Analyst

IMO a good starting point is to look at the text and ask who the audience was and what this message was intended to do. Example:

Either you say there really is a creature named Joe Camel,
or
you conclude that he is a fictional character intended to persuade children that smoking cigarettes will make them more grown up.

All fiction manipulates?

andrewcriddle

I think you may be confusing claims about genre and claims about reliability.

A claim about genre would be that the Joe Camel material is not really suggesting that Joe Camel exists, it is a made-up story intended to encourage smoking. In the same way Dickens "A Christmas Carol" is not suggesting that Scrooge really exists, it is a made-up story intended to encourage benevolence at Christmas.

A claim about reliability would be that the Joe Camel material is seriously claiming that Joe Camel exists but these claims, coming from the Tobacco industry and serving its agenda, should be treated as unreliable.

Andrew Criddle

Analyst

And similarly claims about a 'Jesus' performing miracles and preaching lessons are fiction intended partly to teach moral lessons but also to encourage customers to join the particular church which had that book. The four gospels are just four examples selected from many to suit the purposes of the various 'councils', which are reminiscent of sales conferences for various industries.

andrewcriddle

I may not have been clear as to the point I was trying to make.

Are you saying that the Gospels were intended to be read as fictions in support of moral lessons and/or joining the church ? (In the same way that various fables in the Ancient World were intended to teach moral lessons and/or persuade people to support a particular political programme.)
Or are you saying that the Gospels were intended to be believed as history but the agenda of their writers makes them unreliable ? (In the same way that the various accounts of the conspiracy of Catiline are intended to be believed as history but the agenda of the writers makes them unreliable.)

The two positions are IMO quite different and have different strengths and weaknesses.

Andrew Criddle

Analyst

The first.

Today's churches have multi media systems. Yesterday's churches had pipe organs of various sizes. ISTM that the early churches had books - a very expensive object back then. The case is made that the gospels are actually liturgies and that all of the miracles are pious fiction. Some have observed that they contain 'mystery writing', statements that 'not all is made clear' or that parables contain secret messages. This would tend to encourage contributions to learn the 'secret knowledge' held by the priests.

Is that much different from the core ideas of the Indiana Jones movies? That there are magic objects with secret powers?

Roger Pearse

Do we know that the books in the early churches were expensive objects? How much did they cost?

Martial says that a volume of his verses cost "6, or even 10 sesterces" (I suspect 6; see book 1, c. 66). That's about 6.25 sesterces, or 100 quadrantes, the sum of the sportula that a rich man might give his client (Martial book 1, 59; 8, 42). Entrance to the public bath may be had for a quadrans, we learn from the last reference.

How often was the sportula given? I don't know, I admit.

Wikipedia reckons a sestertius had about the same purchasing power as $40. So a book would be $240?

Just throwing numbers together, and would be interested in the thoughts of others.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

andrewcriddle

We may be misunderstanding each other, but I still think you may be confusing the claim that the Gospels were primarily intended for use in worship and evangelism, with the claim that their original hearers were not expected/intended to regard the narratives as literally true.

Andrew Criddle

Analyst

To this day we judge a church in a heartbeat according to its size, design or decorations. To this day the Jews make much of the Torah - it is not a cheap, mass produced thing, but is produced with care and love.

See http://www.stam.net/torah_scrolls.aspx for a price list ($20,000 to $65,000 for example). Not as expensive as a good pipe organ, but ISTM more expensive than a multimedia system. When one considers all of the stages of making a vellum scroll, even in the days of cheap labor, possessing one would be a draw to new recruits and the early churches were not wealthy.

Analyst

I believe both were quite possible. Scientology is a classic example of 'secret knowledge' as a means to draw in recruits and extract money from them. They start with free 'analysis', then move to a pay for play 'lessons'.

Apart from that, it is still possible that the 'Life of Jesus' was at first offered as a possible story, rather than as biography. One could see the gospels as an imaginative recreation of the bare bones stories of Paul, which would not have satisfied the desire for more details. Given that, the 'hinting' in the gospels about mysteries untold, confusing parables and the like needs explanation and IMO that is best done by seeing this as outside/inside the sideshow tent - a teaser outside and the full show inside!

patcleaver

Do you believe the ordinary facts in “the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain? Is that book primary evidence of Indian Joe? I think it would be crackpot to believe in the ordinary facts in “The New Testament” for exactly the same reason that it would be crackpot to believe in the ordinary facts in “the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”

Lowder is incorrect because the proponent of the reliability of an ancient document or oral story has to establish the reliability of the ancient document or oral story before we should believe anything in it without independent confirmation. If this was not the rule, then we should all believe the ordinary parts of the stories of thousands of ancient religions, and Grimm's fairy tales, and mother goose, and American tall tales, and urban legends.

In fact, it is common in fictional books that the only things that are true are the things that can be easily independently confirmed.

According to euhemerism (Euhemerus 4C BC) gods were ancient kings and heroes, worshiped after their deaths. However Euhemerism has been discredited because most characters in fictional stories are not based on any real character – they are simply made up. Most characters in urbane legends who are not otherwise famous characters, are not based on any real character – they are simply made up. Research into legends and fairy tales have found little evidence that the characters in legends and fairy tales are based on real people. While it is true that historically famous people are sometimes mythicized, it is very common for mythical characters to just be made up.

We do not know of any case ever where an ordinary person has been mythicized. In view of all the mythology that we know, it is ludicrous to think that Jesus was an ordinary man who was mythicized.

Lowder is incorrect because in any story the most interesting and sensational facts are those that are most likely to be true and the less sensational and less interesting facts are less likely to be true. Once the New Testament reported sensational and interesting facts that are obviously false, then all the facts that are reported are unreliable.