying the water here in another spot. He mentions baptism twice actually. So does the Gospel to the Hebrews and several other Gospels (and even if some GEbionites, Gnazoreans of these are dependent upon the NT docs they show knowledge of this).

Luke also rushes past the baptism towards prayer and Epiphany. GJohn has JBap at the beginning like the other gospelers and has JBap praise Jesus but the baptism is suspisciouly missing. Most would think the author of the Johannine community was aware of baptist tradition. To deny this would greatly hurt your "no independent version lines" itself. So it shows supression and there is a motive for why.

"Gospel quotes" are simply abundant if by that you mean Jesus sayings and teachings. They can be shown to be known in a ton of places across all streams of the tradition.

We also note that the second century was where a transition from oral to written occured. Papias shows that orality in the early 2d century was still going for some yet others were using books. By 150 (Justin, Clement et al) written works seems to have become the norm. Paul's letters were also collected and becoming well known ca 100 c.e.

We also have fragmentary knowledge of the 2d entury. Papias obviously knew Mark. Other authors in the first half of the second century knew some Gospel details.

We must also remember that the gospels became increasingly popular after they were created. Mark was used (correctled) instantly by two sources.

At any rate, large chunks of the passion are largely fictional. The silence of a linked PN outside the Gospels is one of the several good arguments used to demonstrate this.

Vinnie

Vinnie

I like the table format of that site (aka the table). It needs some work though to be more thorough and accurate.

Amaleq13

Spin has already shown that "Nazareth" is most likely a mistranslation of a word Mark originally uses to refer to Jesus. IIRC, the word meant "watcher" with possible apocalyptic connotations. Neither Mt nor Lk appears to be "embarrassed" by Nazareth so much as they are intent on fulfilling the Scriptural requirement that the messiah be born in Bethlehem.

The author of Mark clearly acknowledges that he considers a herald of the messiah and a betrayer of the messiah to be Scriptural requirements. It is naive or misleading to pretend that the name "Judas" could not possibly be a deliberate choice to symbolize the general Jewish rejection of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Again, there is no hint that the author finds this Scriptural requirement "embarrassing".

Where is the "embarrassment" in Mark that Jesus is baptized by John? Jesus is depicted as going to be baptized without apology despite the fact that John was known to be baptizing for the repentance of sin! There is absolutely no attempt by the author to prevent the reader from accepting the obvious implication that Jesus had or at least believed he had sins that required repentance. There is absolutely no indication the author considered this obvious implication embarrassing. The scene is entirely consistent with the belief that the messiah would be unknown even to himself until he was anointed by "Elijah". There is no hint that the author considered this belief embarrassing.

You'll have to look elsewhere for reliably historical claims.

Roland

Vinnie - the site offers an email address for anyone with suggestions on improving it:

quentinj@iinet.net.au

Vinnie

It is naive or misleading to pretend that the name "Judas" could not possibly be a deliberate choice to symbolize the general Jewish rejection of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Again, there is no hint that the author finds this Scriptural requirement "embarrassing".

Yes the "name" of the individual "could be" a deliberate choice but that in no way undermines historicty, See Crossan. Also a close confidant specially designated by Jesus to follow him is embarrassing. That is why its according to the scriptures and Jesus foreknew it. The fact that Judas material is multiply attested undercuts your counter argument.

Neither Mt nor Lk appears to be "embarrassed" by Nazareth so much as they are intent on fulfilling the Scriptural requirement that the messiah be born in Bethlehem.

Nazareth (or Galilee) wasn't sufficeint for them. They had to put him elsewhere. THis is a minor form of the embarrassment criterion or "against the grain". The grain is bethlehem--obviously. John also lays sentiments on this. My point stands. Of course many note that Mark is somewhat fond of Galilee but Mark is not our only source.

Baptism is embarrassing all throughout the Christian record. Mark includes the entire scene in heavy apologetics. Had he been simply creating like you suppose he could have done what John or Au_GNazoreans did. Mark worked historical material into an apologetic.

http://www.after-hourz.net/ri/baptistchrist.html

MArk quotes none of John's info on repentence and so forth as do Mt and Lk. Instead he focuses solely on how Jesus can be exalted by John. Jesus is the stronger one to come.

Mark is quick to exalt Jesus over John: ""After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie." He is also quick to set the account as "according to the scriptures". The flow here is history to scripture. Not scripture to history. There is no such "baptism prophecy". There is passion prophecy, however. Mark worked with historical material and turned it into his own theological liking.

Vinnie

Amaleq13

You keep asserting embarrassment but you also keep failing to provide any textual evidence that it actually existed in the mind of the author. Where does the author of Mark betray his "embarrassment" that the story of Jesus fulfills Scriptural requirements for the messiah?

It is according to Scripture because it is contained in the Hebrew Bible and was believed to be relevant to the coming messiah. Jesus is depicted as knowing this beforehand because the author is depicting him as the Son of God and that sort of foreknowledge is a perk of the position.

On what basis do you reject the possibility that the story followed faith in certain Scriptural requirements?

Nonsense. Mark presents the story and others copied it. There is no trace of it in Paul despite the misleading translation of his revealed knowledge about the Lord's Supper often used to argue otherwise. Paul describes Jesus as being "handed over" (rather than "betrayed") and the apparent Scriptural origin of that term suggests Paul understood God to be the one doing the handing over.

Mark's reference to Jesus had already been misunderstood as a reference to a specific village in Galilee by the time they rewrote his story. They are simultaneously creating a fulfillment of a messianic requirement and "correcting" Mark's adoptionist portrayal of Jesus.

Or this is yet another example of Gospel authors feeling free to fabricate based on their belief in certain messianic Scriptural requirements.

John appears to implicitly deny the birth narratives while accepting the mistranslation of Mark.

Paul offers no support. Q also favors Galilee but fails to mention Nazareth. GTh mentions neither. Mark is our earliest source and, again relying on spin's linguistic analysis, it appears the author never claimed Nazareth as his birthplace.

There is certainly textual evidence in Mt, Lk, and Jn when contrasted with Mark to suggest they were embarrassed by Mark's depiction but where is the evidence in Mark that he was "embarrassed"?

Including hyperbole in your unsupported assertions does not make them more credible. Q depicts an early connection between JBap and Jesus but not an actual baptism. Was Jesus a former disciple of JBap or a contemporary rival or is this depiction of Q a reflection of later tension between followers of both dead leaders? We don't know. It does not, however, require a genius to take this early connection and a belief that the messiah would only recognize his identity after being anointed by Elijah to imagine JBap as Jesus' "Elijah" and create an appropriate scene. That you can read embarrassment into Mark's story does not make the author embarrassed about historical material.

Untrue.

"John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins." (Mark 1:4)

The author then procedes to describe Jesus as going to John and being baptized but makes no effort to apologize for implying Jesus had sins to repent. Once Jesus is anointed and identified he naturally becomes superior to John. This requires no extra effort or "heavy apologetics" to describe.

Mark immediately identifies John as the "Elijah" who will facilitate the identification of Jesus as the Messiah.

Exactly. The story follows a belief in this particular messianic requirement.

What is your evidence that the events preceded the recognition of the Scriptural requirements? It seems to me that there is nothing eliminating the opposite possibility.

Roland

I'm not sure I quite understand this "embarrassment = more likely to have happened" theory. Fictional stories are filled with embarrssments for their main characters. That's the foundation of great drama. It provides the tension necessary to make the characters real and to involve the reader/audience. Just look at The Odyssey, which parallels Mark in many ways. Look how often Odysseus' men disobey him, resulting in all sorts of trouble for him and them. That doesn't make The Odyssey any more "true" as history.

Mary.

I've never understood it either, and was never able to think of a good response to it. So I appreciate your making your point about this. I'm sure I'll have opportunity to use it in the future. :notworthy

Thanks,
Mary.