Petergdi

But the line wasn't and isn't indistinct at all. There was a literary convention of playing around with the line, but people certainly knew the difference. Recall Samuel Johnson's reaction to James Macpherson's Ossian poems as an example of how people saw the difference between literary convention and actual imposture.

Peter.

avi

A literary convention of playing around with the line?

Would that be similar to Rufinus' slender additions to Eusebius, in performing a translation of the latter's history into Latin, wherein, Rufinus explains how the 75 year old mother of Lord Constantine visited Jerusalem, ordered destruction of a temple, and voila, found, buried beneath those ruins, the cross upon which JC had been murdered, three hundred years earlier?
Here's a photograph of a sculpture at St. Peter's Basilica confirming archaeological evidence of her praiseworthy excavation.....

avi

Toto

The Ossian poems were not a case of history vs fiction. They were allegedly old ballads; the question was who wrote them, and they were determined to be a literary hoax. But even so:
ETA: If there were a similar case of "some legitimate manuscript sources," the case for the historicity of Jesus would be a slam dunk. Everyone would admit that there was a historical core to the gospels.

Juststeve

Doug:

Given the premise that the Gospel writers intended the Gospels as fiction and intended their readers to read them as fiction your conclusion is reasonable. Were you able to actually establish that premise we would all be mythers. I think that task is a difficult one since most people who read the gospels take them to be an attempt to describe the doings of an historical character. They are not in that sense much like reading David Copperfield.

As to your last comment, most people who have worked on dating the Christian documents would disagree that no one had heard of Jesus until nearly 100 years after his death. Paul is writing about Jesus within 20 years of his death. A broad consensus among scholars puts Mark around 70 C.E. or 40 years post Jesus' death. I know that their are outliers but is seems dangerous to base strong conclusions on the opinions of the outliers.

Finally, just a general comment. One really ought not say that no one had heard of Jesus until the date of the first written evidence, whenever that is. One should limit themselves to the observation about the date of when the first surviving documentary evidence of Jesus was. <edit>.

Steve

avi

Sorry to dispute you, Steve, but, I am only aware of Dr. Trobisch's claim that the earliest extant copies of Paul's epistles are found in Codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, prepared by Eusebius, under orders from Lord Constantine. In the four oldest extant Greek copies of the new testament, the letters of Paul FOLLOW the four gospels.

Have you some other evidence, pointing to an earlier date for authorship? I refer to "evidence", NOT as the ostensible significance of text within the letter, for by that measure, Homer's Trojan war chronicles represent history. When I write "evidence", I refer to DOCUMENTS, or marble/granite, even wood, or metal carvings, unequivocally dated to your time frame.

There is no way to assert a first century date, for a document first appearing in Codex Sinaiticus, so far as I am aware...

I am willing to accept a mid second century date for his compositions, perhaps half a dozen deemed authentic, but even then, I don't know how or why those particular letters should be judged authentic, in the face of others, also published, e.g. in Codex Sinaiticus, but deemed forged by modern scholarship....

It is most improbable in my opinion, that "Paul" wrote before Mark. I would agree with the sentiment that both authors wrote about the same time period, or one preceding the other by only a few months, for it does seem odd, to me, regarding any purported elaboration of the exploits of someone capable of bringing dead people back to life, that the two men, Mark and Paul, would NOT HAVE DOCUMENTED each other's accounts, had they been in possession of the other's manuscripts.

Have you some insight?

avi

bacht

This is all that Mark says:

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Cryptic to say the least, and hardly what we would expect from a typical historian of the time

bacht

Allegorical interpretation of scripture was well established in Alexandria and elsewhere by this time. If we knew who Mark was writing for it would be easier to categorize his approach. He includes no historical notes beyond the bare facts of the story, and no references to other writers or sources.

He is describing "Jesus Christ, the Son of God". Is this a fictional character?

I mention the gnostics because they are an important part of the context of 2nd C Christian writings. We know there were people like Basilides and Valentinus active in Alexandria (Apollos is mentioned in Acts). The docetic teaching is based in part on Mark's baptism scene, which other gospel writers tried to 'improve'.

It's not impossible that Mark was originally a gnostic text, later edited for Catholic use. The story of the cosmic Christ defeating the evil demonic powers need not be placed on earth all; this is what some see in Paul's letters (cf Earl Doherty). Dressing up the hero in the garb of Jewish prophecy seems to be a second generation move, since the authority of the original witnesses was gone, and probably also the apocalyptic urgency.

Juststeve

bacht and Dog-gone:

I am in the process of re-reading Howard Zinn's People History Of The United States (or via: amazon.co.uk). No where therein does he specifically claim that he is presenting fact. Are all the mythers confused by this, or is it only Gospel writers who are expected to proclaim "I am presenting fact" at the beginning of the Gospel. If only they had know that would be expected it would have cleared up much confusion for the easily confused.

Steve

Juststeve

Avi:

If you do a Google search you will find that the majority opinion is that Paul wrote his letter in the 50's and 60's of the common ere. There are of course those who place the letters earlier or later, but they are outliers. You may well be correct that the earliest know extant copy of Paul's letters is later, but that is not surprising, is it?

When we are asking whether it is the case that no one heard of Jesus until nearly 100 years after his death it is the date that Paul wrote, not the date of the copy we have that matters.

Steve

Toto

By giving his book the title of "People's History" Zinn is making some claim to presenting fact - since in our culture, history is presumed to be based on facts. (There is some dispute as to exactly how accurate the book is. But it is not intentional fiction.)

I think you are the one who is confused.