Toto

Abe, what's come over you?

The question is whether the gospels were written by eyewitnesses. The part is the block quotes are the arguments, which are not established facts. They are arguments and speculation, and, even if true, do not support the conclusion that the gospels were written by eyewitnesses.

spin

There is so little substance here, one would have to guess at the rationality behind it.

As to the claim of multiple attestation, one cannot justify it purely from a number of different texts whose relationship cannot be strongly established other than by indicating that they are not independent at all (three Synoptics pointing to a strictly literary relationship). Multiple attestation works really only when dealing with witnesses, but what we have are clearly not of that category, so the cry of multiple attestation is premature ejaculation.

And whatever is being referred to here -- again to deal with it one has to read minds here -- how does one actually date the particular comment to "about 20 years after the event"??

Another bash at multiple attestation, but ignorance of context doesn't allow anything meaningful to come out of this. (At what point in the developing Jesus tradition did these "independent" sources come into being?)

As I have pointed out here many times, the approach to Josephus on the issue is clearly arbitrary. It simply doesn't matter how many people believe that Josephus wrote about Jesus. The passage is clearly tainted and they have no way to rationally save any of it.

The fact that so many are willing to accept that the passage is tainted points to the confirmation of an important fact: christians tampered with pagan sources. This of course only follows from the opportunity provided by christianity being both the maintainers of the sources and hegemonic powers that could alter these sources. Not only was there opportunity and inclination but there is also evidence that they did so in the TF. Not a single pagan reference to details of a life of Jesus can be taken on face value.

Many other ancient figures one simply doesn't care enough about to get serious with. So far there is no content in the material.

Probably true for what it is worth.

I've argued elsewhere on this forum against the material in 1 Cor 15 as well as the last supper interpolation in 1 Cor 11.

This reads as wish fulfillment. The so-called appearance to the 500 (1 Cor 15:6) is so noticeably missing from all other sources, yet is so big a claim that it is obviously bogus. That Paul would cite an appearance to the people he repudiates in Galatians seems, umm..., uncharacteristic. The writer's willingness to accept this material unanalysed merely signals the writer's apologetic intention.

A totally underwhelming finale based on the fact that the writer knew the desired conclusion and spoke not to convince an audience so much as to supply justification to self.


spin

JoeWallack

JW:
See Was Paul the First to Assert that Jesus was Crucified?. Witnesses are like real estate, they have 3 important qualities = sources, sources, and sources. What was Paul's source for his assertian that Jesus was crucified? We have no reason to think that Paul was a witness to the supposed crucifixion so he needs a source. Paul never explicitly claims a source here of historical witness. You have to use implications from Paul. Paul also explicitly states that in general his sources are Revelation from God, Jesus and Scriptures. He explicitly denies in general that he has historical witness as a source. This equals doubt (Doug).

I've indicated in the referenced thread the other logical problems with the assertian that Jesus was crucified. The main one is Jesus is supposedly crucified in Jerusalem but his movement is allowed to continue in Jerusalem. Obviously Paul leaving Jerusalem to go way outside Jerusalem to persecute the Jesus movement while the Jesus movement is headquartered in Jerusalem and unhindered is nonsense.

Who exactly has done a scientific evaluation of Paul as a witness to the supposed crucifixion and properly considered criteria of potential witnesses such as:

1) Credibility

2) Placement

3) Confirmation

4) Preservation

maybe Jeffrey knows of someone. Until this done, Paul is properly weighed as a witness to Jesus' crucifixion, the claim is just an assertian and not a historical fact.



Joseph

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

ApostateAbe

Yes, plenty. We can generally separate the likely reality from the falsehood by finding the claims that are unlikely but seem to be wishful Christian inventions. The gospel claims that are neutral or contrary to Christian interests are more likely to be true. For example, the reported betrayal by Judas can be taken as true, since it is contrary to Christian interest, but his reported suicide is questionable (the suicide aligns with Christian interest and there are two contradictory accounts of it). Another example is the set of apocalyptic prophecies of Jesus, where Jesus gave a specific deadline for when the existing world would be thrown into chaos and the kingdom of heaven would reign. Such a prophecy is contrary to Christian interest, so it can be treated as original to Jesus. Many things that Jesus reportedly says are merely neutral, which means that it is simply a pretty good guess that it was originally Jesus who said it.

ApostateAbe

You are right. The claim was, "The (gospel) documents were written by eyewitness, or were the words of the eyewitnesses written down within the lifetime of those who had lived with Jesus."

The clause prior to "or" is most certainly incorrect, but the clause following is possibly true, though irrelevant. The earliest gospel was probably written around 70 CE, which would be 40 years after the death of Jesus, and some of the original disciples or listeners may have been still alive, though they most certainly didn't recite their accounts for whoever wrote the gospels. The initial claim should have been that the gospels contain remnants of historical truth, and the arguments seem to argue to that end.

spin

The speculation in the second part of the sentence needed a question mark.

Touting the same bogus date as ever, based on subjective reading of the text itself. You've been bleating this rubbish for too long. No improvements, no new insights. Just your own stagnant personal beliefs.

Your reading of this text would make Trimalchio and his feast (in the Satyricon) become real as well.

Historical truth? Like all the pundits, you just wouldn't have a way of knowing. But that won't stop you from restating this effete stuff again and again.

It's more that the (desired) end creates the arguments.

What actually happened is out of our reach because all we have are accounts whose purpose for being written is not transparent, but whose writing was in constant, if fitful, genesis. You cannot hope to pick any needle of truth out of the haystack of tradition without having insight into the history of the period -- which we don't have. And you can't create the historical context for the text under analysis from the text itself -- that's like standing on yourself to get a better view.


spin

jgoodguy

The historicity of figures are not an absolute. They are questioned and debated depending on researchers who analyze the evidence and publish their findings. Sun Tzu is a figure which has slipped from historical to questionable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Tzu

That said, the historicity of a poor Judea preacher and miracle worker is different from that of a cosmic lord.

Sheshbazzar

But are they 'unfairly moved'?
With Plato, King Arther, Sun Tzu or others of such questionable historical existence, there is no pressing need to ever determine, or to 'choose' one way or another.
With the God/Man of Christianity however, it is an every day conflict as his fanatical devotees attempt to force all other's to 'choose Jesus';
and if they can't get them to 'choose Jesus', to so manipulate public policy as to force non-Christians to live under Christian invented and imposed rules.

No one threatens us daily that we are going to be tortured for eternity in everlasting Hell-fire for not accepting the historicity of Plato or Arthur.

No one is attempting to indoctrinate our children, giving them nightmares, or telling them that they need to hate their fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters, and join a religious cult devoted to Plato or Arthur.

Our school systems do not have followers of Plato, Arthur, or Sun Tzu, picketing and attempting to ban library books, dictate acceptable teaching materials, or demand equal time and treatment for lunatic religiously based theories.

As long as Christianity demands that others 'choose' their beliefs, or live subject to rules consistent with certain Christian beliefs, it is only right that their claims to the literal 'historicity' of their god/man cult figure be held to a higher standard of scholastic scrutiny than any other characters of like questionable historicity.

show_no_mercy

How exactly is Judas' betrayal contrary to Christian interests? You do know that "Judas" is how you say "Judah" (i.e. "Jew") in Greek, right? Assuming that Paul was writing before the gospels were written, he seems to be unaware of any sort of betrayal. As a matter of fact, none of the epistles written in the first century seem to be aware of any betrayal, much less a betrayal by someone named Judas.

Judas' betrayal works just as easily as a literary/allegorical invention of Mark. It's not very hard to go from "the Jews betrayed Jesus" to "a Jew betrayed Jesus" to "Judas betrayed Jesus".

aa5874

Actually, based on the Pauline Epistles, it was revealed to someone using the name Paul that Jesus was betrayed even in the night.

1Co 11:23 - Paul could not have received such information from heaven or a non-human source.

Paul most likely received the information about the betrayal in the night and the Last Supper from an human earthly source.

According to the Church writers Paul was aware of gLuke, and the passage about the betrayal in the night and The Last Supper in 1 Corinthians is similar to a passage in gLuke, where certain words used in 1 Corinthians 11.23-25 are only found in Luke 22.19-20.

The Pauline writers were aware of the betrayal as found in gLuke.