Freethought & Rationalism Archive

squiz · 01-02-2010, 05:16 PM

Anyone listened to this podcast from Marc Goodacre and care to comment. He seems to me to be rather uncritical of the gospel sources, and insinuates that Josephus might have got some important dates wrong. What do you think?

JoeWallack · 01-02-2010, 07:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by squiz

Anyone listened to this podcast from Marc Goodacre and care to comment. He seems to me to be rather uncritical of the gospel sources, and insinuates that Josephus might have got some important dates wrong. What do you think?

JW:
As near as I can tell I am the foremost authority the world has ever known on The Birth Dating Contradiction Luke vs. Matthew on the Year of Christ's Birth by Richard Carrier, Ph.D. (2006) so thanks for pointing this out.

For starters, when I heard Goodacre talk for the first time, I couldn't help being reminded of the scene from MP&THG with the French castle in England. I've read some of MG's blog before and besides being Stephen Carlson's role model, he looks pretty mainstream. Listening to MG's podcast I felt like Zaphod Beeblebrox when the rats put him in the Universe Isolator which did him no harm as it just served to confirm his existing view that he was the only thing in the Universe.

MG notes The Birth Dating Contradiction between "Matthew" and "Luke" at 5:53 of the Podcast (53?). He attempts to defend "Luke" by:

1) Stating that the related prophecy is during "Herod the Great":

Luke 1

Quote:

5 There was in the days of Herod, king of Judaea , a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abijah: and he had a wife of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth.

Note that "Luke" does not say "Herod the Great", only "Herod". Also, "Luke" qualifies with "king of Judaea". As Dr. Carrier points out, "Luke" is probably not referring to Herod the Great here:

ATTEMPTED SOLUTION #1 - Looking in Luke for a Different Date

Quote:

Some observe that Luke says John the Baptist was born during the reign of "Herod the King" (1:5) and appears to have Jesus born less than a year later (1:22-24, 1:31-36, 1:80, 2:1, 2:40-42), which appears to agree with Matthew. However, Matthew does not mention or date the birth of John, and despite the impression given by English translations, Luke is unclear how much time actually passed between his birth and that of Jesus. More importantly, Archelaus was also called Herod (even on his own coins) and even Josephus calls him a king (Antiquities of the Jews 18.93). Unlike Matthew, Luke provides no detail indicating either he or his source meant anything other than Herod Archelaus when dating the birth of John. Therefore, unless we assume Luke is contradicting himself, we can't assume he dated either the birth of John or Jesus to the time of Herod the Great. So there is no case to be made from 1:5 that Luke agreed with Matthew.

2) Stating that "Luke's" time marker of the 15th year of Tiberius combined with the "about 30" comment places Jesus' birth near Herod the Great (MG does not provide any accompanying calculation). Dr. Carrier likewise demonstrates that this does not help any more than 1):

Quote:

Likewise, when Luke dates the start of John's ministry to 28 C.E. (3:1) and then over twenty verses later says Jesus began his own ministry at "about thirty" (3:23) some assume the two ministries began the same year, which would place the birth of Jesus at "about" 3 B.C.E. which for a "rough" estimate is close enough to fit Matthew. But Luke never says the two ministries began the same year, and for various reasons it's unlikely they did. Luke clearly didn't know the year Jesus started his ministry, since he didn't know how old he was, despite claiming to know exactly when he was born. Since "about" thirty can be off by at least four years (26-34), and since Luke allows some time to pass between the start of John's ministry and the baptism of Jesus, and since scholars agree Jesus could have begun and ended his ministry anytime between 28 and 33 C.E., we are left with a window between 7 B.C.E. to 7 C.E. for his birth, far too wide to pin down. So there is no good case to be made from Luke 3:1-23 that he agreed with Matthew.2

MG claims that because of 1) and 2) it is "implausible" & "impossible" that "Luke" intended to date Jesus' birth to 6 CE.

I did get some satisfaction out of MG dismissing the most common related apology, that "Luke" meant "before" rather than "first" when referring to the Quirinius census for the following two reasons:

1) The natural reading of the grammar is "first".

2) "Before" would be an unexpected misdirection.

Presumably MG thinks Stephen Carlson's proposed "foremost" translation solution, discussed on these Boards Ad Nazorean, is even more unlikely and that is why Carlson has dropped it.

In conclusion MG thinks, despite claiming that "Luke" in general is the more careful historian, that "Luke" simply erred in placing Jesus' birth during the Quirinius census (which as near as I can tell is the majority Christian Bible scholar view) and it is likely that Jesus was born c. 4 BCE.

Joseph

ErrancyWiki

maryhelena · 01-03-2010, 05:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by squiz

Anyone listened to this podcast from Marc Goodacre and care to comment. He seems to me to be rather uncritical of the gospel sources, and insinuates that Josephus might have got some important dates wrong. What do you think?

Matthew verse Luke - or are they writing about two different 'births' in their gospel nativity account of Jesus. Obviously, the historicists have a problem with these two different accounts - but mythicists? Surely not - once the gospel storyline is viewed as being non-historical the necessity to harmonize the two different nativity accounts falls away? Once a mythological Jesus is accepted - its not harmonizing that becomes important but an endeavour to understand what Luke, in particular, was doing with his different dating system for the gospel Jesus.

Consider what Wells wrote here:

Quote:

G.A.Wells:

http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...ls/errant.html

Recent work on Q led me to accept that the gospels (unlike the Pauline and the other early epistles) may include traditions about a truly historical itinerant preacher of the early first century.

Likewise, my acceptance of recent Q scholarship means that I am no longer asserting that all the traditions about Jesus in Mark must have evolved after the Pauline period..

My case is that, while some elements in the gospels may have elaborated the career of an actual itinerant Galilean preacher (who was not crucified and certainly not resurrected), the dying and rising Christ of the earliest extant Christian documents cannot be accounted for in this way; and that not until the gospels are these two very different figures fused into one.

"two very different figures fused into one."

Sure, Wells has a historical itinerant Galielean preacher plus a dying and rising Christ - but it's his idea of fusing two different aspects of the Jesus mythology that is very interesting....

Perhaps it’s rather a case of intellectually/ symbolically fusing two different historical people that is at the bedrock of the Jesus mythology! A composite Jesus - a composite mythological Jesus that has been coloured by the lives of two historical people.

Consider Matthew's birth dating - anytime prior to the death of Herod the Great - going all the way back from 4 BC to 37 BC and Herod's siege of Jerusalem and his slaughter of young and old.

Luke's birth date - during a time when no descendant of Herod the Great was ruling in Jerusalem - runs from 6 CE to around 41 CE when Agrippa 1 became ruler.

And the date for the fusing - the date when two historical individuals symbolically became ‘one' in the Jesus mythology - Luke's most important date of all - the 15th year of Tiberius in 29/30 CE.

Actually, when one thinks about it - the two major views on Jesus - the cynic sage/wisdom teacher verse apocalyptic prophet - could well be a result of the Jesus mythology fusing the details of two historical people. Surely a far more logical idea than the assumed historical Jesus being something of a schizophrenic...

GakuseiDon · 01-03-2010, 05:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by maryhelena

Actually, when one thinks about it - the two major views on Jesus - the cynic sage/wisdom teacher verse apocalyptic prophet - could well be a result of the Jesus mythology fusing the details of two historical people. Surely a far more logical idea than the assumed historical Jesus being something of a schizophrenic...

Or perhaps an apocalyptic prophet who was recast as a cynic/wisdom teacher after the apocalypse didn't occur in a timely fashion?

DCHindley · 01-03-2010, 09:23 AM

Unfortunately, for the time being I am relegated to a crappy 2nd hand computer using my now-dead laptop's HDD, which lacks the proper sound drivers (the desktop has no functioning CD-ROMs and has USB1 ports, so I can't even use a remote drive to load drivers), so can't hear it.

However, if it's Mark Goodacre, he is not idly speculating. He is a published professional academic NT critic who specializes on the Synoptic Problem and operates a forum at Synoptic-L website, where all sorts of Q sceptics and theorists of alternate synoptic solutions hang out (he himself remains relaively neutral on the issue).

Steve Mason and others have caught errors of dates in Josephus before, and there also appear to be a few in Acts, which on the surface at least attempts to be a historical narrative. In the issue of dating Jesus' birth, why can't Luke also be in error? Come to think of it, why not both?

DCH

Quote:

Originally Posted by squiz

Anyone listened to this podcast from Marc Goodacre and care to comment. He seems to me to be rather uncritical of the gospel sources, and insinuates that Josephus might have got some important dates wrong. What do you think?

Solo · 01-03-2010, 10:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DCHindley

Unfortunately, for the time being I am relegated to a crappy 2nd hand computer using my now-dead laptop's HDD, which lacks the proper sound drivers (the desktop has no functioning CD-ROMs and has USB1 ports, so I can't even use a remote drive to load drivers), so can't hear it.

However, if it's Mark Goodacre, he is not idly speculating. He is a published professional academic NT critic who specializes on the Synoptic Problem and operates a forum at Synoptic-L website, where all sorts of Q sceptics and theorists of alternate synoptic solutions hang out (he himself remains relaively neutral on the issue).

Steve Mason and others have caught errors of dates in Josephus before, and there also appear to be a few in Acts, which on the surface at least attempts to be a historical narrative. In the issue of dating Jesus' birth, why can't Luke also be in error? Come to think of it, why not both?

DCH

FWIW, Mark Goodacre's ten-minute lecture basically nods to the received wisdom that Luke internally agrees with Matthew's dating. MG believes this is confirmed by 3:1, which places the preaching of John in the 15th year of Tiberius, which would make thirty-something Jesus baptized some time in 29 AD. Goodacre says that the Quirinius census is likely a blooper by Luke.

I don't think you missed much.

Jiri

Solo · 01-03-2010, 10:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by maryhelena

Quote:

G.A.Wells:

http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...ls/errant.html

Recent work on Q led me to accept that the gospels (unlike the Pauline and the other early epistles) may include traditions about a truly historical itinerant preacher of the early first century.

Likewise, my acceptance of recent Q scholarship means that I am no longer asserting that all the traditions about Jesus in Mark must have evolved after the Pauline period..

My case is that, while some elements in the gospels may have elaborated the career of an actual itinerant Galilean preacher (who was not crucified and certainly not resurrected), the dying and rising Christ of the earliest extant Christian documents cannot be accounted for in this way; and that not until the gospels are these two very different figures fused into one.

"two very different figures fused into one."

Sure, Wells has a historical itinerant Galielean preacher plus a dying and rising Christ - but it's his idea of fusing two different aspects of the Jesus mythology that is very interesting....

Before committing to an enthusiastic nod to the 2-Jesus figures theory you should know that for roughly thirty years Wells resisted acknowledging that the Q-figure had any historical background at all. This in plain sight of the fact that the 'son of man' traditional sayings did not fit anywhere in Paul's soteriology, and would have required, if mythical origin of Jesus was to win the day, a separate mythical Jesus. As I remarked sarcastically, 'foxes have holes, and the birds have nests but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head because he suffers from historical derealization'.

BTW, any ideas as to what gives Wells the assurance that the Q preacher was not crucified ?

Jiri

maryhelena · 01-03-2010, 10:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solo

Quote:

Originally Posted by maryhelena

"two very different figures fused into one."

Sure, Wells has a historical itinerant Galielean preacher plus a dying and rising Christ - but it's his idea of fusing two different aspects of the Jesus mythology that is very interesting....

Before committing to an enthusiastic nod to the 2-Jesus figures theory you should know that for roughly thirty years Wells resisted acknowledging that the Q-figure had any historical background at all. This in plain sight of the fact that the 'son of man' traditional sayings did not fit anywhere in Paul's soteriology, and would have required, if mythical origin of Jesus was to win the day, a separate mythical Jesus. As I remarked sarcastically, 'foxes have holes, and the birds have nests but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head because he suffers from historical derealization'.

BTW, any ideas as to what gives Wells the assurance that the Q preacher was not crucified ?

Jiri

I'm not following Wells at all - re the idea of a composite Jesus figure in the gospel storyline. Actually, I wrote to Wells, about 20 years ago, re this idea.....

I don't have any idea re Wells and his non-crucified Q preacher - I don't have his books - and years ago someone gave me just a photocopy of something from one of his books....so I'm really not familiar with his whole story.....I had already, some years prior to this, come to the view that the gospel Jesus was not historical - hence my interest in Wells and his idea re the gospel storyline...

DCHindley · 01-03-2010, 01:25 PM

Wells has changed his opinion about Christian origins over his career.

I'd say the consensus view among scholars involved with "Q" research think there was a "Q community" that preserved wisdom sayings of a revered sage, probably Jesus. This is sometimes mated with Didache research that suggests a period of radical itinerism in the early Christian movement followed by integration of these itinerant prophets and teachers into sympathetic settled communities. As a result, several of the Q community advocates seek to fit a radical itinerant Jesus movement in Galilee in the 1st century.

Whatever the liklihood of this hypothesized radical itinerant Jesus/Jesus movement, the focal figure of Q & the Christ of the Didache is not a resurrected savior, but rather a sage and wisdom teacher. That resurrected savior theology is only found expressly stated in the letters of Paul. While "other elements" (the non-Q parts) of the synoptic Gospels do imply this kind of theology as they adapted the figure of an itinerant Jesus into a resurrected savior, and Jesus' divinity openly expressed in the Gospel of John, Wells just doesn't see how the resurrected savior theology could have developed FROM the wisdon saying itinerant Jesus.

DCH

Quote:

Originally Posted by maryhelena

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solo

Before committing to an enthusiastic nod to the 2-Jesus figures theory you should know that for roughly thirty years Wells resisted acknowledging that the Q-figure had any historical background at all. This in plain sight of the fact that the 'son of man' traditional sayings did not fit anywhere in Paul's soteriology, and would have required, if mythical origin of Jesus was to win the day, a separate mythical Jesus. As I remarked sarcastically, 'foxes have holes, and the birds have nests but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head because he suffers from historical derealization'.

BTW, any ideas as to what gives Wells the assurance that the Q preacher was not crucified ?

Jiri

I'm not following Wells at all - re the idea of a composite Jesus figure in the gospel storyline. Actually, I wrote to Wells, about 20 years ago, re this idea.....

I don't have any idea re Wells and his non-crucified Q preacher - I don't have his books - and years ago someone gave me just a photocopy of something from one of his books....so I'm really not familiar with his whole story.....I had already, some years prior to this, come to the view that the gospel Jesus was not historical - hence my interest in Wells and his idea re the gospel storyline...

squiz · 01-03-2010, 02:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DCHindley

However, if it's Mark Goodacre

Yes sorry, it is Mark Goodacre.

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01-02-2010, 05:16 PM	#1
squiz Regular Member Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Munich Germany Posts: 434	Goodacre on the date of Jesus' birth Anyone listened to this podcast from Marc Goodacre and care to comment. He seems to me to be rather uncritical of the gospel sources, and insinuates that Josephus might have got some important dates wrong. What do you think?

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