GakuseiDon

I agree that they are not biographies in the modern sense.

Sure, but that's a different question. No worries if you want to argue that, but I'm assuming that the Gospels were ancient biographies, akin to hagriographies of the saints. That's why I listed out my assumptions earlier, just to try to keep that clear.

GakuseiDon

Yes, that sounds reasonable. Going through the dissimilarities between Gospels (even if we disagree on genre) does raise some interesting possibilities.

spamandham

I'm assuming they're ancient biographies as well, which is why I don't see any reason to presume they contain any biographical details, or that there was any intent to dutifully record either history or even just pre-existing tradition.

Juststeve

I suggest that we think about the CoE with reference to a certain subset of what Toto wants me to refer to as “Historical Jesus Skeptics” The subset to which I refer are those who hold that there was no historical person who formed the basis of the legendary Jesus who we know about today. According to them the original Jesus was a wholly fictional character invented to form the basis of a new religion.

It is this claim that should be examined in light of the CoE. It is for those who assert that the original Jesus was a fictional character to explain why the original author created him with fictional details which argue against his exalted status. For example why would the Jesus who is co-equal with God submit to baptism by John? Why would he issues prophesies which were already known to have been falsified. Why have him rejected by his own village and his own family?. Why have him declare himself to be less than God?

I invite someone who holds the fictional Jesus position to explain these details. In what way did these details advance the thesis of the original inventor of Jesus?

Steve

aa5874

But, HJers MUST admit that the Jesus story is fundamentally NOT historical.

HJers have discredited or rejected the following as fiction/embellishments:

1. The conception of Jesus by the Holy Ghost and a virgin.

2. The Temptation of Jesus by the Devil for forty days.

3. The miracles of Jesus when he healed incurable diseases.

4. The raising of the dead by Jesus.

5. The walking on the sea by Jesus.

6. The transfiguration of Jesus.

7. The resurrection of Jesus.

8. The visitation by the resurrected Jesus in the closed house with the disciples.

9. The eating of food by the resurrected Jesus.

10. The witnessed ascension of Jesus by the disciples.

Why would people who knew Jesus was JUST a man living in Galilee for thirty years write fictional stories AFTER fictional stories about Jesus knowing in ADVANCE that the stories were FALSE and that ALL the people in Galilee who knew Jesus would have regarded Paul and the apostles as BLATANT Liars?

If Jesus was just a man who lived in Galilee for about 30 years what would his mother and father think of Paul, the apostles, and the Jesus stories?

The historical Jesus proposal makes absolutely no sense unless Paul, and the apostles were idiots, madmen, and liars.


Now, the versions of the fundamental fiction stories in the NT were NOT likely to have been written at the same time. Up to the middle of the 2nd century, there were Jesus believers who did NOT regard Jesus as EQUAL to God.

Justin Martyr claimed Jesus was SECOND to God.

The version of Jesus who was co-equal with God and the Creator of heaven and earth is a late version or AFTER the middle of the 2nd century.

All that is required for the MYTH theory is that the Jesus story was fabricated by an anonymous writer sometime after the Fall of the Temple and well away from Judea and people SLOWLY began to believe the story was true.

Only a madman, an idiot or a liar would claim that Jesus, a mere man, was EQUAL to God, the Creator of heaven and earth who could REMIT the sins of ALL mankind just AFTER Jesus was found guilty of blasphemy and executed.

Jesus was just a story of which there were MULTIPLE versions. Every anonymous writer, after identifying problems in one version, would try to make improvements, by addition or elimination.

The author of gLuke improved on gMatthew. The author of gJohn improved on the Synoptics. The Pauline writer appears to have attempted to make the Synoptics obsolete and improve on gJohn.

But, now in what does ALL the embellishments/fiction about Jesus in the NT Canon advance the historical Jesus?

Why do HJers REJECT virtually everything written about Jesus in the NT?

It is clear that even HJers recognise that the NT Jesus was fundamentally fiction and have attempted to fabricate their own.

They REJECT the evidence about Jesus from the NT and the Church and use their own IMAGINATION, like the anonymous fiction writers.

PhilosopherJay

Hi JustSteve,

The answer to all your questions is the same and it is known by every body who has written or studied fictional works. Characters change and develop over time in response to a variety of changes including the whims of the author/s the changing sensibilities of the author/s and the author/s response/s to criticism and events in his/her life and the world.

For example Samuel Richardson made numerous revisions in some 16 editions of his novel "Pamela". At first Pamela talked as a poor uneducated 15 year old girl. People apparently objected to this, so he changed a great deal of the dialogue from edition to edition. Now one may ask why Pamela sounds so uneducated in some scenes and well educated in many others, if she was not an historical person. The answer is that Richardson was trying to please some of his literary critics who objected that the educated hero would not fall in love with such an uneducated girl.

In the beginning, Superman could not fly, but only made great leaps into the air ("able to leap tall buildings in a single bound," as the introduction to the first cartoons, radio and television shows stated). Other Superheroes were invented in the 40's who could fly like Green Lantern, Hawkman, Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman. In response Superman started flying. If one didn't know this, one might ask the question, if Superman was not historical how come he couldn't fly at first, when the original idea was that Superman could fly?

Their are many possible reasons that John the Baptist baptizes Jesus. My personal belief is that the character of John the Baptist was originally just a prophet named John who was baptized by God. The character was renamed Jesus at some point. There was a rivalry between the two groups which was settled when the two characters were brought together and John baptised Jesus. Yet we are still seeing the original John story baptism with the dove descending into Jesus, not John. This new story settled the dispute over whether the name of the prophet was John or Jesus. It suggests that there were two prophets and Jesus was a disciple of John. Later some John followers decided that John was more than a prophet, he was the messiah. Those who favored the Jesus character simply copied the John character and made Jesus into the Messiah. Rewriting the story again, they had John declare that he was not the Messiah and declare that Jesus was the Messiah. At this point, they had no idea that later writer/editors would declare Jesus a son of God, and these writers had no idea that later writers would declare him "The son of God." These writers had no idea that later writers would elevate him to a position of equality to God.
In fiction, characters change a lot over a hundred years.

Your other questions have similar simple answers that involve the slow evolution of the story and characters within the stories.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay (AKA Jay Raskin)

yin_sage

I'm agnostic on the issue, but I know the answer this one.

Unless you can prove that the original author of these items felt them to be "embarrassing", then the CoE can't apply. That Matthew changed the baptism by John, only suggests that Matthew found it problematic. Mark may well have been cool with it (since his Christology was adoptionist).

From memory, the CoE has been beaten to death several times around here. A trek through the archives might prove educational.

spamandham

There is nothing in Mark to indicate that Jesus is coequal with god. Over and over he refers to himself as "son of man", clearly indicating he is not co-equal with God, and might even be a tongue in cheek reminder that he's the invention of the author. The trinity concept is a much later idea, and you can't legitimately project it back onto early Christianity.

If Mark is read as a work of intentional fiction, where both the author and his audience know it is allegorical fiction, then when Jesus says "this generation shall not pass", both the author and the audience would understand that it referred to *them* rather than being a falsified prophesy.

Look, it's silly to think that the same author that wrote all the verifiable magical nonsense about Jesus could not choose to omit a failed prophecy. So obviously, there are no prophecies recorded that were failed in the mind of the author at the time of penning. It simply isn't a rational argument that the author would have felt compelled to record that which undermined his perspective, so if you find a prophecy that you think was provably failed at the time of penning, you know you are wrong.

A common cult tactic is to convince indoctrinates that the cult is their new family, and to leave all other attachments behind. Jesus is depicted as being rejected by his family, village, society, because this reflects what was happening to cult members. It's a story *for them*.

aa5874

Why do you find it necessary to BELIEVE something about John the Baptist?

I only need to show what is written. The extant source for John the Baptist external of the NT and Church writings is Josephus in "Antiquities of the Jews" 18.5 and there is NO mention of John meeting Jesus or that John was a prophet.

The NT and Church writings are uncorroborated with respect to the baptism by John the Baptist of Jesus.

There is no need to INVENT stories about Jesus and John the Baptist. Leave inventions and fabrications to the JESUS BELIEVERS.

Let them continue to re-invent their FICTION characters like Jesus, Peter and Paul.

At least some credible external source wrote about a character called John the Baptist.

gurugeorge

Why did Simon & Shuster write Superman as merely having enhanced strength from birth on a high gravity planet, and therefore able only to leap huge distances, when we all know Superman is a "solar battery" who can fly?

IF Jesus is fictional, then your question is obviously ridiculous. Whether he is or not, we don't know for certain (until there's a "smoking gun" like a letter from 'Mark' saying "hah, fooled 'em!", euhemerism is still a possibility, and we might just be unlucky not to have any external evidence of the real man), but the point is the evidence, as it stands, is ambiguous between plain fiction (or rather, most likely, a spiritual myth born from the perfervid imaginations of scripture-botherers and mystics, somewhat LIKE a spiritual comic book) and man mythologised.

But while that's so, there's no particular reason to believe in the man mythologised.