Rick Sumner

The fact that it's admissable inherently means that it's more likely to be true. It's why it's allowed but hearsay isn't. They don't need to be instructed, they get to hear it--it's already granted special favour, because it is considered more reliable.

That you think a greater degree of reliability isn't implicit in its admissibility boggles my mind. . .it's the entire point of the law. It's so much the case that it can even be admitted if the declarant is unavailable. So says Federal Rules of Evidence 804(b)(3)

It's also admissible whether it's against penal or proprietary interest.

And none of that matters. You said that such a criteria wasn't used outside of the study of the NT. That is false. It's doubly false, because it's also used, extensively, in the study of the OT.

It's ultimately a question of bias--considering the biases of a source when evaluating it's reliability. That you would need to bear that in mind in historical-criticism of any kind seems so obvious to me that the fact that you need to see an example to conclude that it happens boggles my mind. But sure. I'll dig out the Meier reference in the morning. I actually already gave you the substance, I'll just need to track down the specific citation.

What? The agenda I'm speaking of belongs to the ancient authors, not the historian. That should have been clear from the context. Given that you repeat the same thing below, I can only scratch my head at how you get this.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

spamandham

You are welcome to disagree, but what do you base your assumption of the dates of the gospels upon, considering that ranges provided by respectable scholars are all over the map?

I think we've already established the author felt the end was emminent. So does Tim LeHay...does that mean his books are relevant to the discussion as well? I really don't understand how the expectation of the author that the end was nigh somehow argues for a historical Jesus. If there was a historical Jesus, but he lived 200 years earlier than generally believed, that wouldn't diminish an apocalyptic expectation on the part of the author of Mark.

You seem to accept traditional datings, no? If so, then you accept that Paul wrote before Mark?

If Paul could get away with not mentioning the "embarassing" baptism, why could Mark - writing later than Paul - not also simply fail to mention it? Mark went out of his way to mention it in spite of the lack of mention of it by the earlier author Paul (according to traditional datings, which you seem to buy, but I don't).

spin

Unless you can think of some method to be able to test the hypothetical part, it can only be vain speculation. It makes as much sense to me as Paul not mentioning his christ being crucified, because of the embarrassment of some mere human crucifying his hero. This earns the doh! of the day.


spin

gurugeorge

What does that have to do with anything? Is the point to convert Christians to atheism or to get at the truth of what happened in those ancient times?

bacht

I think you're restricting the possibilities. Many atheists can accept that there was an historical person Jesus who was later dressed up in divine clothing. In my experience even non-Christians tend to like the idea that there must have been someone behind the myth [ask Dan Brown]

Skeptics in general have a tendency to mock believers, this subject is no different.

I'm interested in the truth of Christian origins for a couple of reasons, one being that the Bible is one of the foundations of Western culture. I have no sympathy for fundamentalists of any religion, they strip the writings of their nuance, and cause trouble on the ground.

Historical research and speculation in other topics is not as controversial or scrutinized as in biblical studies. Details that would bore non-specialists in other subjects incite flame-wars or worse in this field.

It's disingenuous to pretend that this subject is the same as other secular studies. OTOH we have the freedom and resources to deconstruct our own roots, a luxury apparently not available to many Muslims.

bacht

I think you're short-changing our dear old Mark. Besides inventing the gospel genre, his use of characters and themes is quite subtle. There are several threads here about him; Joe Wallack has been doing an analysis recently.

Mark is pro-Paul and anti-Peter, and presents the messiah idea with irony rather than exultation. His extensive midrash of OT scripture is impressive.

As far as dating, any time up to mid-2nd C is possible. I'm leaning towards a date either before or after the bar-Kochba revolt. Apologists always go for the earliest possible dates in order to include the possibility of apostolic authorship.

aa5874

Jesus merely as an apocalyptic preacher is not supported internally by either the NT or Church writers.

To propose that Jesus was only an apocalyptic preacher, a person would have to reject the information in the NT and the Church writings and fabricate from imagination their own character.

The human only Jesus has enormous unanswerable problems.

If Jesus was just human, the NT, the non-canonised texts and Church writings would probably represent the largest collection of fiction, erroneous and mis-leading information ever assembled about any human that have ever lived.

If Jesus was just human, his mother, father, brother, acquaintances, disciples and followers gave false information or erroneous about his conception, birth, baptism, temptation, miracles, transfiguration, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension.

To assemble Jesus as an apocalyptic preacher, a person has to reject all the available information and then use their imagination to come up with such a character. There would be no credible information, internal or external, to support the apocalyptic preacher, he would just be a big guess.

The person fabricating the human Jesus will have to ask and answer their own questions about the preacher.

However, the proposal that Jesus was a myth does not pose any serious problems at all. This proposal is easily understood.

Someone, anonimously, writes a story about a character called Jesus as the Son of God many decades from supposed events, the story is circulated and is believed to be true.

Others, amend the original Jesus story to remove what appears to be inconsistencies, and even add or make up stuff about Jesus, more and more people believe.

More and more people write stories about Jesus, until Eusebius and Constantine.

spamandham

Exactly. The arguments used for those early dates are pathetic.

I tend to think Mark was probably early 2nd century, because it looks to leverage off the writings of Josephus, and I think about a generation is needed from the time of the destruction of the temple for such a story to be acceptable. That tends to limit the early side. On the late side, we have the various acts style documents appearing in the late 2nd century, which argues the story had been around quite a while.

So, these factors to me, push Mark toward the early 2nd century.

aa5874

I am alse presently of the view that the author of Mark used the John the Baptist story, and the marriage of Herod to Herodias from Antiquities of the Jews written around 92 CE.

But, the asking of the head of John the Baptist was , to me, very crucial in maintaining this conclusion. In Josephus, it was Tiberius who ask for the head of Aretas.

Antiquities of the Jews 18.5.1 Now, it would appear that the author of Mark was not a Jew, the other authors of the gospels appear to have found that the author was not familiar with the geography and customs of Judaea, the author may have gotten his information from Josephus.

bacht

Yes. John the Baptist had a following which may include modern Mandeans, yet he was not divinized the same way.

The claim that the Creator walked among us disguised as a Jewish prophet is a fabulous supernatural belief. Historians are compelled to approach such claims with the tools of scientific enquiry. If there is no Creator as atheists believe then the whole thing looks like a fantasy.

The other point is that Catholics and other scripture writers had a receptive audience for these teachings (at least before Constantine made it mandatory). Telling people what they want to hear is as common in religion as in politics. Who knows if "Matthew" really believed what he was writing? His gospel became popular anyway.