Originally Posted by mountainman

. . . oppressive church authority, for which we see no evidence before Nicaea . . . .

Originally Posted by Solo

He is a good presenter and even better packager of ideas. He is just not very convincing to people who are little more grounded in life and have greater exposure to historical ideas overall, than his undergraduate innocents to whom this series adresses.

I was not at ll impressed with Ehrman's presentation. The three criteria are not as much problem theoretically, as in their application.

Bart simply assumes independence between Mark, Q, L, M, Thomas and John. But he presents no compelling case for it. Majority of scholars accept the Q theory not because it is a historical fact but because it coincides theologically with their view. The L and M designations logically depend on the Q theory, and the general dislike of the idea some stories and pronouncements of Jesus were simply invented by Mark (as illustration or ironic 'fulfilment' of Paul's theology) and Matthew (who argued with Mark). John's independence is still QED. And Thomas, though parts of it clearly come early, is generally believed by Ehrman (without much of a proof) to be a later development. But that does not prevent him from mentioning Thomas as one of the primary sources. He also accepts - no surprise there - Josephus' witness. So, e.g. he has convinced himself that the 'James' of Paul's letters, Mark's gospel, and Josephus independently testify of James' kinship to a historical Jesus. To me it appears that Ehrman's method here is not as much 'independent attestation' but a borrowed flying carpet of faith masquerading as historical method.

The problem with Ehrman's view, is that he really, despite his masterful handling of the texts on the micro level as a liberal, deep down, remains a captive of his fundamentalist, conservative, upbringing, in assessing the historical core, i.e. the macro level. He may even describe himself as an agnostic but he does not grasp the range of historical possibilities which exist with the texts and what we know about their origins. He defaults to the orthodox position, and defends it, even though his own work undermines it.

We have discussed recently the dissimilarity principle. Ehrman thinks that dissimilarity vouches e.g. for the historicity of the baptism. Superficially, it indeed makes little sense for the Christians invent a story that would make Jesus 'inferior' to the Baptizer by agreeing to be 'cleansed' by him. But this idea presupposes that Jesus was immediately after his death thought of as Saviour in Jerusalem where the orphaned movements of Jesus and John would have mingled and vied for converts. It is quite possible, or even probable, that the story of John baptizing Jesus originated with the John's followers as an invention to embarrass their proselytizing rivals. It would have been picked up by Mark who was a staunch Paulinist, principally because in the Pauline traditions, what Jesus said and did on earth was not important at all - he was sent to die for sin and the teachings were not of the Nazarene Jesus but emanation of the spirit of the risen Lord revealed to Paul and to the adherents of Paul's gospel. Mark would have included the baptism knowing full well that it did not speak of the HJ prophetic supremacy over John. But what happened prior to the descent of the dove at Jordan did not matter a whit to Mark. Further, in the Paul's "Sophia Christi" (1 Cr 1:18-31), the paradoxical abasement of Christ in flesh could not be understood by the standards of worldly wisdom - but by the gnosis of the cross. By the principle of "the last shall be first", there is no dissimiraity in John's baptizing Jesus. The only thing required of John is to recognize the supriority of the Spirit.

It is only with Matthew who stood up to what he saw as Pauline usurpation of Jesus, that the baptism becomes a theological problem. He smartly takes over most of Mark's gospel - rather creating one from scratch from the Nazarene traditions - and then explodes it from within. He reworks the mysteriously nebulous Twelve, as the twelve disciples and gives them exclusive access as historical (vs Mark's spiritual) witnesses, and claiming (falsely) they were the first ones who received and preached the resurrection. What appears to us as minor differences was in fact huge upsetting of the gospel's design. In

Matthew's presentation of Jesus, as a bona fide extra-large Jewish prophet with Davidic Messianic credentials, John's superiority to Jesus proclaimed by the act of baptism has to be dealt with. So, Matthew makes a determined effort to make John to abase himself before Jesus. Where Mark does not recognize Jesus as the prophesized "greater one", Matthew's John is acutely aware who came to him requesting the cleansing and requests baptism from Jesus. Matthew, in what was a stroke of genious appeals to 'righteousness' and submits to the rite.

Matthew's ingenuity, IMHO, was in that, having the option of discarding the encounter (as Luke did), he accepted it from Mark nearly intact and filled it with the inverted theological justification. This of course would have had a great effect when arguing with the Markians and proto-Mandeans by saying to them: 'you are right in saying that Jesus came to John but you don't have the whole story'. Certainly, it was a better strategy than rewriting Mark's story of the appearance of the spirit from scratch and denying that the two men ever met.

But the fact that Matthew theologically upheld Mark, is no guarantee whatsoever that the encounter was historical. Luke records no encounter, and explicitly avoids the mention of John administering Jesus' baptism. Reading this together with the Lukan expanded nativity story which embraces John's, it seems probable that the rivalry between John's and Jesus' followers was stronger in Luke's time (and/or neck of the woods) and had to be handled more delicately than by Matthew.

It could have very well been that the story of Jesus' baptism was invented by the Baptist followers as a proselytizing ploy and migrated to Mark, who thought it an excellent opportunity to fulfill the prophecy of John in Jesus whom the Baptizer did not recognize as the "greater one" when he meekly came to be baptized by the holy man.

Ehrman introduces the "contextual credibility" issue as a tool that weeds out anachronisms. It is ironic that in that in his comments he muses on the probability of this or that being said by a first century Jewish rabbi. It is generally agreed that there were no "rabbis" in first century Palestine. At best, the term was used as a non-titular appelation. The example given of John gospel's account of the dialogue between Jesus and Nicodemus is ok. Ehrman thinks, and he is probably right, that the conversation is based on a pun of Jesus using the Greek word anōthen which can mean both, 'anew/again' or 'from above/from God'. Nicodemus thinks of the second physical birth; Jesus speaks of a spiritual re-birth. Ehrman says that this punning would not be available in Aramaic, the language in which the conversation would have taken place if it was an historical transcript.

The interesting thing about this example is that it is not much an example of contextual credibility as say a presence of synagogue in Nazareth in 30CE. The ambivalence of John's proposition may have been expressed slightly differently in Aramaic, as the 'babe', or 'new-born', or 'little child' seems to have been a common gnostic bon mot well established before John. (It is alluded to by Paul in 1 Cr 3:1, 1 Cr 14:20, Matt 11:25/Lk 10:21, GThom 4). So what we might be looking at is an 'artful rendering' with inauthentic detail, rather than 'a credibility issue'. In a similar case, King James' 'through the glass darkly' is a poetic mismatch of the original 'through a metal mirror not clearly'.

Best,
Jiri

Originally Posted by Solo

N/A

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

If piracy is not for you, the audio is available for download for $35. Down from $130.

http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/c...l.aspx?cid=643

If you buy it, you will get your money's worth, and you will be encouraging an enterprise that proliferates knowledge.