Freethought & Rationalism Archive

spamandham · 10-24-2008, 08:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

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.

The author was familiar enough with Jewish scriptures to construct many aspects of the story from it, and leave allusions to it almost everywhere else. This doesn't demand that the author was Jewish, but that's a simple explanation.

I do agree that the author was not from Judaea (which tends to rule out Josephus as the author). Though considering how anti-Jewish and pro-Roman Mark is, I think it reasonable to infer the author was aligned with Rome.

No Robots · 10-24-2008, 08:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bacht

The claim that the Creator walked among us disguised as a Jewish prophet is a fabulous supernatural belief.

However, this is a misreading of the texts, a pagan distortion of Jewish literature.

aa5874 · 10-24-2008, 09:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bacht

Quote:

Originally Posted by 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.

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.

We have a prototype of how religions are started. There is Joseph Smith and Mormonism, where a story is written, believed to be true, and in less than 200 hundred years, have millions of believers.

It would appear that it is not necessary for the originator to actually believe their own story but that others believe and spread their belief to others through conversion or by reproduction, i.e by having large families or a large number of children who are then coerced or forced to believe by the threats of eternal damnation in hell.

spamandham · 10-24-2008, 10:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

We have a prototype of how religions are started. There is Joseph Smith and Mormonism, where a story is written, believed to be true, and in less than 200 hundred years, have millions of believers.

Good example. The Book of Mormon is obviousy the fantasy of Joseph Smith based on no historical events at all.

For reasons I don't understand, there is a very strong bias even among secular historians against the argument that the Gospel story was also concocted from whole cloth, though based on common theological themes and drawing from previous religious texts, just like the Book of Mormon.

It's a simple explanation that does not suffer from all the problems associated with assuming a historical basis, nicely explains all the evidence, and is consistent with what we know about the "big bang" style formation of religions - which is what Christianity appears to be.

bacht · 10-24-2008, 10:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spamandham

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

We have a prototype of how religions are started. There is Joseph Smith and Mormonism, where a story is written, believed to be true, and in less than 200 hundred years, have millions of believers.

Good example. The Book of Mormon is obviousy the fantasy of Joseph Smith based on no historical events at all.

For reasons I don't understand, there is a very strong bias even among secular historians against the argument that the Gospel story was also concocted from whole cloth, though based on common theological themes and drawing from previous religious texts, just like the Book of Mormon.

It's a simple explanation that does not suffer from all the problems associated with assuming a historical basis, nicely explains all the evidence, and is consistent with what we know about the "big bang" style formation of religions - which is what Christianity appears to be.

You mentioned earlier that you wanted to play devil's advocate on this thread. Do you still have an idea that some real person was at the bottom of the NT stories? The Qumran Teacher of Righteousness sometimes gets dragged in as a candidate, though I understand that he can also be read as James the Just (or simply some Maccabbean dissenter).

Rick Sumner · 10-24-2008, 10:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by teamonger

LOL. You're assuming a high level of cleverness and conspiracy that you have no evidence for. Mark appears as simply an imperfect 2nd hand reporter, not some ingenious fabricator.
t

While I'm not going to lend much credibility to aa's. . .interesting ideas, there is something to be said for embarrassment being used as a ruse. The centurion of Mark 15:39 may serve such a purpose (and, incidentally, may be an example of embarassment being used in such a fashion even 2000 years ago).

If my kids ever nap, I'll dig up the other references, though I can still only scratch my head that they're necessary. . .the "bias rule" is the second rule of historiography--all sources are biased, and we need to assess their reasons for being honest or dishonest.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

No Robots · 10-24-2008, 10:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spamandham

For reasons I don't understand, there is a very strong bias even among secular historians against the argument that the Gospel story was also concocted from whole cloth, though based on common theological themes and drawing from previous religious texts, just like the Book of Mormon.

Emphasis added.

Might I be so bold as to suggest that you begin by looking seriously at those reasons?

aa5874 · 10-24-2008, 11:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rick Sumner

Quote:

Originally Posted by teamonger

LOL. You're assuming a high level of cleverness and conspiracy that you have no evidence for. Mark appears as simply an imperfect 2nd hand reporter, not some ingenious fabricator.
t

While I'm not going to lend much credibility to aa's. . .interesting ideas, there is something to be said for embarrassment being used as a ruse. The centurion of Mark 15:39 may serve such a purpose (and, incidentally, may be an example of embarassment being used in such a fashion even 2000 years ago).

The criteria of embarrassment is a useless tool to evaluate historicity of written text or second-hand information since one must first accept the text or second-hand information as true and then, in a circular fashion, claim the information is embarrassing so the text reflects history.

Examine these scenarios:

If I were to personally ask a person if they were ever imprisonned for a crime and the person positively affirms, then I may regard the affirmation as true.

Now, if I told some-one else of that interview, or published the information in writing, then only if the interview is first believed to have occurred and that information is true and correct, can the admittance of being imprissoned be properly assessed.

It is just totally circular to first believe a text or second-hand information is true and then say it is embarrassing so it is true. Circular, Circular, Circular!

show_no_mercy · 10-24-2008, 11:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

We have a prototype of how religions are started. There is Joseph Smith and Mormonism, where a story is written, believed to be true, and in less than 200 hundred years, have millions of believers.

We have a better one than that - the

Cargo Cults from WWII

spamandham · 10-24-2008, 12:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bacht

You mentioned earlier that you wanted to play devil's advocate on this thread. Do you still have an idea that some real person was at the bottom of the NT stories? The Qumran Teacher of Righteousness sometimes gets dragged in as a candidate, though I understand that he can also be read as James the Just (or simply some Maccabbean dissenter).

I have no idea. A historical core is possible, but I have yet to see a compelling argument for one. I do know this much though; when analyzing stories that involve heavy usage of fantasy, it isn't valid to strip off the fantasy and declare the rest to be roughly historical. This seems to me to be the approach used on the Gospels, and it's totally without merit. Why do you think scholars are all over the map in regard to the "theories" of who the historical Jesus was? Those theories are worthless guesses based on nothing.

If Christianity were a dead ancient religion, I don't think we would conclude there was a historical core. We would allow for it, but not assume it. I've taken that position.

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